Government “must be braver in using design”

The Design Council has called on Government to embed design at a strategic level, in order to “realise its full potential”. By Angus Montgomery on May 29, 2015

The Design Council has called on the Government to take “a braver approach” to using design as it reacted to the Queen’s Speech this week.
In the Queen’s Speech, David Cameron’s new Conservative majority Government set out its policy priorities for the coming Parliament.
This included measures around local government, housing, and the creation of a single public service ombudsman to identify and respond to issues in public services.
Design Council chief executive John Mathers says that design can have “a major impact” in the delivery of public services and called on Government to take full advantage of this.
Mathers says: “Many of our Design Challenges have explored ways to solve difficult public service problems, and we’ve seen some great results. For example, our Reducing Violence and Aggression in A&E work saw threatening body language and aggressive behaviour fall by 50 per cent, while for every £1 spent on the design solutions, £3 was generated in benefits.

“Innovating at the margins will only get us so far”

“However, innovating at the margins will only get us so far. To realise the full potential of design, it needs to be embedded at a strategic level, just as many leading businesses are doing. This requires a braver approach from the government.”
Mathers adds: “Design is a means, not an end in itself. And I do not suggest that it is a cure-all. It is simply an approach that helps identify the real issues at play, allows for difficult problems to be reframed in practical ways, and results in more appropriate and effective solutions.”
The All-Party Parliamentary Design & Innovation Group – a cross party group of leading parliamentarians – had previously called on Government to put design at the heart of the UK’s political, economic and education systems to ensure “the opportunities of the future are fully realised”.

Design should be a “central pillar”, not a “nice to have”

The group’s manifesto for design, which was published in March, ahead of the recent General Election, said that design should be given the same consideration as sustainability – no longer a “nice to have” but instead a central pillar of government policy.
It also recommended that civil servants should be trained in basic service design methods and that there should be an improved understanding of design and innovation spend in the public sector.
Last year the Cabinet Office government department launched the Policy Lab initiative, headed up by former Design Council chief design officer Andrea Siodmok. The Policy Lab works with government policy teams to test how design methods and principles can improve public service delivery.

PG tips rolls out new “contemporary” brand

The tea brand, which is almost 150 years old, has more simple, “contemporary” branding and packaging, developed by JKR.

By Sarah Dawood on May 21, 2015

PG tips is introducing new branding and packaging, swapping out the field and blue skies for a white background.
The new look, designed by JKR, has been implemented with the aim of making the brand easier to source in-store and “more contemporary”, says a spokesperson for brand-owner Unilever, while retaining the red, green and white colours of the previous identity.

The redesign also features an updated logo, which is still red and green but is no longer embossed, and has more simple, translucent lettering.
“We’ve made the brand more relevant to shoppers, especially the younger consumer,” says Kate Hearn, senior brand manager for PG tips at Unilever UK.
She adds: “The clear, fresh new look, with a bigger, bolder PG tips logo will also make it easier for shoppers to find the tea brand in the busy supermarket aisle.”
Unilever says this is the first major brand change for PG tips in 19 years, following on from its pyramid-shaped teabag redesign in 1996.

Five things to love about designers

Looking for a bit of a pat on the back? Copywriter Rob Self-Pierson tells us why he loves working with designers so much.

(By Rob Self-Pierson on May 15, 2015)

 

Image by flickr user Thor

I was speaking to a fellow copywriter the other evening about my love of great designers. She couldn’t see it and wanted convincing. So, in the space of a couple of minutes, I listed and explained five reasons for my affection.
My friend smiled and said I should write a BuzzFeed-style list. “It might help you bring more writers and designers together,” she said, “like you’ve always wanted to.”
So, here’s the list. And here’s hoping.

