The Creative’s Reading List

Branding in Five and a Half Steps - Michael Johnson

A blueprint for the complete branding process with particular importance placed on asking the right questions to discover what a brand stands for and its values. This should all happen before getting anywhere near any design software. There are many versions of this process but the point of difference here is the half step which comes in the middle between research and execution. To successfully represent a brand visually you first need to fully understand it.

Damn Good Advice - George Lois

Pioneering advertising guru George Lois’s brilliant manifesto for people whose ambition is to do brilliant work. A glimpse into a world where blending concept, image, words and art can lead to magic. Nothing is as exciting as an idea and it’s better to be bold than safe. Every part of the process is in there and it’s all so familiar (group grope and the devil’s advocate). Essential reading for anyone who wants to make a million dollars look like 10 million dollars.

You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat - Banksy

Banksy has become so synonymous with street art that many can’t separate the artist from the genre. Regularly, when a piece of graffiti appears there is press speculation as to whether it’s a new ‘Banksy’. Although his stencil technique is instantly recognisable, it’s his sharp wit, cutting satire and often his warmth that separates him from the pack. He’s as committed to the ‘idea-first’ approach as both authors mentioned above, which must be especially important when the ‘production’ time is so limited!

Rolling Stone - The Complete Covers 1967 - 1997

World-class photography, composition, typography, ideas, writing, variety. All the creative skills are on display in one small rectangle, over and over again. A treasure trove of surprising and delightful work and a timeline of three decades worth of popular culture.

Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art. The complete Hipgnosis Catalogue - Aubrey Powell

Limitless creativity from the days when music relied on its packaging to get noticed and a simple photograph of the band wasn’t enough to represent the product. From the days before Photoshop if a record had mysterious red spheres in a desert on its cover it was because someone (in this case Aubrey Powell as Storm Thorgerson’s design group Hipgnosis) had flown to Morocco with 120 deflated red balls, two bicycle pumps and placed them there. Having brushed away their footprints (they’d also taken a broom) they managed to shoot off a roll of film just before the sun disappeared. Another example of having a big idea and then the balls to make it happen!