All I Want For Christmas...

With the ever increasingly swift approach of this year's festive period I thought I'd take this opportunity to make you all aware of a fantastic charity project we're involved in along with Ben Steers.

In it's second year the "All I Want For Christmas Cards" project is a call for submissions from UK illustrators to submit a design to be included within a series of 20 Christmas cards. The money from the sale of the card packs then goes directly to a local Bristol charity - Young Bristol. The All I Want For Christmas Cards collection for 2010 features designs from artists including Robert Del Naja (3D of Massive Attack), Rob Ryan, Simon Spilsbury, Chris Malbon and a whole host of others.

The submissions this year were really strong and after a few late nights we got the final 20 for this year's collection off to press this week. The designs will all be revealed at the launch night 4th November 2010. The launch night is to be held at one of Bristol's finest pubs - The White Bear, at the top of St. Michael's Hill (just up from Weapon of Choice gallery). We're even lucky enough to have one of the UK's best illustrators Simon Spilsbury coming down to do some live drawing on the night, and an auction of selected (and kindly donated) pieces from the illustrators. There will be some very special DJs on the night too.

The press release is below for more information and if you'd like to buy one of these packs check out the website here - www.alliwantforchristmascards.com

Don't fight it - the festive period is on it's merry little way. Just think warm fires, whiskey, cuddles, presents, jumpers, cider and some brilliantly illustrated Christmas cards!

Karl.

-------- Official Press Release --------

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS CARDS

Young Bristol announces the launch of All I Want For Christmas Cards Collection 2

on Thursday 4th November at The White Bear, St Michael’s Hill, Bristol BS2 8BS

All I Want for Christmas Cards is a festive project supporting the Bristol based charity Young Bristol. 20 UK based artists and illustrators have contributed works to create a very limited run of Christmas card packs that will contain 20 individually designed cards. All profits from the sale of the cards will benefit Young Bristol’s work with young people across the city.

Now in its second year, the All I Want For Christmas Cards collection for 2010 features designs from artists including Robert Del Naja (3D of Massive Attack), Rob Ryan, Simon Spilsbury, Chris Malbon and a whole host of others.

On Thursday 4th November, the launch night of the All I Want for Christmas Cards Collection 2 will be held at The White Bear, 133 St Michael’s Hill, Bristol. The evening will provide a great opportunity to meet the creatives and individuals involved in this year’s project, as well as offering an opportunity to purchase limited edition artworks and some of the first sets of packs. The evening will be the first chance to view all 20 card designs. Refreshments will be provided at 6.30pm followed by a live auction of donated artwork from many of those involved at 8pm.

About Young Bristol

Young Bristol is a youth work charity who work across the Bristol area and offer young people somewhere to go and something positive to do such as attending local youth clubs, outdoor activities, training courses and volunteering. Young Bristol encourages self development through providing opportunities for young people to try new things and engage in their local community.

About the All I Want For Christmas Cards

The idea behind the project was initially conceived by Bristol based illustrator & graphic designer Ben Steers who became involved with Young Bristol as a young volunteer. Ben says “At a time of year when many people focus on what they want, the All I Want For Christmas Cards project offers an opportunity to support those who need.”

For further information go to www.alliwantforchristmascards.com

For press enquiries or if you would like to attend launch contact gabby@alliwantforchristmascards.com

For all other enquiries contact ben@alliwantforchristmascards.com

For more information about Young Bristol contact Kate Gough kg@youngbristol.com

The new studio

Quick update on the new studio space, (only taken me a month to do this!) We're still in Bush House, above the Arnolfini - we'd quite frankly be crazy to leave this location! But moved into a bigger space now and we're all much happier. The work and banter is flowing, and thanks to a generous gift of some Chase vodka - last Friday the vodka's been flowing too ;)

A great light and airy space with plenty of room to throw ideas around and to knuckle down and get the work done, still got the lovely boardroom for meetings too! Clients and friends we look forward to seeing you here soon. We're in the midst of creating some nice designs for the outer glass walls too so no doubt that will get posted as soon as it's done (or - perhaps 3 weeks afterwards!)

