Hot take: Screens are everywhere. We’ve been progressively looking at screens in more and more places ever since the first little rectangles came into our homes in the 1940s. Even the billboard, the hero of traditional brand communication, is now more commonly a screen. In the US, the amount of digital billboards has doubled since just 2016.

Our exposure to video content is exploding, to the point where it seems almost irresponsible for a brand not to consider how it feels when in motion. Brands are increasingly being made with movement baked in from the start rather than added on at the end. For example, our identity for Big Pulse Dance Alliance, or the recent DixonBaxi identity for Paddington Central, with its responsive, moving ‘sundial’ at the centre.

In some ways, motion design is still a new frontier for design and communication. It’s a bit of a wild west, making us design cowboys, herding our pixels and rustling some keyframes.

With that in mind, what should be the key considerations before saddling up and creating some crafted motion design?

Feel

When I think of branding and storytelling, it’s never just about the logo or the colour palette, it’s how the brand feels when you meet it and say ‘howdy!’. Feel is the keyword here—at O Street, we ask clients how they’d describe their brand as a dinner guest, to get a sense of that personality. Communicating this is where motion design really shines. When someone sees something move, they have a subconscious connection to the personality of the movement. Of course, audiences can read your tagline and look at your product, but when the brand is moving, you’re looking in a different way, and getting a feel for character.

Woah, Easy

Seeing motion graphics is closer to looking at the world and nature than looking at a poster. Easing is one of the most common tools we use in motion graphics, the practice of smoothly slowing the beginning and end of a movement. Not only to make the movement look smoother and more characterful, it’s about making something feel like it has weight. In real life, an object with weight needs to accelerate and decelerate as energy is applied to it. Even when animating something abstract, like letterforms or vector shapes, without this easing, it just looks wrong. This is how people view motion—subconscious and emotional, in the gut rather than the brain. And it’s exciting as heck because you can write new formulas for communication that static design doesn’t allow for.

Tricks of the Trade

What’s more, the new frontier isn’t just about how motion is applied, but how it’s made. Tools are evolving; we’re seeing more potential for accessible generative animation, in both 2D and 3D, as well as code-driven animation and interaction. Taking this a step further, there’s Luke and Jody Hudson-Powell who are creating and handing over custom tools to the client, to generate their own organic 3D cellular animations – next level!

Hold Your Horses

But with a new frontier always comes a level of responsibility. Because we know that it can all be too much; motion can excite, inform, distract, guide, bring a sense of harmony or conversely it can overwhelm. In the current attention economy, with a screen filled with content at every turn, our attention and time have become finite resources. Daniels, the creators of Everything Everywhere All at Once spoke about this responsibility when making their film. For them, to ask for two hours of their audience’s attention, “the only responsible thing to do in return was to blow their minds”.

I’m not saying that motion design needs to blow people’s minds, but it’s important to maintain the craft and not simply add to the noise and chaos of the screens all around us. There is a responsibility to make things that are beautiful and meaningful. And remember, don’t squat with your spurs on.

—George

If you’re ready to make your brand move, get in touch!

When I started at O Street, I was the only woman in the team amongst a bunch of beards and beers. Meeting the Glasgow creative scene for the first time at a design festival, my experience was much the same. This introduction to working within the design industry was at odds with my recent, predominantly female college experience. Where were all the women?

My Graphic Design degree class at Edinburgh College of Art had 11 graduates; only one of those graduates identified as male. As we approached our graduation in 2014, there was an undeniable air of optimism for us to boost the ranks of female graphic design graduates. On reflection, we were probably just making up the numbers. According to Graphic Designer Surveyed published in 2015 by GraphicDesign&, over half of emerging graduates were women. This is a startling fact to consider when, just a few rungs up the ladder, only 20% of partners at graphic design firms were women.

Despite my bubble-bursting introduction to the lack of gender diversity in graphic design and the industry generally, I never felt ‘othered’ by the O Street team. My gender never hindered or indeed influenced my time here. I am fortunate to be mentored by two genuine, inspiring and compassionate leaders, David and Neil. As a result, I have thrived as part of this creative family—going from a fresh-faced Junior to Creative Director at one of the best design agencies in the UK.

So, what’s the situation now? Are things any better nine years on?

The gender disparity, while improving, still exists across the industry. As reported by Kerning the Gap, while 63% of graphic design students are women, only 17% are Creative Directors. We know that having female leader visibility is vital to pushing change—something that Natalie Maher (founder of Kerning the Gap) identified in creating her mentorship programme. So, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day by highlighting some of the incredible women at the forefront of design.

