We’re about to launch a very cool campaign for our friends at Enmore Audio. It took the studio a couple of weeks to get this right but we’re now play-doh masters of play-doh!
Play-Doh!
November 6, 2011Slow on the Blog front
October 13, 2011Folks, we’ve been a tad slow on the blog front these last couple of months but with good reason. It’s been recruitment mode here in DPM land and there’s scarcely been a moment without at least one major branding exercise; we’ve been pushing the proverbial hyper-text-markup skills and porting .com WP sites to .org sites. The sketchbook it still regularly updated and the team is pretty much flat out. No excuses of course but stay tuned for some new faces come November!
Are you like Software?
August 22, 2011
Are you like software? No? Well you should be. Okay hear us out. A company should be like software in so many ways. We’re currently running at DPM Version 3.01 for example. Just think about the team at Adobe and how the passion and vigor behind the R&D process drives the entire team to develop a better and more stable version of Acrobat. Yes that can sound rather cynical if you’re not careful because if you’re like us and pay for your software licensing, it’s not much fun to hear about a new version however… this analogy of your business having a version is a pretty good one. You launch at version 1.0 and as things progress you grow (and hopefully learn a thing or two). You mainly learn from mistakes (and hopefully improve). If you’re organized enough you can collect your thoughts all at once and incorporate change with say the launch of a new website or logo at which point you become version 2.0. Up to that point you were slowly working your way from 1.1 to 1.9 and so on. And don’t forget you can always launch a Beta version which means it doesn’t matter if it’s crap because everyone if forewarned. DPM has been working hard at making a clear distinction between our production and conceptual work and one of the steps we took in this area was the launch of DPM Print Beta 1.0. Seriously.
Okay it might a little over the top but if we’ve done anything at all it’s try to inspire the fact that a business is never finished and we as designers play a big part in helping you keep up to date. Insert smiley face here.
Pearsons
June 27, 2011The most recognizable name in quality flowers in Sydney and possibly Australia is Pearsons Florist. Established over 40 years ago they are still a family run business who are known for their great stores, reliable delivery service and stunning arrangements. These guys love what they do and they are as committed as they come! We’re proud to announce that we’ll be working with Pearsons on their 2012 calendar and support collateral. We’ll also be helping the brand take their identity to the next level through a solid evolution of the existing identity. As part of the process we’ll be documenting the creative progress of the calendar from staff meetings through to think tanks and sketches. Stay tuned.
Anthony’s Back
June 16, 2011After an extended three year sabbatical smiley, helpful and friendly Anthony is back on board at DPM Creative Group as our new (well kind of new) operations and production manager. He’ll also be managing the new DPM Print site and all the work that has been coming through there. Yay!
As a side we should mention a slow and intentional split we are making between the creative and conceptual work we do and what is clearly a very strong part of the business – the print. We love getting crafty! Taking responsibility for the end result has been a core philosophy of ours from very early on. It hasn’t come without it’s challenges and we’re certainly not about to let go; quite the opposite. We want a clear distinction between the time and effort we take for a logo design and that for a business card. They are both as important as the other and getting it right is more important than ever.
Topic Pages & Why
May 18, 2011Topic pages are the best and easiest way of growing your website organically, effectively and honestly. There’s a lot of talk about content being king in the world of SEO and this is true to a degree but never confuse content with quality material and it’s ability to attract potential customers. But what we would know? We’re a design agency! Yes it’s true and there’s nothing we love more than discussing visibility and the role and responsibility that we believe every design agency now has to manage on behalf of their clients. DPM launched a new website in March. We’ve consistently had over 50 unique visits a day and bursts of up to 300 a day when we launch a campaign of some kind. Read the rest of this entry »
Graphic Design Internships
April 20, 2011In the beginning of 2011 we made our offer of post graduate support by way of design internships official. Help is crucial and work experience no matter how limited is essential for securing your first role as a confident professional designer. The program is a simple one and aims to assist students achieve a level of experience that will help them in many ways in the ‘real world’. Expect to get involved on every level from client interaction and briefing through to logo design. Look at how happy our new intern is…
If you think an internship at DPM would suit you please email your CV and expression of interest to our director Radi Safi.
