I’m involved in helping run a christian youth event in Derby called Fuel, and the leaders asked me to design a fresh set of promotion material for it. The idea is that each cross represents a young person and they are being gathered from the margins to read FUEL, its a coming together. No flickering flames in sight!

One of my (Andy) projects was featured recently on the Central Station Blog – ‘Top 5: Typographic Treasures’. They chose my depiction of Ghandi using some of his famous quotes to make up his portrait. I’m hoping to continue the concept into a series, so watch this space. In the meantime, check out the Central Station blog…

Marketing

A warning: Twitter should never be used purely as a sales channel or somewhere to go on about how great you are.

Nobody will listen if all you’re saying is “Buy our products”. That’s not to say that Twitter can’t benefit your business though, you just have to understand the medium to make the best of it. The thing about Twitter is that it’s a level playing field. If you don’t connect with other people, no-one is going to connect with you. The obvious exception here is if you are a celebrity. Assuming you’re not, you need to start making connections. You can do this by ‘Following’ people who have something in common with you or what you do. If they say something interesting; reply to them, or point other people to their Tweets.

This kind of mutual appreciation is where Twitter (and to be honest, business in general) really starts to work. I’m much more likely to consider using a company if a friend recommends them than what amounts to a cold call. But as you build connections, you’ll start to find people much more receptive to your suggestion to check out your “latest update to the website” etc.

Staying in touch with world events, live!

Staying up to date with current events can be tricky. Of course you can watch the TV news and read the papers, but what you’re getting is an organisation’s opinion on what is (and therefore what is not) worth hearing about. Enter the hastag. A hashtag (any keyword preceded by #) is the way for anyone to contribute to a live, unedited stream of information about any topic. Anyone searching for the hashtag in question will get live updates from around the globe as they are being written.

Here’s an example; a search for #ukelection or #leadersdebate will currently put you in the centre of the debate surrounding the impending general election in the UK. Another current example; a search for #ashtag gives announcements of flight cancellations and delays, lift-sharing schemes and other news connected with the Icelandic Volcanos. If I were the sort of person to use a term like ‘grassroots movement’ I would use it now. Thankfully I’m not.

Sharing things you like

Imagine you’ve just heard Tesco is selling everything at half price for the next 24 hours (which it isn’t) you could very easily tell all your followers and share the discount love. And if you were going to post that kind of thing often, you could even think up your own hashtag. #amazingdeals for example. You could become know as the ‘Dealmaster’. Just imagine!

It’s just good fun

And finally, using Twitter can simply be good fun. Only today I got caught up in a rather amusing game, the object of which was to replace the word ‘Heart’ with ‘Arse’ in song titles. Anyone could join in simply by adding #songsthatreplaceheartwitharse to their Tweet. Juvenile? Yes. Entertaining? Judge for yourself. Here are my favourites…

• When The Arseache Is Over – Tina Turner
• Why Does My Arse Feel So Bad? – Moby
• Write Your Name Across My Arse – Terence Trent D’Arby
• You broke my arse in 17 places – Tracy Ullman
• Theres a hole in my arse that can only be filled by you – Extreme
• Quit playing games with my arse -  Backstreet boys
• Arse Shaped Box – Nirvana
• There must be an angel (playing with my arse) – Eurythmics

And a few of my own suggestions…

• My Violent Arse – Nine Inch Nails
• Arse Attack Man – The Beastie Boys
• My Arse is the Worst Kind of Weapon – Fallout Boy

You can signup now at twitter.com
And oh yes, you should follow me on Twitter!

Let me know if you can think of any other good uses for Twitter.

Our electric cards were piling up so I decided to put them to good use by creating this rather fetching piece of ‘wall-work’. I’ve just made up the term wall-work by the way. I’m quite pleased with it.

I firmly believe that it is the designer’s job to make sure both text and image work harmoniously. You can’t do that if you’re ignoring the text. Too often I see otherwise excellent design work spoiled by shoddy copy. I’m talking about spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, bad typography or just plain nonsense. Consider the following example (taken from a well known crisp packet) that was recently highlighted by Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert.

Now I’m sure ‘Made with real ingredients’ probably came fully formed from the marketing department, keen to point out that no imaginary potatoes were used in the production process. But in the face of statements like this, I either get depressed or slightly militant. I prefer to speak up. If the client has supplied all the copy, read it and make sure it makes sense. That’s part of your job. The client is paying for a professional service so that’s what they deserve. If you point out something and they ignore it, at least you’ve tried. I know it’s not always easy, but don’t you just love a challenge?

Here’s another one…

‘Full length DVD player’ – as opposed to what? Those kind that only play half a film? At least this model includes black colour. My last DVD player didn’t include black colour.

Learn who the hero is by clicking here

You could argue that there was no real point in using non-standard tape, after all I’d already made my decision to purchase. But this little touch gave the otherwise mundane act of opening a packet a little suspense. And that in turn reinforced my satisfaction at buying the CD – very important in the face of reduced sales figures.

As designers, we can use this kind of psychology to our advantage. We can add value in all sorts of situations just by making a few careful decisions about colour, typeface, paper etc.

Why not ask yourself if there are any details you can change on your next project to make it stand out a little. Has anyone got any further examples of little touches they’ve seen that have made designs stand out?

The Director dropped a copy of the flyer into BBC Radio Derby, and within half an hour got a phonecall saying they loved the publicity material and would she come on radio for an interview to talk about the production. RESULT!