We have changemakers like Jessica Walsh, who founded her agency, &Walsh, in 2019, one of the 0.1% of creative agencies owned by women. A vocal advocate for women and non-binary representation in the industry, Jessica launched a non-profit initiative, Ladies, Wine & Design offering mentorship and networking events around the world. Check out Ashleigh Robertson and Lorraine Smith who currently run the Glasgow division. Ones to watch…

Speaking of ones to watch, Ilka were the OG female figureheads for me as a budding designer—I was initially introduced to Lisa and Laura as the first LWD Glasgow hosts and celebrated later as they launched their design agency. They’ve gone on to become the first B Corporated certified studio in Scotland. Aspirational indeed; they set a precedent for a women-led design agency in Glasgow.

In more recent times, Sachini Imbuldeniya took pioneering steps to combat the lack of diversity in the industry, specifically the barriers facing women, people of colour, people living with disabilities, and people from a working-class backgrounds. She founded Studio Pi in 2020, a photography and illustration agency that champions the underrepresented. Their manifesto centres around bringing a fresh perspective to clients and brands, by creating a fairer world for underrepresented producers, illustrators and photographers.

Another headliner who has created a studio making iconic work for global clients is Rejane Dal Bello. Author of Citizen First Designer Second, Rejane refined her craft at Dunbar Studio and Wolff Ollins before launching her own studio. Rejane specialises in design with social needs in mind, exploring how simple design ideas can make a real impact.

Despite these pioneering figureheads, it’s worth acknowledging that there is still a way to go before we achieve a balance of gender, both in the design industry and in society in general. Among a myriad of issues, everyday sexism, prejudices, systemic discrimination and the gender pay gap contribute to this ‘lag’ in women in leadership. I can only hope that, as an industry, we can continue to build on the changing landscape that has started to emerge in recent years and champion those who deserve recognition.

Now when I look around our studio, I’m proud to see a strong, solid team of eight folks, five of whom are creative, ambitious and interesting women. I appreciate working with each of them every day and look forward to what the future holds for them (and us as a studio!).

This blog isn’t exactly an entirely new take, but we’d like to use it as an opportunity to share resources—tell us your favourite inspiring creative women, women-led studios, podcasts or authors. Where are all the women? We’re right here!

—Tessa

Relevant Reading:

Design by Women
It’s Nice That: Follow Their Lead
Design Week: Women are studying design – so where are all the female creative directors?
The Floating Magazine: People – Jessica Walsh
Creative Boom: Studio Pi

Women-led studios:

Practise for Everyday Life
Sail Creative
Rejane Dal Bello
Together Design
Salt and Sister
Studio Nari

Disclaimer: This blog is written from personal experience. I’m discussing a small part of the industry’s overall lack of representation and aware that many underrepresented people are affected by this disparity. I have not intentionally excluded anyone. However, please let me know of any errors.

If you’ve been anywhere near Glasgow, you’ll have seen that it’s almost time for Glasgow Film Festival— posters and banners can be seen all over the city! The film festival takes place at the beloved GFT and other venues from the 1st-12th of March. As always, it’s an incredible selection; we’ve narrowed down a few of our favourites below.

Anna – The Civil Dead

I’ve been looking forward to seeing The Civil Dead for a while now. I love understated mumblecore films that gently amble along focusing on seemingly mundane relationships with not a whole lot of action. The Civil Dead sounds like it’s gonna fit the bill perfectly as GFF says, it humorously ponders the importance of friendship over self-destructive loneliness—cute!

George – Driving Mum

An Icelandic comedy seems super intriguing – I love cinema as an insight into a culture different to your own, and comedy is especially good for this, as what other people find funny can be really revealing, unique but also universal. I love how Driving Mum undercuts the usually free and fun road trip genre with something as serious as death, and obligation to fulfil promises, it seems like the perfect setup for some deadpan laffs!

David – So I Married an Axe Murderer

I hold my hands up, it’s a pretty bad movie. It’s also probably not dated that well either. Mike Myers may have Scottish ancestry, but even through the lens of nostalgia, his Scottish accent is terrible. However, I still love it. It reminds me of a time before memes and YouTube. A time when your pals would be quoting the same bit from a movie because you had all put in the hard graft sitting through the full 1.5 hours, finding the same bits funny. We worked harder for our laughs back then, maybe because we all had ‘…huge noggins, like a virtual planetoid’. (also, honourable mention, but the soundtrack is still freakin’ awesome)

Tessa – God’s Creatures

Generally speaking, I’m a sucker for Paul Mescal, I mean, a rural thriller. With visceral gothic overtones emanating from the trailer alone, I’m intrigued. A dark story of sexual assault with all the complications of community, motherhood and blind loyalty thrown into the mix. I’m fully prepared to leave the cinema emotionally traumatised and haunted.

