To celebrate the launch of Gregg’s expansion in to the coffee shop marketplace we’d like some suggestions of what the above tasty snack actually is.

Also, if you want more this is a great blog: http://greggsadventure.com/

We recently came up with this idea for a new business card. Unfortunately bankrupting the business to pay for individual versions of the patches wasn’t an option. They do look nice though.

Any change of heart recently Mr Chairman?

We’ve been working with arts organisation arthur+martha recently to bring some extended digital life to their project “a map of you:postcards from the homeless”.

In the words of arthur+martha:

“A Map of You postcards carry tiny stories, little snatches of homeless people’s lives. In the white space between the buildings, the stories appear, some stencilled, some handwritten, some self-explanatory, funny, dour, elusive. The cards are designed to bring attention to a group in society who are often overlooked, but have much to offer.”

To compliment the postcards arthur+martha have devised an epic Twitter poem. We’ll be mixing this Twitter poem, four times daily, with our standard Twitter feed on the LOVE LED, blending the poems with our everyday tweets, mimicking the way everyone’s thoughts and concerns get intermingled with the noise of everyday life.

“The verses are snapshots in text of homeless lives, in all their moods – joy, terror, humour, resilience, anger. Famously, Engels wrote about the harshness of 19th Century Manchester; people today who live a comparable existence are the homeless. We imagined a dialogue between Engels and the homeless people of Manchester. Interspersed through the poem is found material from Engel’s correspondence with Marx, and his classic The Condition of the English Working Class.”

You’ll be able to follow the poems on our LED board daily over the next several weeks or straight from the source @tweetfromengels.

The treat that took the biscuit is today’s face cake. To ensure we all get our own slice of it, there’s an exact reproduction of all our looky likeys from elsewhere on the LOVE site. Brilliant. On a day we were worried there might not be any Friday treats because Holly’s at Glastonbury, this really cheered us up.

We feel a special mention must go to the late Patrick Swayze/Dave Bevan for the surgical precision with which he extricated himself from the cake.

Thanks again @dominiquebyron, @mrjackmaguire, @tommathieson and @helen251990. We wish you all the best for the rest of your studies and future careers.

We recently completed a website to help the launch of Wren Bicycles, a lovely new English bicycle brand.

The creation of London based designer, Peter Richardson, Wren Bicycles are aiming their first model at the urban cyclist that suffers from the oversized or over specified bicycles that are currently on offer.

The bikes are lovely and typify the attention to detail that we so love at LOVE. With natural cork handle grips, matching removable front and rear carriers, hand crafted steel frame and enclosed brake and gear mechanisms to keep maintenance to a minimum.

We’re hoping to see one of the Wren Bicycles on the streets of Manchester soon, let us know if you see one.

In the meantime we wish the best of luck to Wren Bicycles following their launch.

Check them out.

Seeing our old friend Lord Sugar return with the Apprentice has put us in a hiring mood too.

We’ve had a busy year so far at LOVE. And a few new business wins have made it even busier. We need to grow our creative department to allow us to take on more of the work we love doing – ideas based, lovingly crafted, brand perception altering projects. In particular, we’re looking for a senior designer who can run projects ranging from ‘ad’ campaigns – how quaint – to full blown brand experiences, both in the UK and on an international scale (we have a lot of business in the Asia Pacific region at the moment).

We want to be excited by your breadth of thinking about how brands can talk to their audiences across the full spectrum of communication channels. And we want someone who gives consideration to great creativity and design in the context of a client’s wider business objectives, not a designer whose interest begins and ends with the tools of the trade – we’ll assume you can use these with your eyes shut anyway.

In a creative recruitment bonanza we are also looking for a digital/motion graphics designer to join our team to work across web, interactive and video projects. If you’ve got about 2 years agency experience this could be a great opportunity.

If either role fits your skillset, send your CV and 3 examples of the work you’re most proud of to hello@lovecreative.com. Please make sure you do this if you are interested…we can’t guarantee replies beneath this blog post will reach the right person.

Recruitment agencies – don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Awesome

A few weeks ago we approached the tutors at Stockport College with the idea to get a select group of students in to gain agency experience while they worked on their college projects rather than rely on us to supply them with briefs. So, for the past month we’ve had four 3rd year students from Stockport College based in our studio.

