So, to the people who ask me “Can I not just stick my logo on something and becomes branded?” The answer is no!

You should have consistency across your company and marketing so that you are creating a clear identity for your business, in time, the awareness of your brand will increase and your audience will feel they have made an informed selection when using your product or service.

Your brand not only needs to be aesthetic but also needs to define your product or service, how you would like to position yourself within the market and what your unique selling point is or what you are promising to achieve.

Can people tell it is your company if your logo was not on a particular piece of marketing? If the answer is no then you are going wrong somewhere along the line.

We would know a BT advert without the BT logo on by the shapes they use and the style of photography. We would know an Asda campaign by the colours and typefaces they use. These companies have spent thousands on branding and creating the right image and are seen by a wide audience, but that doesn’t mean that a small business or a sole trader can’t apply the same techniques and principles when branding their company,

In fact, I would say it’s more important to do so if you are smaller and you shouldn’t pay the hefty price tag either, it’s all about questioning yourself about who and what you are and how you want people to see you and how you want them to feel.

So, next time you do any marketing or decide you’re going to do a DIY advert, stand back and question whether it is promoting the right look, feel and promise of your company.

Or, just get a professional in to look at your overall brand and advise you on how to go forward. I can recommend a good one! : )

Photo by theonlyone courtesy of Flickr

It is a simple set of questions but if you apply the who, where, what, why to your campaigns it gives you a clearer understanding of your product or service and why people might buy into it – it also helps you keep it relevant to your audience.

If you define your audience as females for example, the who, where, what, why will help you identify exactly what kind of females these are. They could be career focussed business women, women with young families, environmentally conscious, love anything that sparkles – there are various groups that people can fit into and some of these groups will have a cross over, they maybe career focussed business women with a young family but you need to pin point where your product sits and what group you’re it aiming at.

Where your audience live, what area they live in and where they go, even down to what supermarket they shop at is important. People respond to different messages, colours and designs and these need to be targeted to your chosen group.

Have a look at how other advertising campaigns talk to their customers. You will get a different type of message from Waitrose than you will to Aldi customers and you will get a different design for Primark than you will for Monsoon. They are aimed at different people therefore they tap into that audiences emotions, aspirations and needs.

The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ are the areas where you have to be really clear on your product or service offer. You need to put yourself in someone else shoes and decide what they are going to get from you and why they would want it. Your USP (unique selling point) is important here. Why would they come to you if someone down the road is offering the same or similar? Is it because you are better value, do you provide a better service? If so, how do you provide a better service?

Questioning yourself and playing devils advocate is the best way to do this – put every barrier you can in your way so that what your offering is clear and concise and you always have to have something to back up your claims. The amount of times I have gone into a company and asked them what their USP is and when I’ve questioned it, it becomes apparent that they chose a string of words that sounded good but they have nothing to back it up. Just imagine if a customer were to question you or ask you to back up what you believe to be your USP – could you do it?

It is important to see how other companies advertise to similar audiences as I mentioned before. Big name brands spend thousands upon thousands of pounds profiling their customers and identifying their audiences and there’s a lot a small business can learn from looking at how they sell, where they sell and what techniques they are using.

You can also do your own research by sending out a simple questionnaire to your customers and finding out what they want and why, you can do this online free of charge with Survey Monkey and similar programmes or you can get people to fill in a quick tick sheet when they come in to your shop or place of work. You can even use a bit of bribery if it’s a long questionnaire or you think you are putting your customers out by asking them to give you their time - offer them something in return for the information. Once you have the data, use it wisely and listen to the feedback and use any negative feedback constructively to improve on what you currently have.

If you are doing your campaign yourself you should be set up with a clearer idea of how you want to sell and to what audience. If you are using a designer to create your campaign you are in the best position to brief them in on exactly what you want and you will get far better results than if you are unclear about your product or service.

Photo by Zaphgod (was Ugo Cei) courtesy of Flickr

I have a vast interest in social media and also in branding and design being both involved in the likes of twitter, blogging, facebook and Linkedin and being a designer creating branding for businesses along with advertising and marketing campaigns. I want to win so that I can prove my own personal experiment - the power of social media and branding and also promote ‘birds on the blog’ who have an avid audience of women who read blogs so what better place to get comments and views on the brand and start discussions.

