Truth Lecture

This morning we went to see a lecture by the design company 'Truth'. They are made up of just two people, both of whom used to work for McCann Erickson which is a major worldwide advertising organisation. They decided to do their own thing after some of the jobs coming in weren't what they really wanted to be doing. Over the years Darren from Truth has designed many different fonts that have been used in famous publications and campaigns such as the masthead for Loaded Magazine. A selection of these fonts are Berliner- created 1996, Sodium - influenced by German Design, Bad Angel-experimental and gothic, Mechanic Gothic - best selling font, Nitrogen & Aggregate- both have 1 distinguishing letter, Amplifier-especially made for David Potts Album cover.

They have worked with a number of high profile companies on projects such as: 

AllSports- changing identity to black and white making it less sports cliche. 

Sony- textured credit cards with pearlescent look to highlight the changes Sony create.

First Advice- given 24 hours to complete a logo to go onto Man City shirts next day.

British Council- had to research a lot of colours as to not offend anyone in different countries.

Christies Embrace Mark- produced for free for the good cause.

Authentic Food Company- logo using stamped passport idea to show ethnicity and worls food pictogram.

Durex- packaging for sex aids which was more user friendly and easy to open as well as being discreet.

As Truth are quite a small company they have to commission a lot of work to other people. This, they say, is a good thing as it creates good relationships and can allow you to produce better work as you can choose the best people to do each specific job rather than producing an average result by yourself. They also obviously noticed a big difference when it came to suppliers and prints etc. Everything has to be done yourself when you are in business on your own and you cant just go to the cupboard to get sum pens and paper out. You also have to speak to the customers directly which can be quite hard as Truth explained. For example you hand something to a client that is red. The Client comes back and says I don't like red. You then have to explain why you have done it red and show the reasons for your choice to try and talk them around. They suggest we should always keep work that is wrong to compare it and contrast to show people why you have changed it or haven't. Aswell as this Truth say its important to futureproof and make sure any design you do won't be dated for a long time and can easily be updated if needs be.

Truth's philosophy is to 'Keep it Simple' and 'Less is More'