Our notebook

02 March 2010

Working with ten-year-olds

Our client SilverDoor is ten this year and as part of the celebrations we're working with them on what's been dubbed the 'We are 10' campaign. It will consist of advertising, direct marketing and a brand new website.

Here's the second ad that's just been released, featuring Jean from Accounts. Each ad takes a tongue-in-cheek look at a SilverDoor employee as they might have been when they were ten. Rumours of staff leaving to pursue careers in modelling are entirely founded.

17 February 2010

A sparky idea

Alan Turner is a qualified London electrician and a friend of the business. He went self-employed last week – with a set of new business cards designed by Gibson.

28 January 2010

We saw the future at North Sheen station

Stood four yards apart on the platform at North Sheen station today, Nigel and I noticed that he was living in the future. Or were we part of some fiendish time warp experiment by TFL? Will Nigel ever come back? Or will he always be nine seconds ahead of the rest of us?

05 January 2010

James May and graphic design TV

BBC's Top Gear took us by total surprise this week. They'd tacked an interview with Margaret Calvert onto the end of an intentionally dreary feature on the new Vauxhall Insignia VXR.

If you're not familiar with UK road signage history (no shame if you are), Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir designed the UK's road signs in the late 1950s – hence the story's attachment to the Vauxhall Insignia. It wasn't just a shock to see some graphic design on the telly, but the fact that it was during what's considered peak-time viewing. Graphic design on the country's best-loved motoring programme? Crikey.



It was a welcome diversion, even if James May found it hard to summon his inner nerd (most unlike him) to get enthusiastic about pictograms. It also got us thinking – where are the graphic design TV programmes? Wasn't the promise of a gazillion digital channels that minority interest groups would get a look in? The irony, of course, is that some of them are showing endless re-runs of Top Gear.

Then again, a round table discussion on the merits of the humanist sans serif is never really going to compete with Clarkson pitting a V12 supercar against a helicopter gunship.

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16 December 2009

La Bandiera isn't going smoothly

Our new branded stationery for La Bandiera has just arrived. The idea chosen for the private Tuscan estate and its associated olive groves was this embossed, curved olive branch (see the business card below). The intricate detailing was a real production challenge – it took our printer a few attempts to get the embossing just right on the Fedrigoni papers. We think it was worth persevering. This brand mark will also be used on our new packaging for La Bandiera's IGP-certified olive oil.

Full colour, bish-bosh print-on-demand seems to have seduced a lot of companies, so it's a delight to work with a client who will wait a little longer (thanks Jacqui!) for something special.

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01 December 2009

The site is dead. Long live the site!

It was always going to take longer than we planned, but you're now looking at the new Gibson website. The old one has been rinsed, flattened and recycled to make up a barely believable 17% of this one. It served us well for three years but it was getting a bit tatty round the edges.

We wanted to bring you more space, more branding and more design work, and if you've got the time, more words. Have a ferret around, sample the new projects, curse the navigation and let us know what you love or hate about our new home.