Flat Pack Mick

I read Fran's article on business cards and it took me back to this piece which I vote as my favourite business card design ever...well more like stationary.

Elmwood in Leeds designed this piece for a handy man called Mick who said that as part of his service he would put together people's flat pack furniture for them. He became known as Flat Pack Mick.

The concept is simple but brilliant...His stationary was printed on a4 wood effect stock. In it's A4 state it was his letterhead. With the addition of two perforations it changed. By tearing down the first perforation you had his compliments slip and by tearing down the second perforation you had his business card...how simple is that?!

Brilliant!




Below is a link to the London International Awards entry for this piece...

http://www.liaentries.com/winners/?id_medium=1&id_category=0&view=details&range=f&page=20&keyword=&medium=&category=&award=&country=&title_brand=&credits=&company_name=&city=

Chip Shop Awards 2008

The winners have been announced for this year's Chip Shop Awards and I believe it is one of the best years yet for the awards. This could be down to the increasing popularity of the awards or maybe it is just a good year for the designers.

The full collection of award winners is available at http://www.chipshopawards.com/nominations but here are a few of my favourites...


Winner of the Chairman's Award
For me this typifies the style of design I aspire to produce, simple but brilliant. It's the type of design that makes you think...how did I not think of that?! As aspiring designers I think most designs should pose this question.

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Best Charity Advertisement

A very beautifully clean way of approaching the subject of blood donation.

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Best Use of Bad Taste

OK so these are really un-pc but they did exactly what the designers wanted them to do, make people laugh! The funny thing about the Shannon bed one is conversations that took place at the time of her discovery within our creative department at work which completely revolved around similar jokes...if only we'd took the decision to mock some of them up!

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Best Ambient Media

This for me is brilliant just for the fact that the designer here has probably seen this place and thought to himself/herself that they can use this for this very type of advert. It is the ability to gage situations and environments that can make someone a good photographer and from which good design develops.

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Reject of the Year

Now this personally is up there with the best this year. This could be due to the fact that in my time at HuetAminto in Manchester we had the Wembley Stadium account and so it is a brand that I hold in high regard. Another simple idea however that is just brilliantly executed. My only question would be that it could be too clever for it's intended audience.

Kodacolour Gold

Whilst working in a Radio Station over the past eight months I have heard many radio adverts and have been lucky enough to witness so many being written and produced. This example, for Kodacolour Gold, was not the work of someone here at Radio Aire but has been widely recognised as one of the best radio adverts and won countless awards.

The advert answers a question that has been posed in many of our brainstorms, a question that is essential to radio advert writing, How do you represent pictures with sound? It's the question that outlines what radio adverts have to do. Visual work is the role of a graphic designer but for a radio creative their canvas is the airwaves and they have to use the power of sound to sell a product/service.

The advert for me successfully engages the listener to take part and imagine that they can hear colour. It's written well, voiced well, sounds fantastic and even has a comedy element.

This advert has even formed a great foundation for my dissertation where I want to focus on "Non-Visual Media" and perhaps investigate whether as a Graphic industry there is a fear of the non-visual. After all, all you need is copyrighting skills and Microsoft Word or Notepad...doesn't it just go against pretty much everything we've been taught as graphic designers...well maybe not as much as you think...

Enjoy!

Coley Porter Bell Shine Awards

Packaging and branding group Coley Porter Bell has announced details of its sixth student design competition, Shine.

Aimed at second-year graphic design students graduating in 2008, the competition offers a prize of £3000 and a three-month, paid work placement at the consultancy.

Students are asked to submit a piece of work from their portfolio that most distinguishes their personal style and talent.

Shortlisted candidates will be asked to present their work to Coley Porter Bell, from which ten finalists will be selected to design next year’s competition poster.

Last year’s winner, Christopher Andrew-Barrett, from Kingston University, has designed the call for entries poster that will be displayed at participating colleges and universities around the UK.

This year’s judging panel includes Chivas Brothers marketing director Sophie Gallois and CPB creative director Stephen Bell.

The competition was set up in 2001 to help identify emerging talent in the field of graphic design.

The deadline for entries this year is 22 June 2007.

http://www.designweek.co.uk/Articles/135077/Coley+Porter+Bell+announces+student+competition.html

http://www.cpb.co.uk/

The Chip Shop Awards

The Chip Shop Awards originated 15 years ago and has become an alternative award system for designers. The categories are not the norm and allow designers, whether they be from companies or students, to enter work that would probably have no chance of winning a D&AD for example. Categories range from Best Consumer Campaign Ad or Campaign to Reject of the Year.

The current identity for the awards was in fact a previous winner in 2006 in the Best Use of Plagiarism category.

Although entry for this year competition has closed there are still previous entries to look at and soon this years nominations will be on the site.

The full category list:

1) Grand Prix
2) Chairman's Award
3) Best Consumer Campaign Ad or Campaign
4) Best Business to Business Advertisement
5) Best Charity Advertisement
6) Best Corporate Identity
7) Best Work for Relative or Friend
8) Best Work for Global Brand You Haven't a Hope of Winning
9) Best Work for a Client You Have but Haven't a Hope of Running
10)Reject of the Year
11)Best Use of Bad Taste
12)Best TV Commercial
13)Best Radio Advertisement
14)Best Press Advertisement
15)Best Piece of Direct Mail
16)Best Packaging Design/Point of Sale
17)Best Outdoor Advertisement
18)Best Use of Shop Window Postcard Space
19)Best Use of Plagiarism
20)Best Non-PC
21)Best Ambient Media
22)Invent your own category





http://www.chipshopawards.com/