Bea – Riceboy Sleeps

A film that delves into human behaviour will always catch my attention. Whilst interpreting the beautiful struggle between a mother and son, this coming-of-age story touches on imperative topics of bullying, race and identity. I’m ready to be by Kim Dong-Hyun’s side as he chooses his Western Name and bleaches his hair in an attempt to feel comfortable in his own skin.

Susan – One Fine Morning

I cannot resist this kind of quiet, touching drama. Léa Seydoux portrays Sandra, a grown daughter dealing with difficult and deeply emotional decisions as her father’s health declines while juggling other ‘life stuff’. Complicated relationships, love and loss with Paris as the backdrop—I’m really looking forward to this one, tissues ready!

Neil – Cassius X: Becoming Ali

If it has anything to do with Muhammad Ali, I confess I’ll watch it. This documentary written by Stuart Cosgrove looks at the early part of Ali’s career where the insanely gifted teenager looked to define and redefine himself, both as a boxer and an individual, against a backdrop of racial tension, the black power movement and wider cultural and sporting expectations. This was to be a mesmerising period of transformation. Much like the grace, guile and sparkle of the great man himself.

Enjoy!

P.S. Stay tuned for a little update on our Glasgow Film Festival project post, including the work for this year’s festival, coming soon.

After an inspiring and engaging day at INTL, a creative conference held in Glasgow attended by people from all over the world, one slide, in particular, got us talking the next day; Swiss type design agency Dinamo’s bullet-pointed manifesto.

Often when you think of manifestos it’s of statements like ‘allow yourself to fail’, or ‘be your own hero’, both of which are directed at the individual. We thought it was interesting that Dinamo didn’t follow this expected path of self-help and instead focussed on how your actions can help a larger group of people.

‘Give full access to everybody you work with’

‘Document and share knowledge’

‘Watch out for gatekeepers (often former heroes)’

It’s interesting to think of a world where everything could be open sourced; imagine how much we could all benefit from learning and innovating with the knowledge of others. We’re definitely not going to get anywhere by guarding and keeping everything locked up.

HAWRAF is a design studio that did just that when, in 2019, their studio came to an end. To mark the occasion they shared everything that they had learnt along the way by creating a public Google Drive Folder filled with tools, assets and information; simply so that we could all learn from each other.

Not all manifestos are so pure of heart, sometimes they can be a quick and easy way for big companies to seem like they have a soul. Say, for example, a Scottish multi-million beer corporation that sells their beer in supermarkets globally with a ‘punk’ manifesto – “If you can evoke emotion, you can drive behaviour”. However, the truly great ones do make an impact and stick with you; see Nike’s and Patagonia’s in the image below.

What about manifestos for design agencies? Manifestos have the power to set your agency or company on a certain path; it’s making a stand, putting a flag in the ground as to what you set out to do and how you work.

Famously, British graphic designer, photographer, and writer Ken Garland released an iconic manifesto in 1960, that called for a shift in focus from using design as a tool for further growth of global consumer/commercial expansion/consumption and instead petitioned to use design for education and the betterment of society. Something that still feels as relevant today as it did in 1960s society.

Those of us longer in the tooth might remember how Manchester based design studio Music launched their company with a simple to do list on a webpage. Stating their brand intentions pretty clearly from the get go and inspiring a version of a Creative Review cover in the same style.

Anthony Burrill’s iconic ethos ‘Work Hard & Be Nice to People’ was expanded to a pocket size manifesto, with the inspiration to empower others through his creative insights on self-development and lessons he’s learned through trial and error. All beautifully presented as letterpress posters and unique spreads.

When O Street first started we had a simple ethos that came from our process: think, dream, do. Since then we’ve consciously and unconsciously built on this approach but we’ve never had something as concrete as a manifesto…

If we did, maybe it would look a bit like this:

– Do good work, with good people
– Use your hands to make things
– Something about side projects
– Don’t stand still (change is good)
– Go fishing

And knowing us, it would probably change next year (see point 4).

Manifestos can be powerful, they can also be bullshit. They can be a guiding compass to start you on the right path, they can be a way to tell the world what you do, or they can simply be a way of distilling what you already know you do in a five bullet point list. Maybe simply, like most things, a manifesto is what you make of it.

Here’s a list of some of our favourites:

Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll

Ken Garland

Dieter Rams

Riot Grrrl

It was with great sadness that we read in September the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh Filmhouse had gone into administration.

