Last night was the Roses Design Awards. We did pretty well last year and although we had a few pieces nominated we genuinely didn’t feel we would beat our tally. So it was nice to be wrong.

Emma and Gre were both nominated for Emerging Designer of the Year, and, to our amazement, they both won it. Not that we had a favourite. Mr Rix’s sizeable ego was swelled even further by picking up Designer of the Year, and our digital department proved they’re a force to be reckoned with by picking up a Gold for The Neighbourhood’s website and a Bronze for Warburtons. Silver Cross won Silver for Packaging and Gold for The Little Book of Silver Cross in Promotional Literature, as did The University of the Arts Prospectuses for Corporate Literature. All good so far.

But then a funny thing happened: after seven years of waiting, we finally picked up the Grand Prix, for the Silver Cross Book. Gobsmacked. So all in all, seven Golds, a Silver and a Bronze - needless to say everyone’s feeling pretty chuffed with themselves. Or at least we did last night. Today we just feel like crap.

Well done to everyone who worked on the projects, thanks to the Drum and all the judges - Malcolm Garrett, Jane Pluer, Mark Hurst, Ben Stott and Ian McFarlane, and congrats to Music and The Neighbourhood, who also picked up awards. Finally a massive thank you to all our clients for trusting us to do the work that we love doing. All we need to work out now is how we better this next year.

One or two of you may have noticed there’s a major world event happening in China at the moment, with some of the UK’s finest talent on show. What you may not know is that our MD (Alistair) and myself (Simon) are heading out next week to represent the United Kingdom. Yes, that’s right, it’s the 2008 China Design Taskforce, coordinated by the Creative and Media Unit at UK Trade & Investment.

The  China Design Taskforce works with British government organisations and industry trade bodies to raise the profile of British Design to buyers, intermediaries, public sector and press in greater China, and to help attract Chinese design buyers to consider British design expertise in their procurement.

Andrew Cahn, Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment says: “We’re taking a giant leap forward in showcasing the best of British Design in this booming market. The potential market for UK design will develop rapidly as China’s economy moves towards selling more sophisticated products and services in a competitive market place.”

LOVE will be taking part in two seminars structured around the theme of ‘Love & Money’: one in Shanghai on the 19^th August, and the other in Beijing on the 22^nd. Hopefully we’ll also get the chance to have a look around some of the main Olympic sites, and give Michael Phelps a few swimming lessons. Some of the other agencies taking part are  Lisa Tse, The One Off and venturethree, so we’re looking forward to catching up with a few of them there.

Four further things, which I’m going to bullet point, because I’ve done enough writing at this point:

- If anyone else is going and fancies a night out, then please get in touch.

- If anyone has any advice on where to go/ what to see/ what to take, then please get in touch.

- We’ll bring you a few updates on the trip next week.

- I didn’t forget to change the title of this post, I just couldn’t think of anything clever or amusing.