Syndication
April 4, 2011Last month we launched our brand spanking new custom CMS WordPress site the possibilities of which are unfathomably endless. While every effort was made to populate the site by the launch date, there were still things a little less than perfect but we’re cool with that.
We’re almost complete on that front but the next order of business, April’s order of business will be to syndicate the site. First and foremost this will be to help our audience and secondly it’s a fairly handy form of increasing visibility. Some examples can be found in the far right footer of the home page in a column like so:
New Crew Member
March 23, 2011We’re pleased to introduce Megan Guhl to the DPM crew. She’s a New Yorker who’s now living here is Sydney and is bringing some extra grunt to our team of logo designers. She knocked on our door a few weeks ago and asked very politely for a job. We said yes. We have to ask her what her three favorite songs are. It’s also worth asking her how she’s getting on with the metric system. Regardless, like all great DPM folk, she’s a great designer, an avid blogger and very friendly. She’s a great logo designer and illustrator and has been heading up the Forever Blocks account which is shaping up to be a very cool project indeed.
Logo Redesign
March 21, 2011There are many benefits to a logo redesign. This should be considered for a number of reasons but the main being you have an established identity that needs freshening up. Over the next few weeks we’ll populate this post with examples of logo redesign. If you haven’t seen our logo facelift video then now would be a good time (not that it tells you all that much about the benefits of logo redesign).
Charging for Design
March 9, 2011It may surprise many of our friends and clients to discover that when DPM first began in 1999 we were affectionately known as the business card people. For years this was a stigma we tried very hard to shake off and the years in Surry Hills did help to a great extent but finally a realization that a passion for production was in fact a good thing and widely missing in the graphic design community led us to back flip on this and embrace it! The issue of course was that there simply weren’t enough conceptual projects running at any one time and this shifted the dynamic and mindsets of all involved. In house design positions are also very similar to production houses of this nature and it’s no wonder they too hold a certain stigma. Read the rest of this entry »
Logo Developers + Visibility + SEO
February 16, 2011A big part of what we’ve found our selves doing lately both for ourselves and our clients in addition to their logo development and other design needs is online visibility campaigns or SEO. It has been a buzz acronym for ages and while this is not an article explaining what SEO is, (for those who don’t know please Google the term) we do plan on getting stuck into our take on it at some point soon. For now however we’ve like to discuss some funny but serious flaws that were revealed in the system we have been employing in our visibility campaigns for ourselves. Think of a service you might need like a designer, or a plumber or hairdresser. When you’re the consumer it’s both natural and instinctive to just jump on the internet and search. Read the rest of this entry »
Logo Facelift Video
January 30, 2011The beauty about January is that we’re all super keen to get stuck into things again but at the same time it’s just a little quiet on the design front so there’s that little bit of head space to do things like a corporate video!
So if you’re a little bored and if you already have a business and name then consider a logo redesign today… Fun times ahead.
When things are slow… get a facelift!
January 19, 2011
Being busy when you run a small business shifts and moves in cycles. Busy day, slow day, busy week, slow week. When it becomes busy month, slow month that can really start to mess with you. A slow year sends a lot of people under and we’ve just seen one hell of a cycle with the GFC. Now we’re by no means financial advisers but we are in the business of marketing and we’ve noticed a whole heap of things that people start doing wrong when things slow down. Think back to when you first started your business. That fire in the belly and how you would stop at nothing, absolutely nothing to get the job at hand done. The funny thing is, you’re a heap smarter now than you were back then so how come things slow down? Well, for one thing most of us suffer from vampire syndrome. Do you know the only thing that can kill a vampire outside the usual clichés? Well, if you study the matter you’ll realise that time also eventually kills vampires. They’re immortal and yet time can kill them. Why? They come to a point where they’re world view, their mind is far out of whack with the ‘modern’ world they find themselves in; they are no longer able to be a part of it.* Read the rest of this entry »
Brooke McRae joins the DPM team
January 12, 2011
Furious blogging is a site to behold. Have you seen The Social Network? If so, you may have noticed the’ wired-in’ adjective they made reference to more than once about their coder geeks. DPM doesn’t hire geeks* and we certainly don’t do any coding but when we come across bloggers who design or designers who blog, we tend to swoon. Brooke was doing just that when we found her** and we’re pleased to announce her as our newest member. We don’t love role descriptions here but they can be useful so in short, Brooke is a senior designer and our all new and shiny production manager. She may just get to fit in some blogging too.