So can I get enough people interested in my bid to become the Simple Star and win the competition?

I’ve blogged, tweeted, re tweeted, emailed, facebook’d, posted on Linkedin, commented and discussed about the products, campaigns, the competition, voting… but is this enough? I got into the top 10 in terms of votes, which was fantastic but there are some people ahead of me in the voting. What are they doing that I’m not? Will all my efforts of blogging and tweeting pay off as well as the votes?

I do wonder how much it means to the other people trying to win the competition and whether they have been using all the social media outlets they can to push the Simple brand and whether Simple have seen an increase in sales since the promotion has started. These things really interest me to see how effective the campaign has been and what other companies can learn from it.

There’s not long left in the competition so every vote counts, can I do this?

If you want to help me achieve the ultimate goal please vote at http://www.simple.co.uk/simple-stars/i+am+emily.aspx or go to my website http://www.iamemily.co.uk/contact where you can follow me on twitter, become a fan on facebook, become a contact on Linkedin and join in the fun.

And a massive thank you to all of you who have supported me and taken an interest and got me this far already.

Photo by geo3pea courtesy of Flickr

For those of you who are new to my campaign, I am trying to prove how social media can promote a brand and have been trying to do this through Twitter, facebook, linkedin, blogging both on my own site and birds on the blog so I have been a busy bee and hopefully all the hard work will pay off. So if you haven't done already please, please, please vote for me and pass the link to all your friends and family. It's a simple click, no need to fill in any forms or details just a press of the mouse and you're done! Thanks in advance, Emily ; )

Now I am well aware that the seriousness of a potential gas leak far out weighs having a stab at doing your own designs but in my opinion it should be against the law. Your brand, your design is your shop window it is what people base their opinions on, do you really want to cut corners and try and do it yourself or would you rather invest a little more and get the job done properly?

Sometimes you can also be too close to your own brand so you don’t see it like a designer does, they will think about the target audience, the marketing strategy, the design, the proposition, the colours, the wider picture and they will do it as an outsider, as someone who has not got an emotional attachment to the business. Believe me this makes a big difference! I can design logos and brands for anyone but when it comes to my own it’s a totally different ball game because I’m too close to it, so I have to distance myself and act like it’s not my company so that I have my ‘marketing head’ on instead of my ‘emotional and financial investment’ head on.

You might also not have the right tools for the job – the amount of times I have been sent ideas from clients done in a word document with clip art attached and they truly believe that this is a near finished piece of artwork, until of course they see it laid out by a professional with elements that they won’t have thought about and decent pictures that reflect the brand.

As most of you know I’m a sole trader and concentrate purely on Design and Marketing but I also offer website development, PR, Copywriting and Printing, I’m not a jack of all trades, I just have a close network of trusted individuals with many years in their particular field who I use for certain jobs. I have done all of the jobs listed and could learn those trades but I prefer to keep to what I am good at and continue to better myself in that area and leave the other jobs to people with the same outlook in their chosen career. So next time you’re sat in front of Word conjuring up your next marketing campaign – think about the effect that may have on your audience. If you’re wanting a cost effective designer to help and advise on any aspect of your brand, marketing or design - get in touch.

Photo by Mylla courtesy of Flickr

An Art Director in an advertising agency typically works closely with a Copywriter. You work as a creative team to arrive at an overall concept, the ‘big idea’ for a campaign, advert, mailer, brochure etc.

The Copywriter does what it says on the tin, they write the copy and are responsible for any of the textual content whereas the Art Director is responsible for the visual aspects within the team.

Working closely as a team means that there are often over laps where a visual is suggested by a Copywriter or a headline is suggested by an Art Director, this works really well as the team are bouncing ideas off each other to create the best execution of the final concept.

So what is the difference between an Art Director and a Graphic Designer? Again there are over laps between these titles. The overall difference is that the Art Director is involved in the concept side of things and will come up with the campaign idea from a marketing point of view as well as a visually stimulating angle. However, an Art Director is also expected to have experience and expertise of graphic design and technical knowledge of the production process (mainly print production). Old school Art Directors would always hand draw layouts and ideas but as we move with the times it is necessary for an Art Director to have expertise in key design programmes.

