Design on the mind

Tattooing has been used throughout history for many different purposes and has strong roots in many cultures. Recently there has been a surge in the popularity of tattooing in Europe and the USA, mainly as a form of self expression. These modern tattoos take their artistic influences from many places. I find the Japanese style of tattooing to be particularly beautiful. We are talking serious art here folks, fantastic isn’t it?

Please excuse my heavy use of pictures in this blog but I know you are finding it just as fascinating as I am!

A big Thank you to James who works for Total Tattoo magazine for allowing me to use his pictures of the London Tattoo convention 2007.  

The recent growth in tattoo culture has inevitably led to advertisers jumping on the band wagon, particularly where the brand is designed to appeal to a young audience. Levis are always on the ball:

Converse use a similar style of advertising, but here you can see that the model has actually been ‘branded’ with the Converse logo. The advertisement suggests the consumer’s  loyalty to the Converse brand by him ‘wearing’ it permanantly.

It is not just the ’street wear’ brands that are doing this either, have a look at the Chanel eyewear advert below:

However, talking of brand loyalty I thought I would include this picture that I find absolutely hilarious, especially in the light of Google’s recent behaviour with the Blogger platform. See Randa’s blog: Google is getting to big for it’s britches. I suppose if you are going to tattoo your favourite brand on to your body you had better hope that you are always going to like it!!! (I think the font is a bit wrong too?)

I absolutely love this advert for Fransesco Biasia purses and handbags. Obviously it is not a real tattoo but they are still cashing in on the idea.

These Brazilian adverts for sandals are certainly eye catching:

Gisele, the model, is not really a heavily tattooed girl but they have certainly made it look very realistic.

I would just like to include one more advertising picture for Playstation that is great fun although a little dark. Even though it isn’t really about the tattoo; the image still emulates the sub culture:

Thanks to Ads of the world for providing all the advertising pictures.

Can you think of any other examples of advertisers cashing in on trends? How do you feel about the increased popularity of tattooing? Are you a heavily tattooed person who is annoyed by the trend ruining your individuality?

Toni

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Let’s face it, these days most people use the internet as their first port of call, for information, communication and of course shopping…even my Mum buys online now! So you would probably be struggling as a business if you didn’t have an online presence of some description. But let’s not forget the bigger picture; branding, logo and print are still vital. To successfully market a business you need to have an understanding of that sector and have the ability to consider all media and how they complement and connect with each other. Stay classy!

I think this is the reason that a lot of design agencies are diversifying and are now jumping on the digital band wagon in order to offer a complete marketing solution. This all makes sense in theory as there would be no point in employing one group to handle print and television and another that specializes in digital to handle the online stuff. However it would be a mistake to choose an agency that didn’t have the experience required in the fast moving world of the web, to really give the solution that was needed. There is the danger that the website would be seen as just another touch point and the scope of the project would be completely underestimated.

The best web designs are always simple for the user but incredibly sophisticated underneath. This takes planning, knowledge and experience of the medium. Firstly work out what it is you want to achieve, do your market research and then choose a design company that can offer you a website design tailored to the needs of your business. And don’t forget the bigger picture, you will gain a more pervasive and ongoing communication if you embrace all the marketing tools at your disposal.

Toni

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