We’ve been watching the aftermath of this year’s D&AD awards with interest over the blogosphere these past few days. There have been some interesting and controversial comments floating around which are well worth reading. Stu has voiced his own thoughts on the subject on Creative Review’s blog. You can read all the comments here.

‘To begin with, excellent article. But it might say something about the relevance of the results when (as far as CR's blog goes) people feel more compelled to comment on Sony’s new ad than design’s absence from D&AD's awards.

I was part of this year’s design jury for the first time in my career, so I got to see the whole judging process for myself. Being selected to judge was a huge honour but I must say my own experience has left me with very little faith in the judging process. It did seem to me that a lot of people felt they had to behave in a particular way – hyper-critical, seen-it-all-before, impossible to impress – just because D&AD had chosen them as arbiters of creative standards. Couple that with tables upon tables weighed down with design work, much of which (but not all) being labeled as "appalling" and it's little wonder we've arrived at this point.

It’s a problem at both ends of the scale. On one hand it would appear (and despite their best efforts) D&AD is failing to attract some of great design work we all see flying around the interweb. And on the other hand, it would appear design judges walk into the judging hall looking for Gold from the outset. Ideas are needed on both sides. But ideas which work alongside the other disciplines. (I'd be interested to hear what folks in adland think about the awards.)

Here's my thoughts on what's already been put forward:

Pre-screening of design entries.
Good idea. Please don't think I'm being “hyper-critical” when I say 50% of what my jury looked at really was awful. And I'm guessing it's the same every year. I'd like to think I was generous in spirit when I judged but I was left wondering if some UK design agencies really know what D&AD is all about? I know how that sounds, but until D&AD decide to switch to an online vote or you see it for yourself, please take my word for it.

You might argue it makes the good work stand out – to some degree it does, but it's more a feeling of relief than excitement when you come across a good piece. The point is, SO much mediocre work does bring the mood down. It certainly effected me.

(I have to add, every one of my fellow jury members gave their full attention and professional consideration to each and every one of the 500 or so cards, invitations, calendars, stamps, bags, T-Shirts, boxes and letterheads.)

Fewer juries sweating harder over less work.
In my view, Michael Johnson's recent ‘You say Tomarto…’ thought lays out the problem with design juries. How can so many Witty Young Fogeys / Counterless Geometricals / Gridnik Modernistas etc. agree on what is good design? (And do judges actually enter work into D&AD, themselves?)

Perhaps fewer juries, predominately made up of designers but with a good mix of experienced photographers, writers and illustrators would provide a more rounded view of the work and yield more positive results? Designers judge writing don’t they? Graphic design uses photography, doesn’t it? It might also avoid the "Fuck NB Studios" situation which Ben highlighted or the usual whining about the "big boys sticking together".

Separate award judging and ceremonies.
Split the awards up. For arguments sake, let's say Digital / Advertising / Design & Environmental. Make everyone feel a bit special :-) ADC don’t do it, that's true, but ADC don't carry the baggage of their awards being labeled an ad man’s show.

Shelve ‘the book’.
I agree with Tony. (A few interesting jackets aside) If the Annual was really testing the boundaries of book production, then perhaps it has a place. But as lovely as it is to see your name in print, I think an on-line archive is the way to go.

Lower entry fees.
No brainer. It’s probably the one aspect of the awards which everyone can agree on. Sure, there’s a number of design groups out there who couldn’t care less about awards – that’s fine – but judging from the comments made elsewhere in the blogosphere, there’s a number of design groups who are also pushing design forward but have turned away from D&AD soley because of its crippling entry fees.

Separate events could allow D&AD to set entry fees more in-line with what a small design practice can afford.

One small point, D&AD should really be the first people to post the results. 5pm the next day, after the world and his dog have debated them isn’t really good enough.

I’m not really someone who likes sticking their head above the parapet. I’m sure everything I’ve mentioned can be scrutinized and argued against, which is why I much prefer to confine any half-arsed ramblings to the studio. But on this occasion I feel it’s important to speak up and hope it helps bring about the positive changes needed to keep D&AD connected to contemporary design.

I sincerely hope this will be a watershed moment for the ‘D’ in D&AD and something good will come out this year’s results. I passionately believe in what D&AD stands for and hope it will still mean something to the global design community in ten year’s time. I would encourage other people who feel the same way to contribute to the debate – along with D&AD.

So this doesn’t sound all doom and gloom, I must say I was hugely impressed with the way D&AD ran the judging. It is a jaw dropping moment to walk into the judging hall and see all the work on show. I can’t begin to imagine what it must take to put it together and make it appear so effortless - everyone involved at D&AD deserves a big hug and a slice of cake.

And for the record, we did enter one piece into the awards – I watched the jury walk past it when they were reviewing their in-book selection – miserable sods, the lot of them ;–)

Congratulations to all the winners.’

Stuart Price

Stuart is down in London today and tomorrow, to take part in D&AD’s judging process. He’ll be on the jury of Graphic Design, which is a category with lots and lots and lots of entries, so he’s in for a long couple of days.

We sent him off with a comfy pair of walking boots and a flask full of black coffee to help him get through it. Good luck Stu.

