Check out the World Clock...

Right here.

Some fascinating facts.

Please vote. Your designer needs you!

I have entered a design competition jointly with fellow designer, Tom Keane, and we have made it into the select Design Gallery . Please click here and vote for our Milk in a Can design!

Latest Work for Marks & Spencer

Lots of new projects created this last month for the High St giant

Branding new womenswear collections such as Denim Boutique, Saint Maxim, Exotic Island and Modern Smartwear, as well as new lingerie collections: Shanghai Blossom and Flowerpress

Lingerie Branding

Two new collections branded for Marks & Spencer: Flowerpress and Shanghai Blossom. Moodboards below.

What the font?

How well do you know your fonts? Try this test to find out.

Facebook In Reality

What would it be like if Facebook was actually played out in real life?

from www.idiotsofants.com.

Latest Work: the 'Seventies Summer' branding for Marks & Spencer

Latest project is now live: the branding of a funky new retro-style lingerie range from the UK High Street giant:

See the branding featured on the Marks & Spencer website here.

...And another for the M&S series

Further to this post, the latest in the series of the 'What's Hot' designs commissioned for www.marksandspencer.com appears online this week.

The live link is here.

Need inspiration for fashion design websites?

Then take a look at the website of CreateThe Agency, , an interactive agency for luxury, fashion and retails brands. Lots of absolutely gorgeous work dahling.

FOUND

www.FFFFOUND.com is a fabulous imagebookmarking site that's consistently inspirational.

Invitations to participate and post images are rare, which keeps the quality of the images high.

Still on the 'found' theme, for all the voyeurs out there, www.foundmagazine.com collects found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles - you get the idea - basically anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Interesting stuff, and again, a good source of inspiration for creative thinkers.

Jonathan Barnbrook

The man is a typographical God

Latest Design Work: Hot Trends for M&S

Here is one of a series of brand new designs commissioned for www.marksandspencer.com for the 'What's Hot' section of their e-commerce site.

The bold and funky design has generated approximately 10,000 clicks in the one week it's been live, with a conversion rate of 2.7%, and it will now form the basis of the new template for all the 'What's Hot' pages in the coming weeks.

The world's 50 most powerful blogs

"Blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions.
Here are the 50 best reasons to log on"

Courtesy of The Observer Technology Section

Printable paper rulers

Just for you, some paper rulers you can print out for when you don't have a conventional ruler to hand.

Bless the Web.

Review: Vanity Fair Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

Vanity Fair was launched in 1913 by Condé Nast, whose vision was to produce an insightful magazine reflecting the era’s vibrant culture

Now 150 portraits of artistic, literary, sporting, fashion and high-society leading lights, photographed by legends from Cecil Beaton and Man Ray to Mario Testino and Annie Leibovitz,have been gleaned from its glossy pages to the walls of the National Portrait Gallery

In the early selection from 1913-1936, artists, dancers, writers, and scientists, such as Claude Monet, Albert Einstein, and Charlie Chaplin, hang next to society beauties such as Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo.

 Publication of Vanity Fair was suspended in 1936, owing to the Depression and stormy global events, but it relaunched again in the 1980s. The contemporary photos are more venturesome and we are treated to the likes of Tom Cruise, Keira Knightley, Madonna and George Clooney. And of course who can forget that front cover of a heavily pregnant Demi Moore.

If you're seriously interested in photography you shouldn't miss the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2, £8-£10, until May 26th. I thoroughly recommend it.

Facebook for Freelancers

Workology.com is a new social networking site for freelancers and SME’s where amongst other things you can create your own Mini Site to showcase your expertise, skills and services, and also connect and share advice with others in the freelance world.

02/04/08 UPDATE: And here's another one which actually sounds even better.

These babies are springing up all over the place.

Another Great Website

Take some time out to explore this Flash-based website - it's really something:

www.camper.com

It's Camper's site for their Spring/Summer 08 Collection

Any thoughts.. Or any others to add?

Completely Brilliant Ad

Click here...

Ski time!

What a week! Thanks Bernard, for a magnificent week's ski-ing.

Smash and fab

New Honda commercial

Following the exceptionally innovative Cog, Grrr, and Choir ads, I was interested to see what Wieden + Kennedy would do next with its advertising for Honda.

The latest TV campaign airs this week and features a car made of jigsaw pieces and a giant sculpture of an engine constructed from thousands of Rubik's cubes,

The rubik cube art thing has actually been done before.

Anyway, not to detract from this, the ad presents Honda's engineers tackling many more series of bizarre puzzles to highlight the innovative thinking, and problem-solving engineering techniques, behind their new FCX Clarity hydrogen-fuelled car.

They even slot in a small reference to Cog by creating a chain reaction with spoons and polystyrene cups on a tea break.

The ad finishes with the Honda team creating a car out of jigsaw pieces, a scene that echoes "the Baking of" ad created by Fallon London for Skoda (the idea begins to wear a little thin by now.)

It closes, as always, with Garrison Keillor’s voiceover spelling out the message of the ad – a feature of Honda campaigns that gets more condescending and aggravating every time. Maybe they need to work on a change here? (Dervla Kirwan's booker at M&S, take note of that tip too.)

