Managing to transcend style and fashion in art, Hamilton believed in engaging the mind of the viewer and never just the eye. His belief was in the idea and intellectual insight, combined with harmonious outcomes that utilized technology and media of the time. As he continually explored with technology and applied his intellectual eye to various cultural and political topics – from drug policing in the 60′s, to the Irish hunger strike, and the political stories of late, I don’t believe he ever failed in this career-long pursuit.

Reading the obituaries this morning, I realised it’s this dedication to a belief in art, that since the age of 15, has made him so inspirational – and seems to have strongly influenced my endeavor as a designer – whether I really realised or not. Whilst many of us hope we have many different sources of inspiration, it was Hamilton who, for me, sparked a love for highly creative images.

A thanks is definitely due.

Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956)

Swingeing London (1968-9)

The Subject (1988-90)

Shock and Awe (2007-8)

New face on TP webcam

You may have noticed a new face appear on screen at the-partners.com yesterday. This was due to the fact that Ghana, who played England in a friendly at Wembley Stadium last night, were sporting our FIA Decade for Action tag on their kit.

Despite the fact that we should really have been supporting England (apart from the Scottish, Irish and Welsh contingents here of course who’d all rather support ANYONE else) we were rallying behind Ghana for their commitment to the Road Safety scheme. The resulting 1-1 score was a perfect, equal measure, outcome.

Go Ghana! (and England…)

This spike in media attention is attributable to a report commissioned by the UK Government and written by a committee led by Lord Davies of Abersoch. We were happy to help this worthwhile cause by designing the report, which you can find on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills website.

Interesting highlights for me in the report are that the UK trails South Africa and Israel in the proportion of women to men on corporate boards, that the top reason cited for this effect is boardroom attitudes (‘bias, prejudice and stereotypical behaviour’), and that at the present rate of change it will take 70 years for the UK to achieve gender-equality on boards.

You can read the report (and enjoy the lovely information graphics) here.

Just seen the new Heinz Baked Bean 100 year anniversary can to be rolled out this October, which, as an avid fan, I think looks pretty smart. However, I can’t help but wonder why they thought that taking all their inspiration from the past was the way to go forward? Along with the Anchor Butter adverts, that mimic the ‘ghost signs’ from the late 19^th century, and the 1966 inspired England football kit, it feels like were going back in time.

I know there’s lots of nostalgia, pride and reassurance in using old designs (which now seems to be a rite of passage for successful food brands), but personally I’d have much rather seen what the can might look like in another 100 years. Made from space foil that can be put in the microwave straight onto my jacket potato, something at least a bit more entertaining! Are food brands always going to look to the past? And if they don’t, what might the future hold for even the humble baked bean can?

The Winning Idea from l-r: Alex (no, really), Jack, Sam H & Sam G

As you may have seen from a blog post on here last week, we entered a competition run by Metro newspaper and D&AD to design a cover wrap for the Metro newspaper. The winner was announced last Wednesday evening at a lovely event hosted by Metro and D&AD. We were absolutely delighted when our ‘Flowers’ idea chosen as the overall winner and couldn’t wait to see it come out in print.

Well, today’s the day. We have spent all Bank Holiday weekend getting more excited about coming back in to work today than the plentiful bounty of chocolate at our fingertips over Easter. Personally, this morning I ended up in work an hour and a half early as I couldn’t wait to get down to the tube station to pick up my copy of the Metro and see how people were responding to the cover. (yes, I really AM that sad…and I’m proud!)

We’ve all been Tweeting all weekend also to encourage our followers to send us photos from today of their #metrowrap, and the photos/comments have been coming in thick and fast all morning. Thank you all for taking part and do please continue to send us your pics as you get them, we really love to receive them. Please see below for some examples of pics sent in already…

Our friend @Ben_Millar pops the question to a lift full of commuters

Grabbing an early morning edition at Arsenal tube

Oyster roses at Bank - not quite...

The lovely @LewieEvans presents his sister with a bunch

Sarah Kwan sends us her bunch all the way from Edinburgh

@Moobs takes advantage of rare empty seats to brighten his day

Someone 'passing it on' in style

Recycling at the Royal Exchange

I sincerely hope they were intending for a pic of the paper in this one...

Kings Cross picks up a bunch

This one has really made me smile...

The Partners reception/flower stall this morning

Andy Gardner was so keen he grabbed a couple of copies...

