Wow. What a year 2020 turned out to be.
It was certainly nothing like we were expecting at NSC HQ, with redundancies, adapting to working from home, missing seeing our families, coming down with Covid-19 in October, and the strangest Christmas of our lives.
We’ve put together our top articles of 2020 so you can read through the best of the best and kick-start 2021 armed with the knowledge you need to succeed and grow.
We’re all about developing our knowledge here at NSC, and we love a good book.
And due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic of 2020, we’ve had plenty of time to read a lot of books!So in this article, we’re unpacking all of our top books of 2020, so you’ve got lots of reading material for 2021 – we’ll note next to each book which of our team read it, so you know who the review is coming from.
Our Christmas tree is lit up and decorated, our festive candles are burning, and Home Alone is on the telly... The festive period is upon us! But how do you effectively market your products over the festive holidays?
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Michael Crichton’s 1990 book, which was the inspiration for the film, we decided to dive into the top marketing lessons from Jurassic Park. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome… to 7 Marketing Lessons from Jurassic Park. *cue theme music*
Since March, our whole world has been thrown into disarray with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thousands of people have been made redundant, and hundreds of companies have been made bankrupt.
It’s hard to find a job at the moment.But not impossible - especially when you’rearmed with these top tips.”
We all know at least one person in the office who raves about the weekend – maybe it’s you.
Friday is just the day after Thursday and the day before Saturday.We all need to stop living for the weekend, it’s killing our souls!
In this blog, I have curated a collection of actionable steps you can do right now to changethe way you look at living for the weekend.
So let’s work to change our ‘Fri-yay’ mindset, and start living for now.
Working from home is the new normal for a lot of us – we at NSC have been working from home since mid-March, and we haven’t looked back since.
Of course, it took a bit of getting used to.At first, it’s fair to say we struggled.We’ve had to pretty much completely overhaul the way we think about work so we can slip backinto being our usual productive selves – in some ways, we’re getting even more work done, even more efficiently than before!
Have you ever had the feeling of a thousand thoughts tangling themselves in your mind?
You're paralysed with too many threads of thoughts, it’s a mind knot.
As you try to untangle the knot, and focus on one task, your mind shuffles them all again. Only to replace it with another seemingly just as important task. Unable to focus on anything productive, you slip slowly away from anything productive and into a deep dark pit of procrastination.
Sound familiar?
Every day, we come across things in our roles that make us cringe – some things you may not even notice anymore, and others might make you grit your teeth and your whole body tense up.
In this article, we’ll list our top cringe-inducing things that brand managers around the world have endured, and I’m sure you’ve experienced them in one way or another.
It's a scary time out there at the moment, with wave after wave in of redundancies hitting the creative industries. Sadly, I’ve also been caught up in this – naturally, it came as a huge shock, with a fair few frantic moments trying to find a new 9-5 role. However, I’ve been trying hard to stay calm and positive throughout this experience, due to the approach I’ve taken to wade out into the choppy waters of the job-hunting sea.
All marketers need to be empathetic, understanding their audience’s problems and how their product can help solve those problems. However, there are some ways to ‘hack’ this empathy with psychological ‘tricks’ to get inside the minds of your consumers.
When it comes to marketing and promoting events, I’ve got the receipts. I’ve been in events marketing for over six years – ever since I got into marketing. I’ve been learning all the way, developing how best to market an event – I’ve made mistakes, found some brilliant marketing strategies and activities, and smashed event targets.
The deep dive series is an ongoing blog seriesin which we use nudenotes to breakdown complexbusiness and design processes, techniques, principles and ideologies.
This week SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis is ubiquitous in business, it's a powerful tool to use in any project or business. If done correctly it can unearth very powerful insights which can be the difference between failure and success.
We marketers can learn so much from pop culture about how to get the most out of our promotion and other marketing activities.
We might not even realise it, but even box-office hit movies can hold key marketing lessons.
In this article, I’ll show you some of the great marketing tips and lessons from some of my favourite films – I promise, it’s not an excuse to re-watch my favourites…
The deep dive series is an ongoing blog seriesin which we use nudenotes to breakdown complexbusiness and design processes, techniques, principles and ideologies.
This week SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis is ubiquitous in business, it's a powerful tool to use in any project or business. If done correctly it can unearth very powerful insights which can be the difference between failure and success.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might have heard about the rise of video marketing online.
