Financial Services… sounds dull doesn’t it! Ask the average person on the street what that phrase means to them and the ones that stay awake will struggle for a definition. The trouble with ‘Financial Services’ is that it’s a corporate phrase that has found its way into consumer facing communications.

In the struggle to unite the benefits of credit cards, loans, investments and insurance under one umbrella term, a phrase has been created that means nothing to the consumer. Customers of course, use ‘money’ to buy cars, clothes and holidays, they save and invest ‘money’ and protect the ‘money’ tied up in their belongings with insurance.  So when we were asked to rebrand the ‘Financial Services’ section of our client’s retail website, we knew just how to help it resonate with consumers.

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Have you heard of Direct Mail packs receiving multiple bids on ebay? I hadn’t either until I searched for ‘Rapha’ on ebay a few weeks ago. Rapha produce super stylish, retro tinged clothing for the road cyclist and is quite an aspirational brand for me. In fact completely aspirational as I don’t own a single piece of their clothing yet! The direct mail pack that was subject to intense bidding on ebay was a simple 16-page leaflet with ravishing full bleed black and white photography, no prices and few words except for the web address and a list of products. It sold for an incredible £8.50. Extraordinary customer behavior by any brand’s standards I think, let alone one that only launched in 2004 with one core product; a super expensive softshell jacket. Did I bid for the DM pack?  Of course not. I already had a copy of my own stashed safely away.

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Before I start this blog, I’ve set myself some ground rules. Simply because I know there are lots of blog postings, articles and galleries on the web dedicated to really funky and creative business cards. There is nothing wrong with these cards… it’s just that one of my biggest niggles about fancy business cards is that they don’t fit in my business card holder, or my wallet for that matter!

Ok that may be a bit old fashioned of me. But I like my business card holder. It serves the lovely purpose of holding lots of business cards that I can flick to in an instant. The only problem with it is that if the card is larger than 3.5 × 2 inches… I have to get the scissors out, or it just gets lost. And until someone invents a business card app for my iPhone, I’m going to stick to paper.

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As my third week at Red C draws to a close I can only look back and wonder how it’s gone so quickly. Nonetheless after relocating to Manchester, finding a new flat, and establishing an acceptable groove in my office chair, I thought it was about time ‘the new boy‘ contributed to the agency’s ‘We Like’ page.

So I thought I’d share the work of the satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan, (like you do). To say I’ve been a fan would be a bit much but I can definitely count myself among his many admirers.

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Back in 1995 I saw a film that simply blew my mind. The film was pretty good, but the thing that blew me away about it was the opening and closing credits. The film was the thriller Se7en, and everyone I knew who was into design at the time was instantly inspired by it. It was from this point I began to take more notice of title sequences in films, which soon introduced me to the work of Saul Bass and Stephen Frankfurt… who created the superb title sequence to ‘To kill a mockingbird’.

Fast forward to today and I have to confess I still love a good title sequence, in fact sometimes it feels that the actual title sequence is better than the film (as was the case with this title sequence from the movie Sahara). So it’s probably no surprise then that one of my favourite places to visit on the web is the fabulous site www.artofthetitle.com.

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At Red C we love our music. From the heart-racing pounding beats provided by Energy 98 (a particular favourite of our Studio Manager – Dawn) to the chilled out melodies of Kings of Convenience… there’s nothing better than to get the creative juices going than a bit of music. Sadly, though, all our music is digital and there’s no vinyl (or CDs) to be seen… which could be our loss especially when you discover some of the amazing things designers have done in the past with the physical record, as shown in the new book ‘Extraordinary Records’.

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At Red C we love letterheads. Which is probably a good thing since we’ve designed quite a few over the years. In some cases, a letterhead is the first thing that many a customer or client sees when dealing with a business, so having one that is aesthetically pleasing, impactful, memorable and professional is incredibly important. It’s safe to say, though, that designing a letterhead for a business is relatively a straightforward design challenge.

So imagine, for example, if instead of a business, we were tasked with designing the letterhead of say… the leader of the Third Reich. Or maybe a scientific genius, a film director, an animation company, a master magician or the Prime Minister. I wonder how we’d go about designing then.

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When I was a kid I used to absolutely love spending time on the sofa, headphones firmly stuck to my head, listening to a wide variety of LPs that were stacked in in the corner of our living room. I’d spend hours listening to a wide variety of music staring intently at the album covers as the music drifted into my ears and allowed my mind to create stories influenced by the pictures on the album art in front of me.

Now… I’m not going to confess what albums I used to listen to as a child, although am sure if my sister read this she would happily divulge the musical crimes of my youth (Mr Roboto by Styx may appear in that list of crimes), but one of the many album artists that had a profound impact on my imagination growing up was the incredibly talented Storm Thorgerson.

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When Julian asked me to give Gary Numan a call about some illustrations, I was unimpressed. Partly because I’m often the butt of the practical jokes round here, and partly because I’m more of an Ultravox man myself.  So it was with some apprehension that I went back to my desk to make the call. As I dialled I decided I’d play it safe: skip the musical chit-chat and get straight down to business, which turned out to be a wise move when illustrator Gary Newman – and not the King of synthpop – answered the phone.

A pioneer of doom-laden electronic music he may not be, but Gary Newman is one of the UK’s top illustrators. His signature style is zesty, hedonistic, jet-setting. Just the kind of thing we were looking for to add some wow-factor to a “WIN YOUR DREAM HOLIDAY” DM pack.

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