...before using one to decorate his office. Thanks Andy.

From our friend Tracey in Glasgow

Somebody's bagged a bunch on the way home

The gorgeous Amanda arranges a bouquet especially for her friends at The Partners.

The lovely Leah mixes the real with the print

And the morning after….

The morning after feedback. Thank you too Jenni.

Ever since Jobs and Co. created the iPhone, there has been intense speculation that Apple were going to re-invent the Newton, with all kind of rumours about what the device would be and what it would be capable of.

For those of you that have been living in a bunker, the iPad is what Apple describes as a bridge between the world of the smartphone and the laptop — a third ‘mobile’ space that sits between the two. Indeed, at first glance, the iPad looks nothing more than a giant iPhone — it features the same glass multi-touch display (albeit a huge one at 9 1/2 inches), the same buttons – it can even run the same applications.

So many are wondering, well, what’s the difference; “Why do I need one of these shiny new toys when I have an iPhone and a laptop?… I was expecting an all-singing and dancing device that could read my thoughts and intiate command for me on the impulse of a brain wave! …This isn’t the JesusPad I wanted!” Yes, many of these points are true. But what people are forgetting to remember is that content is king, and just like the iPhone and the iPod before it, if the content is good, (in the case of the iPod; huge libaries of mp3′s versus a cd, and the iPhone with the app store full of entertainment and usefulness), then it will be a must-have product.

So let’s look at the killer app, and with a screen this size, it has to be publishing — anything from books to newspapers and magazines. Both Sony and Amazon (with the Kindle) have made significant inroads in to this new area with eBook readers: devices that are like carrying whole libaries in the space of a paperback. But these devices look a generation old compared to the user experience of the iPad – gimicky it may look, but simply turning and flicking a page on the iPad instantly feels more real. The printed book is all good and well, but it’s in the magazine and newspaper area where this product will excel. Take a look at this digital version of the Sports Illustrated magazine and try to say to yourself that you’d rather have a traditional magazine:

It’s been forecast for many years that the ‘death of print’ cometh. Maybe with the iPad and devices like it, we’re at the beginning to this new era. This fuzing of new-media and traditional print publishing into a new and interactive form is going to be exciting for both consumers and designers alike, hopefully reigniting what is a shrinking industry. Take a look at this concept video for a product called Mag+ by Bonnier R&D and their digital design partners BERG – it shows off the potential experience for what a product like the iPad can deliver:

No doubt the iPad will open the flood gates to millions of copycat tablet computers, all hoping to do the same thing. Will I be getting one? Well, I’ve always said; never buy the first gen of any Apple product; but if content as rich as this comes out, I might have to change my mind.

This week (November 2009) the latest table was published. The Partners is No.1.

Now this blog isn’t a place to be boasting – we’ll do that elsewhere, I’m sure – but we thought it deserved a mention nonetheless.

Thanks to everyone, within and without, who has helped us achieve that. It feels kinda good.

However, fret not, as deliveries of the important stuff – the parcels and presents ordered up to the 11^th hour from on-line retailers such as Amazon and John Lewis are destined to find their way to their recipients in a timely and reliable fashion. These businesses you will not be surprised to hear have opted to drop Royal Mail in favour of alternative providers. There are unfortunately some on-line retailers who won’t have that choice.  Just as Britain is trying to fight its way out of recession, not only will Royal Mail potentially lose over £100m of combined letter and packet business, the disruption could cost general business over £220m in direct lost business and increased delivery expense not to mention damage to reputation and customer loyalty.

So it would seem that the current dispute of Royal Mail employees with the management over pay, conditions and modernisation plans continues to erode not just the trust and reputation of another institutional brand but ultimately drive it closer to the edge of an inevitable precipice.

Sure, the history, politics and organisational issues that underpin the machinations of Royal Mail and the current dispute are complicated but the stark reality is much simpler. This is a business model that makes little commercial sense or in its current guises delivers a relevant consumer service for modern Britain.

Royal Mail was created in 1516 by Henry VIII when he established a Master of the Posts. It was no doubt of formidable use in days gone by for sending threatening letters to the French or Scots, communicating with your army, courting another potential wife or demanding taxes and favours.

But today, my letterbox at home is rarely straining under the weight of anything of such urgency, value or contempt.  Bank statements, mobile phone bills, energy bills,  tax returns, passport and driving licence applications are all now managed on-line. In our fast-paced digital society, we can’t wait a few hours, let alone a day or two to for a piece of communication to wind its way through the ‘Snail Mail’ plumbing.