From a quick search, there were just under 1 million news stories on video marketing – and a staggering 4.5 billion results overall.
But where do you start with video marketing?
Your company needs customers to survive.
And, while leads are essential, too, you need your customers to keep coming back – that’s where your profit is.
You want your customers to become brand ambassadors, shouting your praises from the rooftops, telling their friends, and leaving glowing testimonials across social media.
Packaging design is everywhere – we interact with it everyday.
According to a study by the Food Marketing Institute in 2008, there are around 47,000 packaged products available in the average supermarket.
With this in mind, it’s surprising to see how many crappy packaging designs on our shelves!
Are you struggling to get out of bed before midday whilst in lockdown and practising social distancing?
Are you getting addicted to the snooze button on your alarm?
Like most people in the UK, I’ve been working from home and social distancing for just over 2 weeks now - rarely leaving the house.
To be honest, I’ve quite enjoyed working from home - I’ve found an increase in my focus and been able to channel the extra time gained from not commuting into my passion projects.
Copywriting is a skill that’s in high demand – marketers, copywriters, bloggers, business owners, designers…
Everyone needs, at the very least, a general understanding of what makes good copy.
There’s been a massive focus on SEO and content creation over the past few years, and it’s not looking to stop any time soon.
So it’s worth checking these copywriting tips, even if you’re a seasoned pro, to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your copy.
If you’re looking at starting to create nudenotes, infographics are the best place to look for inspiration.
Infographics cut out a tonne of unnecessary research, which can otherwise get in the way of you just sitting down and creating some nudenotes.
‘Exclusive’ is a word often used in marketing, to promote deals, offers and products not available to a company’s full audience.
Exclusivity can be effective in increasing sales and targeting audiences with specific messaging, but it can be a brand-destroyer.
Although marketing is all about providing a solution to a customer’s problem, we, as marketers, need to make sure the customer’s problem that we’re identifying as ‘solvable’ is not rooted in a form of oppression.
Hosted by The Futur's very own design and branding gurus, Ben Burns and Matthew Encina, the series documents every step of the process in an honest and insightful way.
It’s a must-watch for anyone keen on building their own brand in the creative industry.
In this article, I’m going to share my nudenotes on this video series, complete with my key takeaways, plus a sprinkling of my insights.
My cat, Buffy, saunters into the room, gracefully leaps onto our wooden table, and sits, poised and perfect. I do what every other person would — I grab my phone and snap countless pictures, from different angles. I spend five minutes editing the pictures, making my already-beautiful kitty even more stunning. Then I open up Instagram, start a new post, type a snappy caption, complete with hashtags.
And I freeze… I can’t post it.
Fellow marketers, gather ‘round.
Every day, we come across things in ourprofessional roles that make us cringe – some things you may not even notice anymore, and others might make you grit your teethand your whole body tense up.
In this article, I’ll list my top six cringe-inducing things that drive me crazy as amarketer, that I’m sure you’ve experiencedin one way or another.
A recruiter sent me a role the other day for a Marketing Manager at an established company…
The job description seemed to cover every single aspect of marketing in detail, requiring skills that are beyond that of a marketer, such as graphic design, videography, photography, product management and development, and sales.
The problem is that businesses and recruiters don’t seem to understand what marketing is, so they justify that all of the ‘odd jobs’ are lumped in as part of a general marketing role.
2019 is coming to a close, and 2020 is creeping closer round the corner.
It’s the perfect time for creatives around the galaxy to take stock and build their knowledge, to step into the new decade with confidence and novel ideas.
Exhibiting at an event is great way of getting new customers, reconnecting with existing customers, getting the latest industry updates, and (sneakily) checking out the competition.
However, after five years of exhibiting and helping exhibitors at trade shows and conferences, I’ve noticed that too many companies aren’t making the most out of their presence.
It's that time of year again: the Christmas gift rush.
We start frantically running around stores and clicking about online, desperately trying to find the best possible gifts for our friends and family, grabbing products we think will be a good match.
There’s so much choice out there, and it's only getting more and more difficult to find ‘the perfect gift’.
No matter what you’re doing in life -- whether you’re a creative professional, freelancer, business owner, or between projects, you need inspiration.