Despite the minor criticisms, all in all a riveting ad.

The best damn website in the Universe

From a design point of view this cannot be beaten. A great idea and brilliantly designed and executed.

Do you agree, or have any others to add?

www.leoburnett.com

Review: From Russia at the Royal Academy

The critics have gone ga-ga for the Royal Academy's show of Russian and French masterpieces.

It is one of the most-talked about and highly anticipated exhibitions of recent months as more than 120 masterpieces from Russia's four great state museums have finally arrived in the capital.

Matisse's The Dance (above) was the highlight for me. The work was painted in 1910 for a Moscow sugar merchant and has never been seen before in this country. Other works on show included paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse together with those by Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich... quite a unique opportunity to explore the fascinating exchange that existed between French and Russian art during a crucial period that was witness to upheaval and revolution.

Of course there is general acknowledgment that a "pretty spectacular" multitude of treasures has arrived, but on the other hand the Guardian's art critic Adrian Searle, asks: who wants one damn masterpiece after another?"

Simon Jenkins, another critic, also picked up on the abundance of Russia's collections writing. "Russia has more works of global appeal than it can handle, yet needs more money to look after a fraction of what it has". He points out that most of these treasures are buried in vaults "which few people alive will ever see".

A great reason, then, to brave the crowds and book a ticket.

From Russia is at the Royal Academy, W1, until April 18

Latest Work

An eyecatching illustrative style for promoting this innovative Alternative Energy Fund to wealthy investors.

Allan Cinnamon performs...

Here's my design for the flyer of my dad's gig - "On Broadway & 52nd St" - which promises to be a musical journey from Broadway to Bebop. It takes place this Wednesday 30th at Cafe Also. It's sold out but there are plans for further performances.

Jewish Book Week front page news in Design Week

The new 2008 Jewish Book Week identity was reported in this week's issue of Design Week. (17 January 2008) currently out now.

Jewish Book Week 2008

This is the exciting new design for this year's Jewish Book Week festival. It represents the rich and varied programme of the festival - all you culture lovers out there are in for a fabulous treat!

I can't reveal anything yet but from the 8th January you can check it all out for yourself on www.jewishbookweek.com.
Here you can also book tickets for events and find out all the inside information.

Also, for any facebookers, the JBW group is here.

Jewish Book Week in Miami?

Look at this picture. I spotted this 'orange tree illustration' on the side of a building in Miami Beach last week.... Very similar to the Jewish Book Week official logo to the left methinks. Hmmmm...

Any thoughts JBW people?

I'm in love...

...with the world's most hyped mobile phone: the Apple iPhone.

What a stunning piece of gadgetry - a visual masterpiece.

As expected, Apple have done a fabulous job building an intuitive and simple to employ user interface, sleekly encased in a very slim cover.

For a very informative (and less biased ;-) personal user review click here.

Review: Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

I caught this show first thing on Saturday morning. It's a wonderful time to visit the National Portrait Gallery, as this early in the morning the exhibition space is still empty and you can have the place to yourself, enjoying an unblocked view of the works.

The show examines the role of portraiture within Pop Art bringing together key works by all the major Pop artists - Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein (USA) and Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield (UK)

Using images of the famous and the notorious taken from the media, the Pop Art portraits created a new breed of fantasy portraiture using the influences of popular art and culture.

Comic books, magazines and other modern mediums were the inspiration for the Pop Art Artists to create altered and transformed images of instantly recognisable faces. An obsession with celebrity and the changing influence of fame, the images are often warped versions of a very familar face or versions of the artist themselves put through the media celebrity filtered lens.

A truly inspiring exhibition - full of colour, wit and lateral thinking.

Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery
11 October 2007 -20 January 2008
£7.00-£9.00

Great throwback commercial from 1990

A classic commercial from 1990 for none other then my car, a P-reg Suzuki Vitara.

Pure classic.

Surrealist Cinema

My friend Sanjay has designed a T-shirt ('Surrealist Cinema') on sale at the Spunky Store in Bristol and online at www.spunky.co.uk.

The design is also featured on a sweatshirt and 'hoody' on the website and publicised in the upcoming FHM Christmas 2007 issue.

Inspired by Donnie Darko, The Simpsons and the work of Frida Kahlo, Surrealist Cinema is a parody on the Gracie Films logo often seen in the credits to The Simpsons.

Buy here for Men

Buy here for Women

Mini-profile here

Please buy and feed his children ;-)

Have Bob Dylan send an e-card for you

This has got to be one of the coolest viral marketing tools about. I've used it and my recipients have loved it.

Make your own cards here

See Dylan's original video below.

Droopy tits?

Just back from Paris where amongst other things I visited the Pompidou Centre. There was an intriguing installation by an artist called Annette Messager. It was actual laugh-out-loud stuff - it was very bizarre and triggered spontaneous chuckles from both me and my boyfriend. The concept of 3 droopy plastic breasts trapped inside a net bag, spontaneously, falling to the ground was just one element of the installation, which consisted of various body parts doing the same thing. If you get to Paris, go see. Meanwhile, for a glimpse of it, see the movie below.

