Trigger

Grain Creative

Iconic Brand Creation

Thoughts

Banana Republic leaves the UK market: what other high street fashion brands can learn about brand positioning

by Kent Le, October 25th 2016

If you are a hardcore high street fashion brand follower, you must have heard the news earlier this month that Banana Republic is about to close eight of its UK stores by the end of this financial year. A spokesperson told the London Evening Standard: “The company anticipates that the majority of the stores will close by the end of fiscal year 2016.” It’s not…

Thank you Grain!

by Elodie Petitbon, October 12th 2016

I was very happy when the Grain team accepted my application to come to England to do a design internship! The three months I spent at Grain was a great experience for me and I found their working environment to be both professional and personal. I worked on a lot of great projects and with some reputable clients. At university I hadn’t had the opportunity to work within…

Our bumpy journey into G Suite

by Madelyn Postman, October 5th 2016

We recently moved over to Google Apps, now called G Suite, and it was not a smooth ride. In fact, I was surprised how difficult it was even for someone considered to be relatively tech-savvy (moi) – I have a decent understanding of things like nameservers and different DNS records, perhaps just enough to be dangerous! A friend who works at Google suggested I write this…

The illustration talents of our studio manager

by Hannah, October 4th 2016

When I’m not in the Grain office, I spend quite a lot of time painting and illustrating as well as working on self-initiated graphic design projects. My illustrations are mainly inspired by nature, people and fantasy fiction. Watercolour and chalk pastels are my favourite mediums to work with, as you’ll see. I find painting and illustrating very relaxing (when it’s going right) and if I don’t produce…

50 Architects 50 Buildings

by Madelyn Postman, September 29th 2016

The other evening at RIBA to celebrate the launch of the new book from the Twentieth Century Society, 50 Architects 50 Buildings, four architects spoke about buildings which influenced their career. Sarah Featherstone, Cany Ash, Peter Barber and Niall McLaughlin treated us to insights on the buildings themselves, and details of how these echo in their own work. The book is by architectural journalist Pamela Buxton with photography by Gareth…

If Heineken Did Champagne…

by Drew Durning, September 19th 2016

Driving Positive Change Sponsoring F1 gives brands huge exposure in Europe, Latin America and Asia combined with important (and relatively unique) access to growth markets in the developing world. The associations with speed, glamour and excitement are tempting for any global company and for FMCG brands these associations can be promoted through branding around the race tracks, TV commercials, social media, live fan experiences and…

Grain Creative: Autumn Harvest ?

by Juli Ferguson, September 14th 2016

Autumn is on its way and we’ve been harvesting a few of our recent news updates to share with you. We have the launch of a new group of colleges, a new fashion brand, a brochure for an international school and lots more to share from Grain HQ.  In case you already have next year’s paper diary to hand, or more likely in your Apple…

Emily’s week with Grain

by Guest, September 10th 2016

GCSE student Emily joined us for a week to delve into the world of branding, design and marketing. We all enjoyed her initiative and upbeat personality! Emily says: My week at Grain was a really great eye opener as to what working in a successful and innovative design agency was like. The team at Grain challenged me to broaden my creative skills and expand my ideas…

Branding Tips: #1 – Identify your customer

by Juli Ferguson, September 8th 2016

Congratulations, you’ve had a genius business idea! This is the first in a series of branding tips from the experts here at Grain that you need to consider whilst developing your brand. Whether your new venture is service related, a new product or range of products, you must identify who, why and where your customers are. Everything that you do from this moment on will need…

A day of riddles!

by Hannah, September 1st 2016

This was the thought-provoking invitation the Grain team and I received from our Directors, prior to our summer team day out. As puzzled as I was, I knew it was going to be a lot of fun – it always is! “Meet at the V&A” was a big clue within the riddle, but I managed to refrain from looking into it, wanting to retain the element of surprise. I…

Any Gold Medals for Olympic Marketing?

by Drew Durning, August 18th 2016 Olympic sponsors

The Rio Olympics Creates a Rash of Sponsorship Campaigns Global brands pay big money to sponsor the Olympic games. They will all have their own specific objectives for this activity which will include metrics such as engendering employee pride, building brand awareness and positive brand engagement, increasing customer loyalty and, if they’ve played their cards right, an uplift in sales. Whatever their specific targets, they…

Studio Manager falls for design

by Hannah, August 8th 2016

For the past 9 months I have been attempting to juggle a my job as Project & Studio Manager at Grain whilst studying a part-time Graphic Design course at Shillington College in London. It has been intense, hard work and slightly emotional, but having just graduated and still being allowed through the door at Grain, I can proudly say I was successful! Shillington focuses on teaching students how…

An Experience to Remember

by Guest, August 4th 2016

By Tim Verbakel The day I received a positive response from Grain was the start of a great adventure. I was invited to be a junior designer in London for three and a half months! Coming over from The Netherlands has been a great experience where I have learned a lot. Not only in graphic design, but my English has also improved to a new…

Pokemon Go – A Revolution Hidden by Hype

by Drew Durning, July 27th 2016 Pokemon Go Augmented Reality Revolution

A New and Augmented Reality for Location Based Marketing. In its first few weeks, Pokémon Go has taken the world by storm. Tens of millions of users, impressive initial revenues and huge uplifts in share price. Marketers are keen to jump on the bandwagon and the opportunities go well beyond the traditional sponsorship business models. In fact the “cost per visit” and sponsored locations business…