November 2022

We all loved those nights as a kid where you’re snuggled in bed waiting for a good storytelling session before you fall asleep with the words of the story echoing in your dreams.
Do you remember the feeling these nights gave you?
What about some book names or authors…Can you remember any right now?
Us? We can barely name 3.
Some stories give you thoughts to dream about… but the stories that have you “sold” are the ones told when you were feeling down, needed a good laugh, or for some inspiration. Those stories are the ones that make you feel something. These stories are the ones that could give you thoughts to think of until today.

Storytelling is amazing to intrigue whoever is listening to you at the moment… But if you want to influence them, you gotta sell that story or start “storyselling” it.

As Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

When it comes to the art of Design, the journey from conceptualization to delivery can be difficult. Beginning with a desired, but very vague, outcome and an idea or two is daunting to say the least. Where to begin? What are your key points of interest? How do you get from A to B in the best possible way?

 

These are the tough questions at the outset of any project.

But there’s a way that is both economical and focused on results, and it’s the method we use for all of our projects. (Credit to the British Design Council for putting it out in the world.)

The Diamond Diamond Approach

Getting from Problem to Solution in a creative, inspired and idea-fueled manner, while utilizing your whole team, and also attaining the best results possible is… well, it’s what we all want, isn’t it? A design dream come true.

Let’s walk through the four phases of Diamond Diamond together, and see just how effective it can be when used in practice.

We begin at the beginning with the Problem at hand. By that we mean the assigned task, or the whole idea not yet clearly defined. The client may not even know what the problem is, only that they have a need. It’s our job to figure that out. It seems insurmountable if taken as a whole, which is why we now seek to Discover it.

In this initial Discovery stage, we talk it out with our staff, pose questions to those potentially affected by the Problem, and dig deeply and intentionally for any and every answer.

Research research research!

Note: There are no wrong answers at this stage. Everyone should feel free to investigate the problem together, and throw anything at the wall they want until something sticks. We are gathering all the information at this point, which can be whittled down to its core meaning in the next phase. In the diagram, this growth of knowledge is exemplified by the expanding half of the first Diamond. Your team is here to explore, research and seek to understand the problem more fully.

By the end of the Discovery phase, your team will likely end up with a couple possible routes to deliverables.

Once we have enough information to proceed, we can begin the second step: Defining the problem. We are now honing it down to its core properties and, in doing so, making the problem far less daunting and more easily quantifiable. The problems have been discovered, and now is the time to give them a name, focus on them and find the one that, when solved, would most benefit the client (and you!)

It’s like those times we’ve all faced when it seems like a problem in life is too big and insurmountable to be conquered. It’s only when we step back, view it from the outside, get a few opinions that we see that things aren’t so bad. We notice there are steps we can take to improve our situations. By finding the root cause, we can devise solutions. Suddenly, things aren’t as bleak as we thought.

Design is life! Life is design!!

But we digress…

Once our Problem is well-defined and clearly ready to be solved, we move on to Diamond number two. It’s time to Develop. The seeds are planted, watered, tended to and beginning to sprout. It’s now time to make them grow in the right direction! Here’s where things really get cooking.

This one’s for the whole team too! Get feedback from your people, and even those outside your crew who have something unique to offer on the subject at hand. Inspire yourself to solve the problem in the best way possible! Creative juices are flowing. We’re firing on all cylinders. Just as the Discovery phase was all about any and every way to search for the problem, the Development phase is focused on any and every way to solve the problem.

We want to hear all the solutions to the problem that can be presented so we can pick the best possible option. The second Diamond is coming to a point and we’re almost there!

We’ve found the best possible solution and it’s time to Deliver.

Test your solutions, making sure you’ve found the right one. This is the time to check on the quality of your work. If you find fault in any area, redirect, rethink and revise.

Once you’ve got an answer that will satisfy both you and (especially) your client, you’re ready to Deliver a product with confidence and conviction. Certainly, the client may request changes, and you might need to start over in some areas. It should be understood that the Deliver phase is not necessarily the end of the line so much as it is a dramatic movement along the right path.

