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“reassess the philosophy of our profession, and its meaning as it stands today.”

I think this blog piece is a good example of how to further understand the current economy. If we are to boost spending within our economy, we first need to have the money in our pockets to do so. By creating £250 internships that don’t cover rent and travel, before other bare living costs; how can we create spending money to help local businesses grow, help farmers produce milk, help the corner shop sell the morning newspaper.

One thing I'm learning more and more about being as a designer, is that we're not far off being actors.

Actors immerse themselves into a character for movies and plays, which change how they walk and talk.

As designers we immerse ourselves into a brand and become it's target audience. We do it in such focus that we give our target audience a name, a family, a home town, the kind of things that make up a person's personality. Once we understand their personality we can begin to understand what they want from a brand, and this makes it much easier to design for.

Remember these self-portraits you used to draw as a child?

It's strange that we once used to think that there was a huge gap between the ground and the sky, whether it was because you couldn't be bothered to colour the whole background or because you thought of the two as separate objects.

Brand design can have a similar effect as well. Cohesiveness, across all forms of communication is key to a successful brand identity. Of course we can still understand each piece of communication separately, but we don't connect with the brand as much as we might do if it was cohesive.

Airbnb has been at the forefront of brand design discussion the past couple of months.

The idea for Airbnb is such an innovative idea alone that should be commended for it's bravery and development as a product. It's hard to imagine that a brand, now as successful as this one was at an all time low making just $200 a week!

The team at Design Studio turned the brand right around. The marque has been continually critiqued for it's phallic appearance. Kurt Weiderman did once say that a logo/marque should be "something a horny schoolboy might doodle in the back of his exercise book". This is a great example of why he was right; I bet still days after seeing the brand's marque you will remember what it looks like.

But it's not just all about the brilliantly unique, simple, phallic, memorable and elegant marque, there's a story behind it all.

As in the picture I have shown above, "a world where you can belong anywhere." Throughout Airbnb's communication, you feel as though you might already be there. The photographic style is one that is welcoming, for you to easily connect with the places possibly evoking some emotion.

All of this would not be possible for.. dun, dun duhhh.. RESEARCH!

Airbnb set up a separate web page for their users to engage and participate in, what they would ultimately be theirs. The users are able to share experiences that they have had through Airbnb which both informs future customers of what a great product it is, and helps Airbnb know what their customers think of them. Which, like the Mastercard would explain - it's priceless!

This webpage also allows users to express their own emotion through the marque. The marque has been so simply drawn, that you could even recreate it with the peas on your plate. A lot can also be said for the communication that we put into things we create by hand. Whatever feeling, experience or even caffeine we have at the time of creating that visual product, is able to be read by any viewer.

You may have already guessed that I love this brand so there's no need for me to express that anymore. But the bottom line to why this brand has been successful for it's design; is that it understood it's customer base, understood it's personality and story and has placed itself well in the market.

This raised a smile on my face, I think it will you too.

Everyone's handwriting is their own, it expresses our own personality and emotion. Each stroke, each ascender, every negative space communicates something.

This man has found a way to turn homeless people's handwriting into a sought after commodity. For a price you can buy a homeless person's emotion in the form of a font.

Coca Cola are still finding ways to spread the joy. This enormous brand has such a vast field when it comes to spreading the joy.

A French coffee shop creates a sexy and sassy personality.

So I've had some good news recently. My entry to the Design In Sight competition has been shortlisted to one of 14 designs!

I chose to enter this competition over the prestigious D&AD Student Awards this year. The Design In Sight competition was much more interesting than creating a new trailer to be shown in a cinema.

The Design In Sight competition is about gaining an insight into the day to day lives of consumers. It involved meeting consumers, talking to them about things that they may never had thought of. Finding the issues that people may not even know they had, and solving them. It was also about forecasting for the next 20 years, discovering challenges that brands will have to face in the near future: economical, social, sustainable, and the rest.

From a list of about twenty brands; I chose to research the brand SMA formula milk. Something I have never encountered in my life, which was just the reason for choosing it. This is why I love graphic design - you get to learn things, new things. You get to encounter what some people might never encounter.