Men's World Squash Championships

The City of Manchester, home to England Squash & Racketball (ESR), will host the prestigious PSA Men’s World Squash Championships in 2013.

The guys at ESR asked us to create a logo for the event, and we launched into developing a mark that would reflect the high intense sport, whilst incorporating a strong international feel too.

The Men’s World Squash Championships is the latest in a series of high-profile international events to be held in the City since the Commonwealth Games in 2002.

Read more here

The Canal Etchings - Launch

Jason Hicklin's The Canal Etchings show launched at Qube, Oswestry this week.

It was great to hear Jason speak about his work and to see the passion he has for putting "ink on paper".

The show runs for a month and exhibits Jason's recent etchings inspired by the canals of Shropshire and the border with Wales. The etchings form part of a commission by Ellesmere Sculpture Initiative to install six site-specific stainless steel etched sculptures.

Emerging Companies

The Drum featured us this month on their 'emerging companies' list, asking us questions about launching during a recession and the challenges we've had along the way.

Click here to read the article

Made North

We popped along to the Made North conference at FACT, Liverpool.

We were really looking forward to listening to Ian Anderson from The Designers Republic but unfortunately he couldn't make it!

However, Matt Clark from the ever amazing UVA and Eva Rucki from Troika soon got us over the disappointment.

31 Songs

We've recently picked up a copy of 31 Songs.

"Esther O’Callaghan, OBE, has pulled together an album of 31 tracks from Manchester artists, including Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Elbow, I am Kloot, Everything Everything, Delphic, Bad Lieutenant and Mr Scruff, with the aim of getting CALM’s helpline running 7 days a week."

You can order your copy today at www.thirtyonesongs.com

Visit C.A.L.M. here

The Canal Etchings

We've just started working with the Ellesmere Sculpture Initiative and nationally renowned etcher Jason Hicklin on an identity and website for a series of sculptures entitled 'The Canal Etchings'.

The project itself aims to bring new audiences to the arts and enhance the visitor experience of the local landscape.

The identity will feature on the website, a limited edition box set of etchings by Jason, location signage and various marketing materials.

The project is due to launch in March.

Museum of Lancashire

We've just been to visit the Museum of Lancashire. It was reopened to the public last November after being closed for a year for a £1.7m refurbishment.

The 'World Wars' section was really interesting... the sounds, the guns, the sand bags and smelling dead horse and mustard gas certainly brought things to life.

Lots of other Lancashire related things to see/read too. All told, well worth a visit and it's free!

Christmas has landed

Just put up our Christmas tree, pines everywhere already, feeling very festive. Christmas music on too.

House 'top five' festive tracks:

1. Fairytale of New York
The Pogues

2. Last Christmas
Wham

3. Frosty the Snowman
Cocteau Twins

4. Morning Christmas
The Beach Boys

5. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
The Crystals

Burning Desires, Preston

We've recently started to work with Burning Desires, Preston. We've been tasked with giving their website a facelift, complete with CMS functionality.

Established in 1991, Burning Desires Limited has grown to become one of the largest retailers and trade suppliers of luxury and bespoke designed fireplaces in the North west of England.

The Ashton Flower Shop

We have recently started working with The Ashton Flower Shop.

We were set the challenge of
re-designing their current website, specifically aiming to increase their online sales and showcase their increasing range of beautiful flowers.

Rene Magritte, Exhibition

We thought we would pop along to see Rene Magritte's 'The Pleasure Principle' exhibition at the Liverpool Tate recently. We found it challenging but very inspirational. 'The Dominion of Light' was jaw dropping.

If you haven't been already, make sure you pop down as the exhibition is most certainly worth a visit.

Landmarques - In the Press

Landmarques made it into the pages of The Drum and online. The series was also showcased on Building a Wolf, emailinspiration.com and we completed an interview with Digital Arts and the prints were featured in the next issue!

The series also caught some press attention down under and featured in 'Australian House and Garden' and the Sunday Herald Sun Newspaper (Australia) - Style Guide.

Oswestry School, Shropshire

All hands on pens at the moment in the studio...

We have been busy illustrating for the lovely Shropshire based Oswestry School, on a variety of literature and informative materials for 2011/12. After being invited to visit the grounds and meet the Headmaster, we left feeling inspired and pen and ink seemed the best approach to capturing the atmsophere of the school which has been around since 1407.

We are looking at some nice Fedrigoni paper stock for the cover pages, and think the finished result should be rather nice!

Gratuitous Type, Issue 1

We've just received Issue 1 of Elana Schlenker's 'Gratuitous Type', complete with an awesome set of pin badges.

"Gratuitous Type is a pamphlet of typographic smut. Celebrating the letter in all its forms, GT focuses its dirty mind on typography, art, language and publishing."

We can't wait for Issue 2!

Morecambe Winter Gardens

We had a tour of Morecambe Winter Gardens; a Grade II* listed Victorian Theatre that closed in 1977.

We we're blown away with the building and the work of the volunteers who are restoring it.

There are many interesting stories and nuggets of social history that Guide 'David' brought to life during the tour so if your in the area, or not, it's really worth seeing.