• Words speak more powerfully with great design. Once you’ve nailed the meaning as a writer, there’s no greater pleasure than seeing a skilled designer communicate that meaning to an audience.
• They’re inspired by so much of what they see. Walking around cities and nature with a designer is an education. Rooftops, trees, drain covers, menus, raincoats. You name it, a good designer will find inspiration.
• We can geek out together over type. A few years ago, I went on a guided typography/lettering walk around London. I fell in love. Now I like nothing more than talking serifs, glyphs and kerning with designers.
• They read like I read. Ever since I studied English at uni, I’ve dissected books – not just for meaning, but for appearance too. Skilled designers do the same. They dig deep until they understand the look and feel of a sentence.
• I learn as I go. My best friends are now graphic designers, creative directors, animators, illustrators and lettering artists. Every time we work (or drink) together, I learn something that helps me write better for design.

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Rob Self-Pierson is a copywriter. He often teams up with designers to produce writing that has a greater impact.

Google Car involved in 11 accidents during testing period

Google says the accidents have come during 1.7 million miles of test-driving the vehicle.

(By Angus Montgomery on May 12, 2015 Design Week)

 

 

Google Self-Driving Car, photo by Gordon De Los Santos

Google’s self-driving car has been involved in 11 accidents during its six-year testing period, the company has revealed.
Writing on Medium, Google’s director of the self-driving car programme Chris Urmson says that the accidents took place during 1.7 million miles of both autonomous and manual driving and that “not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident”.
Urmson says that none of the accidents caused serious damage or injuries. He says the cars have been hit from behind seven times and also side-swiped and hit by a car rolling through a stop sign.
Urmson says: “Even when our software and sensors can detect a sticky situation and take action earlier and faster than an alert human driver, sometimes we won’t be able to overcome the realities of speed and distance; sometimes we’ll get hit just waiting for a light to change.”
Google’s self-driving cars have “360º visibility and 100 per cent attention in all directions at all times”, says Urmson. He adds that Google’s newest sensors can track other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians to a distance of nearly 200m.
Google has been road-testing its driverless cars for six years, with the driverless technology retrofitted on to existing car models, such as the Toyota Prius and the Lexus models. Since 2014 the company has been testing its own Google Car model on Californian roads.
Urmson says the driverless cars have so far clocked up 1.7 million miles, both manually and autonomously controlled, and that the cars have self-driven nearly 1 million of those miles.
Following prototyping and testing, Urmson says Google aims to work with partners “to bring this technology into the world safely”.

What colour next?

Color Marketing Group has invited Global Color Research to be one of the main speakers for the CMG 2015 European Conference being held in Krakow, Poland, 20-22 May. We are excited to present our key trends for Spring Summer 2016 to the colour community which is Colour Marketing Group. Our own Hannah Malein, Colour Trend Consultant Manager will be presenting our Spring Summer 2016 colour palettes and trends. For further information visit their website.
www.colormarketing.org

(Global Colour Research 12th May 2015)

KitKat to roll out more than 100 million special editions in “biggest ever” redesign

The first release in the new campaign sees the words “YouTube break” replace the Kitkat logo on more than 600,000 wrappers.

(By Angus Montgomery on May 12, 2015 Design Week)

 

 

Kitkat is rolling out more than 100 million special edition packs in what brand owner Nestlé says is its biggest packaging redesign since it came to market 80 years ago.
The campaign, which has been developed with advertising agency JWT, will see 72 different types of “breaks” introduced as part of Kitkat’s “celebrate the breakers break” campaign.
These will include “Movie Break”, “Lunch Break” and “Sporty Break” and will roll out across 400 individual packaging designs.
The campaign’s dedicated hashtag #mybreak is being moulded into the chocolate of 22 million bars, with the wrappers suggesting various “breaks”.
The first new pack to launch is a collaboration between Nestlé and Google which will see the words “YouTube break” replace the Kitkat logo on more than 600,000 wrappers.
The collaboration between Google and Kitkat comes after Google named its Android operating system 4.4 update, released in 2014, “KitKat”.