*Secretly we’re all geeks. We still collect stamps and we all get swimmers ear.
**At the same time!
Two Thousand and Eleven
January 3, 2011
We produce a whole heap of postcards for art galleries, museums and artists every month here at DPM. And while we are first and foremost a design company*, our roots are steeped heavily in the production side of the graphic art business. That’s because we insisted from very early on that we would take full responsibility for the finished product. Sometimes that means businesses cards and more recently the entire refitting and design of a recording studio**. Because simply put design is design and when you’re good at it, people tend to ask you to do more of it. Read the rest of this entry »
We Love our Clients!
December 20, 20102010 was a pretty crazy year for everyone. Just ask around it wasn’t just you! There were births, a whole heap of deaths and lots of new beginnings as well. We’re very proud and honored to be a part of an amazing industry and even more to be a part of a really amazing part of an amazing industry… We love our clients to bits and want nothing more than to build on that love and respect even more in 2011. So from all of us at DPM Creative Group, thank you for being a part of our little creative world and we hope to work with you again in 2011.
Sneaky peeky…
December 6, 2010
25% more and 25% less…
November 24, 2010The people deserve to hear your message and the more people that hear it, the more of them that are going to come through and say “hello”.
If you’re happy we’re happy so during December and January DPM will be offering 25% off their hourly rate for all design work and if that work also includes an order of postcards (A6, DL or even A5), we will delivery 25% more postcards on any quantity ordered. The saving potentials are huge and we haven’t thought this one through entirely so you might want to book your job in pretty quickly folks… we might just have to pull the plug!
Our design wins award!
November 15, 2010(okay maybe the music won the award)…
But… A few months ago we created a design for Circle’s new album Molasses Sandwiches. We found out today that the guys won an amazing award for this record. And yep, we think the album art had everything to do with it!
Logo Development and art by DPM Creative Group.
Logo and Brand Development
November 11, 2010Logos and branding and a really big deal. We’re lucky enough to be invited every now and again to add, develop and create logos and brands for people and their companies. Over time we have come to appreciate the subtleties and effort required to not only achieve a clients desires but also marry that with a brand that will stand the test of time. We call this pre-production and sometimes it can take longer than the actual logo development itself. Over the next few week we’ll be putting together and photographing real life examples of branding exercises that DPM has been involved in.
Getting Your Shit Together for Xmas
November 1, 2010
Getting your shit together for Xmas starts now… We know because every year we get calls in December and it’s too late. So in celebration of today’s palindromic date (01.11.10), we thought that we’d lauch a campaign to remind you that custom designed xmas cards are probably the coolest thing you could do for customers, friends and fam. If you’re a bit of a tight arse (who isn’t), you really don’t need to do much more than a custom card because they look so awesome! For a couple of dollars a pop it’s a sweet deal.
We can design then for $132. Some ideas that come to mind are naked baby photos, over the top glamour shots, your favorite pet or plant and David Hasselhoff in Speedos. Of course you’re only limited by your imagination (and yes, we will print tasteful nudes). We can print 50 digital for $190 and 500 offset for $480. Delivery is free anywhere in Australia. Sweet.
Call us on 1300 88 12 12 to dicuss your xmas card needs.
