NB Studio

Road to 2012
27 July 2012
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On a visit to the National Portrait Gallery this week we were pleased to see the identity we created for National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 project, which celebrates those who are collectively making the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games happen.

We were approached back in 2010 to create the versatile, sporty identity and set of marketing materials for the project, which over the 3 years would commission 100 world-class photographic portraits celebrating both the high profile celebrities and those working behind the games. 

Road to 2012 aims to inspire people across the country to share their own images and stories of the journey towards the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which coincidently start tonight. Olympic fever hit NB yesterday when the torch relay went past the studio, and having had a mole inside the opening ceremony we have it on good authority that tonight’s opening ceremony is well worth watching. Let the games begin! 

The Design Summit
3rd July 2012
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On Tuesday 26th June, I, along with about 200 of the leading names in business, government, design and design education converged at City Hall for an event organised by the Design Council. As Lord Bichard set out in his programme notes; ‘Positioned between the Jubilee and the Olympics, the Design Summit asks a bold question – Who do we think we are in 2012?’ The question was certainly referred to frequently, but as Nick, Alan and I found out, it is a surprisingly hard question to answer. 

With an early registration at 8am, the bleary-eyed delegates were refreshed with a coffee and pastry and able to enjoy their first hit of the identity that we had created - a two-and-a-half meter high, free standing, die cut, Dufaylite logo.

For me personally - and the NB team as a whole - there is a real sense of satisfaction at seeing a finished project out in the real world. So it was with pride that we took our seats in the chamber and listened to Lord Bichard and Ian Callum, Design Director of Jaguar (primary sponsor of the event) open the event. 

It was then Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP’s turn to take to the stage (backdrop by NB) to address the delegates (many of whom were making notes on our note paper) from behind the podium (designed by NB).  This initial excitement did eventually diminish and I was able to concentrate on the content. 

Vince’s speech was immediately followed by a volley of questions – something politicians must expect but simultaneously dread – mainly on the subjects of government procurement (what are you going to do about it?) and copyright (what are you going to do about it?). 

Next up was the humorous and erudite Professor John Kay, a leading UK economist and (amongst other distinguished achievements) columnist for the FT. His talk used a heady mixture of cheap suits, gangland funerals, beta blockers and an iPhone to illustrate how the value in a product or commodity, the bit you really pay for, is the ‘design.’ His take on the ‘Who do we think we are?’ question was that this is not the question we should be focusing on - instead we should be focussing on ‘How do we match the capabilities of a business to the needs of the consumer.’ An interesting point, I thought. 

Next up Chris Blackhurst, Editor and Editorial director of The Independent (who also sponsored the event) chaired a discussion (or was joined on the sofa) by Brent Hoberman, Co-founder of lastminute.com and Sara Murray, Founder of Confused.com. Both have a history of successful entrepreneurial innovation and were keen to express that this should be nurtured and encouraged. 

It was at this stage that I had to return to NB headquarters to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our consumers – so I missed out on some lovely chocolate brownies (we designed the napkin). Luckily I have Alan and Nick’s highlights which I have paraphrased below:

Sebastian Conran - ‘What is Design Heaven?’ using stereotypical national characteristics and assumptions. For example, German design is self controlled; The Japanese are hard working and technology focused… Combine them and you get the punchline = Apple: which is designed in California, by a British designer, inspired by a German designer using Korean parts and assembled in China.

Timothy Everest - collaboration is king. After having his bike stolen, his work with cycle company Pearson proves that a knowledge and empathy for the brand your working with is crucial to success. 

Jane ní Dhulchaointigh on Sugru - it’s humble beginning as handy ‘stuff’ that can mend and alter things and her efforts to build the brand, develop the company and ensure the product’s future potential as handy ‘stuff’ that can mend and alter things. 

The evening reception in the magnificent Living Room’ was hosted by Quintessentially and doubled up as the launch of their ‘Best of British’ package. It was a good opportunity to admire our Dufaylite plinths with a mini exhibition of Design Council work and hear not one, but two fitting tributes to David Kester, the departing Chief Executive of the Design Council. 