Inspiration is the step before motivation -- motivation gets you moving, inspiration gives you ideas and sparks your creativity.
Inspiration is fundamental to success, and you can never stop being inspired.
A new way of sharing ideas has been exploding on Instagram over the past couple of months… The Instagram Carousel.
In just 10 slides our design and business heroes are pouring all their wisdom and knowledge, all in bite size chunks we scroll right through in a few seconds, then forget in just the same time.
But how many of these carousels do you remember?
We all loathe meetings- and we have all had cringe inducing moments because of them.
You probably come into contact with them every day – some of them you may not even notice anymore, and others might make your blood boil every time.
In this article, I break down five cringe-inducing things that drive me crazy about meetings.
Marketers and business owners: how organised is your marketing, really?
Do you feel as though you’re in control of your marketing, or has your marketing overgrown and gone rabid, wild, wont to its own desires?
Don’t panic, I’ll cover everything you need to get on top of your marketing.
It’s our anniversary!
Dean and I can’t believe that it’s been a whole year since we started NSC -- it’s flown by!
From our first article a year ago, we’ve written over 100 blog articles: guides for business owners, deep dives into complex topics on marketing, branding and design, weekly round-ups of nudenotes, and insights into creative minds.
It’s hard to know whether you should start your own business.
There’s a world of small businesses out there, and the truly tough concept to grasp is that the majority aren’t successful.
So how do you know when you’re ready, to ensure that your business will be successful and continue to grow?
Are you an amateur or an expert?
A rookie or a professional?
I’m no psychic, but I already know the answer -- you’re an expert, a professional!
Now for the tough part: do you know what the difference is?
The only way to know whether your business is successful is by monitoring your metrics.
What are metrics?
Read on to find out…
Do you often feel stumped?
Have trouble coming up with ideas?
You would probably call this Creative Block.
The seemingly ever looming monster, that seems ready to strike at any point. Looking around any creative industry and we see the victims of this vicious titan everywhere.
Or do we?
Do we really believe in this myth… this legend… this monster?
The term ‘user experience’ (UX) can be mind-bogglingly broad, and can potentially cover every single interaction with your brand that your customer experiences.
However, in a more specific sense, it’s often referred to when talking about customers’ technical experiences -- whether they’re on your website, mobile app, using your online service, or even searching for you online.
Forgive me, for I have sinned.
Seven years ago, I thought Comic Sans was a good font.
It pains me to type that, but it’s true.
Time might have passed, but I still know surprisingly little about design, so it’s time for me to sit down with design extraordinaire, Dean O’Callaghan, to learn the basics.
USP (unique selling point) is a term that’s used a lot in marketing and sales.
But what does it actually mean?
Simply speaking, your USP is your x-factor – what sets you apart from everyone else.
It’s why your customers should come to you instead of a competitor.
If you want your business to truly succeed in the 21st century, you need a website.
But so many people are put off from it.
There’s such a fear that creating a website is a long-winded, difficult process, that you need to have elite coding skills to do -- but that’s simply not true.
I’m put in mind of the famous saying - “Crazy is doing the same thing time and time again, and expecting different results”.
You need to experiment with your marketing - taking risks and try new things - in order to grow.
That means that, sometimes, your experiments may not work in the way that you want them to.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might have heard about the rise of video marketing online.
From a quick search, there were just under 1 million news stories on video marketing -- and a staggering 4.5 billion results overall.
Promotion is the bread and butter of the marketer, and always has been.
While technology and social developments may shift the methods of promotion, the basic concept of promoting your product, service, or business, remains the same.
Promoting your product or service can seem daunting at first, you may feel as though you don’t have the skills or confidence to do it, or you might be modest about your business.
There are many times in a designer's career when you will hear and see things the make you cringe.
I’m sure you probably come into contact with them every day – some of them you may not even notice them anymore, and others might make your blood boil every time.
In this article, I break down six cringe-inducing things that drive me crazy as a Designer.
Have you read countless books about business, design, marketing, branding, or anything else, but find it difficult to remember the content after reading it?
I feel you.
And I have a solution.
#nudenotes!
Every day we see tens, hundreds or thousands of them, but profile photos have become such an important window into your online persona.
Whether we admit it or not, everyone makes a split second judgment on an online account based on their first impressions, which is usually a profile picture.
