In Your Shoes - Gordon Low

Gordon started his career in graphic design working with ‘Cow Gum’, ‘Bromides’ and ‘Picas’. and yes, it has changed a bit since then! He has always worked as a designer but to widen his knowledge, has been a printer and also a trainer in communications. He did run his own agency in Dundee for 20 years called Ptarmigan Design. Working for a wide variety of clients, he was a design consultant with Scottish Enterprise and worked closely with Dundee City Council Economic Development. His relationships with oil-related and engineering companies throughout the east of Scotland helped him design for major exhibitions throughout the world. He also did a lot of the exhibition materials for the tented village at the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie. His skill sets have changed over the years and now he works with video and is now head of Creative at integrated marketing agency, Volpa. He loves the variety of work he gets involved with and ensures that his clients are happy with the final results of his department. He is a food lover, has been known to pull out a card trick or two in the office and was once asked to be an official photographer for the Queen!

GEARING UP FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Firstly, it’s coffee then our planned Heads of Department meeting. Where we are with our current workload and what’s new. It’s always exciting to find out how our week ‘might’ pan out. A major piece of work for today was putting together a video for the launch of a rare whisky. Lasting around a minute, it was important to create the right atmosphere and of course deliver on the brief. This did take around seven hours to complete but I still had some time to start on a detailed infographic for another client’s website. A productive day! Now to get home and watch University Challenge (I can actually answer at least 2 or 3!)

SAME BUT DIFFERENT AND DON’T SACK THE JUGGLER - AND GET SOME COFFEE!

It’s very important for us at Volpa to know any potential new client’s business. The main reason for this is we want to understand what makes them tick, which in turn helps us to hit the mark when developing a proposal that can hopefully be turned into a new working relationship. Today I pulled together such a proposal after I met with a company who wanted to do a total re-brand and potentially a location change. Hold on, we’ve just had an important request from a client who needs changes done to their short video and digital assets in a hurry. We are fast-paced at Volpa and we really do react to our client’s needs. I really needed to work closely with our other in-house designer when the deadlines are approaching fast. Next on the list for today, a small leaflet that needed designed, printed and delivered in a couple of days. I lined up the printer with our requirements and agreed the production schedule - this was crucial. Now to the gym, maybe!

GEARING UP FOR SUMMER - YEP, COFFEE!

Today I’m working on visuals for a Summer campaign for one of our biggest clients. Required assets are large format posters, flyers, lots of digital assets and outdoor collateral. I really enjoyed working on this brief which was fairly tight but I managed to squeeze a bit of Volpa ‘quirkiness’ into the campaign and it was given the green light - always very satisfying! 

FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS GOOD AND ENCOURAGED - NO COFFEE, HAD TO BE TEA!

My main task today was to buy coffee! Once in the office I began to tweak the various videos done earlier in the week. Very quickly, these changes were signed off, then the videos were uploaded to our client’s websites and social media. Next, create some external and internal wayfinding signage visuals for our Bafta Award Winning client - I’ll deliver the visuals sometime next week that is, If I don’t get asked to do another video! 

DIRECTING AND FILMING ON LOCATION IN DUNDEE - YUK, A FIZZY DRINK!

I was on location for most of the day with Fraser, Silvia (our student intern) and some other students from Abertay University. Our client has student accommodation that has just been totally refurbished and he wanted to make a video. To be honest, the only way we were going to get the students there was basically bribe them with a free pizza lunch - however, it worked (but it did include a little persuasion from Silvia!). We shot the video in both landscape and portrait formats as we wanted the flexibility to create the video for social media as well as larger screen formats too. We also took stills to try and mix it up a bit. Mid-afternoon I had returned to the office, downloaded all the videos and stills ready to get to work early the following week. Fast-paced, ever-evolving and challenging…a “typical” week at Volpa!