In today's saturated and highly competitive world of business, it can be all too easy for a company to blend into the background  and become just another generic, forgettable brand. To stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impression on consumers, many international brands are turning to serif typefaces to infuse their branding with a touch of elegance, sophistication, and timelessness.

‘ In order to stand out, we have to know what we stand for” - Simon Sinek. The above quote from marketing legend Simon Sinek is something that really struck a chord with me when I first read it. It’s a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with but, as is demanded by a Tweet (the medium that I saw it posted on), it’s been beautifully distilled into a few words here. The list of clients Slice has helped brand - or rebrand - is ever growing and ‘what a company stands for’ is something I always try to keep at the forefront of my mind when delivering our Marketing Lab workshops. So strongly do I believe in it, in fact, that I’ve presented it to hundreds of kids across the region as part of my work with FEO and their drive to help inspire entrepreneurship in young people. However, how many brands can really claim to live by this? As is often the case, the best advice is easy to endorse, embrace and recite; much harder to practice. We all want to stand out and a flashy logo can help with that but it will only take a brand so far. Brand is much more than just appearance, it’s the promise you make with the customer. History is a cruel mistress and we’ve seen many brands build strong customer loyalty, only to see it near-instantly dissipate over one wrong step. But I was reminded of how a brand can fully embody this idea - perhaps to a fault, only time will tell - when fashion brand  Patagonia announced big plans this week.

Ai has become very well known in recent times and the design world has been no exception to this. I’ve seen a lot of designers fearing the consequences of Ai with the main worry being loss of jobs for hundreds, even thousands of designers but I believe we will soon be co-creating with Ai, resulting in more efficiency and better results. Speedy design prototyping could be done with an Ai design tool where basic sketches are scanned in, a few details are entered and the sketches are rendered into a prototype in alignment with the company’s design style. Airbnb has been known to already be doing this, generating design components with production-ready code from hand-drawn wireframe sketches using machine learning and computer vision-enabled Ai. One of the first Ai tools to really catch my attention was the new platform, DALL E 2 that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.

This week I listened to a TapeNotes podcast with popular dance artist Fred Again and he had some beneficial advice about dealing with those moments when you lack your natural creativity so I thought I’d write this week’s blog with some tips from Fred and some from myself about how you can start creating again.

Recently I came across a Twitter thread that was quite interesting discussing the dangers of minimalist design and the death of detail. Being a big fan of minimalist design I was naturally pessimistic about this thread but as I read more I realised that it had some really good arguments so I thought I’d share them with you in this week’s blog. 

It strikes fear into the hearts of us all. And perhaps even more acutely in the hearts of business owners. Recession. Are we heading for one?

No matter what industry you work in, no matter what product or service you provide, it’s fair to say that a harmonious relationship yields the best results. In the creative and marketing industry, there’s a common, if perhaps rarely mentioned, argument about whether companies should outsource their efforts to an agency or build an in-house team. And as with everything in life there are pros and cons to both sides.

I probably shared the same view as most people about TikTok when it first arrived, thinking it was just a phase that would slowly fade out. As TikTok blew up it was a sad realisation that I wasn’t a young kid anymore and the latest trend just wasn’t appealing to me. I thought this was the new Vine; funny videos designed for endless scrolling, but when I saw the dancing trend sweep across the platform and beyond, I knew this was something different.

After listening to Rob Brydon’s new podcast with John Cleese it reminded me of the things I learned from Cleese’s appearance on the Conan podcast and most of all his book Creativity. John is one of few people who I feel really speaks accurately about the creative process and the way he views creativity really resonates with me.