Andy Chambers - Design Symposium 2009

The Liverpool Symposium finally arrived and myself and three classmates were eager to get there on time. As we arrived at Lime Street Station, we were slightly confused on where the location was. We found ourselves walking around Liverpool, portfolios in hand asking random people where the symposium could be. We finally walked in the first talk 15 minutes late but we were lucky not to miss much. Andy Chambers was the first speaker and his talk was great. He is co-Founder of Digit, one of the UK’s longest established digital design companies and had a black D&AD pencil for the National Gallery’s Grand Tour. He explained his area of design goes from illustration to advertising and his main area is using branding within channel advertising on television and the internet. He touched on the D&AD brief and explained an interesting strategy as looking at the brief, as a business objective by finding a way to match the brand and the consumer together will find your answer in the brief.

Andy explained different methods in advertising by exploiting things what we see and hear everyday. He advised we should use everything we have to get ideas. Being ‘’Crazy’’ and thinking outside the box will make you stand out in the crowd. When reading a brief, Andy said the insight is to find the solution of the problem and a way of doing this is to engage with the target audience. Using things what are today’s interests like Facebook and Twitter can give you an idea as your researching the audience by reading g there thoughts. Andy also touched on how branding would act and differ from the ideas you think of. He also touched on the Metro brief which was usful. All though we arrived late, the talk was very useful.