Something More visit

4 designers based in leeds
moved in with Hungry Sandwich Club
what can design do... create action, change how you feel, change mindsets
anti style/ anti sector
never stop questioning what you are doing
collaborate with people better than us
no such thing as a boring project
be uncomfortable - okay to make it up
whats the reason to exist?

art meet the future - York

welcome to our city -  'how could the space be used as a gateway into the city' series of windows, artists to exhibit work, more light into space with the acetate - people interacting on Instagram/ social media interactions

Heart research - guidelines, icons/gradient - got people involved and got down to what the company were truly about
Gap - how to make dull messages engaging - had to stick to brand guidelines but made animations
Ozmo fridge sponge - humanising a problem - character of a sponge - branding them

Something More coming in has inspired me, with having projects such as Osmo which I would like to inspire to create within my practice and ambitions. The concept of creating something fun out of something mundane also resonated with me due to wanting to create positive and fun designs that aim to make people smile from something that is not necessarily fun.

Research - Softening Power: Cuteness as Organizational Communication Strategy in Japan and the West

Iain MACPHERSONMacEwan University, Faculty of Fine Arts and Communication, Assistant Professor
Teri Jane BRYANTHaskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Associate Professor Emerita

cute as being a organisational communication - visual or verbal

This paper describes the use of cute communications (visual or verbal, and in various media) as an organizational communication strategy prevalent in Japan and emerging in western countries. 

This is most commonly or obviously the case with corporate branding, such as mascots marketing a company or character goods produced by it, or the kawaii attributes of actor spokespeople, advertising jingles, and logo font, along with other design elements.

The strategic intent of such communications may be to persuade stakeholders to adopt a specific behaviour, such as buying, voting, or recycling; to inculcate a more generally favourable impression; or even to improve information intake (Nittono, Fukushima, Yano & Moriya, 2012).

Organizations want to endear themselves to stakeholders; to make their message content simpler and engaging; and in the case of impersonal or authority-wielding institutions, to soften their image.

We should be aware of how centres of authority (state agencies, educators, large companies, etc.) attempt to associate themselves with smiling babies, innocent children, talking animals, pretty colours ... funny creatures and akarui (cheerful things). If those in positions of power can convince those below them that they are in fact not intimidating, the task of persuading, influencing and controlling them becomes easier. (2000a, p. 150)

Cute Communications in the West – Past and Present Practice and Research - 46

Konrad Lorenz’s 1940s Kindenschema findings (e.g., 1943). He and following ʻcute-ologists’(?)4 explore a basic human response to physical features found in babies – roundness, fragility and clumsiness, big heads and eyes, short limbs, etc. – but also in similarly aligned adults, animals, cartoons, and even machines or other objects. Such cuteness often signals or suggests a range of personality traits, such as vulnerability, playfulness, affection, curiosity, innocence, and naiveté (or ignorance and inferiority). In Lorenz’s terms, perceived cuteness “releases” protective and adoring reactions in people.

cuteness in all its cultural and national flavours is increasingly drawing attention

Unlike scholars and journalists, advertisers and other communications practitioners never really forgot the ʻsoftening power’ of cute in western culture, and they are now turning it to ever more, and more effective, uses (Vranica, 2012).

Many of today’s most iconic personified trademarks, such as Tony the Tiger and the Michelin Man, range between fifty and a hundred years in age or more (Callcott & Lee, 1995). And western corporations have not been the only organizations to thereby soften up their stakeholders. Disney’s critters very effectively emitted a range of U.S. wartime communications, from propaganda to military training videos. 

Wall Street Journal’s advertising editor, Suzanne Vranica (2012), attributes today’s trend in mascot messaging to the communicative affordances and constraints of social media. The platform’s normative informality means ʻsoft sells’ become imperative, while its interactivity animates avatars with compelling ʻvirtual personality’ as they engage in cheerful dialogue with loyal or angry fans.