All the best, Karl.

Coming soon...

A good business evolves and grows, and thankfully - we are evolving and growing.

And being people who like to practice what we preach, we are in the process of re-designing our website, analysing our services and re-freshing our core brand mark to further boost the company's profile.

The good news is that the brand re-fresh is finished and website not far behind. I'm sure anyone who is a business owner, and or designer, can empathise with the difficulty in finding the time within a busy studio schedule to 'sort out' your own company's site etc. None the less, through some very anal time scheduling we're getting there and should be launching the new site by end of September / beginning of October.

The image is a sneaky peek at a very close up shot of our new core brandmark. As with any good brand re-fresh we are being very careful not to stray away from the colour scheme or font use. A re-fresh has to be done for the right reasons, and shouldn't undo all the good work you've built up for the company already. Loyalty is far easier to loose than gain!

I can't wait to see all our work live, officially released, and showing off what we do! So I best get back to writing the copy... ;)

Thanks for reading,

Karl Loudon.

Oil and Gas client website live

We are really pleased to announce the new website for our longest standing client, Hobbs Valve, has gone live!

The site is the result of a lot of hard work on all parts and this really shows. The site is full of useful information, carefully designed explanations and technical illustrations of their product and industry. We are going to be monitoring the traffic closely, and reporting back to Hobbs on this. Utilising the web presence to achieve goals is our number one priority, and with a big meeting tomorrow to discuss a hell of a lot of goals, projects and avenues to explore - this is going to be one that just keeps on growing! To see the site click here

Well done to everyone involved, and here's to a continuing bright future for Hobbs Valve and MDE.

Just keep running...

Hello blog readers!

As you may or may not be aware, in my 'spare' time I'm rather partial to a spot of training. Be it full contact kickboxing, surfing or more recently endurance racing. Endurance is something completely new to me and it's bloody hard! I've completely changed my diet and training regime. I've been training for a good few months now and have my first two races coming up soon. One is my first triathlon (in Bath) and the other the Bristol Half Marathon. And I'll be competing in both of these within 7 days of each other - I'm a sucker for punishment and I'm not very good at saying no.

I'm running the Bristol Half Marathon with one of my fellow designers (Ben Steers) and we are hoping to raise some money for an amazing local charity called "Studio Upstairs".The guys over at SU offer arts and crafts as a method of delivering therapy to people who have suffered / are suffering from depression, addiction and abuse. They have two small studios, one in Bristol and the other in London, and run by volunteers find themselves hugely underfunded.

We are hoping to raise as much money as possible to help the studio on many levels and I'd really, really, appreciate any donation you may be able to give. We've set up a web page where you can find more information, and chose to donate if you should so wish.

www.bristolrun.com

Thanks for taking the time out to read this :)

Karl Loudon (MDE Creative Director)

2 new clients in a month.

We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome on board two new clients.

One an exciting new Bristol based food product (details will follow from official press launch) and the second a not for profit client based in Wales.

Initial projects include branding and exhibition designs and we're really happy to have a couple of new clients on the books, adding even more diversity and FUN to the studio's workload. We'll post up some shots of the work over the next couple of weeks.

Incidentally, both these clients have come to us after being recommended to us due to them not being happy with their current designer / agency's service. I'd personally like to thank the people responsible for the recommendations and needless to say you shall be receiving some form of thanks (drink or food related I'm sure). And also thanks of course to everyone in the team who keeps our clients happy and coming back for more.

Pearson branding job covered in Design Week

Well, much to our delight our work produced for Pearson Plc got picked up in this week's issue of Design Week. A nice little entry in their always interesting "News in Brief" section. This part of the magazine covers a round up of the hottest news relating to contracts, newly released branding / projects and anything the good people at DW consider newsworthy for the UK's Design market.