The Beautiful Meme came to give a talk about their practice, their creative process, and the work they have produced. I knew that they came to talk about copywriting predominantly, and it was interesting to hear about how they describe themselves as a creative agency, rather than graphic designers. They pride themselves on the variation between creative brains, and it's what they feel makes them a stronger agency compared to a group of graphic designers only.
They explained that copywriting is a skill in itself, and it should be separate to design, and so a copywriter should work with a designer and an art director because they will be a stronger team, as they all have those areas of focus, whereas someone that does a bit of everything may not be as strong.
They explained that copywriting is a process whereby a short prose should be edited down to all the necessary components, where the words are eye catching and memorable. They said that words should attract a viewer more than an image alone, because they make someone think more compared to an image. For a tea company they made the packaging for, they said that they would rather take a risk by using odd phrasing, and evocative words to attract a buyer rather than just having an image of someone picking tea leaves.
The work feels simplistic and straight to the point. The other projects they talked about were The National Ballet and The Battle of Bannockburn. Both of the projects use memorable copywriting to pull the viewer in. The Battle of Bannockburn uses image based typography as it's main logotype, and depicts imagery from the Scottish battle, along with the copywriting, whereas The English National Ballet uses photography and tag lines.
The overall sense that I got from The Beautiful Meme was that they would rather be 'revolutionary' than 'evolutionary'. They like to take risks, and aim to make statements through clever copy wiring than image alone.
