It’s been a busy summer for me, so here’s an overview of the work I’ve been doing recently for clients old and new…

Cheadle Hulme School: The Waconian

Some of you may know that the wonderful Cheadle Hulme School is a long standing client of well over a decade. Whilst I'm not at the centre of their marketing output these days, one project I'm delighted to still work on is The Waconian, which is effectively the school's "yearbook" - the content for which is almost entirely generated by the student population of all ages, edited by enthusiastic members of staff. What is a Waconian? In short, it’s the name given to CHS students, past and present and derived from the original name of the school. I did a project about this some years back, a case study for which (number 1) is available to download here. Anyway...

This year marked the 100th edition of The Waconian, and so with a new editorial team in place, I refreshed the look and feel as well as the structure to help this landmark edition stand out. The striking cover image was designed by the School's talented in-house team, and really works. To further enhance the new creative, a metallic gold border was added to the front and back cover (with a subtle '100' running through it).

I'm really pleased with the end result, which is the thirteenth edition of the Waconian I've designed. Hopefully it's not unlucky! Initial feedback suggests not, as our newly installed editor (who only asked sensible questions, I hasten to add!) commented…

"It looks brilliant generally! You have been absolutely wonderful to work with. Very helpful and patient with my questions."

Vodafone Automotive: Porsche Centre collateral
As you might imagine, the Vodafone brand is a fantastic one to work with. The 'people first' approach of integrating individuals with the speechmark works really well with the vast majority of Vodafone's consumer B2C work, such as hands on smartphones and the like, but can be slightly more problematic when integrating larger items. Such as a car. So, when working on Automotive projects, particularly when in conjunction with automotive manufacturers (who represent a large part of VFA's client base) the choice of image is key to the success of any design.

A good example is this suite of marketing collateral for Porsche. Typically I will design a sales brochure (primarily a print piece but also used digitally) a User Guide (a digital first interactive PDF) and a factsheet for use by the Porsche Centre staff (also digital first). The client worked with the manufacturer to source some great people focussed images that not only worked with the Vodafone brand, but enhanced the overall feel of the collateral, which is in the process of being rolled out across a selection of European languages.

National Museums Liverpool
I've been working with NML since 2019, and in that time have worked on both exhibition design and marketing collateral. Recently, and in keeping with NML’s wonderfully diverse exhibition programme, I've worked two campaigns which couldn't be more different...

Happiness!
An exhibition all about the life and times of comedian Ken Dodd, I was asked to work up the marketing campaign assets from a poster design created by NML's talented in-house design team. Making the portrait poster work in a variety of orientations, for both print and digital applications, required careful consideration of what content could be included on each, and from a technical perspective, creating the artwork (including the detailed spotlight background pattern) in such a way that it could be quickly, easily and consistently applied to each asset, was key.

Black History Month 2023
BHM for NML is project I've been worked on for a number of years, so I was pleased and proud to be asked to execute the redesign for 2023. After presenting a range of options, the client chose this option - a striking African inspired geometric illustration that manages to complement, rather than detract, from the equally strong NML brand.

British Friends of Bar-Ilan University
Founded in 1955, Bar-Ilan University is one of Israel's leading institutions of higher education, uniquely combining cutting-edge scientific research with education steeped in Jewish values and social responsibility. Our client, with whom we've previously collaborated at Manchester Jewish Museum, is responsible for the British Friends of Bar-Ilan, who share university news through e-bulletins, conferences, events, lectures and webinars. In doing so, they aim bring alumni together and grow the Bar-Ilan community in the UK.

The British Friends asked us to create a toolkit of marketing collateral that they could use themselves going forward. Adhering to the Bar-Ilan brand, whilst delivering assets that could be edited without specialist software. The resulting work encompassed items such as stationery, proposal documents and social media tiles, a selection of which can be seen below.

Update: October 2023