A collection of exterior and interior photos for the Friends of St Matthew’s, a small church in Suffolk under threat of closure. The photos will be used in publicising the newly formed charity set up to try and preserve the church for future generations.
A logo design and branding project for an independent bookshop in East Dulwich, London. Chener Books was opened 40 years ago by John and Janet Kennedy as a hobby, but quickly grew into a fully fledged bookshop. It was taken over by Miranda Peake, after John Kennedy passed away in May 2018. Miranda had been approached by the Evening Standard to take part in a year long Future London project which aims to prove how tech can ‘revolutionise the future’ for three selected London businesses. Chener Books would be partnered with a tech team who would build a website and social media presence for the shop, drawing on training and advice from Google Digital Garage.
Before the project could get started, Miranda needed to provide the tech team with a logo and brand guidelines that they could work from for building the website and for applying to any social media platforms they would set up.
Despite being open for 40 years, the bookshop had no branding to speak of, other than a shop facia sign set in Times New Roman against a dark green background. Whilst Miranda was keen to modernise the shop, she was also wary of drastically moving away from it’s familiar appearance, in case it should upset the many loyal and long term customers in the area.
Bearing this in mind, I began the project by researching as much as possible about the history, customers and character of the shop, in order to establish the existing brand values that would be the basis of the new logo and branding.
Chener Books is very much a traditional, ‘proper’ and ‘no-nonsense’ bookshop, and it was important to create a primary logo that would reflect this. I decided to use the typeface ‘Joanna’, designed by Eric Gill, who described it as a ‘book face free from all fancy business’. For the colour palette I used as a starting point the distinctive dark green of the shop front, and to this I added some brighter and fresher accent colours, as well as selection of more muted secondary colours that worked well in combination with the primary colours.
The Brand Guidelines I created for Chener Books cover all the basics needed when creating a new brand; brand values, primary and secondary logos, logo positioning, facia, colours, typography, tone of voice and illustrations (provided by artist Sue Peake). The key to strong and effective branding is consistency, and so the job of the brand guidelines is to ensure that there is always consistency of branding across applications, regardless of who is designing the application. When used correctly, brand guidelines are an aid to creativity, not a restriction.
A recently completed book design and typesetting project, for a paperback book published using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing from Amazon), a highly economical way of self-publishing both print and digital books. The client for this project had written a collection of memories of The Bridge hotel in Buttermere, in the Lake District, based on his experiences of both staying there as a guest, and also working there as a student ‘handyman’ in the late 50’s and 60’s. The client provided a completed manuscript and I then designed a layout that would allow both an easy and enjoyable reading experience and show the illustrations at their optimum size and scale. The chosen format was a 9″ x 6″ ( 228.6mm x 152.4mm) book.
The book is typeset in Fedra Serif A and Fedra Serif B. With a large x-height and short stem length, Fedra Serif A works well in small sizes and in low-resolution print so was used for the body copy, captions and map labels. Fedra Serif B has an increased contrast and stem lengths, so is suited for larger sizes where its shape can be better appreciated, such as on the cover, title pages and for chapter headings .
The book is illustrated throughout with photographs from the time, and also has a central ‘Photograph Album’ with photos and sketches. The cover is printed on a soft, tactile matt stock.
Now published, the client can order from KDP as many or as few copies of the book to be printed as and when he wishes, for a reduced ‘author rate’, and is then free to use these copies for his own distribution and sales methods. When publishing with KDP, the book is also automatically immediately listed on Amazon and so available to buy through this method too.
Due to be published in May 2019, this is my cover design and illustration for the 22nd Edition of the The Good Schools Guide. The brief was to come up with a ‘special edition’ cover design that breaks away from the style of previous editions. I proposed several design options, including this chosen ‘doodle’ style bespoke illustration, which was intended to reflect the witty and often subversive style of the text.
I created the front cover illustration by drawing a group of 60+ school related objects, which I then arranged in the arched shape, and filled in the gaps with additional objects and embellishments. Amongst the items are several small references to the founders of The Good Schools Guide, such as initials and dates. I also created smaller groups of objects for the spine and the back cover.
The book is to be cloth bound in Wibalin Buckram, with the logo area debossed. The dimensions of the book are 28cm x 21cm, with a 6.5cm spine. Once published, the book will be available to buy for £60.
Appropriate for Valentines Day, I’ve just picked up a box of these books from the printers. This is a second print run of these little books of limericks (for adult readers only!), which I designed and illustrated for the author, (who wishes to remain anonymous 🙂).
Branding design for a Design Hotels workshop event at São Lourenço do Barrocal, Portugal. A brand identity for the event ‘Curating the Future’ was created along with accompanying postcards, agenda cards and a set of 29 large A1 workshop boards. The A1 boards were a mix of infographics and workshop exercises, with the intention that they would be added to with comments, post-it notes and ideas throughout the 4 day workshop event.
A loyalty card and ’empty belly’ poster design for The Henny Swan. The centre section of the poster can be handwritten in with special deals and offers, and the cards are designed to be stamped with a bespoke 12mm stamp of swan icon.
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A small book for children, commissioned by the author and illustrator, Sue Heaser. The book is a small square format, easily held by little hands. Typeset in Bodoni Six, a quirky yet readable typeface, to complement the style of the illustrations and give the book a traditional feel.
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An interior shoot for The Henny Swan, capturing the restaurant and bar areas decorated for Christmas. These images will be used in their 2019 Christmas marketing.
Photographing dishes from the December menu at The Henny Swan. The food is photographed within the restaurant using a small table top lighting set up.
