Where Design Meets Digital

The digital industry is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, with the fusion of design-meets-digital evolving alongside it at an equally steady speed. Last week we visited designjunction, and attended a discussion on digital platforms supporting the design industry, ‘Where Design Meets Digital’. Digital platforms, including Kickstarter and Clippings, are changing the way we consume, design and support the creative industries. The seminar panel, made up of digital entrepreneurs and creative forward-thinkers, were asked to discuss how they foresaw the industry evolving over the next 10 years and what this, in turn, will mean for the designer.

Whilst confirming a few things that we already knew and have been adopting in our day-to-day practices, we came away with a few key insights that will certainly be beneficial for long-term digital planning:

First things first, we looked at how digital is revolutionising brands and giving everyone an even chance of success. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest open a door to your customers; any brand can post a beautiful piece of content on these platforms and boost to a relevant audience. Once you’re in front of these people, if they like the look of what you stand for and the styling of your products you have as much chance of success as the next guy. With this in mind it makes it ever more important to give your brand online exposure, creating the correct content to attract your target audience and building brand awareness so you become instantly recognisable. Brands such as eve Sleep and Loaf do this really well. Taking it one step further you can collaborate with people such Sarah Akwisombe, to give your brand coverage in the right areas and in front of wider audiences. Sarah has done extremely well over the last year or so, building up her followers and teaming up with some of the biggest homewards brands, like M&S, Dwell, BHS, Paint by Conran and DFS. She has her own distinctive style and is very influential to her followers, making her an ideal influencer for some brands to team up with.

Secondly, over the past few years here at In The White Room we’ve started to see a shift in the success of print media, in favour of online platforms. Gone are the days where the entire marketing budget is spent on ad placement in printed media. Spreading your budget is so important, social media is so important, targeting a specific audience is so important. The results that you can track off the back of online campaigns allows you to hone in on the exact demographic you should be targeting, spending your money targeting the correct people. All of the panel speakers agreed this is the way the market is moving.

The online community grows day by day, so having everything at their fingertips is the key. Kickstarter lets you support people by clicking on an advert on Facebook, you like the look of a product, you can support that product in a click of a mouse, helping new designers get their names out there to the masses. Clippings helps thousands of interior designers to specify furniture and lighting for their projects, again at the click of a mouse, all online with no more spending hours trawling through hundreds of websites to find what you’re looking for, it’s all in one place.

This is Where Design Meets Digital.

If you’re looking for help with your brand’s social media and online marketing, please do get in touch.  You can call us for a chat on 01892 511867, send an email or visit our main website to submit an enquiry form.

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