‘KPI’ is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot in business.
But what does it actually mean?
The official Oxford English Dictionary definition is “A quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization, employee, etc. in meeting objectives for performance.”.
Reading time: 6 minutes
Alright, I’ll admit it: I’m a Millennial, and I love Disney. In true NSC fashion, I’ve discovered that there are some surprisingly useful hints and tips for creatives nestled beneath those Mickey Mouse ears.
Reading time: 12 mins
So many of us dread criticism and critiques. It’s been twisted into something that seems like a negative part of the creative process.
The reason why so many of us fear and loathe critiques is that people often do it wrong.
Criticism should be constructive, not destructive.
Being more environmentally aware is important to a lot of us now, and I think it's something that we should all focus on improving as much as we can. Even little changes can make a difference.
Reading time: 10 mins
Like it or loathe it, networking is necessary for your business to thrive.
The more people you know, and the more people that know about your business, the more brand awareness and professional authority you'll have, and the more sales you'll make.
Simple, right?
Reading time: 3 mins
For those of you who have been following my Instagram feed know that every week for the past 25 weeks, I’ve been posting my booknotes on Douglas Davis’ brilliant book, Creative Strategy and the Business of Design.
Reading time: 16 mins
In the world of sports, standing out and developing your personal brand is necessary to stand out from the rest in a highly competitive environment. Not only do you need to be unique, but you also need to prove your results to attract sponsors, teams, and events, and to be that inspirational role model to your audience.
Reading time: 5 mins
Want to know how to make awesome nudenotes (or sketchnotes), but don’t know where to start?
Step this way, my friend, and join the nudenotes revolution.
Reading time: 10 mins
Jargon is horrible. It’s such a deterrent for customers, and most jargon is unnecessary.
Where possible, avoid it. Where unavoidable, explain it in simple terms - why not turn that explanation into quality content?
Reading time: 2 mins
As avid fans of GoT, and because we take our branding and marketing inspiration from everywhere, we’ve spent hours discussing storylines, character development, and the various themes and metaphors.
Looking back over the past eight seasons, we noticed, buried beneath the rubble of King’s Landing, something interesting and unexpected… Lessons in branding.
Reading time: 13 mins
In celebration of the final season of Game of Thrones and ten years of amazing television. I have created a series of nudenotes, which I have been posting to my Instagram feed . In the light of the seven, I present all these posts here, in one place there some bonus ones thrown in.
Reading time: 1 min
Many of you may be asking yourselves ‘What the hell are nudenotes?’. Simply put, nudenotes are a form of sketchnotes.
Sketchnoting is the synergy of sketching and note-taking into a single piece of visual communication. The goal is to better engage your brain with the content you are consuming, since your brain is using both the creative and logical parts of your mind. Learning this way improves the retention of the information, and as an added bonus, you get an awesome-looking piece of reference material.
Reading time: 1 min
It seems like the whole world is on some form of social media. There’s actually around 3 billion social media users, so it’s not quite the whole world, but it’s a bloody big chunk.
So your business needs to be on social media.
Reading time: 12 mins
I take an interest in individuals that follow their passions for a career, spending time developing unique and ancient skills and ways of working.
The personality of the individual is tied into their practice, and the time they spend developing their skills shines through.
Reading time: 1 min
SEO is a term that didn’t exist until the 90s, and wasn’t part of the marketers arsenal until probably the late 2000s. But it’s grown to be so important to marketers, web developers and copywriters around the world.
It’s something that can take up a lot of your time to do it right - the search engine giants (looking at you, Google) are always changing their algorithm so marketers can’t ‘cheat’ their way to higher rankings..
Reading time: 11 mins
It’s undeniable - content marketing is effective, as a lead generation tool and to build brand trust and loyalty with existing customers.
You’re enticing customers by showcasing your expertise, with information that they would benefit from, or enjoy, warming them up to convert to loyal customers.
Reading time: 5 mins
Perceptual maps form a small part of a larger process of developing products, brands and services for consumers. This technique can be a tricky to master, but can be an effective tool for all creative professionals to help you understand where your product/brand sit amongst your competition from (and this is the important bit) your consumers’ perspective.
Reading time: 3 mins
It seems like the whole digital world is using hashtags, so how can you, as a marketer, use hashtags to make your brand message stand out from the sea of #?
