Last weeks Apprentice, week 8, was all about graphic design, promotion and advertising. Needless to say being a graphic designer and director of Titman Firth I was particulary interested to see how the chosen design agency handled the apprentice’s briefs.

However, what transpired was in some ways more interesting, each team was asked to design a logo, billboard advert and TV commercial without any creative design assistance of the agency. The problem though was that the design ability of the candidates was limited (understandably) as no one had specific design training. The logo’s seemed weak and the less said about the adverts and TV commercials the better. That said most liked the designs they came up with but as I have said before, it’s not so much that you like it, it’s what your target audience likes.

The chosen audiences were smaller then the wide potential audience of ‘Nike’. I could not help but feel that they had lessened their potential market by doing this and maybe should have been bolder and better or at least aim to match the branding appeal of ‘Nike’.

Most surprising of all was that no one seemed to have seen the film ‘What Women Want’. This film would have given them a vision to think beyond the ’street’ audience they chose to target and strive for the difference their brands needed. Not to mention the importance of knowing your audience.