Here’s a wall of this year’s judges.

Stuart is at the bottom, and is the one on the left. Or right.

When we first set up Thoughtful, we always liked the idea that one day, whenever the word ‘thoughtful’ was seen or heard, people would think of us before the dictionary definition.

Well, we’ve a long way to go, but it seems we’re making small steps in the right direction. Google now ranks us above the dictionary, which we think is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, one of us recently had to suffer the mighty injustice of receiving a parking ticket. This, as some of you may well know, is a bit annoying, but just to make the ‘ordeal’ slightly more irritating, the council seem to rub it in just a tad more.

We’re of course referring to the wholly inapproppriate use of an e-commerce ‘shopping basket’.

Now come on, it’s not like we were going online to do a bit of internet shopping, and came across this bargain.

Oh well, if nothing else, it’s probably a good lesson in knowing what tone of voice is right for your audience.

We’ve definitely learnt our lesson.

We were in Liverpool on Friday night, for the ‘People’s Opening’ of their Capital of Culture year, ( People’s meaning free). Around 30,000 people congregated on St. George’s Plateau, to join in the celebrations, which included choirs, aerial performers, new Liverpool band The Wombats, and Ringo Starr, who performed a song from his new album, which was amusingly met by jeering from the crowd when it was announced he’d be doing this, and not a crowd pleaser like Yellow Submarine.

Here are a few short movie clips and shots from Friday:

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

St. George’s Hall looked really good. It took 80 tonnes of lighting to do this.

Here’s Ringo performing his single on the roof of St. George’s Hall. He’s the one with the sunglasses, the beard, and the hat.

It promises to be a good year for the city of Liverpool, and there are dates in their events calender that we are really looking forward to. So throughout the year, anything we see and like, we’ll be sure to blog it.

Hello, and Merry Christmas!

Well, we made it. It’s Christmas Day and exactly one year since we set up in business. And only one person managed to say ‘That's not very Thoughtful’ - which was a stick we knew people would beat us with, given the slightest opportunity.

We’re sure this post will be achingly boring to most people, so if you find yourself yawning half way through, you could pour yourself a drink and listen to the Queen’s speech instead. She’s on at 3pm.

This is really written to help anyone out there who’s thinking about setting up their own design practice in the coming months (and to raise a few smiles to those of you of know us).

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin.

One of our ex-employers would to say ‘to succeed in business, you need three things: balls, luck and hardwork’.

We think that’s a pretty good way to break this down, so we'll start with ‘balls’.

BALLS
You need them. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to leave the warm, cosy bosom of a benevolent employer (and Ben Casey’s of The Chase was particularly warm and cosy), to work 18 hour days, deal with plenty of ‘Thoughtless’ people and live with the constant threat of the bank repossessing your home? Well, the same reason everyone else does it: to be the captain’s of our own ship, have creative freedom, and make our mums proud. For us, it was a very natural career progression. We've been lucky enough to have worked on some great accounts, and won most of the more desirable awards...and we felt ready to do this on our own.

Well, not entirely on our own. Setting up Thoughtful has allowed us the opportunity to meet and collaborate with people we greatly admire. For example, our identity was designed with Sami Kortemäki of Underware. And we found our voice with writer Lindsay Camp, who we think of as our ‘fifth Beatle’. (Or should that be whom, Lindsay?)

We also realised we had nothing to lose. In this business of ours, it seems we’re all just a phone call away from being made redundant. So, for three senior designers, we had two choices:

1. Wait for the phone call. Because it will happen – it's just a matter of when.

2. Seize your own destiny.

For us, it was a bit of a ‘no-brainer’. We're more afraid of option 1 than option 2. But once you’ve done it, you'll never look back.

Having your own design practice is a bit like being in government, you come to work each morning and think ‘what shall I do today?’ as opposed to being in opposition and thinking ‘what shall I say today?’ - there’s nothing you can’t achieve.

LUCK (Good and Bad)
We think it’s fair to say we’ve had more of one kind than the other - you’ll have to decide which, for yourself.

To begin with, we didn't like the idea of walking up to ex-employers, Ben Casey and Lionel Hatch and telling them ‘we’re leaving to set up on our own, and we'll be gone in a month’.

Ben and Lionel are two of the nicest (and most creative) guys you’ll ever meet in the design world. To us, they practically invented the graphic design industry outside London - before them there was nothing, and we owe them a big debt of thanks. So we took the decision to work an extended period of notice and really start the process of setting up Thoughtful once we left - anything else wouldn’t have been, well - Thoughtful.

We also took the decision not to contact any of The Chase’s clients, once we left. Ben and Lionel have invested a great amount of time and effort in building a strong, respected business and again, it wouldn’t have been Thoughtful to try to undo that hardwork.

So on day 1, we stood outside in the cold with no financial backing, no studio to work in, no kit and no clients.

Now anyone who’s been in business will tell you what you’ve just read is madness - they’d say ‘it’s a dog-eat-world’, and ‘it’s everyman (and woman) for themselves’. They’d say we should have been planning this for months, maybe even year’s and when you leave you take a client or two. But like our good friends at howies, we want to find a better way to do business - a sustainable way to do business, built on long lasting relationships.

