The whole of the UK was rocked by the London riots a few months back. There has been a lot of chatter about the role of social media and in particular the instant messaging service offered by Blackberry. So, how much of a role did social media play?

Although the initial vigil for Mark Duggan was organised on Facebook, this seems to be about the limit of involvement from this particular social network. Twitter on the other hand was home to various tweets indicating targets for the rapidly escalating violence. The police ended up scouring twitter for further tweets inciting violence over the period. It is the messenger service from Blackberry however that seems to be the focal point for the role of social media in the rioting.

The Blackberry is the preferred smartphone for 37% of teenagers in Britain according to an Ofcom study carried out at the time. Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is the instant messaging service available on this phone. This service is completely free and it allows users to send messages to their wide network of contacts in one easy step. This makes it a popular alternative to regular phones and the use of text messages. The Blackberry network is also private so any message sent is virtually untraceable unlike facebook and twitter.

Reports of the rioting state that the BBM service on Blackberry phones was the primary means of communication amongst those involved in the riots. Several messages stating meeting points, targets and other information were sent through the network. Although some of the messages have been shown to the police, they cannot trace who actually sent them. Even the manufacturer of the phones cannot necessarily unscramble the encryptions. The company behind Blackberry, Research in Motion have stated they would assist in police enquiries. This information did not go down well with certain parties however and the the Inside Blackberry blog was also hacked as a warning!

Social media does increase the speed and ease of communication, but its role in the riots has perhaps been over-played slightly. Riots are not something new and simple word of mouth can be just as effective when a situation like this occurs. Regular media too almost certainly plays a role in spreading information. It should also be remembered that it was through social media that teams of people were able to organise themselves into clean up groups during the days following the night time disorders. Social media has changed the way we communicate with one another, but it is important not to place too much importance on the role of social media, in particular the Blackberry messaging service in causing or even escalating these riots.

Obviously this does throw some interesting thoughts onto the most recent of Blackberry’s headlines, the fact that their service was down to UK users. Was this just a glitch, or did Blackberry know about another upcoming riot and tried to avoid the blame?

When you are choosing an SEO company you want to make sure you are getting the best. If you are completely new to the world of SEO then how are you supposed to guarantee this? There is no doubt that choosing an SEO company can seem like a daunting prospect so to help make things easier we have designed a handy checklist for you. There are some important indicators that let you know the quality of an SEO company. Run them past your SEO company and if they pass you know you are on to a winner. If they fail then rid yourself of them immediately and go somewhere else.

Step 1

See if they are happy to provide information or assist with a website problem completely free of charge.

An SEO company worth their weight in gold will always provide some initial help, information or suggestions before contracts have been signed or money has changed hands. This can be just something small such investigating why a website isn’t being indexed correctly or making some suggestions on how to improve your onsite optimisation. You wouldn’t expect them to spend hours on a task for nothing, but they should be willing to offer a little guidance with no strings attached.

Step 2

See if they offer a teaching orientated approach to SEO.

If your company refuse to let you in on any of their techniques or methods used then you may want to steer clear. Companies that offer a teaching orientated approach are the most trustworthy by far. Of course you wouldn’t expect to come out of the process an SEO expert but you should be a little clearer on how SEO works and even be able to carry out one or two techniques yourself if you so choose to in the future.

Step 3

Ask to see previous results of SEO strategies they have implemented.

If your company are unable to show hard examples of their previous SEO successes then alarm bells should ring and you should look elsewhere. Having references available from previous happy customers is always useful too although not nearly as important as viewing previous successes.

Step 4

Discuss their strategy and avoid a “one size fits all” approach.

All websites are different and what works well in terms of SEO for one website may not do for another. If your SEO company offer a one size fits all package then you are likely to not be getting the very best value for money.

When deciding on an SEO company it is always best to have a face to face meeting or at the very least and phone call. During the meeting you can discuss your goals and objectives and ask about their overall strategy ideas. This will give you a good opportunity to get a feel for the company and assess their competency. If you follow this checklist carefully then you will end up with a high quality SEO company that provides an excellent service.

Signing celebrities up to advertise or sell a product is an oldie but a goodie. We’ve seen everyone from actors, soap stars, athletes or even reality tv stars trying to peddle products to us via the television and other media outlets. It seems there are various conditions however that the celebrity endorser needs to adhere to when agreeing to advertise a product, namely they must maintain their squeaky clean image. The penalty? Losing the valuable contract. Kerry Katona, Kate Moss and Tiger Woods are a few notable examples of those who fell foul of their sponsors due to real life misbehaviour. They all lost lucrative contracts as a result.