A Graphic designer usually focuses specifically on visual communication and the presentation of a layout. This will include typography, images, symbols and other graphics and is done primarily on the computer. I personally believe that the term ‘Graphic Designer’ is used to describe various disciplines that involve graphics or visual elements and is a confusing title as everyone has a different view on who or what is a Graphic Designer.

In the agency I worked for and many others around the country, you don’t have Graphic Designers you have Art Workers. The role of an Art Worker is to take an Art Directors drawings or designs and work them into a layout, doing amends from clients and finally getting the piece ready for print and making sure it adheres to specific print guidelines. An Art Director would over see this work to make sure it is on brand and in line with their overall design vision.

In my role as Art Director for my previous company I had worked my way from being an Art Worker and as I gained knowledge and experience made my way up to be an Art Director and because I had been taught the ‘old school’ disciplines at college I used a variety of drawing techniques and computer generated design to create my visuals and concepts. You get this more and more nowadays, as it is unlikely that straight after University you would walk into an Art Director position. This is because you need to have hands on experience of the industry, marketing background, print production knowledge as well as being technically able and have the capability of idea generation. The combination of these disciplines only comes with time and a lot of groundwork.

Within an agency you will have a Creative Director above the Art Director who will have been trained as a Copywriter or an Art Director and sometimes you will have two Creative Directors from both disciplines. They will have years of experience behind them working on a range of campaigns usually for major clients. The Creative Director has the final say on anything that goes out of the agency and is involved in the day to day running of the studio specifically looking after the Art Directors and Copywriters where as a Studio Manager will look after the Art Workers and make sure they are fulfilling their roles.

The majority of the liaisons with the client are done with the Client Services team – a separate team that have their own hierarchy much like in the studio. You have to work closely with this team aswell as they are more often than not your voice where the client is concerned.

So, for me working for myself after being in PR, image, photography and model sourcing and buying, an Art Worker and predominantly as an Art Director and having a stint working directly with clients – who am I?

When people ask me what I do I tend to say I am a designer as this seems to cover off all aspects, I never say I am the Director of… or the Owner of… as these titles don’t describe what you do on a day to day basis. My main role day to day is idea generation, design and marketing so when it comes to summarising my company I describe it as ‘design and marketing’ as these are both such broad areas that it encompasses everything I offer.

Having someone who has the experience and has worked in a variety of areas and disciplines is beneficial to your campaign as they will pull on all the resources and knowledge they have to create the best overall result for you and your business. I would always look at a persons work and whether I like their style, their personality and whether they have ample experience rather than looking at their job title as they can be misleading.

I used to be an Art Director in an advertising agency and was used to using art workers in the studio to put my ideas into practice but even then, there were some jobs that I wanted to keep close and see through from start to finish – now it is my company I seem to be even worse. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, I just care about each piece of work I do and want to put my own ideas and my own stamp on it – that’s my passion and my reason for going down the route of self employment.

I guess the key is time management, which I think I am relatively good at but what puts it into a whirl is long phone calls, unexpected work and general daily distractions, I need to learn to keep things short and not be distracted by twitter and facebook so easily, even if they are business focussed.

The fear, for someone self employed is that whilst the work is rolling in you don’t want to say no to anything as you don’t know when the next lull will be when you’re sat at your desk tapping your fingers, so you take it all on and have to stretch yourself over nights and weekends so that the quality of work isn’t suffering.

In a nutshell, it’s all a learning curve of being a sole trader, I should thank my lucky stars that it is all going well and I am getting lots of work in!

Well, my blog was the last thing on my list for today, so I’ll go relax and might even look at booking a holiday : )

Photo by Cathérine courtesy of Flickr

After my GCSE’s I stuck to my strengths and did A Level Art and Design, Design Technology and Media Studies. My art at this stage was experimental and I enjoyed looking at other artists and what had influenced them and using their techniques and fusing them together. I went down the fashion route in Design Technology designing and making a ‘space age’ dress for the Millennium and researching the fashion industry through the ages and in Media we covered everything from films and newspapers to advertising and iconography which got me fired up and interested in the media world.

