Successful creative businesses need a combination of creativity and business strategy – what I call ‘T-Shirts’ and ‘Suits’. Sometimes, one individual has both of these elements in good measure, but more often than not, the harmony of creativity and business is formed by two people, or a larger team. Frederick Henry Royce met Charles Stewart …
Tag: Intellectual property
Good Enough…
Thanks to Phil Birchenall for sending me this article about the Flip Video camcorder. It’s about a simple and inexpensive camcorder that’s “good enough” rather than being “the best”. It has just the right range of features to be usable and useful, at a reasonable price. It’s opened up a new market of ‘ordinary’ users, …
Cate Blanchett ‘Sparkles’
Congratulations to one of my client creative businesses, Sparkle Media on their successful projects in Australia ! The visual effects and animation company has recently worked in Australia with Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes, producing video footage for the multimedia theatrical performance Minutes of a Separation. Sparkle Media also worked for Reebok whilst …
Carnaby Street W1
Westminster Council bought the copyright in the design of its iconic street signs (pictured). This means that it can now generate income fom licensing this intellectual property to businesses. The designs were created by Misha Black in 1967 and the copyright remained with the designer until his death, when it passed to his estate. Black’s …
Don’t Co-operate
In contrast to the business strategies of collaboraton or Co-opetition, there is another strategy to consider: ‘Don’t Co-operate’. This is one of the characteristics of the success of Apple Inc., according to Wired Magazine in an article called ‘How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong’. The article shows how Apple breaks several of …
Beware ‘Copyright Grabs’
Photographer Chiz Dakin (Peak Images) asked me to warn other photographers about the problem of ‘copyright grabs’. Chiz is concerned about the trend for businesses, particularly large corporations, to “grab copyright in any image they can get their hands on”, as she puts it. This practice is a hazard for photographers who don’t carefully read …
Paul Arden RIP
Advertising genius Paul Arden died on 02 April 2008. Some of his most influential work was done while he was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi for 14 years. Paul was responsible for advertising campaigns for clients such as The Independent (“The Independent. It is – are you?”), Toyota (“The car in front is …
Let your heart drive you…
A creative passion is often the driving force for creative entrepreneurs. My advice is always to recognise this, in order to understand our own motivations in business. In other words, what ‘makes us tick’. I was asked recently by Putte Svensson from Rockparty in Hultsfred, Sweden, what would be my advice if someone said they …
1,000 True Fans
Instead of dreaming about having millions of fans, nurture one thousand ‘true fans’. That’s the advice for creative individuals from guru Kevin Kelly. He writes: “A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 …
Selling stories (“We don’t sell beer…”)
The Duvel Cafe in Stockholm is a bar which sells a range of Belgian beers. They are tasty, strong and expensive (compared to England). I was fascinated by the beer glasses as much as the beer itself, so I took a couple of photos. Part of what I was buying and enjoying was the packaging …