Creative recruitment

Posted by: Sean
On: 16 February 2012

Big shoes need filling…

We're looking for an excellent and versatile creative, who knows how to take an idea and really bring it to life, and has a great eye for both design and typography.

We need someone who appreciates integrated media and can be as diverse and interesting as the brands and channels we work across – from experiential, advertising and sales promotion to direct marketing, digital and PR.

Whilst this person's main responsibilities will be in a design/art directing capacity there's also a massive opportunity to be involved in conceptual development and idea generation and the ideal candidate will be a good, strong thinker as well as a Mac whizz.

They will also need to be confident and have the ability to sell ideas and designs….both internally and externally….so strong presentation skills are key.

As we're quite a small department there'll also be times when they'll need to muck in, roll their sleeves up and get on with the odd bit of artwork – this isn't a place for prima donnas.

What it is definitely a place for is someone who really wants to be challenged. Perhaps someone with an untapped well of creativity ready to finally break out of somewhere that limits their role – the only thing that will hold them back with us is themselves.

This is also definitely a role for someone who wants to be part of something special….we're a great bunch of people and as well as working hard we have a fantastic culture.

If this sounds like you, get in touch.

Who's the Daddy?

Posted by: Paul
On: 13 December 2011

Who’s the daddy?

For years we’ve lived with the belief that we were going to do better than our parents. Our jobs would be better, our houses bigger and we'd live longer. For now it looks like only the last one of those is likely to be true. From a world of ease and everything, the picture has suddenly got darker. Rising university fees, a lack of jobs, collapsing pensions (for those that have them) and spiralling costs.

But it’s not all bleak. The one thing that humans are amazing at is adaptation. Recessions make labour cheaper, forcing manufacturers and retailers to look at increasing cost efficiency. They make people challenge a whole range of pre-held perceptions and they encourage individuals who are possibly unemployed to start up their own micro businesses.

Nothing can hold a good entrepreneur down - Bill Gates started Microsoft during the oil crisis in the mid 70’s and Colgate started one year before the Depression of 1807. There are significant areas of opportunity for businesses and individuals, both in the areas of technology and social media, and in green, sustainabletechnology. So whilst the next 2-3 years will be tough, perhaps we’ll end up doing better than our parents after all?

More or Less?

Posted by: Paul
On: 8 September 2011

The web has brought massive structural changes to our society. But one that we find fascinating is that whilst more information is available to more of us than ever before, bizarrely many people are becoming more insular in their knowledge. If you let consumers tightly select their information choice, they’re not exposed to other information. Anyone who has read an online newspaper will realise this. You only click on the sections and stories that interest you. Read a ‘traditional’ printed newspaper and you’ll flick from page to page, invariably you’ll also read something that may not have immediately appealed to you. One you certainly wouldn’t have read in its on-line format.

So although there is way more information available to us, we are using far less.

However this is just the beginning and we’re already on the way to creating our own ‘newspapers’. We may only see exactly the type of news items we’re interested in. We imagine your average brit may well only want to hear about football, celebrity gossip, TV, topline UK politics and of course the occasional ‘red-top’ story (‘Boy eaten by shark’ or ‘Vicar sleeps with choirboy’). Exposure to any news and/or opinion outside of our field of interest, which may actually inspire us or be of great value, will be lost. One recent example saw a colleague change his shopping habits. Whilst thumbing through a copy of the Times he discovered the outrageous amounts of salt in his favourite bread. He’s now switched to a healthier slice, but he wouldn’t have done had he not stumbled upon the article in question.

So it would seem on this occasion that less really isn’t more at all.