Bob Greenberg, co-founder of R/GA spoke at a D&AD lecture last night that I attended with a few friends. Bob spent the first half of the lecture giving an overview of what R/GA is and the history of the company, then played some videos of case studies, most of which I had seen before. I couldn’t help but feel most people in the room knew who he was and therefore the case studies and in depth background to the company wasn’t necessary. Personally, I would have preferred if he had have concentrated on some of the concepts he brought up in the end about the state of the design/advertising industry now and where it’s likely to be headed. Still, the overview wasn’t bad and I did learn more about the company, and remain a fan of their work. As an agency they definitely seem switched on when it comes to digital design and dynamic enough to move with industry shifts. One thing Bob pointed out was that the company re-invents itself every 9 years.

Later in his lecture Bob outlined that 50% of most brand’s demographic are watching TV, while the other 50% were using the Internet. Brands are still spending an average of 95% of their advertising budgets on TV, while only 5% goes to digital media. It’s therefore obvious that the digital advertising industry is going to expand rapidly as more money in transferred in to this market — especially as the way we watch TV changes. Bob went on to speak about the term ‘TV 2.0’, where films and television programmes are distributed freely in digital form — the same thing that happened to the music industry a few years ago. He refered to the site Quick Silver Screen, where you can stream loads of films and tv programmes for free, one of many places to download content in digital form. Bob recently detailed this concept in Ad Week, which you can read online here.

The shift in advertising budgets to digital media is not only going to come from TV, in the last few years above-the-line/print advertising budgets are being shifted in to digital advertising. This is happening here at Ogilvy, where 50% of their business is now digital and this figure is gradually increasing. This has meant they’ve had to start replacing print based creatives with digital ones (the process of how I got my job) so they can move with this trend to meet demands of their clients. All this means working as a digital/interactive designer is going to mean more opportunities and money in the future, something that obviously I am hoping for.

So, the advertising and design industry is constantly evolving as technology advances. One thing I like about R/GA is that 1/3 of the company are programmers and developers, and they involve everyone in the creative process, recognising the importance of technology in digital design. Many larger agencies are still stuck with the old structure of a copywriter and art director providing the entire creative concept, usually they are from a purely print background and often are unable to even use a computer. I don’t believes this model works with digital media either. R/GA also recruit a large number of writers and recognise the importance of story telling and narrative in design, another point I really agree with and try to include in my work.

Overall it was an interesting lecture and Bob certainly knows the industry well, however Sagmeister still remains the most inspiring lecture I’ve attended.

This website for UniQlo Japan has an amazing mesmerising appeal to it. Everything is based around a 5 second beat, and it’s been executed beautifully — especially the type and colour. It’s one of hundreds of sites submitted for nomination for a D&AD award this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if it not only gets nominated but also wins an award. The list of submissions that have made it to the nomination round are announced this Friday so I guess we’ll find out soon.

Among other sites submitted for nomination was this campaign for the Nikon D40 SLR camera. Nikon wanted to demonstrate that the camera was easy enough for anyone to use so gave everyone in a small American town a camera and asked them to photograph their lives. The end result for the residents being an exhibition of everyone’s work, while for Nikon it served to create user-generated content for a digital campaign delivered as a website — along with user stories about how easy and fun the camera is to use.

China Design Now is currently showing at the V&A in London. The exhibition covers design from 3 Chinese cities; Shenzen, Shaghai and Bejing. I went and viewed the exhibition last weekend and was quite impressed with the typographic experiments and use of colour, especially from Shenzhen. Shenzen is seen as the hub of graphic design in China. The exhibition gives a brief history of graphic design in China, the fact that it is a more recent profession there compared to the rest of the world and only recently are universities offering the option to study design.

The final room was focusses on architecture, with all the new developments being built in Beijing. Many of these developments reminded me of Dubai as they involve re-shaping the landscape and have a similar sort of extravagant aesthetic. While Shanghai and Beijing look like great places to visit I couldn’t help but feel the hidden motive for the final room was to push tourism for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Over all the exhibition is worth a visit if you are interested in graphic/communication design, chinese culture, fashion or architecture and if you’re a customer of HSBC you can get £3 off if you buy tickets through their Internet banking!