December 14, 2009

• Forward to a friend

Charged with presenting an idea which promotes HP workstations ability to bring to life anything the creative mind can conceive, students Matthew Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth from Kingston University in the UK produced this inspiring short film. A response to a brief set by Hewlett Packard for the D&AD Student Awards 2009, the short film has created somewhat of a buzz online, and although not originally intended as a viral, it has prompted mass forwarding, blog posts, diggs, tweets, delight, awe and no doubt - job offers!

December 09, 2009

• Positive News at Cleantech Ireland event

For once, last night’s Cleantech Ireland event was a recession-free zone as a packed room listened to 6 very upbeat speakers talking about the global prospects for their various cleantech business ventures.

December 02, 2009

• Has Branding Killed Irishness?

Just back from Florence from a long weekend of wandering through beautiful cobbled streets, marvelling at Renaissance art and enjoying utterly wonderful food. The difference between Italy’s reverent appreciation for their cultural heritage and the speed at which we in Ireland threw ours out during the Celtic Tiger years is striking.

We ate in wonderful restaurants with higgledy piggledy interiors, handwritten menus on lovely local hand-made paper and not a logo in sight. We browsed in tiny shops packed with personality and designed with flair to create a really special experience. There is a distinctive Italian style which balances elements of heritage (Florentine palettes of duck egg and gold, natural stones and timbers in rich textures) with a minimalist aesthetic to create interiors and displays that are unmistakeably Italian yet all quite different from each other. We noticed how unafraid designers are to reference Florentine heritage in their designs and how, contrary to expectation, there is both humour and whimsy in many of their concepts (“grass” ceilings, water-feature window displays). None of these designs will date and in fact many of the older shops, cafes, gelaterias and tavernas look just as charming today as when they were first established. There is a real appreciation of design in Italy but its ultimate aim is to create a beautiful and enriching experience that is unique and timeless.

As we navigated the horrific experience that is Ryanair on the way home, we thought about why Ireland has turned its back on its own cultural heritage in recent years.

These days, very few restaurants, shops or cafes open without the aid of a “brand” agency. Very few, if any, use any aspects of our own cultural heritage in their brand (and I am using brand in its correct sense to encompass the experience, not just the visual style). From food to interior design to logo, Irishness has been abandoned in favour of an imported experience from - where exactly? Were we so busy playing catch-up with our supposedly more sophisticated European neighbours that we forgot what makes Ireland so special in the first place? There are so many rich sources of Irish cultural reference -  Mayo’s Museum of Country Life, Collins Barracks and indeed any of our national museums - and of course we can also draw on our wild island landscape. How often do you go into a restaurant and eat real Irish food with an emphasis on local specialities? How often do you go into a shop and see Irish-made goods (and I don’t mean the shamrock variety)?

Design can be used, as the Italians know so well, to create a confident and timeless statement of individual style, or it can be used as we have done here in Ireland to show that you are part of the “now” generation. The problem is that the “now” generation becomes the “then” generation very quickly.