Tuesday, 27 May 2008

Chalkhill Blue

At the beginning of the year I was approached by a former colleague called Rachel Spratling who asked me if I could help her with the branding of her new venture, Chalkhill Blue. This was great fun, albeit on quite tight deadlines, and entailed creating an initial suite of materials which could be used for presentations.


I started with a logo, which then led into a typeface and colour scheme. A Chalkhill Blue is a species of butterfly, which closely relates to the nature of their business – training and development. We fairly quickly decided that a butterfly image was too obvious and tried to push the logo development a bit further in the time allowed. We settled on a geometric solution and then tweaked the colours to make them slightly punchier. We chose Caecilia as the typeface from a shortlist I'd compiled. It manages to be smart and modern without being too formal, it also has a wide variety of weights making it quite versatile.


Once we'd settled on a logo I then set about creating the collateral they needed: brochure, stationery, powerpoint templates and a website holding page. It was difficult to find relevant imagery on a limited budget which wasn't too clichéd. Instead we used elements from the logo to help reinforce the branding at this early stage of the company.


It was an extremely satisfying project to work on as it's not often I get the chance to work on such a broad range of materials and from such an early stage. I am very grateful to Rachel and Andrea for giving me this opportunity.

Monday, 12 May 2008

Swanage

Spent the weekend camping in Swanage and took a few snaps...


Phone box marooned in the sand dunes.



There's a couple more on my Flickr page.

Stating the obvious



You know what they're trying to say but somehow, someone's got a little confused along the way. Sign spotted outside an office on Little Portland Street, London.

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Malaysia Photos



Just got back from two weeks in Malaysia, we had an amazing time and here is a selection of photos from my Flickr account.

Thursday, 7 February 2008

India Photos (again)



I found an amazing piece of software today called PictoBrowser which lets you display images from your Flickr sets in an image library on your blog or site. I've used this as a flimsy excuse for showing off my India photos again. It's stupidly easy to use, very quick to set up and completely free. Can't ask for more than that really...

Thursday, 10 January 2008

Random Flow


Just finished doing some logo work for a friend and ex-colleague of mine, Ben Banyard. Ben has set up his own internet-based record label called Random Flow, and asked me if I could look at doing a logo for him.

It's always a pleasure to do creative work for friendly clients, especially when it's for a field I'm so enthusiastic about. After some work we settled on two colour variations of this logo, I'm not sure yet which one he's going to go with when he sets up his site, we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime go and download his FREE album, well worth a listen...

Friday, 23 November 2007

India Photos



Just got back from two weeks in India, I've uploaded a selection of my photos to a Flickr page here: India Photos.

I also kept a rough diary whilst I was there which I'll upload once I get around to it.

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Morris Dancers



I would dearly love to be able to explain why there was a blacked-up Granny morris dancing at Sidmouth, but I'm at a complete loss for words.

Good advice



Spotted in Sidmouth during the Folk Festival.

Global Gathering



I won a pair of VIP tickets with hotel accommodation and train travel to Global Gathering courtesy of Strongbow Cider. Obviously I'm far too old for raving on a disused airfield and all my flourescent clothes were in the wash so I passed on the tickets to a grateful young Irishman at my work who had a great time.