Do sponsors need to worry quite so much about the private life antics of their celebrities however? Ipsos MORI say that a staggering 27% of people would at least consider no longer buying the product if the celebrity endorser “went bad”. In the UK the same amount more of less reported they had already stopped buying a particular product for this reason. These figures show that perhaps the companies involved do need to take personal life antics into consideration when dealing with celebrity endorsements. However the story does not end there. Half of those who said they had stopped buying a product in the UK did so only on a temporary basis. This implies that once the scandal has blown over normal spending behaviour resumes.

In the case of some celebrities, trouble in their personal life has in the long term had a completely opposite effect. Kate Moss for example has doubled her endorsement income since she was involved in a drugs scandal. Perhaps in the UK we are more tolerant of private life misbehavior, or perhaps we are so used to it that when yet another scandal breaks we simply roll our eyes and get over it quickly. Not nearly as many UK consumers stop buying a product as Chinese consumers do when the celebrity endorser is exposed in a scandal. Results from the Ipsos MORI research show that private life antics have a much greater effect on the consumer in more conservative countries.

It appears there are no hard and fast rules and cases must be considered on an individual basis. In the UK a celebrity can often come out of a scandal looking better than ever so instant cessation of a contract may be unwise. In countries like Saudi Arabia or China however there is more evidence to suggest that a celebrity should be dropped quickly before their private life antics negatively effect the brand or reputation of the product they are endorsing.

I really cannot understand why a celebrity would want to endorse any kind of product. Nothing says “sell out” quicker than an already well paid and successful celebrity advertising some random product. George Clooney and Coffee anyone? Some endorsements are particularly irksome. Take Jamie Oliver for example. On the one hand he talks about the importance of sourcing locally grown food and on the other hand he’s filming ads for a huge chain of supermarkets. I think it’s the celebrities that need to be the careful ones in an endorsement contract – they are the ones whose reputation and image can be dramatically affected (at least in my eyes if no one else’s!)

We are in an age where brand competition is fierce to say the least. So when you are a marketing director, or similar, for a global household brand, what do you do to further your brand exposure?

Well, you might expect a few things, such as advertising, some niche guerrilla SEO campaign, product placement, to name but a few of the many possibilities. There seems to be a new trend though…banning your target audience from using or buying your product.

First up we have Abercrombie and Fitch. Along came the story about them wanting to ban the stars of Jersey Shore from actually wearing their clothes. Apparently they just did not suit the brand’s idea of their demographic. Funny, as although I am only aware of the show’s existence and not an avid viewer (honestly!), I thought it fit their actual demographic very well indeed!

Now another story surfaces of them banning a life long fan and customer from actually buying their product. Not through being anything undesirable either, as it turns out. Just purely going through the website, ordering products and then her order being cancelled. To the horror of the user though, not just cancelled, but banned from ever ordering their products again. Later the brand said that this was a technical safe guard for anyone purchasing a lot of products over a period of time in case they were selling them on!

Hmmmmmm…seems strange to me! Banned for buying their clothes?

Anders Behring Breivik looking smug about his croc!

Then in the news we see Lacoste is now following suit on feeling they can actually dictate who can, or cannot it seems, wear their brand. They have been reported as asking the Norwegian Police to ban the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik from wearing their brand whilst making court appearances. Apparently horrified by his comment that Lacoste was his favourite brand. Meanwhile the rest of the world were focused on the horror of what he did, not even aware that there was a little stitched crocodile taking up residence on his breast!

So, it seems a couple of things have come to light. Firstly, big name brands feel they can now dictate who cannot wear their clothes. Does this mean they can also say who can? Perhaps we are now living in a world where each garment should come with a new tag stitched to the inside. On one side washing instructions, and the other a checklist of personality traits of who can wear it and to what events! Who would enforce this? Would we literally see fashion police?

Secondly, it seems big brands now see themselves as more important that others and their feelings. Who cares about the poor families of those that were shot? Should a brand really be highjacking a story on mass murder to publicise their brand? Nor do they seem to care about a life long fan that has spent thousands of dollars filling up her wardrobe with their rubbish clothes?

