Tag: DesignAgency

South Wales Young Entrepreneur 2015

South Wales Young Entrepreneur 2015

We have some great news here at MeeCreative that we would like to share with you all. We are pleased to announce that our Creative Director, Liam has been shortlisted for the South Wales Young Entrepreneur of The Year award, pretty cool right? We thought so too!

As a result we thought it would be a nice idea to put him on the spot and have a quick Q&A with him about his life as a budding Entrepreneur.

 


 

So Liam, how old are you?

“Believe it or not I’m only 26 years old…I was getting into pubs at the age of 13. It was the unkempt beard of course!”

Where were you born?

“I was born in Merthyr Tydfil. A great little town (Don’t be fooled by Channel 4) in the heart of the welsh valleys.”

What is your current occupation (I already know but others may not)?

“I am the founder and Creative director at MeeCreative, responsible for managing busy schedules and sourcing new and exciting projects for the MeeCreative team. Also, I part time lecture product design at UWTSD (University of Wales Trinity St David), which is hugely rewarding when you see students flourish because it wasn’t all that long ago that I was in the same position as them.”

What course did you study at university and what qualification did you achieve?

“I studied BA Product Design at UWTSD back in 2007 when it was legendary named Swansea Institute (shenanigans down Wind St…oh they were the good ol’ days) and achieved the qualification of a First-Class honours.”

What inspires you?

“Mmmm, good question. I have a serious love and fetish for furniture so I have always looked upon the wacky work of Australian designer, Mark Newson. He experiments with materials and form to create pieces of furniture that are truly unique and original. The other people who inspire me daily are my staff – learning new methods and techniques to achieve outstanding results for our clients is something they do week in week out. They are a my biggest asset, they are all driven, professional and creative individuals with an energy that is inspiring. Without this team we would never be where we are today!”

What does it take to be a young entrepreneur in South Wales today?

“Personally I think it takes a lot of resilience, courage and perseverance; not everything goes as planned in business and sometimes the easy option is just to give up when things aren’t going as planned. You have to keep reaching for your goals and realise success doesn’t always come overnight. Setting small targets while subconsciously driving towards the larger vision is essential.”

What has been your biggest challenge so far in building your business?

“Initial start-up was always our biggest challenge here at MeeCreative. Trying to build the foundations and establishing yourself in a competitive discipline was difficult. We are in an industry where track record and a solid portfolio win you business; and of course when you start a design agency such as ours you have neither so you have to convince clients that you are the right choice. This was a great hurdle that we had to face but we did it!”

What is your top tip for young entrepreneurs just starting out?

“An army isn’t built around one individual. In business you need to armour yourself with the right support mechanisms. You can’t do it alone, so stop trying. In Wales we are lucky to have a lot of support from the Welsh Government but there are also very talented individuals that go unrecognised that can provide you with business support. We have a fantastic chairman here at MeeCreative – Barry Wanless – who keeps us in check, acting as a solid mentor and soundboard. The more people you talk your ideas and business objectives through with the better because conversations spark new ideas and new ideas open uncharted doors.”

The team at MeeCreative wish Liam the very best in the forthcoming awards. The ceremony will take place on the 11th of September at The Bear Hotel in Cowbridge, Cardiff. FINGERS CROSSED!

A MeeCreative Christmas

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It’s always difficult to decide what sort of things to push out around Christmas time; it can’t be too festive too early, but it can’t look like you’ve completely forgotten that it’s December, either.

So, this year at MeeCreative we had some late-night brainstorming sessions to discuss the best way to do some Christmas marketing, as well as thanking our fantastic clients and brilliant fellow design agencies.

Idea 1: Breakthrough Social Media Innovation

The first idea pitched by our web developer Ashley was incredible – a short, concise labelling system for social media posts which would allow users to relate the subject matter of their posts to others just like it, despite the actual content being different. We fired an email across to Twitter, in the hopes that the idea – Ashtags – would be swiftly adopted by them.

Unfortunately we were told that they already had a similar system in place, but, undeterred, we went straight back to the drawing board.

Idea 2: Christmas Decorations

What better for a product design agency to do than design a product?! Everyone is putting off the putting up of their Christmas trees around this time of the holidays, but perhaps it’s only because their existing decorations don’t motivate them enough to exhibit those pine needles! We needed to come up with a ground-breaking idea for a tree trinket that would take the world by storm.

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Unfortunately it turns out printing ultra-fine resolution 3D prints of human heads can really blow through a budget – not to mention our focus group telling us they just weren’t that interested in hanging strangers’ noggins in their living rooms – so we had to scrap that one, too.

Idea 3: Aggressive Marketing

On the face of it, the purpose of marketing is simple; try to get as many people to engage with your product or service as possible. However, this task becomes more difficult as the year comes to a close – as fighting for attention amongst expensive corporate advertising can seem impossible.

The solution? Aggressive marketing. Get our services out as quickly and in as much volume as possible, and try to spread the spirit of Christmas cheer in the process. Make the British public aware of the benefits of design!

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Unfortunately there were a few crossed wires whilst discussing the idea. While half of us got the idea of this aggressive marketing campaign, the other half (the half in charge of sending the idea to print) got the idea of an aggressive marketing campaign – one which involved a cheerful, pot-bellied representative of Christmas pointing a powerful six-shooter at holiday shoppers. Drawing board, we’re stopping by again.

Idea 4: Christmas Card

Deciding that the other ideas may have been a little ambitious, we settled on the idea of producing a nice, traditional Christmas card – based around the theme of the 12 Days of Christmas. Everybody likes a Christmas card (even the focus group), and it’s a great opportunity to be creative on just four little squares.

Even managing to rope in our chairman, Barry, we spent some time carefully crafting some props to use, brought in a load of scarves and hats from home, and had some fun taking photographs of the team for use in a feature on the inside of the card.

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As soon as we were happy that we’d done enough goofing around, we sorted through the photographs ready for laying out on the inside of the card. Not all of our horseplay made the final cut, however…

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Once we had decided which pics to use, we set them into the inside grid of our carefully-crafted Christmas card and sent the designs off to print!

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We’re absolutely chuffed with how the card turned out, and most of all we had a lot of fun creating it – we hope you like it too!

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Have a very Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year,
from all of us here at MeeCreative.