So what future for our postal champion and its significant army of foot soldiers?

The solution for Royal Mail is to leverage its capabilities in a more effective and innovative manner.  It benefits from an amazing local community presence and infrastructure. It just needs to mobilise it and charge for it in a more valued and valuable way.

Perhaps Royal Mail should consider stopping those daily letterbox deliveries of increasing amounts of junk mail.  Household mail only accounts for about 10% of volume anyway.  Apart from certain government departments, rarely do we send anything of real urgency or value through the postal system.  Perhaps we need to be educated that we should go and collect our mail from the local Post Office.  Use the Post Office as a micro-sorting office from where we rent our own PO Box for a convenient Saturday morning collection before popping to the coffee shop next door to peruse it.

Equally, Britain is a universe of micro and small and medium sized enterprises. These smaller businesses need to move things around and most often within a fairly narrow geography and relatively minor window of time.

Couldn’t Royal Mail do this? Couldn’t Royal Mail be exactly the kind of local community logistics champion that we could really use on a daily basis.

With assets out on the roads local independent grocers or traders who can’t compete with the likes of Ocado can offer to deliver direct with Royal Mail. Plumbers, electricians and tradesmen can call suppliers for parts and have them picked up and delivered by Royal Mail within 90 minutes. For domestic customers, dry cleaning can be delivered or collected and  those cakes you’ve baked for old Mrs Jones who lives on the other side of town can be sent and received and still be warm.  Maybe if I’m really running late, they can pick up and deliver my kids home from nursery.

Now that really would indicate a level of trust and give valued meaning to those letters within the Royal Mail brand name that make it a service we can all be proud of.

Read more…

“I want a brand as strong as Apple” is a statement we often hear from senior managers in very un-Apple-like organisations. The problem is that they’re just not prepared to do what it takes to make it happen.

In our research, brands such as Apple, Virgin and Google were mentioned consistently as the companies that business leaders said they most admired and aspired to be like. There is a tacit understanding that these organisations are driven by a different kind of engine to most others — their creativity — and it is this, fundamentally, to which these senior managers aspire.

Yet our study also revealed that for most business leaders creativity is not regarded as a serious topic for debate — only 10 per cent discuss it at board meetings and more than 40 per cent say that nobody has responsibility for it in their business. They prefer, instead, to talk about sales, costs, timeframes, supply chains, resources and other seemingly more tangible matters. The subject of creativity, with its inherently unconventional nature, subjectivity and lack of immediate measurability, is the sort of thing that most business leaders have been taught to avoid. Saying that you’d like to be more creative is one thing; doing something about it is quite another.

Yet, in this economic environment, this is a huge opportunity missed. Despite their reluctance to act, business leaders already acknowledge the value that creativity brings. Ninety-six per cent of respondents in our study cite creativity as integral to business success. More than 40 per cent place more value on creativity as a source of business advantage than on those traditional deliverables of knowledge and efficiency. And they are entirely right. A recessionary, or post-recessionary, world demands new thinking, new approaches, differentiation and innovation, certainly not merely more of the same. People are looking for change, for stronger, more meaningful relationships in which businesses help to solve the problems that matter most, not only those that generate most profit. They want radical, brave solutions. This is a time for creative thinking and action, the transition from the knowledge economy of the past 20 years to the ideas economy of the future.

To make this transition effective, businesses need to overcome the barrier that prevents their acknowledgement of creativity’s value from being acted upon in practise. As 46 per cent of our respondents told us that they would be happy to take increased responsibility for creativity, we can conclude that the problem is not a lack of desire but a lack of know-how.

The good news is that providing the know-how is not as daunting as it may seem. Despite its esoteric reputation, creativity can be taught. Despite its non-linear thought processes, it can be systemised. Despite its often peripheral role, it can and should be installed as a fundamental strategic platform that informs every decision and action. What is needed is a firm commitment from the organisation’s leadership to embrace it and external, specialist help to plan and deliver it. It needs companies to realise that you can’t simply talk a good game, you’ve got to deliver one, too.

Business leaders already know the superior value that creativity can bring. Now they must act on it, with courage and conviction and the mindset of a new, creative age.

• Jim Prior is managing partner of The Partners, a branding consultancy

Article taken from The Times Online.