Message from the MD

I founded It’s Pixel Perfect (IPP) because I believed that building a great marketing agency would improve businesses, people’s lives and, hopefully the world. In the two years – plus that has followed, my team and I have been constantly delighted by the ways in which we have impacted business while not shying away from our social responsibilities.

In the next decade, however, the competition for new revenues, new markets, new products and new services will continue to intensify. I know, that if we want to survive this period we have to operate in completely new ways, making sustainability integral to our innovation and performance.

Toward the end of 2013, I found guidance in the words of the late Nelson Mandela. He said, “there is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” It is this idea, that I used as a stepping stone toward the rebuilding of IPP. Last December, I began by reorganizing the management team around a core service to improve responsibility and accountability across IPP. We had a big clean up. We needed it! We had so many opportunities, and unless I made those hard choices, we may have ended up spreading ourselves too thin and not have had the impact that we would want. This left me with no choice but to focus on a core service, content marketing. This service would be cleaner, more consistent and would bring more value to our customers. It would allow all our services to work together seamlessly. It is still early days, and we have a long way to go, but this process will tremendously impact the we way we do business going forward.

Our dependency on technology for efficiency has single-handedly been our change maker since the start of the year. Our customers access to changes and information has been well streamlined by the use of several unique open source softwares and web applications. It is however futile to have the right resources and not have the right team members. That in itself was a roller coaster ride I won’t forget. Finding the right fit and the right balance to meet the required roles we needed in the company, certainly had its moments. We tried several interns with various skill sets and leadership capabilities. As talented as some were, we just couldn’t fit the pieces together seamlessly. I think we got the break-through when I recognized that we had to develop a team of A-Players who understood the philosophy of Performance with Purpose. After understanding that, I recreated a team with several unique roles and since then we have been on the road to sustainable growth. I know at this point that the mountains we climb will be steep, but we will climb them together.

There has been something slightly funny in the office that right now we may be known more for our philanthropic duties than the marketing ideas that we have executed for our clients. I wasn’t amused initially, because I thought our focus was being misjudged. After much thought, I realised that we were right down the path of what I had initially wanted. Social Responsibility is at the centre of our business and we won’t change that now or in the future. It is who we are. WE LOVE PEOPLE. We had our first successful charity activity in December “Give Where You Live: Christmas Treat” at the UWI Hospital. Since then, we have continued our philanthropic activities with our #LoveMore campaign and our “Give Where You Live: Toy Drive” which starts this month.

Relevant information and a lightning fast approach in delivering clients needs are key in our core service. We know if we keep our customers informed with information they NEED to know, it will help them to understand our business process and also potentially understand the changes in their industries. That is why I’m so excited about the relaunch of our blog. It allows us to execute projects for our clients, then write a blog post to explain how it works. We recognize that if we hold their hands during this time, they will hold our hands in the future.

We have observed that the financial situation of this country has placed businesses in a corner and thus they need excellent return on their investment (ROI) to meet their basic needs. They need results out of a hat like magic. Can we blame them? No we can’t. We have accepted the situation that we are in, what our customers are faced with and we are equipping ourselves with the skills, the patience, and the people to survive this period and help our clients to reach their goals.

I am proud of the progress we are making but is this the best we can do? I certainly do not think so but I know we can, must and we will do better.

– Conrad Mathison

10 Principles of GOOD Design: Braun & Apple

By Glenford Scott – GSCOTTY.COM

In today’s world of business, design is just as important as whatever magic your product can do, it adds tremendous value to a product and it captures a buyer’s attention better. Companies like Apple due to the strict rule of it’s legendary founder Steve Jobs and his right hand man John Ive have inherited design as a core function of their products if I can say so following always a minimalist view on design and has been copied by many companies who wish to emulate their success. So nowadays people expect to see a well designed product whether it be a physical product like a phone or not physical like a website, good design sets you apart from the pack and increases your value proposition to your customers.

But even the great Apple had to learn its design principles from someone, and that someone is legendary German industrial designer Dieter Rams. During his tenure Mr. Rams outlined that there are indeed principles that you have to follow in order to create what he dubbed as “Good Design” and these principles come in the nice round number of 10.  They are as follows

1. Good Design Is Innovative : The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

2. Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

3. Good Design Is Aesthetic : The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4. Good Design Makes A Product Understandable : It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5. Good Design Is Unobtrusive : Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

6. Good Design Is Honest : It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

7. Good Design Is Long-lasting : It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

8. Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail : Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

9. Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly : Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

10. Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible : Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

“Things which are different in order to simply be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.” – Dieter Rams

“My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.” – Dieter Rams