D4 + Cape Town Creative Academy
Posted on 08/01/2013 by Justin Williams
I was in Cape Town for Christmas (I know, I know, lucky bas*‹#d) and had the great pleasure of meeting up with CEO of the Cape Town Creative Academy Francisca Gebert and her colleague Francois Jonker. Now I’m not one for socialising too much within D4′s local design community, way too much back-slapping for my liking, but I’m fascinated to meet creative thinkers from other continents.
Why? Well I should be all gracious and say “oooh, the cross cultural exchange of ideas is so stimulating” but really what I want to find out is quite simple and extremely selfish. It’s this.
“Are the crazy ideas in my head relevant in another part of the world?”
Thankfully Fran and Francois were right on track with me. Ahead in fact. CTCA believe in the same core idea that pushes D4, namely that design + digital will drive the economic (re)growth of our countries.
They aim to do this by educating a new generation of design thinkers to populate the dynamic South African international creative industry. Our aim is to move companies forward in a modern world that is changing fast, so that they can gain the advantage in today’s global digital economy.
Sheffield + Cape Town has quite a ring to it so I guess you’ll witness quite a bit of interaction between D4 + CTCA in 2013. I don’t know what shape all this will take yet, but I am delighted to have met some fellow minds dedicated to realising the importance of design on all our futures. No matter where we live.
Hey Just, Glad you took Jo on a nice romantic break from work! Once again I find myself distracted from my work I should be doing to pester you.Let me begin… South Africa is a success story of sorts and they have very rapidly embraced modern media and built up a substantial infrastructure to support modern business models. Consider this though… when I set up my modest engineering company here in Malawi, I fell victim, (unknowingly), of how completely ineffective these basic principles apply to the majority of African nations. I paid for a domain name, set up a basic web page, bought 200 business cards and set out to self promote. Two years on and the website has had 23 hits, probably me checking, and the business cards have generated two inquiries, neither of which led to profitable work. 99% of my business is generated by word of mouth… a recommendation which leads to a phone call then a meeting and ultimately an agreement to undertake said work in a time frame that is generally unrealistic. Contracts are untenable here as the legal system is somewhat corrupt, (I tried for a less implicating word here, but this is the grim truth). I generally have to do my research and productive internet time late at night as this is the only time that I can get any internet access. Please try searching for any “run of the mill” inquiry through Google Malawi and you will get my point. I would love to have a significant presence online here as I believe that it is only natural that, considering the amount of new tech gadgets flooding into the country, online business will soon flourish. As always I respect and sometimes even enjoy your articles, hence please give some thought to this scenario. I don’t have much time to promote/advertise my services online, and can honestly say that I don’t know how media+branding would work, (if at all), out here. Give me some feedback on this as I am genuinely interested to hear your opinions… well, some of them anyway! Hope all is well.
Take Care
Still thinking Nick.
What’s mobile access like?
Hey Nick. Let me make sure I’ve got this right. You’re pretty much asking “How do you use digital tools to promote a business when the network is unreliable? What a fascinating problem to pose a digital team! For a while you much stumped us, and to be honest I still don’t have a solid answer, but I shall do my best.
The immediate thought was “what’s mobile like? Is there anything we could do there?” Then I went back to your point about word of mouth recommendations and I think we have to ask some more fundamental brand questions before we can begin. For instance, who does the recommending? And then who makes the final decisions? Defining the target audience would have to be the starting point for me.
Perhaps being memorable is more important than being digital. If you’re after brand awareness there’s nothing more powerful than a good corporate gift. No Nick, i’m not talking the money-stuffed-in-a-brown-envelope kind of corporate gift, I’m talking about something that’s useful, or fun. And this leads me onto question 2, which may sound a bit stupid, but sometimes the obvious has to be asked. Does anyone know what a dragon is in Malawi? I figure you named the company Dragon Engineering because you’re from Wales – but does it mean anything to anyone other than you? Is it memorable for the decision makers? I ask this because I spent quite a bit fo time designing a swish, techy logo for you, and then realised that maybe an actual dragon may have more recognition. And lots of red! Imagine a red Dragon branded van. That’ll get you noticed. Here’s an idea – we’ve just had Comic Relief in the UK – there’ll be a million red noses going cheap over here. Let’s buy up a job lot, brand ‘em up and give them away to your clients so they can give them to their kids. Simple, cheap, effective.
Malawi may not ready for the digital revolution just yet but good design was growing businesses long before the internet – let’s get back to the basics and build up from there.
like the red nose idea. I’ll send you my current logo and some ideas i’ve had for business cards. Really appreciate the time and consideration you’re giving this. As I mentioned previously, I feel that with the influx of technology, albeit mainly as a status symbol for the more affluent, a well thought out online presence will soon be a requirement of any serious business out here. At the moment it is more an afterthought to NGO’s and government institutions with very little thought given to promoting even the most basic information. This link for example, http://www.malawi-invest.net/ represents the governments main platform to attract foreign investment. As far as I can ascertain it was last updated some time in 2011!
Investment Promotion Agency! My arse! I’ve sent them around 20 e-mails and have yet to receive a reply. the only way to gleen info is to go to their offices in person and get increasingly frustrated with the different levels of bureaucracy that exist to facilitate the amount of employees. You should get out here and research these issues as i’m convinced the larger privately owned companies would see the benefits in the services you provide, even if, at present, they don’t realise it. This would give D4 a realistic understanding of African branding and digital promotion. I could rant all day about my experiences and ultimately increasing frustration at the blatant underuse of a technology that is rapidly becoming essential to maintaining a profitable business.Let me know if I can conduct any research on D4′s behalf as I think it important that you get a perspective of the impact/opportunities available to a service such as yours. Would be good to join up and bandy some opinion back and forth… gives me some release from “Basil Fawlty” type frustration.
Will send my ideas for Dragon to your email – please be critical and let me know your thoughts.
I have, (you’ll appreciate this), made a dragon stencil and am “tagging” my work as I complete it… remember the “Excellent” tag we sprayed on my car? Good times!
Take it easy fella… chat soon.
Hey Nick, leave it with me for a couple of days and I’ll get my thinking cap on.