Photograph and movie by Chele Conway

Good branding makes money for companies

Here's an article from a marketing blog that shows how good branding can actually make money for a company.

Read it here

Design your own book cover

A nice idea from Penguin to design your own book cover for one of their Penguin classics.

Examples of other people's designs can be seen here.

Marks & Spencer

As a freelancer, when not working from home on my private client projects, I am often contracted to work in the design studios of Advertising or Design agencies, in central London.

Right now, I am doing something completely different, working in-house at Marks & Spencer head office at their new premises in Paddington Basin - working as part of the e-commerce design team. It is a beautiful office environment but I am not used to working within such a corporate environment.

It's altogether another experience but that's what I like about freelancing - the variety of work, and constant change of pace, environment and work.

Above are a couple of my M&S creations since I began working on the site graphics last week.

Recent Freelance Jobs

I have just finished an unusually long post working in-house at Clarins UK in Cavendish Place, behind Oxford Circus, working on all their promotional material. I made some nice friends and got some great freebies! Thanks girls.

Next up I'll be working in-house once again, this time at Marks & Spencer, at their new head office in Paddington Basin. I'll be working within the online department, on the M and S e-commerce site. I'm looking forward to it.

More Olympic Logo Parodies

Will it ever end?

The Wonders of Photoshop

Don't ever believe those beauty magazines...

Unbelievable stuff.

Useful Colour Picker Sites

Colour lovers
Show hundreds of different colour combinations - a great online tool. You can also vote for your favourites and create your own swatches. You will find, in addition, a useful section on colour trends

Colorjack
A colour theory visualiser

Colorblender
Similar to Colour lovers, you'll find many inspirational colour palletes here.

Colorschemer
One more.

Continuation of the logo saga...

50, 000 have signed an online petition against the London 2012 Olympics logo, but it has now been closed after its creator realised the design was "here to stay".

Nicknames for the logo by now include 'Gay swastika puzzle' and 'Tiswas disaster'. But the leading name now is 'Lisa Simpson giving head'. Hhhmmm.

London unveils its logo for 2012 Olympics

Does anybody out there like this logo?

My friend, Struggling Author, rightly calls it a "crumpled crisp packet swastika"

This is the icon that is supposed to sum up what London 2012 is all about. The jagged emblem in bold colours, has apparently been designed to define the image of the Games in five years' time.

The logo, based on the date 2012 itself, comes in a series of bright shades of pink, blue, green and orange, and includes the signature five Olympic rings emblazoned onto the "0".

I myself can't stand it.

I've seen the BBC News website has some of the alternative logos... so much better.

Have a look at them - especially no. 11 - just great!

Facebook

Some of my friends tell me that they've signed up to Facebook . It's a bit of silly fun, they say (although some take it all too seriously). So I've signed up too.

Facebook (for the uninitiated) is like a streamlined, refined take on MySpace . No fluorescent backgrounds and hideous customised cursors, just crisp whites and calming blues. You create a profile for yourself, locate other people you know, and add them as "friends". You can then swap messages, share photos, invite one another to events, and so on. There's also a status window you can easily update, so if your friend Zoe is feeling listless, she types "feeling listless" in and you see a little bulletin saying, "Zoe is feeling listless." For some reason, this is endlessly amusing. My friends were right: it is a bit of silly fun.

From a freelancers' point of view, being part of an online networking site has a business focus too. Now even the politicians are using it in the race to be Labour deputy leader.

What's your take on the phenomenon?

Need inspiration for business card design?

Check out this link for some innovative ideas

Financial Times rebrand

The Financial Times rebrand is a project I worked on recently whilst freelancing at TMW.

The 'World Business In One Place' strapline is illustrated by an image of a fabulous montage of iconic world buildings.

The new-look paper launched today so if you bought it, you'll have noticed the fresh new layout. The changes are fairly subtle ones, designed to enhance the FT's traditional strengths.

www.weliveinfinancialtimes.com

iPod Love

Apple sold its 100 millionth ipod today

The success of the iPod lies partly in British hands - it was designed by Essex-born Jonathan Ive, who has grown to be Apple's head of industrial design.

Among famous iPod users are the Queen, who owns a silver iPod. She was said to be impressed by how small and handy it is.

Freelance UK

An article from this blog has been published on Freelance UK, the leading website for freelance creatives in the UK.

It can be found here.

I'm chuffed!

New website for creatives and marketeers

I'm freelancing at TMW, working on the new Lloyds TSB brand and direct mail campaign. On the way in this morning, just outside the TMW offices, on the King's Road, I was handed a quirky flyer for this website. Good marketing for another useful forum-based site for the creative and marketing industry.

By the way, TMW has an excellently styled Flash website - check it out!

3 Limited Edition Oyster Wallets - they're free!

For all you Londoners out there: personalise your commute with one of these beautifully designer Oyster wallets.

They're free, just click on this link, click on the name of the artist whose work you would like and fill in the form. Platform for Art will then send out the wallet to your address.