I thought this photo was a good metaphor for the above question- and neatly leads to another one too- Can you afford not to invest in your brand?

I asked my son George to take a snap of this long suffering but patient hound as we passed his owner’s car on the A30, to be honest we couldn’t believe what we were looking at!

Perhaps the couple in question had been thinking about buying an estate car but then thought to heck with it and opted for a sportier model, but forgot all about Fido here- or perhaps the dog in the boot is a new edition to the family? Who knows.

Businesses and organisations across the world face the same dilemma with their brands. With our clients often the very first thing we ask is whether their brand reflects their currents status and the expertise they offer. After all the original values you held when you first started out may well have become outdated and your branding can easily become long in the tooth as a result.

If you need to upgrade your brand to fit the size you are now, then we can usually help. If you’re not sure email us we’ll send you some useful tips for free!

The first one up is from the German arm of Toyota, this app lets you print off multiple markers and lay them out in order to build a little course for your Toyota to drive around. They even include a nice community element by allowing you to upload your video to the website for others to vote on. Check out the video below and the app itself here

The second app I found is actually another print and augmented reality integration; this week’s Grazia magazine has been realeased with multiple augmented reality markers allowing you to interact with the magazine content. Interestingly, this also extends onto the iPhone so you can interact with the content on the go too. Check out the video below for more details from Grazia

We’ve just booked our tickets for this years Future of Web Design event and to say the team is excited is a massive understatement! We’ll be learning from the best in the business about where they see the web going and how we can help it get there!

There will be more about this closer to the time, not that we’re counting the days (it’s 90 days away) or anything.

Baroness Greenfield in full flow

Last week we attended ‘The Edge’ organised by the Design Business Association (DBA). The event looked at the links between risk, creativity and success, kicking off with a day of workshops at the RIBA building in Portland Place. Day two saw around 300 delegates gather at The Circus Space in Hoxton where we were entertained, provoked and stimulating by an eclectic list of speakers, such as Baroness Susan Greenfield of The Royal Institution who  illuminated us on the links between creativity and intellect, Gary Low, Executive Chef at the Ivy not only fed us but also gave us his views about leadership and TV Producer Russ Malkin talked inspiringly about the links between risk and creativity.

Finally Rob Seymour from Seymour Powell wowed us all with his captivating talk, in which he extolled the virtue of watching people interact with objects and processes to learn how to improve things- It’s not what people say it’s what they do.

At the end of the day Deborah Dawton announced that the DBA would be working with 15 ‘bright sparks’ in 2010, and revealed that during the lunch break the various design ‘pioneers’ had identified several ‘high fliers’ who will now be invited to a series of exclusive masterclasses in 2010. Clearly  I must have said something of merit to Erik Spiekermann because they called my name out! For more information about the DBA and The Edge visit the site below or Red Cube Marketing’s blog here.

http://dbatheedge.com/home

Around six months ago we started searching for a spiral staircase to access the mezzanine in the studio, so when Emily’s dad mentioned that he just happened to be removing one from his office in London we jumped at the chance.

A splendid Victorian cast iron staircase soon arrived in a hundred pieces much like a giant airfix kit, we had it shot blasted and powder coated, then thanks to the expertise of our friends Mac and Dean it was carefully put back together -(without plans I should add!) and now looks very much at home.

We’ve built a perimeter wall around the mezzanine with shelving so ultimately we ‘ll have a sort of chill out area surrounded by books. We originally considered painting the walls white but then it occurred to me that we could do something a bit more interesting….

So here are my ideas- we’re planning to change the surface on a regular basis all being well, so if you have any bright ideas do let us know. The very best will go into a draw and the selected ones will win something lovely and see their ideas, er, on the wall!

Lego- I thought this might look playful and is inspired by James May’s exploits!

Cars- A wall of solid traffic, as above will no doubt require numerous trips to car boot sales.

Paul Smith Stripes- I’m a big fan of Paul’s stripes. So if he can do a mini, we can certainly do a wall..

Dazzle Camouflage- This amazing modernist painting style was used to disguise the direction and size of british ships during the 1st and 2nd World Wars, perhaps it would work here?

Fruity- as the name suggests, giant fruit stickers could look rather tasty.

Newspaper- Yonks ago I used to regularly visit  a Chinese Restaurant which had Chinese newspaper as wallpaper.

Let us know if  you have any ideas!

As part of Flash on the Beach, Chris and I were invited along to an evening hosted by Adobe to debate the role of a ‘Designer’ vs ‘Developer’ in a modern web/design agency. The panel included speakers such as Andy Polaine, Carlos Ulloa (Papervision 3D) and  Andrew Shorten (Flash Evangelist) to name-drop a few…

At one point I actually found myself sitting up with the panel discussing whether the new features of Flash and the complexities behind the authoring tool meant it was becoming inaccessible for a designer trained in the arts rather than code. Fortunately, Adobe had laid on a few beers beforehand which certainly loosened up the debate…

Over dinner we found ourselves sitting next to Carlos Ulloa! An incredibly modest guy who was recently voted by .Net magazine as one of the top 20 most influential web-designers. Chris and I got some very interesting insights from one of the masters in the field of online 3D experiences.

The whole debate was filmed by Adobe; as soon as we discover where it can be found we’ll be sure to let you know!

Chris and I spent three days in Brighton geting the lowdown on all the latest cutting edge developments in the rich media world of Flash at www.flashonthebeach.com

It was a fascinating insight into the minds of some of the industry’s leading Flash exponents and certainly left us both with ample food for thought! We’ll be posting some of the knowledge we gleaned over the next few days. Watch this space…