The piece of design work we’ve been most excited about so far this year, has to be our wedding invitation. Gareth took this project on and he loved the totally new type of creative outlet it offered. As it wasn’t going to be a traditional, formal wedding we knew that it shouldn’t be a traditional, formal invitation. Gareth did a lot of research and stumbled across some self-enveloping origami that sparked his imagination. The simple but elegant form of the origami also chimed perfectly with the aim for our wedding weekend, a relaxed celebration but with each element being uncomplicated and stylish. A touch of Fellini, Saul Bass and Mad Men combined with a 17th century hill-top castle in Somerset made for the perfect wedding invitation!

The unfolded invitation

The folded and addressed invitation as each guest received in the post

The opened invitation

After perfecting the folding so that the invitation formed its own envelope, the creases naturally divided the A3 page into a number of sections of different sizes and shapes. We worked with these sections to divide up all of the information our guests needed. We were also conscious of the fact that people often don’t read all the supplementary info that is given alongside traditional wedding invitations and so hoped our unique design with no obvious start point would encourage our guests to read it all. That, alongside the witty and entertaining words! Once each invitation had been folded (by hand!), it was sealed with a sticker that read ‘open with care’ with a dotted line to encourage guests to tear the sticker and not the invitation!

All in all the invitations were a great success and we received a huge amount of positive feedback. Perhaps this should be a new business area for Moot, we certainly loved doing them.

But back to business proper, while we haven’t been tied up with wedding frippery, we have still been working away.

We have continued to do a lot of work this year for Pira International, a company providing high-level business intelligence to the printing, packaging and print industries. We have done a huge amount of work with Pira since the inception of Moot in April 2006, from brochure and advert design, to copy editing, copy writing and book design.

One of the regular jobs we do for Pira is the design and copy editing of brochures advertising their market reports. Here is a quick look at a couple of the recent ones we’ve done.

The front cover from a recent Pira market report brochure. These brochures are self mailers and so the recipient name and address is digitally printed onto each individual brochure at the mailing house. This design has helped to save Pira a huge amount of money in the unnecessary costs of address sheets and polywrapping at the mailing house.

The inside page of the brochure. One of the trickiest parts of designing these brochures has been how to fit in a lot of information in such a way that isn't cluttered and that people will actually read! It's a simple design but definitely satisfies the complications.

We love working with Pira and we think they feel the same way about us. Here are some nice things Pira has said about us recently:

“Gareth is very professional and approachable and has delivered to a consistently high standard over a number of years while doing design and typefacing work for Pira. I would have no hesitation in recommending Gareth and Moot, and I think we will continue our business relationship for many years to come.” Robert Stead, Head of Events at Pira International.

“Sophie is trustworthy, a great communicator and delivers great work on time.” Adam Page, Head of Information, Pira International.

Thanks you guys!

And so what else have we been up to? We have been delighted this year to work with the lovely people at the major global branding agency The Brand Union (TBU), who asked us to help with the relaunch of their website. TBU has 20 offices all over the world, most of which had an input into writing copy for the new website. This meant that inevitably there were all sorts of different language styles (and spelling!) across the different sections of the website. And so TBU came to us. We took all of the copy for the major sections of the website and edited it down to give the website a single, approachable tone of voice that was consistent throughout the whole website. It was a great project and a fascinating insight into such an impressive creative business.

One of lots of case studies that we copy edited for the new Brand Union website

Part of the editing job for the new website was a huge selection of biographies of Brand Union employees. For the main bulk of the website we were implementing a single tone of voice, for the biographies section it was completely the opposite. Just tidy up each employee's own words to remove any spelling or grammatical mistakes, but maintain each individual's own voice. With employees spanning the globe from France to India, South Africa, the UAE and the US, the biographies made for fascinating reading!

Over the last couple of months we have been working with a new client, NHS Alliance. They have published two reports which they asked us to design.

The front cover from one of the NHS Alliance reports we designed

A section-opener page from an NHS Alliance report

We are currently in the process of designing a third report for the nice people at the NHS Alliance.

