Manchester-based advertising agency, Red C, has been commissioned to undertake a ‘brand refresh’ exercise for Wolseley UK’s ‘Center’ brands. The brand refresh exercise will see new logos and collateral designed for Plumb Center, Parts Center, Pipe Center, Climate Center, and Drain Center. As part of the initiative Red C was also asked to rebrand the Integrated Supply business to Integrated Services, complete with a new logo.

Wolseley UK is the UK operating company of Wolseley plc, the world’s number one distributor of heating and plumbing products. Speaking about the rebranding exercise Julie McLean, Head of Marketing for Plumb and Parts Center, who was part of the project commented: “We wanted an evolution not a revolution as we were building on our high brand equity and the trust our customers have in each of our individual brands. This was a very important project to get right and we knew we could trust Red C to understand that and deliver for us, and they didn’t disappoint.”

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At the beginning of August I had the pleasure of judging the 23^rd SUN Awards (Shot Up North). Showcasing the best photographers north of London is now in it’s 23^rd year. The judging took place at Doug Curries studio in Leeds where I meet some great people all with different backgrounds:

Ed Horwich, photographer and organizer of the awards along with Doug. Seamus Ryan – Photographer, Rob Walker – Photographer, Vicky Munro from Brass, Clair Watkin from Comma Ca and Jon Cohen of Fuji Film (non-voting chair and adjudicator) oh and we couldn’t forget Woody the dog.

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It’s 10am in the studio, everybody has finally woken up for a busy day ahead when someone pipes up “who’s turn is it to make a brew?” One by one heads disappear behind monitors and the same voice continues “I made the last ones, I’m not doing them again”. It’s a common dilemma across homes and businesses throughout the UK and most probably the world. Yes this is serious. What everybody needs in their life is an app – specifically a mobile app, to encourage hot beverage participation. What they need is ‘Brew Round’ our fantastic new app from the Red C studio which will solve all future conflicts and confusions.

Of course I jest, whilst Brew Round is our new app, it’s clearly much more light hearted than that, let me take you on a small journey, which begins on a cold wintery afternoon in November 2010…

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Fed up of having to write lists when it comes to making a round of brews for your friends or colleagues? Always forgetting how a loved one or a relative likes their tea, coffee or hot comfort drink? Then ‘Brew Round’ is the answer to your hot drink making needs.

‘Brew Round’ is our brand spanking new iPhone app that aims to make brewing a whole raft of hot drinks a lot easier. And to save you time in the future, you can save your friends and their drinks in the handy library. The app also lets you create ‘Rounds’, these rounds store the groups of people that you regularly make drinks for.

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Arrested Man from Gypsies

I was having a rummage through some of my old art school stuff in the attic and in between the old Rizla’s and crayons I discovered a copy of Josef Koudelka’s ‘Gypsies’ complete with library ticket . Whoops! Gypsies was one of the first photography books i ever saw and it still has the power to mesmerise with it’s raw, poetic images. Leafing through the book again reminded me of why Josef Koudelka is hands down my my favourite photographer.

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I’m a big movie fan, and so one of my favourite destinations is the apple movie trailers site. On going there recently I saw some beautifully designed posters advertising some classic films that are set in Texas.

I clicked on one of them and discovered that the Alamo Drafthouse is running a film festival called ‘The Texas Monthly Rolling Roadshow’, which will be showing te films that a panel of esteemed judges consider the ten best movies set in Texas.

To coincide with the festival, they have commissioned designer Jason Munn to redesign the posters for the films they are showing… the results of which are absolutely fantastic and make me want to jump on a plane to Texas and go buy all of these posters… and more that Jason Munn has designed.

So who is this Jason Munn guy?

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Every child dreams of being a superhero, and unsurprisingly I was no different. With a bin bag cape and underpants outside my trousers I was ready for anything, including the dastardly super villain that was next-door’s Jack Russell. The devil in dog’s clothing.

Not a lot’s changed really, I’m still cautious of very small animals, and often struggle to dress myself properly. But it was obvious that a career as Spiderman’s successor wasn’t calling me. Something I’d quite forgotten about until, that is, I popped in to the art gallery, Generation POP!

This kitsch little gallery situated in the Northern Quarter of Manchester recently paid tribute to comic book history – with a six week exhibition of the official Marvel fine art collection. As I strolled past the gallery’s long glass front (smeared with the steamy finger and face prints of excited geeks), my childhood excitement was quickly rekindled.

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This is a strange one for the we like section but I’m treating it as more of a celebration of the life and work of photographer, Corinne Day who sadly passed away recently after a long term illness.

Corinne’s unique style introduced us all to a new way of shooting fashion. It’s a more realistic, unposed & edgy feel known as ‘heroin chic’ which to some people was seen to “make heroin addiction seem glamorous and sexy and cool”. And although her style at times was shocking it has changed the way we all look at fashion photography. Helping us to try new styles and inject more personality.

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Back when I was a student, there were a couple of songs that everybody seemed to go gaga over. The first was by a band called Stiltskin entitled ‘Inside’ and the other was by an act called Babylon Zoo whose song was called ‘Spaceman’.

Both of these songs are notable for the fact that they became so well known in the UK because they were first aired to the British public via Levi adverts. In the case of Spaceman, the interest in the track resulted in it going straight to number one, where it stayed for five weeks. The track also went to Number 1 in the single charts in twenty-three countries and at the time Babylon Zoo held the record for the fastest selling single for a UK debut artist.

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At the weekend I finally had the chance to go to the Cornerhouse and view an exhibition called Unrealised Potential. This is a collaborative group exhibition brought about by artist-curator Mike Chavez-Dawson. The show is an active investigation into the potential of unrecognised, unfinished or unfulfilled ideas, blurring the lines between artist, curator, visitor and producer.

Back in 2003, Mike Chavez-Dawson presented a series of certificates under the title, ‘Potential Hits’. Each certificate stated the name of the individual artist, the title and idea of an unrealised exhibition. Chavez-Dawson then invited a number of contemporary artists to contribute to Potential Hits by answering the following:

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