Its emerging or ensconced ubiquity is pointed to by a panoply of markers: the normalization of pink colours in menswear (Baker, 2012); kawaii simultaneously establishing mainstream and underground cachet (Kretowick, 2014); a ʻbrony’ fan culture of men from all walks of life who adore the ʻMy Little Pony’ cartoon (Wigler, 2014); the cupcake craze (Emery, 2014); children’s movies with in-jokes for parents (McKay, 2011); adults who read children’s books (Graham, 2014); the fact that an emoji-only social site has been launched (Kingston, 2014); an ever-expanding number of cute little cars (Patton, 2008); and perhaps above all, the internet’s infinitude of kittens, lolcats, and babies.

What McVeigh (2000b) pointed out of Hello Kitty’s reign in Japan now holds true for kitsch in the west: it appeals to females as ʻcute’ when they are girls, as ʻcool’ when they are adolescent, and then as ʻcamp’ to women. As for men, most western metrosexuals don’t embrace cuteness per se, but they are modeling a masculinity that is consanguine with cuteness in its ʻpost-machismo’ (Ibsen, 2013).

Research - Does your mascot match your brands personality

Source: https://essay.utwente.nl/66053/1/Hoolwerff%20van%20Daniël%20-s%201116746%20scriptie.pdf

Master Thesis
Daniel van Hoolwerff S1116746

The modern age we live in has changed the way we experience information. Partly due to the rise of Internet’s Web 2.0, where simplistic and visual interaction is desired as a standard for user experience and the shift towards fully digital service, a brand’s window for information broadcasting towards consumers is shrinking each day.

A brand’s personality can often be translated through an ‘inner character’ emphasizing its goals and value

On a visual level, the corporate visual identity consists of all visible expressions and symbols of a brand (van Nistelrooij, 2012). According to Wallace (2006), the use of color, symbols and icons should be in congruence with the positioning of the brand to evoke the best possible brand experience. Thus, all visual elements should be in congruence with that of the brand’sarchetype.

Beside the use of logos, brands often implement a visual marketing strategy in which they are made to be actually ‘alive’ (Aaker & Fournier, 1995), by using brand mascots. Familiar examples of this are the Kool-Aid lemonade or the M&M’s both brought to life and loved tobe consumed by their surroundings. In other cases, an additional character is developed to personify the brand such as the fictitious Energizer Bunny running endlessly on its batteries

Mascots can help as a vehicle of this anthropomorphic translation of the brand towards the consumer. One reason for this is because mascots embrace the power of recognition (Brown, 2011), which is used to understand and process the experiences happening in our daily lives.

One reason for this is because mascots embrace the power of recognition (Brown, 2011), which is used to understand and process the experiences happening in our daily lives. Although one mightassume that brand mascots would be a little drawn out by its massive application in today’smarketing, the use of anthropomorphic characters for achieving brand recognition remains popular.

Anthropomorphic marketing had an enormous boost when legendary adman Leo Burnettstarted designing many famous brand mascots under his firm in the early 30’s. The MarlboroMan, Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Morris the Cat are only some examples of his successful creations in brand anthropomorphism (Hatch & Obermiller, 2010). From this point, brand mascots started appearing everywhere on products and throughout the media. Children often seem to be the most impressionable (Anistal, Liska, & Anitsal) and are often the main target group of these endorsers. This is best illustrated by looking at the breakfast cereals lane in a random supermarket; only a few products present their packaging without the use of a cheerful mascot character. 

Whether this is due to the automatic assumption by advertising agencies that a related fit is required, and therefore only mascots with visual overlap such as the Michelin Man made out of tires and the Pillsbury Doughboy made of dough are developed, or because only mascots which include this fit are often eligible for success, remains unknown.

Results based on the relevance of the proposed mascots in this study towards a brand in general have shown that attractiveness, open posture, cheerfulness and connectedness to its surroundings are characteristics that have a fit with brand mascots being perceived as adequate. As the other characteristics still contribute to adding character to the mascot from a brand archetype perspective, these characteristics should have a strong emphasis when designing a brand mascot. This is not very surprising, as most existing brand mascots seem happy, open and are nice to look at. Because brands can hold human characteristics (Aaker J. , 1997), they try to create a personality of which we want to be friends with, just like we choose who we become friends with in real life. Here, we are also triggered by attractiveness, openness and happiness.