Design Debate

This week we put together an advertising campaign for a financial advisers, and purchased some stock photography as time was short and a deadline loomed. This has reminded me of all my concerns about using this service, yet again. The online image banks such as iStockphoto, are a useful resource, and when used selectively can produce excellent results. But the general standard of image is just shocking, take this shot for example: To find the shots we needed for the campaign, we had to trawl through countless poorly posed, generically composed shots such as this, and although we were able to find the image we were looking for, it was a depressing task. What compounded my irritation was the cost of the shots we wanted from such sites as Getty Images and Image Source. Both would have cost us around a thousand pounds for a single image, for the use we required. While the photograph in question was certainly of a high standard, and fitted the bill well, the cost made it unfeasible for the ...

Pickle Design have recently completed work on the Space & Graphics website. Working closely with Joseph Bouzaglo, they created the brand and carried it through onto stationery options. Joe chose to work with Pickle Design as the style of their creative team matched his vision. He wanted to take advantage of the illustrative approach of Emma Julian and they minimalist layout of Marie Lawley. The result is a very tight website that hints at freedom of scope in its detail.

As the downturn in the financial markets continues, and the media eagerly prophecies worse to come, we may see a worrying trend in graphic design. A few weeks ago, I saw an advert for Discount Brands at Tesco . What was significant was the packaging and style of direction, clearly aimed at rivals such as Lidl and Aldi . These two companies have branding that reflects their roots, distinctly German. After having visited my wife's family in what was East Germany, I was surprised to see the dramatic differences in marketing. We would consider them outdated, as is often the case when looking at such brands as Lidl. This is not to say these businesses are not valuable assets, not only are they well priced, but they offer products not available in many other stores. My concern is the style of package design. As I said, I was certain I was not watching a UK based supermarket's advert, especially not Tesco. This implies that they feel the British public associate cheap products with a...

The new edition of the Creative Review features their annual photography awards, and is an excellent collection of work. the current trend of photography to be merely "challenging" has left me cold for a number of years, and so I was excited to look through the shots in this edition. Pieces that really captured my attention included Ernst Fisher 's Datong Train forms, Janie Airey 's shot for CEF and Tunnel by Nadege Meriau . The Tunnel is easily my favourite in the book, with such wonderful use of colour and shadow. Its composition faultless, as your eye is drawn in succession to each focal point. But I was still disappointed by some of the work displayed, such as the conceptual series by Diego Diaz, Redefining Fast Food - deemed worthy of one of the limited edition covers of the annual by Creative Review. I am very aware that appreciation of such pieces are matters of taste, but the contrived shots, intentionally didactic, felt drained of life. They are comprised of...