Craft is Where the Heart is
Feeling informationally overloaded? A bit of digital ennui? Two-screen action making your third eye blurry?
I’d like to propose that, right now, there’s a hankering for everyone, and especially brands, just to slow down a little, chill out, and get back to what matters. And part of doing that is to value the tangible and real.
What does that mean for our little corner of the marketing world? Valuing craft properly. And I don’t just mean sweating the kerning, or agonising over every last Pantone swatch. It’s about recognising that, sometimes, it’s exactly the knowledge that a steady hand and a keen eye have combined with years of experience that means a communication is considered warm, charming and unique. It’s harder to tell that story when all you’ve done is press CTRL V.
We’ve been obsessed about this stuff a lot recently, because of a wee thing we’ve been doing for EDF Energy to bring to life its loyalty scheme, Thank yous. What better way to dramatise the breadth of the rewards on offer than a giant zoetrope with the utility’s lovable character on top?
Exactly. And, to answer some over-eager online commenters, no CGI was involved. At all. No, really. As the idea revolved around bringing some of the magic of childhood back to people, we wanted to avoid any digital trickery. Instead, we had an army of skilled craftsmen building 119 models, and using strobe light syncing to bring the Zoetrope to life.
A lot of effort, for sure, But well worth it. A warmth that, dare I say, you might not get if you jumped straight to your Mac and fired up AfterEffects. So pick up your pencils (and scalpels and glue) before you start pushing pixels. It’ll do you good.