Design is about finding the best possible solutions to problems while combining art and commerce in a high-wire act wherein the two merge to create something powerful, personal, and unique. The best design agency in UAE will help you with this because we believe in the Diamond Diamond Approach. The Diamond Diamond Approach ensures that you reach that most desired destination more frequently and more efficiently.

Diamond Diamond + Motivated Crew = Happy Clients

3 Reasons why MoodBoards are game changers for conceptualizing your brand

Finding inspiration for a project is one thing. But channeling all these sparks of inspiration into a cohesive set of ideas is something else!

Starting a concept, a brand, or any project, is often overwhelming.

You’re sitting, you’re focused, you have your laptop in front of you, and you have the hard facts and figures. You Are Ready… but then, the first question that comes to your mind sounds something like “Sooo, where do I start now?”.

The answer is simple: Create your Moodboard.

But what is a moodboard to begin with?

A moodboard is a collage of images, material samples, color palettes, and sometimes descriptive words and typography that will guide you in your work, and help you visualize your concept better. When creating or assembling it, you really want to try to highlight your theme, color, and design direction.

By taking the time to focus on the careful creation of your moodboard, you will be saving yourself a lot of time when you start your developing process (the next step) because then you’ll have a solid base to work on. And the best part is… you get to include whatever you want and whatever you deem helpful for your project.

Still think you should skip this step?

Here are 3 reasons why you should start using moodboards:

1. To express the vision we have in mind for a project: bringing imagination to reality

Ever had an idea that you can perfectly feel and imagine in your head, but you just can’t seem to express it in words?

It happens to all of us and the solution is easy: assemble your moodboard to bring that piece of imagination to reality!

Moodboards help translate feelings, moods, ideas, or visions into something tangible. Something others can see and understand. Something you can see and adjust to your perfection.

This sets the scene for your project’s vision, allowing yourself and everyone to visualize the final product and adjust accordingly.

Just imagine yourself having a very specific idea for your wedding. Then, you try to explain to your wedding planner how you would like to organize your wedding without any visuals or samples. Just you explaining ideas… will your words be enough to express the exact idea you had in mind?

How about if you bring in pictures, materials, and color palettes?

2. To communicate our visions efficiently

In the world of creation and design, communication is key among the team members and with the clients. Whether it is to test the waters to see what they like and what they don’t, or to get constructive and direct feedback that can guide you early on in the project. Either way, communicating your vision with your team or with your clients is crucial, but to do it efficiently entails more than just verbal interaction. You will need a visual and concrete basis to work with.

A moodboard is a visually communicative tool. It brings scattered ideas into one single cohesive and compelling picture that everyone can see. When the vision is clear, miscommunications and the “back and forths” are limited between each party.

Thus, where words fail, moodboards speak … as philosophical as it sounds, it is true. For your peers, coworkers, or clients to get inspired by your project, they must be able to visualize it in their heads to form that connection with it.

So let your moodboard speak for itself, and then let it be a guide for the rest of the process.

You’ll find the communication around the project more efficient, time-saving, clarifying, and inspiring.

3. To help us focus our ideas and define the project

Once your vision and concept are set, the moodboard will act as a filter to help you focus all the ideas in the right direction. The more detailed and well-designed the moodboard is, the easier it is to narrow down the ideas that are contributing to your project.

Step by step, you’ll see your project come together and become a defined unit with a specific direction. If not, Lamesa creative fusion can help you.

The future of art is already here, and you might hate it…

Technological advancements are so commonplace these days that they might even be considered “run-of-the-mill.” The predictions made by so many mid 20th century philosophers and scientists (and Star Trek) are coming true on a daily basis. It feels as if, by turns, we alternate between statements like “what an amazing time to be alive” and “I miss the old days when I could just switch it all off.”

And now you say you want Artificial Intelligence making your “art” for you?? Hopefully Marshall McLuhan is somewhere in the universe mumbling, “saw that one coming!”

Our creations… creating!

In a matter of seconds, programs like Midjourney and DALL-E 2 are forming a bridge from human hearts and minds to computer circuits, wires and ones and zeros… and they’re coming for your art! Any quick online search will yield Artificial Intelligence Art samples galore, some of them quite good! Many of them may even elicit an emotional response from you (perhaps in spite of yourself.)