Lastly, and most importantly, what does this tell us about their marketing departments? Yes we all know the old saying that no publicity is bad publicity. After all, here I am writing a blog about them, they have been on the news and in papers, the world over. That said, is creating very bad publicity the best they can come up with?

Surely their job is to come up with engaging marketing and viral campaigns that strengthen the brand, not make people cringe or laugh at it?

Maybe I will send them our details!

— Rant over! —

So we have been busy finishing a few projects lately. In fact, too many for me to add them! So need to catch up!

First on my list is Babymodo…

Babymodo website

Babymodo is a high-end fashion label from London that looks at the fusion of European elegance and Asian cuts, prints and materials.

The website project was the final piece in the branding project. Starting with the logo, we moved on to stationery and product look book and finally onto the website.

The website itself is now in 7 laguages. It is controlled via a CMS and was designed and built by the a fish in sea team.

The collection is about to launch and from that moment on the site will also show the collection and allow users to purchase.

If you see them, check them out…they do some lovely stuff!

So yes, we are a design agency and surprise surprise, we use Macs. As such, you would not be surprised to hear that we love Steve Jobs. However, for the less geeky amongst us, if you take some time to stop and think about exactly what Mr Jobs has done, not only for computing, but in shaping the world that we live in, you will come to realise how different our world might be had he not stepped up to the challenge.

Steve Jobs

Sure, there are others also responsible for the success that Apple has become, but having the balls to take control, with Apple on the brink of dying on it’s arse, I think he deserves an awful lot of credit.

This is not really a ‘let’s all pay homage to Apple’ article, but how a geeky computer nerd can change life as we know it…literally. Think I am being over melodramatic? Sure, let’s look at the facts…

Remember the iMac? Before this can you remember computers being not only affordable and cute, but colourful? These were the days of depressing off white towers that littered our offices like miniature 60s high rises that blot our landscape. Then along comes this little bubble of colour into our lives.

Now these may not have been to everyone’s tastes or indeed use, but they opened up home computers as something fun that every household can have, and more importantly, want to have. An icon was born and so changed the face of home, and ultimately, business computing as we know it. From there we have seen sexy towers with water cooling and grilled vents that would not look out of place on supercars. Super slim laptops that are at the top of their game, made from other un-thought of substances such as titanium. Not to mention the advance of the operating system that now all others strive to emulate.

All of this said, it’s not overly surprising to find he had influence in computing. However, it is with todays taken for granted lifestyle that we find his most telling contributions.

Do you listen to music on the go? Every owned an iPod? I remember when these came out and mass revolutionised how we listen to music. How about iTunes? Most people will have owned an iPod or a similarly inspired gadget, but just about everyone has iTunes. Started in 2003, just seven years later it achieved it’s 10 billionth music track download. That’s not even including apps, tv shows, movies, etc. It is the number one place in the states to buy music from.

We haven’t even got to iPads and iPhones yet! Just stop and think what life would be like, how different it would be without these things. Please, just take a second and try to imagine what your little world would be like with no iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad…without your digital world all working so seamlessly together. It’s a strange thought isn’t it? It’s like trying to remember what we all did before mobile phones came along!

I think it has been a very comfortable world with Steve Jobs in it. So I take off my iHat (patent pending!) to what has been, in my opinion, one of the most influential iNventors and iNnovators in my life time. May he get well soon…although I am sure, if required, Apple could build him whatever he needs to stay around for as long as possible!

(It is true that we have not covered everything in this article, such as Apple TV, Pixar, Toy Story, etc…but there is only so much one can write in a single article!)

It turns out that the recent “study” carried out by AptiQuant that related to browser choice and IQ was just an elaborate hoax. The study concluded that those who use Internet Explorer have on average a lower IQ than those who use firefox, chrome, opera or camino!

The fake study was called “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” and was produced by Canadian company AptiQuant. They said they had compiled IQ test scores of over 100,000 people over the age of 16 and divided them into groups according to the browser they used. They said that users of Internet Explorer 6 on average have an IQ score of around 80 with Firefox and Chrome users having an average IQ score of approximately 110. Opera and Camino users were said to have an average IQ score of more than 120! The fake study also went on to conclude that that the earlier the version of IE that was used, the lower the IQ.

The study was picked up by all the major news networks and given extensive coverage. A lot of IE users jumped up and down. It has since come out however that the “study” was completely made up. So what is the story behind it?

