That's So Graven

Yesterday we were given a lecture from a women (Emma Murphy if I remember correctly) who works at Graven Images based in Glasgow. This talk was very different from others we have had before as we were listening to someone who has plenty experience with design and is still in the market working in a studio and with actual clients. The sort of things she told us about were what has to go into the process of an entire brief, how should it begin? What research should be included? There were many aspects that I thought were quite interesting and helpful.

The lecture was broken up into two parts, the first I thought being the more interesting and I thought that how she explained what research and how those who work in Graven work as a team could be helpful to me for doing future projects at university and hopefully even in an actual design studio.

There were many project that she had worked on that I thought WOW! they really worked on that and gave me an insight into just how many areas a design company can cover and how everyone works together to come up with something that each area all harmonizes together with the final outcome. What I also enjoyed hearing about was how they all think how can we make this a place to remember? What can we bring to it that is unique, stylish but can make people who stay in it or work in it comfortable and enjoy the experience. Other thing she mentioned were can it be sustainable? and this was something I think a lot of companies do not really think about and could possibly benefit the environment if more took an attitude like this.

There was a topic she also went over about how can we help attract people to come to this place and she had used and example of Tesco and Sainsbury's and how they tend to use the next celeb of the moment kind of thing, Such as Jamie Oliver in the Sainbury's ads. I think this is a good example as this is a man who has never really been out of the papers, he is a famous cook and family man, has done so much to try and get healthier meals for school canteens and appears to be someone who can be an influence to a young generation. This is probably why he is used in the advertising to show that this is a store if Jamie Oliver can come to it then so can you.

This also got me onto thinking of the past Sainsbury's advertisements which used to feature John Cleese. This was brought to our attention by our lecturer who mentioned a failed advert he was in which brought down the sales of the company. It was this that got me thinking about the Jamie Oliver adverts and made me think that they realized that the older ads were no longer successful and needed to come up with something new and fresh. This was more of an away with the old bring in the new, younger, more popular person.

All in all I did enjoy yesterdays lecture and will try to use some of the techniques that she explained and use them myself to see if they can help me.