There have been lots more projects in what has been a busy busy year, but you’ve probably read enough for the moment. But don’t forget, we’re here for any work you might need doing!

2010 was another busy year for Moot with all of our ongoing projects, along with lots of exciting new ones from a variety of new clients. All of this meant that we haven’t been in as regular contact as we’d like and so it’s about time for a bit of a catch up.

In 2010 we particularly enjoyed working for the first time with Haymarket to produce the show guide for their Carbon Show 2010 that was held in London in October. The brief was to design and produce a booklet that would include a variety of articles, exhibitor and sponsor listings, timetables of events and so on, working with existing branding to encompass the ethos of the Carbon Show. Being a show dedicated to those working in industries relating to trading, reducing and managing carbon, it was important to reflect this in the design of the show guide. We worked on a design to encompass the idea of minimal impact, alongside using 100% recycled, uncoated paper and vegetable inks. All this was done from our super-insulated, green-roofed Moot Shed, which felt absolutely appropriate.

The front cover design for the Carbon Show Guide 2010. The 'C' logo was actually die-cut from the front cover to show through from the following page

An example page from the sponsor profiles section

A sample page of the timetable of events at the Show

A sample page from the Carbon Show guide showing an example of how the 'bubbles' branding was used to navigate through the document

Along with the design and artworking for this project, Haymarket also asked us to proofread the show guide and to source the printing. All of this was done by us which minimised costs and maximised efficiency. There are no lost days between suppliers when we take on all aspects of a project.

Shortly before Christmas we were approached by two companies based in Devon to design some promotional materials for them.

Westcountry Woodlands Ltd is a new company who asked us to design their business cards. The client wanted something clean but traditional and based on the image of an oak tree. We came up with a design that fitted this brief whilst considering future web design (the client plans on launching a website this year), and so choosing web-appropriate fonts, etc.

The two sides of the business card for Westcountry Woodlands incorporating a 'traditional' serif font and oak tree motif

Devon Forest School also approached us to design a promotional leaflet. The School had an existing logo, upon which the design of the leaflet was to be based, which we took, along with the client’s photographs, to create a forest- and child-inspired design.

The tri-fold leaflet for Devon Forest School, with the front cover on the right-hand side

The inside three pages of the Devon Forest School leaflet

Another new company that we began working with in 2010 is Story Marketing. Not only are they a new client but they are our first international client too! Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Story is a marketing and communications agency for whom we designed a poster and leaflet for one of their clients, childcare company Poppetts. Poppetts had an existing branding around which we were to design these new promotional materials, whilst not making them look too ‘childlike’.

We designed this poster for Poppetts to advertise their childcare advisory service

The front page of the leaflet we designed for Poppetts

Page two of the Poppetts leaflet

In 2010 we also started working with web developers Morphity and one of their clients 2OC. 2OC is a new generation green utility company who has developed new power-generation technology. We were asked to create a series of drawings that would illustrate the technology in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Again, using existing branding, this is what we came up with:

One of a series of 11 technical drawings we were asked to do to illustrate quite complex technologies in a more accessible way

Alongside all these new clients, we certainly didn’t forget our regulars, for whom we do a variety of ongoing projects.

One of these is Pira International for whom we do a whole range of ongoing jobs. These include +Plastic Electronics magazine, that we’ve talked about before, which comes out four times a year and for which we do all the design, production and proofreading. Every month we also produce eight e-journals that are distributed electronically. For these we do all the layout, image and graphics production, and proofreading. Each year we also produce approximately 30 brochures promoting Pira’s range of market reports. We edit the copy, lay out the text, proofread and produce the artwork for all of these A4 tri-fold, self mailing B2B brochures.

An example of one of approximately 30 market report brochures we produce for Pira International. This is a six-page, folding brochure, with the front cover on the right-hand side

The inside three pages of a Pira market report brochure

Along with our ongoing projects with Pira, we also carry out lots of one-off pieces of work. These include brochures, adverts, html emails, presentations, and lots more.

