An Athinian- Thessalonikian designer makes comments on EBGE...(Marketing Week March 31, 2003)

Christos Helmis, creative director of Colibri, is a competent man and a devoted practitioner in the field of graphic design. He has studied at the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and he actually practiced law for five years. He entered the world of graphic design initially as an editor.





Marketing Week: What are your views on the institution of EVGE?

Christos Helmis: The Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards is a commendable initiative which can act as an incentive for even higher performance of graphic design offices and as the adversary of the respective institutions about advertising.

The evolution of the institution will help fix the public image of the graphic design industry and will dispel the impression that the graphic design concerns only the novel and not effective, in other words that graphic designers produce imaginative images and not strong and effective messages.

Our work is the visual communication and some notable samples were presented at the EVGE.



MW: You were awarded last year at EVGE. How came out of those awards?

C. Helmis: What we really achieved after last year's first award-winning presence at EVGE --for which we had an intense anguish since our projects would be "judged" by such a strict audience as that of fellow-graphic designers-- was to increase the loyalty of our clients, businesses and organizations, that before the competition had trusted us to find solutions to some of their communication needs.



MW: Are the awards a business tool in your industry?

C. Helmis: We have not taken advantage of our awards, there was no need to use those first awards as a communication and self-promotion tool nor we arrogated new clients in their name. Αll of our clients came to us either because Colibri was recommended to them or because they had already identified our work and had appreciated it. We haven't used the awards "offensively" to find customers, nevertheless, they played a role in the recognition of what our customers already had identified, the good work of the office. We expect that to happen this year too, to increase the already acquired good opinion of our customers for the office and to have new clients coming on their own initiative. The awards do not bring customers, Mr Antoniou, especially awards by a young institution such as the EVGE, and in such a difficult environment. The Greek business community learns a little late to buy design other than advertising. Remember that business giants abroad trust creative offices of our size and potential for a vast variety of projects while continuing to buy advertising from advertising agencies. We believe that this will be the trend here as well.





MW: Tell us a little about the clientele of your company.

C. Helmis: We have good customers in Athens, who come from different industries, such as Grecian Magnesite one of the largest metallurgical companies, the British Council, Stater a company that exports fine Greek food to foreign markets, the Association of Metallurgical Enterprises and more. We consider working with them of great importance and an honor as they are willing to cover the distance between the two cities, in some cases for years, to buy packaging, corporate brochures, print ads, posters, etc. at the level of aesthetics and quality they demand. In Thessaloniki we also have a wide range of clients, including the BSTDB Bank, the European Center for Vocational Training CEDEFOP, the BOUTARI winery, the Greek Biotope Wetland Center of the Goulandris Museum, City College, the Hellenic Sugar Industry and more.



MW: Here, in Athens, we notice a trend of advertising companies establishing subsidiaries in the area of design. What do you think on this? Is the independent identity of creative offices damaged?

C. Helmis: For a long time the product offered by advertising agencies in the field of design was rather poor. The fact that some advertising agencies are making moves in the area of creative office is in my opinion a sign that the market is maturing. If they actually recruit or cooperate with notable executives and competent designers for their creative offices, good for them! After all, we are all judged by the results.
In the last 15 years I have been in the design market I have never perceived the business activities of large advertising companies as a threat and I never felt that serious printing houses are in any way competitive. As I told you before, as the design market matures will see more and more large Greek companies buying design with increasingly strict criteria and therefore competition will be judged in the arena of quality and not of intentions.



MW: What do you think of the attempt of some creative offices to take a step further, towards advertising?

C. Helmis: This is probably due to poor business orientation. We have worked with large companies in their field and the temptation was great. In 1995, for example, for the -young then- Forthnet then we designed its corporate identity, their exhibition pavilions for three consecutive years, the branding of their services and their first advertising campaigns. From a point on their communication needs increased dramatically and it was us that indicated the need to increase their advertising budget and invite advertising agencies to take over the account. It could have been that Colibri would pretend to be an advertising agency hoping for rapid growth probably against our client's best interest. We rather preferred to increase our work force adding young designers and thus achieved a smooth and balanced growth.



MW: There is, however, competition ...

C. Helmis: Given that the basic cost of visual communication is the working hours and its the main advantage is the combination of creativity and know-how, for creative offices in general and particularly in Thessaloniki, there is great flexibility in comparison to advertising agencies. When a client-company has a small budget for communication, not millions, the expectations do not rely on the volume of a single ad campaign but on the quality, the consistency and continuity of a complex communication program. It is thus concomitant that the client is demanding, raising the level of design and the final product.



MW: We must love books especially. You were awarded two EVGE in this design field.

C. Helmis: We were awarded for Book Cover Design and Book Design although book design is not but a small portion of our work.

The work quality awarded this year is for two books of Art. Art is an area in which we have special relations and for which we have created many times in the past. I'd like to remind you however, that we had the great pleasure to be awarded in the very demanding categories of logotype design, that of posters and banners and that of environmental graphics for our work for the Museum of Natural History.



MW: Publishers do not seem to invest much in the design of books.

C. Helmis: The problem is that the Greek market is small and the readership limited. Most publishers do not invest in an original cover and in the edition's good design because the sales do not justify such an effort. If we were in France or in another large and more bibliophile market things would be different.



MW: How easy it is for an artist and designer in Thessaloniki to follow current trends and also attend events that provide stimuli?

C. Helmis: If the designer has his eyes open and wants to be informed on his work, in Thessaloniki too he has the opportunity to do so and we do so. Colibri is a subscriber to four international journals on graphic design and we are trying to be near anything that can give stimuli for our work. Cinema, music, theater are such sources. Remember the typography of the movie "Seven" or in the more recent "Catch me if you can"!



MW: How about Athens? When will you get there?

C. Helmis: Athens, in which as I have already told you, we serve some good customers, is a market that interests us and is expected to approach the future. Before we do so, we must prepare methodically, find suitable partners and articulate a proposal that would add to the already significant oversupply of our capable colleagues.