the perfect wine glass?

the perfect wine glass?

Touch of glass... at once primitive and sophisticated.

After years of conscientious, selfless research, I’m pleased to announce that I have finally discovered the perfect wine glass. It’s called Essence, and was designed by Alfredo Häberli for the celebrated Finnish glassware and ceramics company Iittala.

What’s so great about it? Working on a book about modern Finnish design for Nokia a couple of years ago, I came to appreciate the beautiful functional simplicity inherent in all manner of products from that part of the world. As I wrote at the time, Finnish design has “a touching, unpretentious simplicity that is at once primitive and sophisticated; lines, forms and materials aligned to the natural world; a purity and integrity that speaks directly to the soul.” Sounds good... shame it never made it to the printers.

Read on...

new work – QuidCycle animation and website.

new work – QuidCycle animation and website.

Here’s the cutely animated result of a short script we wrote recently to explain QuidCycle, a new ethical peer-to-peer lending programme. totalcontent was brought in by branding agency Collider to help with launch materials for this new venture — and to write their website too. The aim was to take the fear factor out of money by using reassuringly friendly, accessible language.

new work – Godiva chocolatier email shot.

new work – Godiva chocolatier email shot.

Strange yet gratifying when something you've written pops into your email inbox unexpectedly. Here's a little something we crafted recently for Godiva, the luxury Belgian chocolatier. Sweet.

new work — Devonshire Square, positioning and website.

new work — Devonshire Square, positioning and website.

Over the past 18 months or so, we’ve been working extensively with branding consultancy Bostock & Pollitt, mainly on (London) property projects. Their particular strength is unearthing something unique about a given development, and then bringing this to life through their branding ideas. We’ve been helping out by expressing B&P’s creative theme in words, naming, straplines, developing an appropriate tone of voice, and then creating copy for digital and printed collateral.

One of these projects was Devonshire Square, an architecturally diverse campus with 630,000 sq ft of office space, shops, homes, restaurants and bars, tucked between the City and Shoreditch.

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from idioms to idiots 2014 calendar.

from idioms to idiots 2014 calendar.

It all started with a slightly skewed phrase that popped into my head one day for no reason... ‘A leopard never changes his spats’. This conjured a comical image of a dapper feline with an immaculate top hat and cane but inexplicably dirty footwear. A children's illustrator could have a field day, I thought.

Building on the theme, I racked my brain for more well-known sayings, and made a rule for myself... each idiom could only be changed by a single letter. And then I came up with a title that explained the concept by almost acting it out — ‘From Idioms to Idiots — How One Letter Can Make All The Difference’.

Read on...