Reading time: 1 min
One of the most universal principles within design, marketing, and advertising is understanding features and benefits, including the differences between them, and how to leverage them to create designs and communications that truly connect with consumers.
Reading time: 5 mins
Every company needs leads to grow. Leads, or prospects, are new customers - someone whose details you don’t have on your company’s database. Without getting new leads, you will only have your limited database of customers to sell your product or service to, and you’ll never being able to grow.
Reading time: 11 mins
You need to know who your competition is, to know what you’re up against. To know why your customers might go elsewhere. It’s one of the grim sides of marketing that some people forget about, but it’s necessary in order to be successful.
Reading time: 2 mins
We need to talk about Value…
As creative professionals, we talk about value a lot during the design process, sometimes without even knowing it. Everyone has a different perspective on what value is and how to get it.
Reading time: 4 mins
A marketer who doesn’t listen is like a vet who doesn’t like animals. It just doesn’t make sense. Listening is the first thing that a marketer should do when creating a campaign, or communicating any message to their audience.
Reading time: 2 mins
A company whose employees don’t believe in the brand, or whose actions don’t reflect the brand values, especially when communicating with customers or shareholders, can be damaging. So how do you get your employees to be brand ambassadors?
Reading time: 5 mins
Your brand dictates pretty much everything, so we’re going to run through it all, so you can build a long-lasting, multi-faceted brand that will resonate with your audience.
Reading time: 2 mins
Everyone’s different. That’s what sparks creativity, ideas and originality. And that’s what makes NSC go ‘round. So we want you to know a little more about our creative community at NSC, so we can celebrate our differences. Vive la différence!
Here’s Tassia Agatowski, co-founder and Marketing Lead of NSC, to tell us a bit more about what makes her tick.
Is your packaging design the most effective it can possibly be? Where can you improve? How can you improve?
Reading time: 18 mins
Everyone’s different. That’s what sparks creativity, ideas and originality. And that’s what makes NSC go ‘round. So we want you to know a little more about our creative community at NSC, so we can celebrate our differences. Vive la différence!
Here’s Dean O’Callaghan, packaging designer and #nudenote creator, to tell us a bit more about what makes him tick.
Email marketing can be a highly effective way of communicating with your audience, but if used too little, or too often, it can have disastrous effects on your mailing list. So you have to take the Goldilocks approach and get it just right.
Reading time: 5 mins
There’s no denying it: we bloody love Christmas. That’s why, as part of our usual #sketchnotecookbook, we’ve put together a special festive edition, so we can celebrate the holidays the NSC way: with a dash of design, a sprinkling of sketchnotes, and a heaped tablespoon of indulgence.
Reading time: 5 mins
We’re all about developing our knowledge here at NSC, and we love a good book. So I’ve compiled a list of my favourite books that I’ve found both practically useful and inspirational in my design work.
Reading time: 1 min
Why are marketers still using age, gender and marital status to segment their data and quantify success? Simply because it’s easier to quantify. This is not target marketing. This is lazy.
Reading time: 1 min
Another recommendation from The Futur, I read this book because there was a gap in my knowledge about the business-side of design - here’s what I learned.
Reading time: 2 mins
I was recently working on some #nudenotes based on a Youtube Video by The Futur (love these guys, thoroughly recommend all creative people check them out. Chris Do, you are a legend!).
Reading time: 1 min
‘We’ are Night Sky Creative, a community founded by Dean O’Callaghan and Tassia Agatowski. We’re here to help you get everything you need to be a success.
Reading time: 1 min
Another recommendation from The Futur, ‘Bigger Than This’ is such a useful book for those looking to build a brand from scratch or rebrand an existing business.
Reading time: 1 min
For those of you who have been following my Instagram feed from the beginning know that my first booknotes series was on on David Briers’ amazing book, Brand Intervention: 33 Steps to Transform the Brand You Have Into the Brand You Need.
Recently I was looking back through my early nudenotes posts - when I realised I never really showed everyone this full series, so its time to jump back into this project.
Well, 2020 was a year none of us will ever forget, however much we’d like to.
But through the trials and tribulations of the coronavirus pandemic, we saw so many shining lights in the form of businesses – both big and small.
So this article is our song of praise to those businesses, calling out what we thought they did well, despite the Covid-19 crisis.