Hello and Merry Christmas – again!

It’s Christmas Day and exactly two years since we set up in business.

There’s no denying it, it’s been the toughest year of our lives in every respect. And much tougher than year one. We’ve never worked so hard or travelled so far in all our working lives. We’ve had days when we can’t believe our own luck. And days when the sound of an email pinging-in sends a shiver down our spines.

But after two years we have a greater understanding of each other and recognise the personal sacrifices we make each make in order to keep Thoughtful moving forward and a roof over our families heads.

It’s fair to say we spent the first year making lots of mistakes, trying to build relationships as well as trying to work out how to run a business. This year we got down to doing a bit of designing.

Last year our Christmas speech had lots of words, this year there’s lots of pictures.

We’ll start with our biggest and most favouritest project of the year:

Liverpool Biennial

For ten weeks every two years Liverpool is transformed into the most amazing gallery of new art, showcasing the best contemporary artists from around the world. This year the theme was MADE UP – an exploration of the artistic imagination.

We love the LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL project for lots of reasons: the client was great to work with, the galleries were great to work with and we ended up with a great piece of work – which reflects what a team effort it all was. But above all that it was a project which highlighted what’s so great about the business we’re in – learning about new stuff.

This was a huge project for us which involved delivering the festival catalogue, advertising, visitor guide, venue dressing and city signage.

We only ever had one approach in mind from the beginning, which involved working with Mat Maitland at BIG ACTIVE.

As MADE UP encompasses many different guises, artists and venues, rather than try to boil all this down into a single image, we wanted to take what MADE UP could be in the opposite direction. Which is why we wanted to work with Mat – Mat’s unique cut and paste style fitted perfectly with the brief and Liverpool Biennial.

Check out that fit…

The MADE UP theme isn’t just in the content but also delivery – 48 sheets and 6 sheets were ‘made up’ from their individual elements. This poster was built up over several days so commuters saw something different each time they went past.

To make sure things ran smoothly, Thoughtful moved into the Biennial’s office full time to work on the project.

Here’s Paul and Stuart having just signed off the catalogue reader.

And here’s the MADE UP animation projected from FACT.

FACT ANIMATION from JAMES GRAHAM on VIMEO.
Animation by digital darlings BUBBLE.

Mat’s illustrations even made the back of a bus look good.

There’s a great piece of advice in Paul Arden’s book ‘IT’S NOT HOW GOOD YOU ARE, IT’S HOW GOOD YOU WANT TO BE’. It goes ‘If you want your work to be great don’t put it in the hands of other people’ – wise words, indeed – which is why so much of our time this year was spent up ladders, cherry pickers and lamp posts.

Here’s James with his squeegy in Tate Liverpool at 10.30pm.

Here’s James with his squeegy out again in FACT.

We need to give a special mention to Mat (piccy below) and Greg at Big Active. They’re not just talented guys, they’re also passionate, professional and flexible. We were hugely impressed with their desire to keep pushing what MADE UP could be, which was a very difficult task. At the time we didn’t know what shape the artworks or the overall show was going to take. So we looked to reference the artists either by their signature style or by what they had proposed to create for the Biennial.

D&AD membership mailer

One of our first jobs was for D&AD. We were asked by D&AD to produce a membership benefits pack which could be mailed or handed out at events.

Writing by our fifth Beatle, Lindsay Camp.

Even though D&AD were delighted with the results we couldn’t resist showing you the idea we really wanted them to go with… it’s all in the brief.

We could also show the Membership benefits in Lego too, such as offers on Design Week, Creative Review, Phaidon Books, money off Apple products, exclusive wine, a free copy of the Annual and much more.

SEIZED!

SEIZED! is the national museum of HM Revenue and Customs. Held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, SEIZED! allows visitors to enter the unseen world of Revenue and Customs and find out about the dangerous world of smuggling. Here’s how we promoted the museum.

Baby image by NICK VEASEY.

Howies Low Impact Advertising – test 1

HOWIES are smart enough to realise that everything they do, screws something up. There is no perfect clothing company. They want to be honest with themselves and with their customers about that.

What they are doing at howies is trying to find ways to lessen that impact.

So shouldn’t their advertising be low impact, as well? (At least in one sense.)

Here’s Chris preparing the boards for our first Low Impact Advertising test.

Have you spotted the obvious mistake yet? We did, but only once we had stuck all the letters down.

MWNT BEACH – SOUTH WALES from JAMES GRAHAM on VIMEO.

MWNT BEACH – STU SURFING from JAMES GRAHAM on VIMEO.

Making marks in the landscape like this isn’t a new idea, but it is when the medium becomes the message.

Pool Farm

This is Pool Farm in the heart of the Cheshire countryside.

It’s been converted into a number of high-spec offices.

We were asked by Stanian Architects to advertise the project. After a few discussions with the client, we convinced them to go with an idea that avoided printing 1,000 brochures and building an advertising site in the middle of the countryside.