The Film Festival was one of O Street’s first big clients (back when Neil and I had more hair on our heads than on our chins). Using tactics we have embraced ever since, we combined strategy and creative exploration in the concept we pitched: a logo and campaign that focused on the magic of real cinema (‘Enlightened Cinema’ we called it!) putting FILM at the heart of their visual personality.

It was also the project that cemented our long running friendship/working relationship with the magnificent photographer Peter Didbin. On a longshot for the pitch, we asked him to help us capture a new logo drawn in light using long exposure photography. I’m pretty sure showing them a movie of that exploration swung the decision at our interview.

What it really got me thinking about however was the way culture is changing in these post Covid lockdown, but still financially precarious times.

Cinema in itself is a whole artform in flux. On the one hand, blockbuster movies seem to be thriving over at Marvel and even indie movies like the magnificent ‘Everything, Everywhere all at once’ (if you haven’t seen it yet, what the hell are you doing?) seem to be becoming box office successes. But… there is no doubt a lot of people are watching a lot more movies at home. Venues that have rethought the experience seem to be weathering the storm with initiatives like the ones DIVE are working on at Everyman Cinemas, bringing brand partnerships to elevate the whole experience of going to the movies. Swapping stale popcorn and flat coke for dark chocolate and cocktails seems like something we should have had years ago! And if it doubles up as a way to advertise brands and improve marketing effectiveness, then maybe we can all be winners? Another long-term client of ours the Glasgow Film Festival is back with a fully live festival next year, we’re all excited about that since last year was a blast!

The post-pandemic dust feels like it’s not quite settled on the Live music scene yet. There are success stories, but with big acts canceling tours due to soaring energy costs at venues, it feels like it’s not exactly a safe bet. O Street pals Driift have recently announced a big investment from Deezer to expand their online concert offering. No one feels watching a gig online is the same as going to a venue, but you know what, I’d rather spend £5 and watch it at home with a nice bottle of beer than spend £100 and watch it on screens from the back of a stadium. The band The Smile’s show earlier in the year, with an intimate at venue audience alongside a live streamed online audience seemed like a brilliant compromise. And hey… who knows how this whole deal will change with the Metaverse or its equivalent leaps in supporting sound technology.

Dance Umbrella has just wrapped up its live and online modern dance festival. I caught the opening night with my family and it was amazing. The experience of going out in the big city on a dark night and being inspired and challenged and excited was a real blessing. It was a joy being able to share it with my children, who as a generation, have really lost out most during lockdown. The venue was a sell out, second night in a row. We had designed a printed programme for the whole festival. ‘How quaint’, you say, but they ran out of copies after the show! The audience were hungry for more information about the performances, or a way to remember this one.

I’d like to talk more about art galleries and digital art, but you know I think I’ve tested your patience enough (if you have read this far, thank you). So what’s my point?

Some culture is dying as a result of the turmoil over the last few years, there is no doubt. But, like the debate about our beloved Glasgow School of Art Mack Building, should we try and rebuild things the way they were? That building burning down two times in four years almost feels like an omen for a wider culture debate. We need Arts & Culture, that is not in question, it’s a vital part of life. But why not use these times to challenge the way we used to do things and explore new ways of sharing and exploring the arts? While still needing beautiful printed brochures of course!

We’re having a great, busy year at O Street and as a result, our team has grown a little. Let’s get you up to speed on who’s new(ish) around here! Meet our new staff—Becky and Bea, the latest designers to join our Glasgow Studio and our new Studio Manager, Susan.

A proper introduction needs some O Street portraits. So, we dusted off our yellow office chair, gave our good pal Peter Dibdin a shout and then crossed our fingers for a break from the seemingly endless October rain. Luck was on our side, blue skies appeared and our neighbourhood mini-shoot was a go!

Becky fine-tuned her skills at the Glasgow School of Art and KADK, bringing her digital expertise to O Street. A coding and interactive text wizard, she’s been working on some fantastic projects for our US clients since the end of last year. A general provider of chill vibes with a knack for choosing the perfect tunes suited to the studio mood.

Another GSA graduate, Beatrice, joined the studio a few months ago. She’s produced some incredible, unique work since joining us, specialising in art direction, brand identity and digital design. She is the Queen Bea of charity shop scavenging, often unearthing some of the best treasures on her lunch break!

With an extensive background in fashion retail, visual merchandising and small business marketing, Susan recently joined the team to keep everything ticking along smoothly. As well as keeping things organised, she brings her social media skills to spread the good word on O Street. A calming presence in the studio, always ready to talk books, cats and outfits!

All photography by Peter Dibdin.