Take only one take a look at the branding for the ticketing platform DICE, and it’s clear the folks behind it are having a blast. With the conversational and self-effacing tone of the DICE model voice, coupled with the crude and playful illustration model of its graphic identification, one can solely assume that these with inventive management of the corporate should be fairly rattling cool.
Patrick Duffy is the highest canine of the cool cat inventive staff at DICE. The London-based inventive chief and model builder has been conserving manufacturers bizarre and provocative for over 25 years, working for firms throughout tech, promoting, and publishing. Duffy previously served because the artwork director of the model journal Sleazenation, helped set up Airbnb in Europe, and jumpstarted DICE’s progress from a ticketing start-up in Hackney to the worldwide dwell leisure juggernaut it’s at present. Not solely that, however Duffy’s distinctive inventive imaginative and prescient and perspective have introduced him into the realm of efficiency, taking the stage as a mime artist on the famed London venue Koko, taking part in his music on Radio One, and even launching a fanzine.
In each different job, I’ve needed to battle (and normally lose) to get bizarre attention-grabbing stuff made.
Duffy just lately spoke on the OFFF pageant in Barcelona, amongst 70 different inventive luminaries. As certainly one of DICE’s many appreciators, I reached out to be taught extra about Duffy’s thought course of behind its branding.
The place does your humorous and quirky perspective as an artwork director come from? Have you ever at all times had this worldview?
I grew up within the North East of England in an atmosphere the place having a humorousness was basically a survival mechanism, particularly for those who have been unhealthy at preventing and flirting. I beloved studying the third-rate low-cost comics you may discover on the shelf subsequent to The Beano and Dandy—Whizzer & Chips, Buster—and ingesting Looney Tunes cartoons. I drank numerous Tizer. I believe these three features are largely answerable for my worldview as an artwork director.
I’m fairly suspicious of ‘success,’ although. Something that is perhaps seen as ‘success’ is, in actuality, balancing on a mound of failure, and constructing that mound is the attention-grabbing half.
What’s your secret to success for DICE? What core tenets have you ever stored in thoughts to make DICE the powerhouse model it’s at present?
I simply attempt to make work that I like, that followers may like, that’s enjoyable to make, and feels actual. I’m fairly suspicious of “success,” although. Something that is perhaps seen as “success” is, in actuality, balancing on a mound of failure, and constructing that mound is the attention-grabbing half. As quickly as you’ve completed the work and it’s “profitable,” it’s sort of useless, and also you simply wish to begin failing another time. That’s what I really like at DICE— the dedication to a DIY method to unlock true creativity and productiveness within the enterprise and throughout groups.
How did you develop the black diamond character on the heart of DICE’s branding? The place did that concept come from, and why do you suppose it’s charmed so many?
I’m very happy that our little black diamond individual (a.ok.a. The Fan) has confirmed to be so charming. Our group loves it a lot that somebody even bought it tattooed on their arm. I believe folks prefer it as a result of it’s a bit naïve— it’s not polished, so it doesn’t really feel a lot like a chunk of branding.
The design staff and I have been engaged on a bunch of concepts, however we knew we needed one thing that might come to life, some sort of mascot. We performed with completely different shapes and expressions. I used to be on a practice journey with my household and drew slightly diamond form with eyes and legs in my sketchbook and confirmed it to my six-year-old. He stated he appreciated it so I thought-about it authorised.
It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, although— a man wrote a complete weblog article about how a lot he needed to homicide The Fan, so we’ll wish to regulate him.
I used to be on a practice journey with my household and drew slightly diamond form with eyes and legs in my sketchbook and confirmed it to my six-year-old. He stated he appreciated it so I thought-about it authorised.
What’s your favourite half about what you do?
Making weirdness. Not many groups get the chance to make what we make, and even fewer would get it authorised so simply. In each different job, I’ve needed to battle (and normally lose) to get bizarre, attention-grabbing stuff made. At DICE, it’s simply the sort of stuff all of us like, so there’s no preventing, which is nice as a result of I’m getting previous.
What’s one piece of recommendation you‘d give to a burgeoning inventive director or model builder about creating compelling branding and branded content material?
Don’t be entitled. You need folks to wish to work with you and your concepts.