Opposite the development is the Thelwell viaduct – 60,000 vehicles pass over it every day on their way too, and from Manchester.

These are the exactly the people this development is aimed at.

We did a ‘Channel 4’ and positioned a 20ft inflatable arrow between Pool Farm and the Thelwell Viaduct. So anyone passing would get the illusion of a 120 ft balloon over the development.

Photography by MAT WRIGHT.

Whilst we were at Pool Farm we stumbled upon something which could help us with the Low Impact Advertising idea…

LO’TEL

One project we really liked but never came off was for a environmentally-friendly, low-impact hotel, which we named Lo’tel.

Some non-work related highlights from the year included judging D&AD Global Awards and Student Awards…

Stu judging the Graphic Design category

…visiting Fruit Towers for INNOCENT’S FIRST AGM – a truly inspiring bunch of people with equally inspiring offices. Getting tickets for Russell Davies’ INTERESTING 08 – never have we felt so flat-footed in all our lives. Watching the speakers made us realise how quickly our business is changing and how we need to change the way we work and think, or be left behind.

On the down side, we got our arses slapped by another accountant, we got shafted by one client because we never got a purchase order, and whilst delivering some work, James and Stuart were involved in quite a nasty car crash just before Junction 1 on the M6 (not our fault).

Ouch.

But it didn’t stop James ringing around 20 overnight couriers from his hospital bed to make sure the work (in bubble wrap above) was delivered on time.

As far as the year ahead goes, well it’s going to be tough for everyone which means we’re going to have to tighten our belts a further few notches, so there won’t be any champagne lunches or competitions entries again in 09.

But there are plenty of interesting things in the pipeline for us.

We’ll also be starting the new year by going back to College.

Before you say anything, we know!

Each of us at Thoughtful owes a huge amount to the people who helped us early in our careers. And we intend to repay that debt by doing our bit for the next creative generation. Which is why we’re very excited about this next project.

Stockport College has signed a partnership agreement with the BBC, ahead of the corporation’s move to Salford in 2011. The partnership will help to identify new talent, focus on learning and development, build relationships within communities and develop clear pathways into the BBC and the wider industry.

Thoughtful was asked to go into the college for one day a week to help a group of 2nd year graphic design students produce a book on ‘How to get into the creative industries’. The students get a live brief to work on and the BBC get a publication which they mailout – everyone’s a winner.

(Currently Stockport College doesn’t give their students the option of a sandwich year. It means their placements have to be done in their holidays – which isn’t ideal for the students as the longest placement they can do is around three months. Generally they’ve been struggling to find jobs when they come to leave, as they have little or no agency experience.)

Whilst we all agreed that this was a great idea, one day a week wouldn’t really give them the experience of being in an agency everyday and seeing the good, the bad and the ugly. So we went back to Stockport College with a more Thoughtful proposal…we’d close down our studio, pack up our D&AD annuals and move into the college full time.

So we start our term in January, and have a team of super-keen young designers. We worked with the whole class over a number of weeks to gauge who would be right for the project. It was a tough decision to make as there were lots who could have made it, but in the end we chose these six.

We’ll have an open door policy, so as well as working the book one day a week, any student can drop in and get involved in pitches and presentations. We plan to video and blog the student’s experience from start to finish, and hopefully it’ll become a reference point for other colleges and universities. We don’t think anything like this has been done before, so watch this space.

We couldn’t end without mentioning the R-word. We asked our good friend and businessman Peter Williams what advice he had for us for the coming year, and thought we’d share it with you:

“Be in no doubt this is not a blip and ‘it will all be alright shortly’, this is the likes of which I haven’t seen in my lifetime, and I’ve lived through several serious crunches. Travel light, be utterly realistic and you’ll probably live to tell the tale. The other important thing is to be cheerful and upbeat, and don’t panic.”

On reflection, there’s still quite a lot of words this year so thanks for taking the time read our second Christmas Speech. As always we hope we’re around this time next year for a third installment.

Merry Christmas
James, Chris & Stuart

Thoughtful thanks to…Paul, Lewis, Antony, Paul D, Jennifer, Sacha and Sean. Dan, Ceri and Rowena. Matt and Barry. Lindsay. Matt and Greg. Steve B. Claire, David, Scania, Ade, Pete, Emma, Hayley, Aron, Lisa, Anna and Alison. Tamsin and Ruth, Rhiannon, Simon and Garrick. Adrian, Michael and Greg. Dave H. James, Mel and Ian. Sam and Rhiannon. Ian, Jemima and Jennifer. Laura, Andy and James. Margaret, Mike and Liam. Laurence and Phil. Mick. Audrey and Adrian. Jim, Debbie and Sue. Andrew, Maria and Tony. Helen and Leo. Andrew, Alex and Simon. Simon, David and Fraser. Chris Chad. Suzy. Dave, Andy and James. Kev. Dan W. Andy J and Paudie. Mike F. Graham and Robert. Sam C. Joe and Chris. And Ray.

And not forgetting Tracy, Laura and Emma.