Logos and Lock-out time
October 11, 2010We love October at DPM. Why? Well, we think it’s the month that people most want to create new logos, new branding and change their lives. So Spring has arrived (some weeks ago actually), you’ve just thawed out and… you’re thinking about a new business or re-inventing your existing business… Read the rest of this entry »
New Crew Member (not a freak…)
September 28, 2010
We’ve often said (and we stand by this statement) that there is nothing more unnatural than the surroundings and circumstances you find yourself in at work. We mean socially. Heck, even if you all agree that Graphic Design is your life calling and you’re here to change the world through design, no matter where you find work, you’re going to find yourself answering to some freak, listening to some freak and most of all looking at some freak! And that’s why it’s so amazing and refreshing when you find yourself face to face with a balanced and well rounded junior.(Yes, most juniors are freaks). We feel that our newest recruit, Emma, does exactly that. Energetic, dynamic, full of great ideas and… a really great designer.
Words, images, photos, logos and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010.
We Heart Badges
September 3, 2010
A badge can change your life forever. And we’re not just saying that. We like to think that badges are even more powerful than t-shirts and boy are we fans of politically incorrect t-shirts as a branding experiment. Only Google that term if you’re prepared to be offended. We’re always prepared to be offended… It’s part of being creative. So when the Monday Records crew came to us with the Happy campaign we insisted that we include a button component and there’s nothing more powerful than marketing without obvious intent. Here’s a badge and we want you to have it for free. It says Happy because you’re a happy SOB and you want the world to know. Go forth happy youngling and be free. Oh and while you’re at it tell everyone where you got the badge so they come back for more with their friends. Works better than Amway. Did anyone every have a relative in Amway? You can tell a company is famous if their name doesn’t come up as a typo in Word. There are some real insane conspiracy theories out there about spell check. Some go hand in hand with politically incorrect t-shirts but not many.
Words, images, photos, logos and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010.
Sexy Photography
July 19, 2010
We’re a sexy company and we’re not just saying that. It’s not skin deep sexiness though. This kind of sexiness is core stuff. We mean it comes pouring from our souls and splashes out onto our pages and screens. It occurred to us recently that we work with quite a few photographers and so we decided to take a step back and think about that for a moment. Sure, all photographers need graphic design and print work done from time to time and why not choose little old DPM Creative Group? But it’s more than that. See we work with top notch photographers and photographic galleries… And we can tell you why. No one comes closer to RGB in CMYK than we do. We know colour, we know ink and we know paper and smart photographers have found us to be a very useful ally. Sustainable papers, soy based inks, colour correct monitors and a finger printed colour management system means we’ll always be able to show you exactly what you’re going to get. And we think that’s sexy! So.. let us help with your next branding project.
Words, images, photographs and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010. All rights reserved.
7 Great Ways to Pick a Business Name
July 6, 2010
We’re in the business of helping businesses. People come to us with thoughts, feelings, ideas, ideals, imaginings and then ask us to materialize the seemingly impossible but gosh darn it we do it. We do time and again in fact and we do it well. One thing we don’t do is pick business names for people (although some creative agencies do this also). So when our most recent logo client came to us and hadn’t picked their business name yet it got us all thinking… what would be a good way to pick a business name if you’re stumped? Hmmm…
Let’s say you’re opening a Cafe. There are soooo many cliché Cafe names and we love them all! Here are 7 ways the universe can help you pick a name for your new business if you simply can’t decide.
1. Ask a complete stranger what THEY would call a cafe. For all you know they’ve been thinking about it for years but never had the guts to make the bold step. By stealing their name you would in fact be relieving them of a huge burden.
2. Use the Frankenstein method of your two favorite Cafes. Right now ours are Black Star and Scrambled. Scramstar or Blam are both awesome cafe names.
3. Put all the consonants of the alphabet in one hat and vowels in another. Start with consonants followed by a vowel. Be sure to return the vowel after use. We just tried it and got BADERO. Wicked cafe name right there! Badero Cafe.
