Posted on Tuesday 17th January 2012 by Sarah Coulthurst

Cravings – Brands, Food & Saunas!

We’re craving warm spaces and hot grub right now to get us through January. The views from inside the sauna at our local Lido is proving more popular that taking a dip (the water colour is a pretty accurate reflection of the temperature!)

We’re enjoying reading about new restaurant concepts such as ‘Meat and Bread’, as seen in The Monacle mag this month. Great no fuss chunky branding reflecting the food, what more could a foodie ask for during these winter months?

We’ve also spotted the branding in this latest book we are all craving over: Eat Me, published by Hong Kong’s publisher Victionary this month. Who didn’t like tucking into those cardboard textured wafers at school anyway!?

With it’s chunky die cut bite out of it’s corner, it’s detailed wafer styled page layering and deep embossing – the packaging and branding content is a feast for the eyes. It’s all making us just a little bit hungry for a restaurant branding job this year!

Posted on Wednesday 4th January 2012 by Sarah Coulthurst

Brand Reflections

There really is such a thing a fun window shopping for designers. Feast you eyes on these New York gems from our recent design week away.

Posted on Thursday 22nd December 2011 by Sarah Coulthurst

Say What You See

Say what you see” and “if you see it, say it!”

Remember Catchphrase? I spotted this wonderful sign on the door of the café ladies toilets in the West Village, New York.

Posted on Tuesday 20th December 2011 by Sarah Coulthurst

Letterpress Wonders!

We recently used Letterpress to produce the Oldfield Clothing identity and garment label by typesetting metal type by hand and then printing using a platen press. Alot of fun, time consuming yes, but one of the most rewarding elements is producing the perfect piece by leading and kerning the type all by hand!

By utilizing the letterpress printing, the garment labels produce the bespoke logo form to reflect the clothing range – inspired by the wartime era when computers and digital printing were unheard of. Printing directly onto the soft ‘beer mat board’ left a stronger imprint than on card (aka embossing). On the reverse of the tag below you’ll see the size of the garment can be highlighted with a hand drawn circle in pencil. The finer touches that makes the brand so unique…

We used an old sans serif font known as Kabel – a geometric typeface designed by the German typeface designer Rudolf Koch. (released in 1927) It was named to honor the newly completed trans-Atlantic telephone cable, (Spot of history for those interested) You may have seen printed wartime posters having used this font or similar. There are identifiable elements that make this font distinguishable_the capital W is splayed and the G ( unlike this and many fonts ) has no terminal.

The envelope attached to the string will hold spare garment buttons and threads. That’s all for now on Letterpress, but we will certainly be back with more.