Be a Kiwi, Not a Sheep

I recently saw Old Mout Cider's new ad. It focuses on going further for better things and to not follow the crowd. What initially got my attention was that – as shown below – the underground train advert uses two panels instead of one to illustrate its message. I took a picture as I thought it was an interesting idea I wanted to remember, but later I saw another of their ads showing a different copyline: "Be a Kiwi, Not a Sheep".



This got me thinking about not only how quirky a line this is, but also how I should be applying this into my life.

As a designer I am required to come up with idea after idea after idea. Sometimes it feels as if I'm on a conveyor belt, just going through the process throwing out mass-produced ideas one after another because that is what is being asked of me. And I don't want to be the sheep, I want to be the kiwi. I am the kiwi deep down, and my mind boggles with crazy ideas 24/7. But because we're so restrained, either by brand guidelines, or because you're told "the client won't like that", we start to lose faith in our abilities as creatives. We start to become a little embarrassed by our own ideas, thinking they won't be accepted. I'm proud to say that I am making changes in my life to ensure this is no longer how I feel, and will power forwards to show every quirk, every 'mad' idea I have, because you never know where they'll take you.

I am a kiwi, not a sheep.

Horse & Road Safety Awareness Infographics

In light of the recent events and the launch of a petition calling to make it the law that drivers must abide by a horse rider's hand signals, I wanted to aid the cause by creating some simple infographics that could be shared across social media to help raise awareness and inform drivers why horse riders do certain things. These are to be displayed on the Horse & Road Safety Awareness website along with their Facebook page. We are currently waiting on confirmation from the BHS (British Horse Society) regarding the official way the 'stop' sign is represented.

The infographics were based on the HRSA's logo which uses simple vector horse silhouettes in different tones of blue. These will be developed into a short animated video in order to combine all 4 messages into one. In the near future I would like to develop another series of infographics aimed at the horse riders to show them how they be safer on the roads.









I had a vague idea of the 4 facts I wanted to cover from the start, but the copywriting and visuals began life in my little notebook (always thinking on the go!) as illustrated below.

JustFred Logo Design

This is the logo design for the knitting club and what will be an online store; JustFred.



The original brief started out very open, as the client was unsure what her business name was going to be. She had initially begun her knitting club under the name 'Just Fred' but she was open to new suggestions. She also stated that if possible she'd like to use a dragonfly emblem as her brand's icon. I began by brainstorming many different potential brand names, as well as trying to implement the ideas that had been requested. Below is the result of this!



This then developed into loose mock-ups in Adobe Illustrator, which was submitted to the client to hear her thoughts on what direction we should go in.



After receiving feedback I began to develop the initial ideas into something more solid. My client wanted to keep the name 'Just Fred' and selected some design elements, fonts and colours that she wanted to be tried out next. Below is the result.



A few more tweaks later, and the design was complete. I created a presentation deck to show how the logo could be used in different formats on digital and print items, as well as some guidelines to show how the logo was put together (font faces, colour specs) and the minimum size the logo should be used at.

Santander Infographics Collection

Please find below a collection of just some of the infographics I created for Santander in their original iconic style. The statistics were given to me and then it was up to me to scamp out a series of ideas before designing them digitally.

SCCB Infographics

The Santander Corporate & Commercial style is very minimalist, which meant that when I was asked create some infographics for them, the style of the designs came easily.

Using the statistics given, I created three different ways of presenting the information in order to send the messages in clear but also aesthetically pleasing ways.

Santander HR: Career Choices

Santander proposed the brief from Human Resources to promote their 'Career Choices' campaign internally. They required a range of collateral, from print to digital to animation. The following is a selection from each.

Intranet illustration
Firstly I was asked to illustrate a series of real Santander branches which were going to be featured on the company's intranet. These were then put together into a webspace connected by cartoon streets featuring objects and characters. When the viewer's cursor rolled over an individual branch, the red sections of it were activated to show that it was clickable.




Design for print
The illustrations from the intranet were then translated into print onto both large-scale (toolbox) and very small-scale (jelly-bean box) boxes, as well as further design for an associated Z-Card.




Storyboard for animation
Finally, I was provided with a script to which I had to use the street designs to create a storyboard for an animated film. Although the script was very precise, the illustrations provided great flexibility into what transitions could happen and how. A voice over was later recorded which explained the journey to the viewer.

Santander HR: Screensaver Storyboard

Following on from the Community Engagement Toolkit, the style was then extended into a new brief of a screensaver to promote the '3 e's': Education, Employment, Enterprise. I then designed each slide and created a storyboard that would explain in detail how each piece was to be animated. The animations needed to be simple as the client's computers had limited memory space.