A couple of things collided last week that started me noodling: a Met Office warning, and the eventual winner of The Apprentice. First came the news that the UK was experiencing a heatwave. For those of you in sunnier climes, hitting 32 degrees for a couple of days running might not seem a big deal, but here, it’s worthy of a level 3 warning.
Elmwood
The Design Business Association (DBA) announced the recipients of Design Effectiveness Awards 2013 on February 7. The winners of the annual design competition are determined based on commercial data, which is one of the key judging criteria (along with cause and effect, clarity of presentation, and more).
The article is written by Greg Taylor, Director of Brand Provocation at Elmwood, London
It’s that time of year again here in the UK. Our TV screens are being hit with a blizzard of yuletide advertising. The retailers in particular vie for bragging rights as to who has the best ‘Christmas campaign’. This time around, Waitrose and John Lewis particularly struck me. For international readers, Waitrose is the chain of supermarkets of the John Lewis Partnership, which also has a chain of department stores called, you guessed it, ‘John Lewis’.
The article is written by Greg Taylor, Director of Brand Provocation at Elmwood, London
Bigger, brighter, better. We’ve always been drawn like moths to the flame to the neon delights of the city. With the UN predicting that 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, this urban pilgrimage shows no sign of letting up.
The article is written by Greg Taylor, Director of Brand Provocation at Elmwood, London
Having emerged this week from the coldest May for 100 years, the sun has burst through at last and there’s a collective spring in the step of the folks here in Fitzrovia. I never cease to be amazed by the power of nature and its effects on the human psyche. When we experience nature at its best, it magically frees our spirit. Our senses are triggered, we feel more alive, we feel good. But why? And how can we find ways to tap into nature even when the sun doesn’t shine?
The article is written by Greg Taylor, Director of Brand Provocation at Elmwood, London
Here in the UK last week, we hit the first double-dip recession since the 1970s. But there wasn’t wall-to-wall coverage or even that much front-page news. Do we have a collective sense of inevitability? Are we a nation resigned to economic depression? Or do we have a growing determination to take matters into our own hands and build our own futures? Now is the time for each and every one of us to reboot our own ‘home’ economy and build a new ‘homestyle’, a way of living that makes more of the spaces we find ourselves in. After all, home is where the heart is.