Communication is Key

September 23, 2014July 23, 2021 / EDSI - John Donaghy / Leave a comment

Series 2/3: Engineering Leadership – This series reflects on the process required to successfully turn ideas into action.

Developing a passion and knowing what you want to accomplish and how you can do it is great. You have built up the foundation to build up a legacy and make a difference. How do you move forward and communicate you idea; make your voice be heard? Larry Smith does a great TED talk on why you will not follow your passion; following your passion is different, its odd! I have regularly tried to express and explain my ideas and often not been understood. It is important not to be disheartened but focus on developing the way you communicate your ideas. This will enable you to move from an odd and misunderstood passion to a professionally present project with a clear direction.

Simon Sinek presents the difference in between a successfully idea and a good idea in terms of engagement: who is your product reaching? The difficult realisation is that some people will just get your idea but that dose not make success. Success is related to how you engage and influence the people who do not understand your idea. EDSI would not be successfully is it only managed to reach the people who understand the importance of sustainable impact and community engagement. It would still be a good project but for EDSI to be successfully I must engage with people who do not understand the importance of the questions EDSI raises.

Reaching people who don’t understand your project is challenging. To achieve this you need a very clear and defined message that connects directly with your why. You need to reflect this message in everything you do. I am passionate about design and the role of graphic designers. Building the logo and website for EDSI was about presenting the key message of EDSI: “Connecting the Dots Between People and Engineering”. Design builds up the professionalism and authority of your idea. Design enables you to connect with the people you want to reach.

Why EDSI?

August 31, 2014July 23, 2021 / EDSI - John Donaghy / Leave a comment

“EDSI aims to understand the responsibility and positive impact of different engineering disciplines on society”

Find out more about EDSI on the About tab.

EDSI, I See

July 23, 2014July 23, 2021 / EDSI - John Donaghy / Leave a comment

Thanks to the work of Creative Mango the campaign now has marketing potential. We have worked on creating a brand for Engineering Design for Social Innovation (EDSI), this involved identifying the key message and values of EDSI and its mission. We started by identifying the different ideas EDSI is promoting and what challenging question the campaign is tackling. This led to complex ideas such as community cohesion, peace and conflict resolution and engineering for impact. The key elements reflected the vision of sustainable engineering; the impact on people, the economy and the environment. After reviewing different marketing possibilities we identifies our key message is being people and engineering and the synergy between them. This led to the following design:

Creative Mango was able to design a logo reflecting both the structural and meticulous elements of engineering as well as providing a creative natural flow. This was achieved by combining the outline of a person with engineering elements. Different visual representation of engineering where related to the natural outline of the silhouette. This led us to integrate the masonry arch bridge form within the logo. This is an ancient and popular structure at the heart of the great trade routes it has enabled people to connect and exchange in their cultural identity. The logo is also representative of a viaduct; a structure used to bridge large divides as well as provides population with fresh supplies of water. The logo therefore captures the synergy between people and engineering.

The synergy between between people and engineering goes beyond the integration of a silhouette. When we talk about people and mankind we are also talking about nature and our environment. Nature had a very strong impact on the way the logo was created allowing us to obtain lines with a natural flow. The font used also conveys the idea of nature and life yet it has a linear and meticulous side linking it back back engineering. The choice of colour was also very important here, the idea was to give EDSI a colour that reflected its professional side yet a colour that would once again link back to nature. Dark blue reflects progress, professionalism and trustworthiness whilst a slight touch of green reflects the natural environment.

Co-written with Luke Donaghy – Creative Mango