After completing my A Levels I did a Foundation Course in Art and Design and a specialist college in Leeds, Leeds college of Art and Design or Jacob Kramer as it was then called. I opted to do this course as it covered a variety of disciplines under the banner of Art and design and I wanted to try out different areas before making a career decision. After doing several modules covering a multitude of topics from fine art to interior design I chose to  give Graphic Design and Interior Design a trial. I discovered that I wasn’t as interested in Interior Design as I had first thought and it was too technical and structured with all the 3D drawings and planning, I realised that I wanted to be an ideas person and have flexibility with my work and combine graphics and techniques and this was better suited to Graphic Design. So I had now chosen my specialist area and completed my course concentrating on this discipline.

After my foundation course I went on at the same college to do a BA Hons in Visual Communication, I knew at this point that I wanted to focus my efforts on advertising and Graphic Design and although the course catered for this, I found that it was pushing you to do advertising as a student rather than showing you what goes on in industry and giving you the computer, technical know how to survive in business. I decided after completing my BA to do the 2nd year of a HND in Advertising which I had overlooked before as I assumed the accolade of having a BA would be higher on a employers list, but I was wrong, what an employer looks for is the quality of your portfolio and your ability to show how you can apply your thoughts, ideas and designs to their client base.

At the time I felt I had wasted 3 years on a BA when I could have done 2 years on a HND and come out with more but it was all a learning experience so I decided to battle on and my goal was to get a decent portfolio together so I could walk into an agency and be confident that I could get the job.

An important and valuable part of the HND course was that you went into advertising agencies and saw exactly what went on in the industry, worked on live briefs, understood the technical side of things and the hierarchy within an agency. I was prepared when I left to walk into an art workers position where as before I blindly thought I would walk into an Art Directors position!

The evening of my final show I put my portfolio out and a joint project I had worked on with a friend which landed us both art worker jobs in a busy studio doing automotive adverts for car supermarkets and also the likes of Ford and Renault. It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for and the pay was appalling but it was my foot in the door in what I knew was a cut throat industry. Whilst I was there I learnt very valuable mac skills and how to design quickly and with precision, we had to meet strict, tight deadlines and deal with getting adverts to press, but I was constantly looking for jobs in an advertising agency that had a variety of clients and I could push myself further.

After 6 months I got a job offer with an agency in Leeds who had a client base of Halifax, BT, Lloyds TSB and Damart amongst others. I started off as an art worker but had a fantastic Creative Director who wanted to see me succeed and make it as an Art Director (my ultimate goal). He taught me everything he knew about Direct marketing and gave me opportunities to push myself up the rankings. I worked on the creative side in the PR department, I worked with printers, art buying, model sourcing, attended client meetings and after putting my all in and having great mentors within the agency I was rewarded with my dream job title of ‘Art Director’. I got my own clients, I presented at client meetings, I pitched for new business and loved every minute of it. I stayed at the same agency for 6 years and that was down to the people who worked there and the variety of clients and opportunities I was given. The only reason I left was a move down to the South of the country when I decided to branch out on my own.

Looking back it’s been hard work getting where I am today but it was worth every single minute.

The one key piece of advice I would offer anyone of any age is to do work experience. Don’t ‘think’ you know what goes on in a particular industry, see for yourself and talk to people in those jobs already. A lot of further education courses are taught by people who have either never been in that particular industry or were in it years ago and times change quickly and you need to see that for yourself. I was privileged enough to have a tutor who’d worked at Saatchi and Saatchi and kept himself informed of what was happening in the advertising world.

I would also urge anyone wanting to get into graphics and advertising to brush up on their mac skills, as this is where you will be starting out life in an agency. You will take other peoples designs and art work them, which is a valuable experience and should never be sniffed at, people who do this are talented individuals and it’s a key part of the process but if you want to be more of an ideas person you’ll need to prove yourself in this area first the majority of the time.

I hope this helps anyone looking to get into the design world or deciding what they want to do in further education. Whatever you end up doing it is all a learning experience and nothing is ever wasted it just moulds you into what you become in the future.

Photo by laffy4k courtesy of Flickr