A short interview with Ian Cussons, senior designer at corporate design agency, greensplash Ltd

Ian has worked at greensplash for over 3 years and is a Senior Designer. Ian began his Art and Design training at Mid Cheshire College studying Foundation Art and Design. Ian then went on to Manchester Metropolitan University and was awarded BA (Hons) Degree in Design and Art Direction

What’s the best thing about working for greensplash?

Working at Cheshire design agency, greensplash allows me to work on multiple projects with various skill sets. In particular, one thing I like the most is, never knowing what I will be working on next week! Every project is different with a unique brief and deliverable – I love that diversity and element of surprise!

Which website project makes you feel the proudest?

The project I am most proud of to date, has to be the website project for Progressive Solutions www.progressive-solutions.com. Progressive Solutions is an international company, operating in the UK and North America, making this project the biggest international digital project I have completed. The website was very much a team effort, but I was responsible for the design and direction of the project. I used many of my skill sets on this website including design, PHP, HTML, CSS, Flash, ActionScript, JavaScript, jQuery. Oh yes and the client loved it too!!

What design work in your career are you most proud of?

In my final year at University, I won the Open AdTalent International student award for my ‘Get Frisky with Whisky’ campaign. The competition brief was to make the drink whiskey (non brand specific) to be more trendy and appealing to the younger drinker. My campaign arguably broke every advertising law there is associated with advertising alcohol, but that was the fun element of coming up with controversial solutions to a non-commissioned brief – you get to break the rules!

The WInning Design can be seen here. Once loaded click winner, (the billboard on the building) then choose March 2006 from the month at the top.

From work experience and visiting the best design agencies around Cheshire and Manchester, I understood that working to tight deadlines is common. I quickly recognised that in the real world, I may receive a brief in the morning and need to deliver creative the next day. As a consequence I set myself mini projects that lasted 2 weeks. I would obtain briefs from online competitions or historical competition briefs. This approach to my degree gave me more insight and experience for when working for real clients. Working on numerous projects presented a wide variety of briefs including subjects less familiar to me and outside my personal interests, thus needing to research such areas and increase my knowledge to deliver the best solution.

Which designer most inspires you?

Instead of mentioning an international famous graphic designer which is a bit of a stereotypical answer, I am going to go with someone much closer to home.

I regularly follow the work of someone I met in Manchester. His name is Rob Chui, Motion Designer & Director of Film and Photography. I like the way he explores light, shadow, dimension and perspective with multiple time lapses, within his motion graphics and print work. I enjoy just watching his sequences that introduce crisp information using typography and imagery and/or additional animation onto static imagery and other footage. Everyday situations for people around the world evolves into some sensational motion graphics work. You can even pause the sequence at certain points and the composition would look great as a print. See a showreel of Rob Chui.

What is your favourite viral marketing campaign?

I enjoy viral campaigns but the best for me are the ones that do not hard sell facts but instead soft sell and play on emotion, humour and lifestyle. One that I particularly remember is Wriggly’s chewing gum approx 4 years ago, it still sticks in my mind!

The Wriggly Advert is about the morning after a night out, and having “dog breath” in the morning from non-cleaned teeth. The bloke regurgitates a hairy dog to symbolize the bad breath, then has some of the branded chewing gum to make the angry dog disappear. The advert got banned not long after screening, since so many people complained. Removing it from air made it all the more successful, because everyone was talking about it and trying to find the footage elsewhere.

Who would you most like to design a website for?

Being a bit of a car fanatic; German cars in particular, along with Top Gear being my favourite TV programme, I would love the opportunity to re-design www.audi.co.uk. The website has been the same for as long as I can remember. I don’t think the current site communicates/sells the lifestyle and experience of owning and driving an Audi. The photography and motion graphics are great, but confined in a small box surrounded by, in my opinion out dated interface. It reminds me of the old Apple Macintosh operating system from many years ago.

I would love the opportunity to go wild with emotive imagery and motion graphics and really sell the quality of the car along with the lifestyle it delivers. The site is crying out to introduce some of the latest web trends of 2009, commonly known today by web designers as web 2.0. I think Audi’s competitors sell the product and lifestyle much more effectively. I would also like to encourage some better practice in terms of usability. I find the car thumbnails within the menu difficult to see and the different menu levels laid out in a confusing way. Different font sizes to denote the level of importance between the main website copy and features would also make digesting information on this website easier.

…But I still want an Audi!
 

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