The front cover of a one-off Pira subscriptions brochure. The client wanted to use a sporting image of being ahead of the competition as the basis for this design

A sample inside page from the Pira subscriptions brochure showing how the design elements are continued through the brochure and used in different ways

Another client for whom we carry out regular projects is Cerebra, a charity set up to improve the lives of children with brain-related conditions. Every quarter we produce an activity book that is sent out to all members of the charity’s Children’s Corner. This is a 64-page booklet that includes word-searches, puzzles, colouring in, dot-to-dots and much more. Being a children’s publication it is important that the design is bright and eye-catching. It is also important that the booklet fits in with the existing Cerebra colours, fonts and style.

An example of a puzzle from the Cerebra children's activity book

A sample page from the Cerebra children's activity book showing a letter from one of the readers

A page from one of the regular sections, the Gallery, where pictures drawn by the readers are illustrated. It was important to design this section in such a way as to allow for the fact that the children's drawings are always supplied in a small format

A sample dot-to-dot page

Early last year, Cerebra also asked us to design a series of research reports. These were long documents that included a lot of text along with graphs, tables, pictures and case study elements which all needed to be designed. Working to a tight budget also meant fitting all of the information into as few pages as possible. All of which we were able to do.

The front cover of a Cerebra research report, making use of exisitng Cerebra branding

A sample internal page from a Cerebra research report, including two of the regular elements, the graph and table

A second sample internal page from a Cerebra research report

Well, that’s probably about enough for now. Client’s new and old permitting, we promise to try and keep you updated on the projects we’re working on more regularly this year.

The new Winmark sales presentation cover

A page from the new Winmark sales presentation project

A page from the new Winmark sales presentation project

The second project was to develop a trio of logos for new sectors of the Winmark brand. These three logos had to tie in with existing branding, and whilst forming part of a series, needed to be different enough to be easily distinguishable. Again, we think we hit the nail on the head!

The new Winmark SHR logo

The new Winmark NED logo

The new Winmark CIO logo

It took a while to work out the concept for the website, and then we saw some food photos taken by Tony Kluge, one of which featured the daily blackboard Carwyn puts out front, highlighting what’s special that morning. The photos are great and really captured the essence of the shop and helped clarify exactly the personality we wanted the website to have. And so the blackboard features as both backdrop and navigation device, and we have used Carwyn’s actual handwriting on the website to reflect the experience of going to the shop each day. Take a look at the website, which is still in beta, with additional features to follow, and have a look at some screen shoots below.

The Olives & Oils website daily treats section

The Olives & Oils seasonal selection page, featuring the best food for the time of year

The Olives & Oils food and drink page

The Olives & Oils what we do page, including Tony's picture of the blackboard and Carwyn's handwriting

Below are some shots of the work.

Another update coming tomorrow about another, very fun, job we’ve been working on.

The Packaging Summit 2010 logo for use on a plain background

The Packaging Summit 2010 logo for use on a white background

The Packaging Summit 2010 brochure page 2

The Packaging Summit 2010 brochure page 3, with conference proceedings

Packaging Summit 2010 1/8th page advert

Packaging Summit 2010 web banner

Fortunately we were lucky enough to be given the job of designing the magazine, which we gladly took on, despite the very tight turnaround time required.

There was no photography in the 20pp magazine, so we added a few icons and slightly more interesting fonts to add a little bit of interest along the way. You can see elements of what we managed below.

And if you’re going to Ipex, have fun and make sure you pick up as many freebies as you physically can carry. I’d lay odds Heidelberg, Xerox and Man Roland haven’t stinted on the branded pens, recession notwithstanding.

The workflow/MIS trail front cover

The editor's introduction includes a glassy vector directional arrow to move you around the page and provide a Web 2.0 styling that complements the subject matter

The pull quote showcases the bold font

We had to turn something around very quickly to meet the print deadline, and were able to provide the below, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, includes a colour reference to the General Election and the party ties adorning its participants.

Pira's Great Print Debates ad for Ipex