Advertising Branding etc. - Design, Advertising, & Branding

Oh Jease, I gotta say it I am scared after the MTV engine room, I don’t know if graphic design can
be done right in a TV format without being marred by commercial advertisements. C.M.Y.K.’s releasing a new TV show and is now looking for designer’s to join the show, American-idol-style ( visiting some us cities to do interviews and portfolio reviews ). The name of the show is as the title suggested C.M.Y.K. – America’s Top Graphic Designer

As found on on Speakup

This is my response I posted to the discussion about the future of this TV show:

I am really woeful of this idea. ( But I am hopeful too that they may do it right. )

Graphic design/Good graphic design comes out when you don’t force it. It’s natural, and a TV show will feature a day or maybe a week at most. Even the best designers can produce crap if they’re shorted on time; as in the case of everything pretty much produced on the MTV engine room show. It’s not the artists fault either, they were pitted against each other under really tight deadlines. And that show was more about the designer’s personality like road rules than it was about the individuals and the work they were doing. I don’t know if you guys/gals saw it but it was pretty much a catastrophe of work, ( the artists were good, just shorted on time and the concepts for the projects were really advertisements and it was obvious and it killed almost all of the originality. ) This doesn’t mean that everything on that show was a failure it was a first of it’s kind, and it really tested the format for MTV. I hope they change it up a lot if they have a second season. This got me to thinking…

I hope they do CMYK: ATGD right ( and this is what I would do ): Create 4 studios, and take on real design project bids for the season (rfps). I don’t think they need to finish the projects just the bids for them, they could hire a production team for the show to assist in execution. Execution of the work could be done off air and online so that viewers of the show could see the content come to life and create a following for the artists/writers!

Each team would compete for a bid ( which is one episode ). The winning team could take the cash home from the projects they won. The season showcases the team’s value and In essence showing what it means to be a team. IE winning bids require a team’s effort not one designer doing it alone. I hope they showcase copywriters as well as designers. There would be a secondary component to this format which would showcase individual quick fire rfp challenges. These individual challenges would add to the total amount won by the designer’s with their splits from the team challenges. The end result you get someone who is both a team player and profitable on solo projects.

These are just one designer’s ideas. I just hope they don’t make a mockery out of the design industry like MTV did. I was rooting for that show up until I watched the format decay into doing websites for bands or redoing pre-made commercials.

Sincerely,
Joseph Maguire