Excelling in a primarily fashion based sphere, Waston & Co., describe themselves as a one stop creative shop “designing brands from the ground up, helping companies present themselves better.” It’s an understated philosophy that, combined with subtleties through type, form, imagery and splashes of colour, conspires to devise the sophisticated and the sublime.
Tw. Waston_and_Co
The Allotment have teamed up with writer Scott Perry (Bard of Bray) and illustrator Geoffrey Appleton to produce a contemporary spin on the old favourite fable Jack and the Beanstalk entitled Jack and the Giant Recession.
This beautiful self promotional piece is stunningly produced – smart and thoughtful; witilly ruminating on the economic outlook whilst peddling their own considered brand of wares.
The story starts with Jack, now grown up but without the benefit of his golden goose, wanting to start his own business but not quite knowing how to find his market. While searching he meets the Old Man again (who uncannily looks like Lord Sugar), he persuades him to part with his business for a handful of beans. These beans, as you can guess, are special and lead Jack to enlightenment and to his market. On the way he meets the giant who has become more bitter and now eats businesses instead of little boys. He has already eaten Woolworths, Northern Rock and has a taste for Greece. He is not just a giant; he is a Giant Recession.
Jack is the giant’s saviour and in return the giant shows Jack the market for his business idea – a firm that helps businesses tell their stories more effectively.
Say The Allotment; “There is a common thread throughout our work at The Allotment. We believe passionately that storytelling is the key to effective brand communication and future growth for our clients. This is why we have produced the sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk. Stories, based around a strong creative idea magnify opportunities for businesses and, more importantly, if they touch people at the emotional level they will be memorable and have lasting value. Our skill and craft is to bring clarity to the strategic direction of businesses, to ask searching questions, to take a story that on the surface seems ordinary and make it extraordinary by looking at it from a different angle.”
Original and intriguing, read more about it here.
Tw. @allotmentbrand
Alt Group really are going great guns down here in New Zealand making them perfect candidates for Cloud9. The awards cabinet is bulging after a handful of new wins at this year’s Best Awards and that’s to say nothing of recent accolades for designer Clem Devine (ADC Young Gun 2011) and Creative Director Dean Poole (recently invited to join the AGI). Yet they remain modest in their achievements with very little self promotion. We think you deserve a high five so we thought we’d take the task on and showcase some of your great work. Keep it up guys.
Designers Clem Devine and Zoe Ikin have also recently launched Studio Magazine along with Sam Trustrum.
Tw. @altgroup / @studiozine
Post by Long White Cloud.
Some people catch up with the news or leaf through a magazine whilst doing their, um, business. But not Anastasia Elias. These amazing toilet paper roll art are simply painstakingly awesome…
Not one to be outdone by any man (least not Chan Hwee Chong) it’s probably fair to say Miguel Endara is an incredibly patient man. The web developer by day, paper poker by night is so patient infact, he’ll invest over 200+ hours and drop his nib 3.2million (yes million) times to get his insane end results. Astounding.
Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.
Ma-hooosive fans of Leeds brand design buckaneers The Consult. Both muti-published and multi-adorned with an award or three, clients include the BEEB, Converse, Cisco and Prezzo. No two projects look the alike but are each comparably beautiful, typographically awesome and visually epic. Handsome stuff.
Tw. @TheConsult
Sweet work from Nashville’s own Perky Bros. A great blend of good old fashioned finger-lickin’ Americana mixed with the modern twist through their portfolio. The typical typographic stylings you’d expect with lovely, clean layouts combine sweetly.
Amazingly they can trace their roots back to 1883, starting life in Kansas City as a transfer and storage company, how many other agencies can say that? Make sure you find five minutes to jump on over to their blog too, well worth a visit.
Tw. @perkybros
To kick start 2012 here on Cloud 9 we have some tasty southern hemisphere treats offered up by Zebra. Based in Perth, Australia (and Singapore, shhhh), Zebra are all about the three C’s; culture, creativity and craft grounded in the foundations of a strong idea.
Tw. @madebyzebra
Post by Long White Cloud.