Posted on Tuesday 30th October 2012 by Sarah Coulthurst

The Power of Colour

Probably most people know that colours have an impact of people’s emotional state. However not many companies think about it when it comes to their brands and rely often on a personal taste rather than the designer’s knowledge.

Here is a good example of how important the right choice of colour is in successful branding and how it can affect us.

McDonald went green

As people recently became more health conscious, the McDonald’s popularity was in danger. It started to be perceived as unhealthy restaurant chain and associated with obesity. It was natural that they had to re-think their brand and come up with a new answer to people’s needs.

Not only did they add some healthier options to their menu but also they changed their colour schemes. The logo went green as well as outside/inside the restaurant.

Green is the colour of nature and symbolizes the life force and well-being as well as being associated with the environment and sustainability.

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.