Michele Gauler

Digital Remains Project  - featuring at create:digital exhibition

What motivated you to develop the Digital Remains project? 

I was intrigued by the rise of meaningful personal data and the role it will play when we die.

After death these digital memories gain soul and I felt that they are not different from old love letters or photo albums from our grandparents that we find in the attic.

The one thing these memories could use are a vessel, something they live in, visibly and tangibly in our homes which represent the digital legacy of a loved one. Preferably more beautiful and worthy than the temporary, ugly and random hard drive we usually use to store our data on.

What is your favourite thing about working on the project?

Interviewing people about how they remember their loved ones and through that building up an understanding of how we use time, place and objects as markers for our mourning. This is a timeless behaviour and it also applies to the digital age. It is exciting to try and apply these kinds of universal or archetypical behaviours to phenomena in the present which haven't fully evolved yet.

As a designer, what is your least favourite thing about digital technology?

That it's intangible.

What excites you most about working as a designer?

Walking the line between uncertainty and certainty.

What are you working on at the moment?

Something completely different: a series of foldable illustrations that unfold the same story in different ways.

What do you have on your desk?

Chaos, while I work during the day and nothing at the end of the day. I have found that clearing my desk is really important for ending and starting work.

What’s the soundtrack to your studio?

Beautiful silence :)

What would be your ideal project?

A project where I can let go and step out of the way of its natural flow... meaning that there is a lot of time. Time to research, get hooked, experiment, fail, pause and discuss and exchange with people. I think this kind of process happens while at the same time working on other, more linear and focused things.

Michele's digital remain project is currently being exhibited at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland as part of the Northern Design Festival.

D&AD Creative Briefing

The recent Northern Design Festival D&AD creative brief-in event saw presentations from key advertising and marketing players Ben Quigley, Don Smith and Stephen Drummond.

The event held at Newcastle College on 18 October held a captivated audience of students from surrounding establishments, keen to open their eyes and ears and hear all about the prestigious annual D&AD New Blood Competition. The 16 individually themed briefs are to be released and readily downloadable at the end of the month.

Introduced and organised by D&AD's own Ella Schofield, Ben Quigley quickly took to the stage to discuss the future of marketing. He said: "The future of marketing services belongs as much to mad men and women as it does maths men and women." Ben spoke about the importance of truly engaging and understanding the consumer whilst exercising the advancements in both technology and science. He went on to discuss big data, following up with the familiar Cadbury's Gorilla Advert and then speaking of the innovations of Natwest's Get Cash app.

The intertwining of science with technology and the importance of a sustained relationship with the customer became even more apparent in the discussion from Realise's Don Smith.

Starting with an inspiring Arthur Clarke quote; "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Don spoke of the vast advancements in technology's historical capabilities, highlighting Realise's own augmented reality app 'Beam Me Up,' in conjunction with the London Star Trek convention, which has been endorsed by CBS.

Technology was further discussed in relation to Leap Motion, subvocal recognition, interactive holograms and virtual reality. He ended aptly on his own interpretation of the previous quote, challenging the enraptured audience; "your work will need to be indistinguishable from magic."

Last up was Stephen Drummond, creative director at Drummond Central. Stephen spoke with humour, giving an insight into one of Drummond’s most successful campaigns with client bet365. Drummond managed to change bet365’s face of advertising through the means of television and Internet portals. He discussed the methods used and their unstoppable determination, which made the impossible possible, ending the whole briefing with the inspired "someone's got to do it, why shouldn't it be me?"

We spoke with D&AD’s event organizer Ella Schofield who told us about the New Blood Awards and about the company’s involvement with Northern Design Festival.

How do you feel about being part of the Northern Design Festival?

We do these kind of events every year and we’re making more of a conscious effort to latch onto things that are happening, we’re here as part of the Northern Design Festival, our Manchester event is part of Design Manchester and an event in Cardiff as part of Cardiff Design Festival. It’s really nice to be part of something big.

How is to be in Newcastle?

Great. It seems to all have gone really well so far; the speakers were fantastic, a really nice range of presentations. We have a workshop this afternoon that will be an opportunity for people to get their hands dirty and get into the brief.

What are D&AD hoping for from students this year?

For us, it’s about getting an amazing crop of talent through. The exciting thing for us now that the briefs are launched is seeing the responses come in and we get a real sense of quality of the next generation of talent. We sometimes come across real gems and then seeing their journey as they go into industry.

by Melissa Smith