In fact AptiQuant aren’t even really a company. The website where this study appeared was set up only in June, a month before the “study” was released. Those behind the hoax have said it was only meant to be a joke and a lighthearted way to poke fun at Internet Explorer 6 and it’s many compatibility issues. They were probably surprised that the story spread so rapidly getting airtime on the BBC, CNN and Forbes among other news networks.

The front man of this bogus study, Tarandeep Singh Gill who in fact runs a shopping comparison site said the idea came up when they were having trouble working with IE 6 and IE 7. They were frustrated and thought that if they could turn away a few people from these browsers then so much the better.

Personally I love a good hoax so hats off to the team for pulling this one off. Sometimes a hoax can be just what’s need to highlight a particular problem. It is by no means a new idea either- take the “Yes Men” as an example. They have been staging hoaxes for years as an effort to bring attention to various social issues with a great deal of success. There can be no doubt that this hoax wasn’t a complete success. They gave themselves attention, they were taken seriously by the media and they had us all going for a while!

As a designer, few things can compete with the satisfying feeling of seeing a project through to completion.  This feeling is enhanced when the result is far better than expected, you receive a heartfelt email of thanks from your clients team, an image works particularly well, or the printer somehow manages to obtain a result that exceeds expectation on a particular stock.

Something that does manage to come close is the surprise of seeing your work unexpectedly; I have been in Beirut, visiting the Middle East design studio over the last week – Kais and I took a trip downtown to check out the old cinema venue for the Live Lebanon event that we orchestrated with UNDP a couple of years ago. I had not been able to attend, and was keen to see the iconic setting, as it is a well known Beirut landmark and the project had meant a great deal to me. It was a success in its own right, has raised millions of dollars for local regeneration projects across Lebanon, and the results of our design and photography work were, if I say so myself, pretty good.

The venue for UNDP's Live Lebanon

After checking out the location, Kais wanted to show me some of downtown Beirut, which has been developed quite considerably since my last visit – we were on our way to see the Multiples store that we designed the identity for on Waygand St. which is similar to Bond Street in London. We rounded a corner, and there, all lit up and looking quite fantastic was a logo that I designed for Dorchester Estates over 8 years ago. It had been a one off project, and unfortunately we did not manage to keep in contact with the client after the logo design process was complete. I was amazed – it is something else to round a corner and see the fruits of your effort lit up quite unexpectedly.

Multiples new store, downtown Beirut.

Dorchester Estates logo, designed by a fish in sea 8 years ago.

This has prompted several thoughts since then – the responsibility that we have as designers, as we leave a sometimes unknown legacy in our wake, the repercussions of which affect a far wider audience than we initially realise. Also the lifespan of a design can far exceed the clients expectations, Dorchester Estates imagined the logo would be in use for around 3 years at the time we were briefed (so our logo design turned out to be excellent value) – and the benefits of working with good finishing partners – whilst the design itself was a success at the time, and both client and myself were pleased with the result, the signage team delivered a solution that whilst out of our overall control has most certainly improved the final result.

Our multilingual design team..

Perfect Timing

At the moment we have three interns in our London design studio helping us out and hopefully gaining lots of experience along the way.

Claire is from Paris and both Nuria and Albert are from sunny Barcelona ! All cant believe our weather and most disgusted with our “British” “eat at our desks” attitude.. However it looks like its been perfect timing for them, not only because we have had some more playful and fun jobs in Spanish but also some serious report designing in French and some even more corporate Arabic design.. as well for our Beirut design studio.

Its the season for it !

Nuria and Albert worked on an album cover for the incendiary Cuban Underground Band Wara, they have been roughing up pictures, tablet drawing and shading like the wind to reach their tight deadline .. we are on the first round of revisions so cant display their work – but check it out next week .. and Claire has been working on a proposal for work with the UN in the Democratic Republic of Congo! Meanwhile in Beirut we have our interns Ayman and Sarah working with Kais on a series of logos for an Arab Law Firm in the States … thats 4 continents covered …

Great to be able to offer this kind of work to our potential design stars!

Huge thanks to our clients GW Data for their herculean efforts over the last few weeks, dragging our archaic internet and phone systems into the 21st century. Its been great to have a client working for us for a change!

AFIS get new studio network, patch panels, router and cables

The whole studio has been rewired… We have shiny new cables and trunking, hot swappable phones and multiple ethernet ports at every designers desk. Its fast, neat and totally removed the trailing cables that were a lethal eyesore  – Nice one Graeme, much appreciated!