Picture this: Brazil vs Italy – 1970 World Cup final
Clodoaldo sambas around four Italian players without causing them to stir and a gorgeous choreography of passes follow: Rivelino to Jairzinho, who crosses to Pele. Pele toys with the ball and the Italian defence, waiting for the perfect moment, then caresses an inch perfect pass to Carlos Alberto who unleashes a screaming rocket to the left corner of the Italian goal.
The construction of this goal sequence is considered one of the most spectacular in World Cup history, maybe soccer history. Nine Brazilian players touched the ball before that goal, it was a sublime moment of sporting artistry. And Alberto revealed subsequently it was a practised move.
William Blake, The Auguries of Innocence
To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.
Blake’s poetry is unparalleled in its impact, clarity and honesty. The language is simple, yet powerful. The poetry is a moral masterpiece, crafted and honed through a lifetime of largely unappreciated toil. It was only after his death that Blake became widely regarded as ‘probably’ England’s greatest poet, but all along the beauty, the achievement, the genius, was in the detail and the simplicity of his poetry.
Excellence isn’t an act, but a habit
At Sable&Hawkes we understand that just like that perfectly weighted pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in 1970, or the power and emotion Blake communicated so wonderfully in just 29 honed, crafted and polished words, excellence isn’t an occasional one-off that scales the heights, it is the result of attention to detail, working simply and carefully, and repeating what works as a matter of course.
Designers can often be thought of as arty types, driven purely by style and cosmetic appearance. We believe that communication is more about the attention to detail than just the way things look – it’s also about the way things work. You may love the beautiful lines of a TVR but will the engine actually start? Much of what we do as a design communication company is providing solutions to underlying structural or technical problems: reshaping approaches, making them fit for purpose so your communications work harder and resonate more effectively with your audience.
It doesn’t sound creative or glamorous and it may seem obvious, but making a piece of communication work more effectively and setting a standard and applying it as a matter of course, can mean the difference between creating something good or creating something memorable.
So if your product or organisation needs to say something new or different to the world; if you need to create or modernise your corporate identity; if you need to make your message work harder, recruit better people or communicate more effectively with the ones you already have … then we can help. It’s what we do.