Sometimes I have to pinch myself about how lucky I am to do a job that has so many varied and fun aspects to it and get paid for doing them all in the name of Red C’s mantra of ‘getting under the skin’.

Wandering around the Grand Designs Live Show at the NEC last week was one of those times. Once we had negotiated the car park that was as far away from the venue as it was possible to be; the courtesy bus scrum and the entrance and coffee bar scrums I observed as much to my colleague, Rachael.

In my too many to mention years working in marketing I have worked in call centres, on shop floors, in a betting shop  and been out with delivery drivers in their vans all in a days work but this was a teeny bit more glamorous.

We were there courtesy of our client Fired Earth – part of the Aga Rangemaster Group – to spend time on their stand and have a good look round at the competition. The highlight of the day was a book signing on the stand at 4pm by Kevin McCloud, one of my heroes.

But this is no ordinary book. This is a book on paint and using colour called Colour Now that he has written in conjunction with the launch of a new range of paints from Fired Earth.

“Fired Earth paint, created in association with Kevin McCloud, designer, author and leading authority on colour, is made in the UK from carefully selected pigments, minerals and resins specifically chosen for their qualities of opacity, density, light fastness and durability. Blended to produce a flat surface, which is wonderfully soft to the touch and that has exceptional coverage. Practical, hard wearing and a pleasure to apply.”

In his dazzling new book, Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud has taken the hard work out
of home decorating by researching, selecting and combining over 120 particular colours – from Kevin’s own paint collection, designed in collaboration with Fired Earth – into 70 tried-and-tested palettes guaranteed to transform your home.

A stunningly produced sourcebook, Kevin McCloud’s Colour Now has been put together by an acknowledged expert in the field of paint and colour and printed using the highly accurate hexachromatic (six colour) process.

Each palette provides a blueprint for a decorative scheme that you can transfer to your own home confident in the knowledge that it has been sourced by a renowned authority on colour, while every swatch in Kevin McCloud’s Colour Now can also be individually matched to a Fired Earth colour to help you effortlessly achieve your chosen look.

I listened in on conversations about the merits of one tile design over another and learnt about the myriad of different tile designs and tile trends and talked to one of their Colour Consultants about what she does to bring homes to life with colour for Fired Earth customers. A very interesting lady and very passionate about her subject.

And then a frisson of tension as the time grew near – the books were selling on the stand like hotcakes and the queue was starting to grow. Suddenly the great Kevin was here – and boy he is tall.

But what a lovely man – he sat down at a table so he didn’t tower over everyone and invited each person up to join him one by one, had a bit of a chat with them, signed their book and if they wanted to have their picture taken with him they could. He must have done that over 200 times!  What patience. And he made sure he did everybody in the queue and didn’t disappoint anyone, including me.

Despite the Friday night Birmingham traffic and the rain I floated home with my treasured signed book and a grin from ear to ear.

Tags: Advertising Agency, Aga Rangemaster Group, Colour Design, Design Agency, Digital Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Fired Earth, Grand Designs Live Show, Kevin McCloud, Marketing Agency, Online Marketing Agency, PPC Marketing, Rosemary Walton, SEO Agency Manchester

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 2:23 pm and is filed under We Like. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.