Iain Tait

We had a lecture by Iait Tait (Creative Director at Poke London) this morning. Most interesting. It was good to see how some people approach design in a completely different way to me. At Poke they do barely any print based work, almost all is digital media! And this gives them a very interesting approach to the way they approach their work because it doesn't really exist as something you can hold but as something that you can interact with. It's all about making people take a minuite or so out of their day to do somthing, click a link, sign a petition, play a game, etc. And surely interacting with your target audience in this way is far more powerful than putting attractive, beautifully set type and image infront of them?
Something I questioned, for a moment or 2 at least. I can completely understand why Poke and the way they work exists and I think there are certain markets than are best to reach in this way. But, personally (and maybe this makes me sound a bit old but) I just don't think your average person really takes most of what they see on the internet (especially in gimmicy ad format) that seriously. Yeah they may click a link or two but does it really settle in their mind? I think that the digital media ads end up being very directed at a much younger consumers and the kinds of people who regularly use forums, blogs, chat rooms etc. And maybe I'm (very) wrong but I dont think thats really many people. Isn't everybody too busy living to be on the internet all day?
For me, I know that if I saw a nice poster across a street I'd take a closer look or if I spoted a leaflet on the other side of the room I'd go and pick one up (honest, I did it today). This is a more physical interaction with the media surely. And once you have it in your hands it's yours to feel the stock of, and smell the ink and fold it to fit in your bag.
Or perhaps, as suggested towards the end of Iain's talk, it's because most of us art school kids are terrified of using digital media. Because we didn't do ICT or computing or coding or any of that stuff. Maybe we should all catch up with technology a bit.
Iait Tait on the otherhand was not an art student, he studied Psycology and thats something I found very interesting about him: He didn't seem to like design that was neccesarily good (aesthetically) but that played on your instincts to make you do something, or want to do something. And that I thought was a really lovely and refreshing way to go about thinking around your ideas. Check out his blog at www.crackunit.com. And Poke www.pokelondon.com
Gave me some things to think about for sure.