4. Name the Cafe after an Egyptian God. Thoth… Rhythms with froth. Good enough for us.
5. Pick your two favorite movies that have more than one word in the title and do a bit of a switcheroo. We like Wes Anderson. Royal Fox could work. The Bottle Fantastic is also great.
6. If you have a dead pet name the cafe in honor of them. We had a cat called Mouse that died earlier in the year and I think a Mouse Cafe is exactly what Newtown needs.
7. Lastly if all else fails name your cafe after a children’s nursery rhyme. The older the better. We like: I Love Little Pussy which is from 1830 and goes a little like this:
I love little pussy,
Her coat is so warm,
And if I don’t hurt her,
She’ll do me no harm.
So I’ll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But pussy and I,
Very gently will play
We very gladly pass on the secret of how to pick a great business name for all to share… If you already have a business and name then consider a logo redesign today.
Words, images, photographs and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010. All rights reserved.
Circle CD Cover
July 2, 2010We’ve designed a few CD covers in the last couple of years here at DPM, and the latest one for Circle’s Molasses Sandwiches album is definitely one of the coolest so far… The brief? Something we’ve never seen on album art before, illustrative and with our fat heads on it. Sweet. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the inside spreads. All fully illustrated from scratch here in the studio. Talent photography was also done here.
Words, images, photographs and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010. All rights reserved.
Need a New Image… Fast?
June 24, 2010We couldn’t help ourselves this morning folks. Let’s face it, we all got choked up when we saw KR humbled by his defeat* yesterday but… there was something so much bigger happening. This guy, who we all voted for, who did so much good and brought so much hope and promise really did let us down. We don’t know all that much about politics at DPM. But we do know about good design. What we don’t understand as designers and marketers is how this guy didn’t see it coming. The signs were there Kevin and you should have considered a re-design before matters were taken into their own hands. Oh, and we promise never to talk politics again!
*political slaughtering would also be acceptable here.
Words, images, photographs and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010. All rights reserved.
Linkbait Generator
June 11, 2010We’ve opened up a new category today in the DPM Creative Group Blog called Buzz and the first entry is for Linkbait Generators. As graphic designs and all round creative types, we’re asked to perform the unthinkable for our clients on a daily basis: create design that works. Works being the operative word and sometime that also means offering a client two options. Their wonderful idea and our idea. There is a certain tact and diplomacy which is essential in the rolling out or presenting of our own ideas especially when there’s a notion of what should be done. What does this have to do with Linkbaits? Well, we’re a committed bunch. Which means for what we do to work, it must be relevant on all fronts, and that includes how it measures up to what’s out there. It’s a complicated matter and it was when we started discussing the SEO merits of a new campaign that we realised a worthy blog topic of buzz words and terms would be very useful for all of us. So, back to Linkbaiting. It’s a relatively new term (maybe a couple of years or just over), which refers to developing engaging material, specifically for the web with the sole purpose of attracting views and subsequent clicks back through to a particular site. Sounds easy enough. What we as an agency find incredibly remarkable about it, is that it calls upon the owner of business to think hard and deep about their company and in tern create material. There most certainly is a heap of crap out there purporting to be quality material only to be developed solely for the linking purpose. Not cool. For the most part however (and we like to be optimistic and ignore the crap), it’s a wonderful and healthy process for any company to go through. You can call upon the copy writing skills of others but that defeats the purpose.
Link-baiting: developing engaging material, specifically for the web with the sole purpose of attracting views and subsequent clicks back through to a particular site.
Link-bait Generator: a tool designed specifically to create topics of an interesting or intriguing nature that will attract subsequent viewing for the ultimate goal of achieving a click through to a specific URL.
We wondered here at DPM what an LBG might look like so look out for one of our artist impressions very soon.
Words, images, photographs and graphic design are all Copyright © DPM Creative Group 2010. All rights reserved.
