Confession time. After a week striving to produce fabulous concepts and design work for our clients I sometimes like to unwind by looking at fabulously bad concepts and design. One of my favourite places for this is a wonderful blog called Awful Library Books, the brainchild of Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, a pair of public librarians from Michigan who catalog the outdated, weird or just completely insane books gathering dust on library shelves across America.

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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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Travelling with kids can be a fantastic experience as you get to see things from their entirely fresh perspective. I’d always wondered why there were no kid’s travel guides around and thought i’d cleverly identified a gap in the market. Until I discovered the wonderful ‘This is..’ series of books by Miroslav Sasek and realized that someone had come up with the idea in the 1960s!

With dreams of a publishing empire in tatters I gave this charming book to my 6 year old daughter just before our trip to San Francisco this year. With every page turn the full excitement of the upcoming adventure began to delight and intrigue her. The book even beat Harry Potter as the chosen bedtime reading material in the weeks prior to the holiday. No mean feat for a book that’s almost 50 years old. Read more…

Shoes. Quite possibly the thing that women love the most. Which could quite possibly mean that Manolo Blahník has pleasured more women than any other man on Earth! For those of you who do not know the man who says that his shoes are not fashion… they are gestures… then pick up this week’s book in reception and discover the wonders that this man has created to grace the feet of wealthy women the world over.

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Meet Swinton Steve

31, Single, loves playing on his Xbox and motorbikes, Swinton Steve is certainly developing his own fan base within our office… especially amongst the girls! So it’s a good job then that Swinton Steve has been created to introduce some personality to a series of monthly relationship building  e-newsletters.

Once known as ‘the man with the big glasses’, he’s now been reborn as Swinton Steve. Coincidentally, Steve is also the name of the Account Director who works on Swinton at Red C. And if you’ve ever met Red C’s Steve… we’re sure you’ll agree the likeness between him and this animated character is uncanny!

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Ok I admit it, I’m a big Pearl Jam fan. And yes that may sway my opinion on their book of tour posters slightly. But on flicking through ‘Pearl jam Vs Ames Bros’, one thing becomes clear… the Ames Bros are incredibly talented and versatile when it comes to poster design.

Pearl Jam Vs Ames Bros brings together 13 years of tour posters from 1995 to 2007. Essentially the book is a lesson in how to market and promote one band in a multitude of styles. It also offers insights into the inspiration, concepts and process of poster creation… making it a must for any designer wanting to learn how to create an eye-catching poster.

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