The view from the Living room was magnificent, not only a stunning panorama of London, but relaxed and happy delegates and most importantly a satisfied client team. I left at about 8pm, trudging back to NB with some hired iPads that I had to return and also carrying that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know that the late nights, early mornings, name badges, programmes, signage, tables, exhibition pieces, plinths, napkins, in short - effort, was all worth it. 

I’d like to thank David, Beth, Margarita, Tracy and Jim at the Design Council for being a pleasure to work with. Look out for the full project report up on our site soon.

Tom

Design Summit 2012
6 June 2012
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Our identity for the Design Council’s 2012 Design Summit launched over the long weekend. As the Design council say, “The Design Summit makes a bold statement – that the time is right to reflect on the distinctive national qualities that are uniquely ours and offer such potential for our future success. How can design help turn our national characteristics into economic growth? What are the lessons we can learn in 2012 from British identity to increase inward investment and export growth?” 

We concentrated on this idea of Britain and identity. We were very keen to avoid clichés and wanted to create something that stood out in this summer of union jack waving. 

We had been thinking about Abraham Games’ Festival of Britain emblem and eventually stumbled across the ‘Britain Can Make it’ image. This image, which coincidentally was one of the first things commissioned by the newly formed Design Council in 1946, had a real sense of celebration and was representing an event with a very similar manifesto to the 2012 Design Summit.

At the same time we were also exploring the DNA double helix structure that came out of some early discussions – design is in the DNA of Great Britain. The helices we were drawing were starting to look a bit like the ‘Britain can make it’ flags waving in the wind.

With a bit of crafting and a modern, geometric slant, we created an icon of Great Britain. This icon and the resulting visual toolkit is currently being applied across a range of applications in time for the big day on 26th June. 

This project was also covered by Design Week, here.

How we did it: John Lewis Broadband
8 May 2012
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I thought you might be interested in how we collaborated with the brand team at John Lewis to introduce a new service and deliver a visual identity for it.

John Lewis Broadband launched at the end of April, 2012. Almost a year earlier, we were invited by the brand team at John Lewis to design the visual identity and create a simple toolkit/guidelines that would inform the look of all branded elements – were we interested?

At once we began cramming; reading, researching, checking out competitors and paying a visit to the shop in Oxford Street to ensure we’re up on the retail landscape. Days later we had a mountain of questions, so we took them with us to the briefing.

We learnt a lot at this briefing session, partly because the client is great at giving us what we need, and partly because we went in prepared. Notebooks at the ready, we set out to learn the background to the project, the business objectives, team goals, target audience, project must-haves – anything and everything could be useful at this stage.

John Lewis Broadband is a new service to replace previous broadband offerings from Greenbee and Waitrose. The visual identity we’re creating must fit with the master brand and convey the product attributes. It must stand-out in store and across different departments. It must look suitably different online, sit well with the competitor set and carry John Lewis out of it’s natural habitat and into comparison websites, online ads and consumer magazines. 

What we capture informs our own NB brief, which we fill with relevant facts and anecdotal clues gleaned from the client. Now we have this, we can create a full fee proposal informed by our understanding of the project, creative start points, a quick look at the competitor landscape, the project scope, budget and timescale. 

With the project confirmed and budget signed-off, we’re ready to go. We meet the wider team at John Lewis, the client sponsor, and the ad agency (see adverts, left) to get their take on the proposition ‘Simply Brilliant Broadband’

By now there’s much anticipation in the studio, so we share. We give our designers a full briefing. I give a speech about simplicity, clarity, restraint, Paul Rand and IBM. No pressure there then. When we can get the whole team involved like this, it creates higher levels of creative energy and a healthy dose of competitiveness – it’s a really effective way of working. 

They have one week to think, scribble and get their ideas down on paper, and we meet that Friday afternoon for what is effectively a ‘show and tell’ with beers. From there we chose the best ideas to take forward and invest more time in.

We present three exploratory themes as finished ‘sketches’ and mood boards, making sure to demonstrate a clear link back to the brief.

The team at JL thinks our route one is on the money and latches on to a particular image which sums up what we’re trying to do. Luckily it’s the Munich ’72 Olympics graphic that we think captures the spirit of the project - we’re already big fans.

