Villain 1971
Richard Burton hams it up as a sadistic homosexual gangster in London who gives Ian (Lovejoy) McShane more than he bargained for. Written by Dick Clements, Porriage, Likely Lads etc. Genius.

Monday night was the Design Week Awards in London. (Be nice now, Mr Vazquez)
Unfortunately I couldn’t go due to technical difficulties.
Which meant I missed out on:

Smoked Haddock and Crème Fraiche Tart, with a Leek Confit
Followed by
Fillet of Beef with a Stilton Crust and Balsamic Jus
Saffron Crushed Potatoes and Green Beans with radicchio and Panchetta
Followed by
Chocolate and Green Tea Fondant with a Mint Ice Cream

I’m told it tasted fantastic. It’s just the description of it that upsets me slightly.
Anyway, food aside, I also missed out on these:

One of which was for this:

And one of which was for this:

Fortunately Alistair, Phil, Alison, Frank and Frances were there to pick them up, and share with the 700 other guests that I was “at home with the shits”. Thanks Phil.

If you’ve been reading our blog for a while you’ll know we love a good book. Umbro, Urban Splash, Chelsea College of Arts, the touchy-feely LOVE books have all been great projects to work on, but it’s also nice to keep the personal projects going.

So when a friend was recently going through a bit of a tough time, I decided to write a book for her and her two year-old son. Nothing that’s going to win a Booker prize – or any prize for that matter – just something simple she could read to raise a smile. I knocked the story out over a couple of weeks, set it in Times New Roman or something similar (“good knowledge of typefaces” isn’t something I’ve got on my CV) and was heading off to get it bound at Staples, when I thought I’d run the idea past her Dad, Clive Rand, aka the nicest man in advertising.

Clive was one of the founding members of Leeds-based agency Brahm (he’s the ‘r’) and also a rather useful illustrator. Clive said he’d love to help and so started a series of 29 illustrations for the book.

Now it also happens that her brother, Jon Rand, is a freelance voiceover artist, and it’s fairly common knowledge that all the best children’s books these days come with a CD narrated by a famous voice. Probably Tom Baker. Jon’s got a great voice and in between idents for Channel 4 and Film4, laid the story down onto a CD.

Now all we needed was someone to turn it into a book, which is where the beautiful people at LOVE came good again. We only produced 20 copies in total, so I doubt you’ll find “Little Alex” on the shelves of Waterstones (unless I decide to put one there), but it was still a great project to do. Many thanks to Dave Simpson, Jon Hatton and Matt Beardsell for all the extra hours you put in. And Clive and Jon. You done good.

New work done to show how clever we all are here for a friends-sons-uncle-long lost dogs brother-in-law. (No explanation needed,I hope)

A message from our leader….

Since the New Year we have started to bring in a lot more new business and our existing business is also growing apace. We therefore need to grow the creative team by 2 or 3 people asap.
We are looking for middleweight designers 3-5 years experience, they could be ideas driven or graphic design driven such is the diversity of our work.
However, they must intrinsically get what we do and be able to work across disciplines - old school is no good.
Keen to also look at designers with experience of digital, on-screen, packaging/POS etc
Also looking for a hot, young creative team: art director/copywriter, able to generate lots of ideas across both traditional and non-traditional media.
As ever, only the best will do; award winning, ambitious, GSOH, able to deal with clients etc.
Email Alistair at a.sim@lovecreative.com.

We’re helping to sell round the world trips, shoes, football season tickets, clothing, a restaurant chain, corporate hospitality, tea, beds, office space, museums and Manchester. We’re re-branding science for young people, feeding mind and body, doing a russian bank job, launching a range of baby products, helping launch a new games console, developing campaigns for a few music festivals, doing a logo for an about-to-be signed band, producing a few books, developing a couple of microsites and moving the office around a bit.  Sorry we haven’t blogged much recently.

We’ve just completed a campaign for Fresh Media Awards (based on the idea of giving your right arm for an award) and went to the launch of it on the back of some media-type-lunch at one of Manchester’s finest Chinese restaurants (Cheers Mike and Paula). Alas, unbeknown to us, on the top table there was an unfortunate chap who was missing a limb. Ah well, no arm done.

So when the rest of the UK is knee deep in snow, Manchester doesn’t get a single flake.  Sometimes living in the UK’s sunniest, hottest and driest english city is just no fun at all.

Last night I stepped into the planning world and met up with Rob, Andrew and Gemma for the Northern Planner’s coffee-morning-but-it’s-in-the-evening-and-we-don’t-drink-coffee meeting. Having arrived slightly late, and not knowing what anyone looked like, I moved swiftly towards a table of planner-looking types, smiling and looking enthusiastic. (Similar to the first day at school/ I’ve got no friends look) It was only when none of them returned the smile, that I was forced to walk past them and pretend I just like smiling at strange men.

At that point Andrew and Rob turned up (although I obviously didn’t know it was Rob and Andrew at that point) and the evening began. Gemma turned up five minutes later, and everyone took it in turn buy the rounds (Rob: Old Speckled Hen, Andrew: Lager/ wine, Gemma: diet coke, me: wine) We even ordered a few nibbles (potato wedges, polenta chips, olives, bread and oil) and a good time was had by all. Amongst the topics we discussed were: Sausages vs Lamb, a new Burger King Mailer that Rob brought with him, horses, Yorkshire Tea, Zipatoni, Agency.com, Subway, Coudal Partners, and a heap of others stuff.

A nice spread

I’d had a few wines, and the new father thing still means I find it impossible to stay awake after ten thirty, so when Gemma offered me a lift home at about ten past ten, it seemed the right time to leave. Manly handshakes were exchanged along with promises of “see you next time”, and so off I went. Gemma dropped me at my house, and I was asleep by 1040

It probably about 1132 that I woke up and realised I’d totally neglected to pay my share of the bill. This may not sound like a biggy, but those polenta chips can be expensive, and, well… it’s just a plain rude (Mum, if you’re reading this, I’m really sorry. I know it’s not the way you brought me up.) First thing this morning I sent round a grovelling apology to Andrew and Rob who picked up the tab, and hopefully the issue has been settled with the promise of large amounts of Yorkshire teacakes and biscuits. I can only reiterate my apology and urge readers to view their excellent blog sites. Sorry sorry sorry sorry…

Hopefully the next meeting will be in Manchester, so I can treat them to couple of packs of mini cheddars in Common.

This is the content of the LOVE website, represented in a visual DNA style.
It’s courtesy of the web2dna project at baekdal, which our client Steve at STA Travel pointed us to.
This is the UK website of STA Travel.

And this is the site of our lovely clients at Yorkshire Tea (the best tea in Britain).

We’re making them into posters because we think they look
really good. 
If anyone wants one, give us a shout.

Posted by LOVE