Colorful images made to your exact specifications can now be produced at the touch of a button! How do you feel about the A.I. art you’re witnessing? Does it matter at all that it wasn’t directly created by a person?

Meanwhile, we still approach art as we always have: with the desire to connect emotionally with another person’s creation. To feel, to see the world differently (if only for a moment,) to reach out through time and space and feel another human hand reaching back.

What would happen if that hand was a robohand!?!

The uncanny valley.

In 2007, Robert Zemeckis interpreted the Beowulf legend for film in the form of a completely CGI rendered movie. The result was both impressive in its technical accomplishments and off-putting in a way that was difficult to describe. Beowulf attempted to create photorealistic characters in a fantasy movie, but the technology wasn’t advanced enough to meet the filmmakers’ ambitions. The release contained a cast of characters we recognized as human, but not quite human enough. Movements alternated between halting and cartoony. More importantly, facial expressions were off and not quite real!

It felt important, but it didn’t feel relatable.

The same can be said about A.I. art. It can be beautiful, but it can also lack the human spark we look for when appreciating human feats of creation.

This piece “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” was awarded a blue ribbon at the Colorado State Fair’s art competition. Beautiful, isn’t it? The saturated reds, the highlights, and deep brown shading all serve to create a fantastical time and place that is at once enticing and visually stunning. Would it change your opinion of the piece to know that it wasn’t created by human hands, but by Midjourney, an AI art program? Is its power diminished in your eyes knowing it wasn’t painted so much as fashioned from a series of punched-in keywords?

Needless to say, traditional artists weren’t happy with the results of this particular competition, and the piece’s creator, Jason M. Allen quickly had to defend his choice to submit a creation that he didn’t exactly create.

And herein lies the conundrum!

A.I. creations are cost effective. They’re capable of producing endless variations of the same content. They work quickly and produce desired results in seconds. They’re able to personalize a unique piece with little to no effort. Results are, when done with care, indistinguishable from traditional creative methods.

But there’s a flipside to all that ease and convenience…

A computer program is incapable of truly understanding what we want to see. They lack the fundamental understanding of what humans look for in a piece of art. Frankly, how could they? A computer, no matter how powerful, can’t match the human brain’s desire for the aesthetically pleasing (at least not yet.)

It also can’t come up with new ideas that have the potential to spur creativity forward. These quickly collated images have to come from somewhere. Unlike brush strokes on canvas or Photoshop, the images come, not from the mind of the artist, but from the rolling waves of the unoriginal… i.e. the internet.

All that to say, A.I. art still requires a human touch, however slight.

But is it art? Does it matter?

Simply keying in requests in a program like Midjourney, some would insist, is not enough to be considered an artistic venture, much less an original vision at all. It’s clear that A.I. art isn’t substantial enough to truly be called “art” in the classical sense.

But is it “art” enough for the future of advertising? Is it enough for the future of businesses that don’t have the time or budget to commission artistic works when the need arises, but still want images that entice and inspire? Is simply typing requests to a program that, seconds later, produces an image enough to justify ditching the traditional avenues in favor of convenience? Should freelance artists simply be allowed to fade back into the galleries and salons from whence they came?

Well, let’s find out!

The best creative agency in UAE (Lamesa Creative Fusion ) created the piece in a matter of seconds using an a.I. Art generator available through google (www.Wombo.Art). Entering in the keywords above and choosing the style was all it took to be given this image in a matter of (literal) seconds. Pretty, isn’t it? A man is looking into the sunset, perhaps lost in thought. He looks into the future, maybe. The image is bright, yet vague. Hopeful, yet forlorn. The positioning is correct, and the color choices are nearly perfect. It’s not art, but it’s pretty, and all we did was type in some words we wanted to see! And what a.I. Programs like this can do above the consumer level is beyond impressive. (for the record, our key words were “Giant, person, realistic, clouds, mountains, water, sun, fire.”)

Is that enough to prove the practicality of programs like Midjourney and its ilk?

Perhaps.

Only time will tell if something like this proves useful in the long run, and there are no solid conclusions to be drawn from this debate, but it is still a debate worth having.

True art will always have its vaunted place in society, but is there room for A.I. creations as well? Frankly, for better or worse, there will probably have to be