In order that people will know that this product is broadband, we borrow the universal wireless broadband symbol and make it our own through careful use of colour, form and translucency in overlapping animations. We crafted the typography to create something different to the master brand. We commissioned a writer to set the tone and introduce the product. We created simple templates for the website, ads, posters, leaflets, point of sale, product purchase tools and merchandising. And from there we produced a simple toolkit informed and inspired by the product itself and design principles we established. 

I hope this helps explain how we got here and I hope you like it.

Nick

Process Journal
21 March 2012
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We’re featured in Edition 6 of Process Journal, an excellent quarterly design publication from the people at Published by Process. In this edition NB’s Nick is interviewed about the original Park House identity we designed for Land Securities.

We don’t want to give away the full interview, which examines everything from the typeface to the technology, but here is a short extract…

One application that we love in particular is a beautifully crafted wooden box that features a lined map, continuing the style of the ‘circle’ graphic. Can you tell us about this the purpose of this application, and how the imagery was applied to the box from a technical perspective?  

“The box contains marketing materials and its purpose is to reach and appeal to senior executives of large corporations so it has to exude quality and luxury. It took us a while to source the right wood veneers (Classic) and then laser-etch our Park House pattern (Modern). We had crazy time trying to get the burn right through the veneer, silk-screening a fine map inside the lid and sourcing the right strength micro-magnets for the closure.”

To read the full interview, buy the magazine here.

RLM Finsbury
16 February 2012
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Two well-respected names in PR joined forces recently to become a global leader in strategic communications.

We were approached to create an identity and website which pulled together the worlds of Robinson, Lehrer Montgomery in New York and Finsbury in London. The new name; RLM Finsbury. 

This project was about managing the needs of two very different entities in order to express a new position in the marketplace. The website, developed in collaboration with our friend Josh Baker was designed with simplicity in mind - a modular system which the client can tailor to their own needs.

The Beauty Retreat
8 February 2012
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The identity we designed for the new John Lewis Beauty Retreat was recently unveiled as part of the £19m refurbishment of John Lewis Cheadle.

John Lewis had identified an opportunity to make their treatment service more distinctive and attractive to customers, and asked NB to develop an appropriate identity. Starting from their position as ‘friendly experts’, we developed a look and feel including the name, colour palette, imagery and typographic style, that feels confident and organic. The identity remains close enough to the John Lewis brand to benefit from the trusted brand values, and also feels distinctly different from other beauty brands on offer.

In our previous work for John Lewis, we were tasked to explore the link between John Lewis insurance products (formerly known as Greenbee) and the John Lewis master brand in order to better articulate the offer to customers. This included working closely with the internal teams and running workshops with the above and below line agencies to help us examine and articulate problem, and how it could be solved through;

•   Naming
•   Hierarchy
•   Use of Language
•   Look and feel

Both solutions needed to have enough ‘John Lewis-ness’ to build on the positive John Lewis brand values but also have enough distance to stand out and be visible within the main areas of business.  You can see more of our John Lewis work here.

More late nights
23 November 2011 
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Last night we attended ‘More Thoughtful at the British Academy’. Our client More Partnership are fundraising experts and the night was about big name friends and collaborators sharing their stories and wisdom on giving. The night also gave More the chance to unveil the neat new identity we created for them. More Partnership work with a huge range of clients including Cancer Research UK and the University of Oxford. To signal the beginning of the rest of the evening, our friend, the godfather of branding Michael Wolff, gave a rousing speech entitled ‘The Ten Things You Need To Know About Brands.’ We couldn’t have been More happy.

Blades of Glory
20 September 2011
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We had a great time at the Blades awards recently partly due to the brilliant host Keith Lemon, but mostly due to the fact that our Galleries of Modern London campaign for the Museum of London won! It’s a great honour as the Blades are still the only awards scheme to be judged by clients.

We’ve put the award on the shelf next to the gold cube from the American Art Directors’ Club and the commendation from the Benchmarks. The Museum have won a few for the campaign too, notably from the Visit London Awards and the Guild of PR Practitioners.