We’ve really enjoyed having the students with us because they bring a good energy to the studio and it also allows us to steal any good ideas they may have. We encourage any agency reading this to fill any spare space/desks in your studio with students!

We worked with Stockport College because they’re the kind of place that teaches students that ideas, craft and fresh thinking is cool and ripping off Peter Saville’s back catalogue isn’t cool. So if you’re looking for a degree in graphic design, illustration, photography, moving image or surface design, we suggest you click here.

Thanks to Japanese publisher PIE books for sending us a copy of their very nice new book featuring some of our packaging work for COOK and Silvercross.

This caught our eye/s on a recent work trip to China.

big thanks Chris. If anyone fancies creating one of these pieces please get in touch.

Well… not quite strip… but we’ve been around and snapped everyone’s tats in the studio; we thought there’d be several showing what generally makes LOVE tick.

A few who had tattoos refused, which left our minds boggling as to their locations, but we’ve managed to get enough to create a short gallery for you. What we’d like you to do now is to match the tats to the staff member from the names on our Who’s who.

So here are the tats:

Umbro have kindly donated a Diamond Icons Jacket and T-shirt to the person who gets closest to matching the tats to the staff member.

So share your guesses in the comments below and we’ll announce the winner next week on the Thursday 24th.

We’ve just had a delivery of 960 peat bricks to our office, we can’t tell you why just yet, but we are very excited. More mystery deliveries next week. Perhaps we’ll play a big game of Catchphrase until you guess what it is? Dave Palmer will be playing the role of Roy Walker, Phil Skegg as Mr Chips.

You can see the winning Umbro work here, with plenty more of it over on our website.

Congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard on this piece of business over the last year or so and thanks to the client team, without whose vision the work wouldn’t have become a reality.

We’re still on the lookout for more creative talent to join our team and work on award winning creative projects for global brands. If you’re a middle weight or senior designer with great branding experience gained on large scale projects, send some examples of your work to hello@lovecreative.com and tell us what you can add to our offering.

I rest my case.

No thanks!!

For some time now, Waitrose have had a concession within the largest Boots store in the centre of Manchester. I can see why, on paper, this makes a lot of sense for both parties: I was once told that Boots is just about the only shop in the country that literally every person in the land visits at least once a year, and the quality of Waitrose produce is quite a novelty for us northerners (unless you live in one of the more salubrious suburbs). So, put the two together and you have an undeniably compelling proposition for the busy commuter type to get something for dinner whilst picking up a few essentials in Boots.

Despite that, this marriage just ain’t working for me. And I’ve been trying to work out why for a while now. After all, I’ll happily buy toileteries and the like from Tesco or Sainsburys (or indeed a full size Waitrose, if I lived in a place posh enough to have one), so why should it feel so odd to pick up food whilst I’m in Boots?  Am I alone in this?

Take a look at my basket of goods from lunchtime yesterday. Not difficult to spot the imposter is it?

Brands have been extending into new spaces, product lines and partnerships for years now, but I think in this case the two brands have overlooked the mindset of the consumer in this environment. In trying to unearth what feels so odd about seeing a whole chicken for sale in Boots I tried to go back to basics to understand what the brand means to me. You very quickly build up a mental picture of medicines and hygeine, of a white, almost clinical retail environment, with white uniformed – some would say nurse-like – staff. It even smells vaguely bathroomy with all those soapy, minty, perfumey aromas.

And when you think of it like that, you quickly realise that there is no place in this metaphorical bathroom cabinet for a whole chicken, or buffalo mozzarella for that matter, or breakfast cereal… or wine…or…

I’m imagining the footfall this particular store receives has meant that the Waitrose tie in has been a success, but I just wanted to let you know, Messrs Boot and Waitrose, that I don’t like it.

Thank you for listening… I feel much better to have got that off my chest.

We are so incredibly proud of the dynamic creative that demonstrates the universal appeal of PS3 Move we would like to know how far across Europe the campaign has spread. SO, if you see any of these images on your travels, tweet us @ehuplove your pictures and include #LOVEMOVE  The winner will receive our limited edition mugs.