Guest Post – Bernadette Jiwa » Why Are Designers Hiding?

November 1st, 2011 by Mat Dolphin

When we meet clients for the first time they’re often quite surprised to find out how long we’ve been established and how many people actually work here. It happens all the time, and even comes from other agencies within the industry too. “Really???” is a common reaction. People’s perception of Mat Dolphin is based on a number of factors. Our creative work, the brands we’ve been fortunate to work with, the exposure we’ve had, our twitter presence, this very blog etc. all go together to paint a picture, and one that is apparently bigger and louder than we are. So why don’t we just be more open about it all? The vast majority of design agencies these days share what they want to be heard or seen. Like well oiled PR companies, they carefully control what the world finds out about them. But that’s kind of missing the point. What makes agencies unique is the people that work there. Designers constantly encourage brands to be open and honest, yet hide behind the typical designer ‘cool wall’.

We’ve been talking about this topic for a while, but the original train of thought came from Bernadette Jiwa ‘brand and business catalyst and verbal designer’ who we regularly chat with on Twitter. She questioned why we at MDHQ portray ourselves in the way we do and it got us thinking. We were going to write a blog post about it but thought who better to write a post than Bernadette herself.

Keep reading…


Sound & Vision 03 – Special NME Edition – Our 100th post!

October 25th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin

Welcome to Blog post number 100! Since July 2009 we’ve been updating this little blog on a fairly regular basis with our random musings, showcasing the work of those we admire and letting you know what we’ve been up to. We wanted to do something a bit special for the hundredth post and the perfect opportunity came up just at the right moment. Iconic UK music mag, the one and only NME, got in touch after seeing the first two posts in our Sound & Vision series, asking if we’d be interested in writing a bit of a ‘Special Edition’ post for their blog. Being long time fans, we immediately agreed and are now pleased to present Sound & Vision 03 – The NME edition.

See it live on their site here or read on below…

There are so many amazing album covers out there that choosing favourites seems like an unachievable task. Like the albums themselves, the way I feel about the artwork they’re wrapped in changes on a regular basis. That said, there are some which, for various reasons, I’ve always loved. Some of them are considered classic and some of them are barely known but all of them are, in my eyes, brilliant examples of what an album cover should be. A visual partner to the music on the record, something that can encapsulate the sounds in a way that you can’t always put your finger on but somehow just works…

Keep reading…


Three Hundred and Seventy Four Thousand, Eight Hundred and Forty Two

May 27th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin

That’s a fairly big number right? Well, it’s a slightly daunting number when you think about that number being actual people… And they’re all looking at you… Waiting on your every word. ‘Perform Monkey!’

Well, it wasn’t quite that bad, but following our The Tweet Goes On… post this week, I guest edited Creative Review‘s twitter feed for one day yesterday. They had in excess of 374,000 followers before we took hold of the reins, and I’m glad to say that the number is still rising and it would seem as though their great magazine hasn’t been affected too much by my diatribe.

Keep reading…


Guest Post – Camilla Grey » MB meets MD

July 8th, 2010 by Mat Dolphin

For our third guest post we invited Camilla Grey, Digital Strategist at Moving Brands, the award-winning global branding agency to write about how MB met MD.

Mat Dolphin and I initially bonded over a bunny. A Lindt chocolate bunny. I had posted a Twitpic of my bunny on the Moving Brands Twitter, and Mat Dolphin responded with a snap of his. Before we knew it, we’d sparked a mass of bunny poses from around the Twitterverse. It was one of those sweet, serendipitous moments that got people talking and gave that vital human face to our respective creative companies.
(See MD previous post)

Keep reading…