We wouldn’t go as far as to say all this was bad luck. It was our own decision to do it this way, but what it effectively did was set us back about three months in setting up, and about 12 months in building relationships with new clients.

Because we now had to try to secure some financial backing, find a studio, buy some kit and get some clients. And anyone in business will tell you, you should be selling whatever you have on Day 1, not meeting with the Bank Manager.

Our first bit of good luck was having the help and experience of a grizzled, old businessman called Peter Williams. Peter’s years of experience of dealing with banks helped us immeasurably, and through his advice, we we’re able to secure the money we wanted.

Now we know not everyone knows a ‘Peter Williams’ and we certainly don’t pretend to have an ounce of his business acumen, but we’d be happy to talk to anyone out there, about anything here (in the strictest of confidence, of course).

Our second, and undoubtably the biggest bit of good luck was not taking out a lease on a studio space we thought we really needed.

After spending a few weeks scouring the streets of Manchester from the highest office block to the lowest basement cellar, we settled on a space in the heart of the city’s shopping district. The agent very kindly allowed us to move in two computers, a printer and a few chairs, whilst we all waited for the paperwork to come through. You can see it below.

It wasn’t the most expensive office we’d seen, but as you can imagine for a space in Manchester’s shopping district, it came with a sizable price tag (and a three year lease). But for three thrusting, confident entrepreneurs, it didn’t worry us too much.

It’s fair to say, if the wheels of property leasing moved quickly, we could have very easily signed that lease in week one - thankfully they don't.

Being in the office for about three weeks allowed us time to see how we would use the space, how much space we needed, but more importantly how much money we would need to turnover every month just to stay in business.

We can’t really name a single moment when we thought ‘THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE’ but with hindsight we can see there were plenty of signs telling us not to take the office. And, once we made the decision not to take the space, we duly apologised to the agent and with the clock ticking loudly above our heads we started looking again...this is where the bad luck starts.

Because we handled the previous situation relatively well, the agent we were dealing with found us another space which had just become available on the outskirts of the city. To be honest, the viewing was just a formality, we were just happy to find somewhere, and as it was a serviced office there was no need for any solicitors to get involved.

We viewed the office on the Monday, with a plan to move in the following Monday. But James took a call on the Friday before we agreed to move in telling him the office was already taken. The owners of the building were using 2 letting different agents, and the other agent had already lined up a company to take the office in a couple of weeks time, and not bothered to tell the agent we were dealing with.

Back to ‘Square 1’.

Our agent then suggested we take a look at converted School House about 500 yards down the road - it was perfect! It was a little bit more expensive than what we’d just been looking at but it felt right. Lots of character, not too big and with room to expand. You can see it below.

The downside was, the building wouldn’t be ready to move in for another three weeks. We weren’t exactly jumping for joy, but we were relieved the end was in sight. We measured up the room, whilst we worked on a project from our respective homes.

Every couple of days or so, we’d turn up just to check the progress of the building and on a Friday evening, just 48 hours before we had arranged to move in, and four weeks since we'd seen the property, James took a call from the agent telling him the owner didn’t want to let out the space to several small companies anymore, but rather one big one, and the deal is off.

It’s now the end of February, and we were spending so much time in ‘Square 1’, we were relieved we weren't being charged rent.

Fortunately for Thoughtful, in James we have our very own Steven Gerrard, and he took the game by the scruff of the neck. He side-stepped the agent, got passed the receptionist of the previous office and tackled the owners. And by Monday we had secured our first studio. Which you can see below. This was a day or so after we moved in.

Here’s our first lesson:
Don’t rely on other people to make things happen - they won’t. Make them happen. (And, printing your own stationery in-house proved not just to be good for the environment, but also the bank account.)

So, now we had a bit of money in the bank, a studio and some kit, and on March 1st we were all sat in the same room, with big shiny computers and even bigger, shinier smiles (Stuart had just had his brace taken off). We were now up and running. Or to be more accurate, limping...

As so much of our business is conducted via email, and information gathered using the interweb, without a phoneline we weren't a really a business, we were just three guys in a room smiling at each other. And it took another four weeks for those helpful people at BT to plug us in (which is pretty good, apparently).

Here’s another lesson we learnt:
Clients don't care where you work. All they want you to be is on time, on brief and on budget. (And, BT are crap.)

Let's get back to some good luck.

Our third bit of good luck was being chosen as Creative Review’s Ones to Watch for April. We have to put it down to luck, you just can't engineer situations like that. It gave us something to say, which for a new company with no track record and no work to show, it was an amazing ‘door opener’ to a lot of great companies which we wanted to work with.

This bit is definitely bad luck.

We always knew we were going to make a few mistakes in business, the question was how big. Thankfully we stopped this one (quite by chance) before it got serious.

It involves our accountant. Let’s call them ‘X Accountants’. Things appeared to be going well, we met, he provided us with some projections and helped a little in setting us up. We paid what we owed on time and then carried on.

Every now again James would call just to ask some questions about VAT, and the fascinating world of accounting. When James asked ‘how much would it cost us to have our year end figures dealt with by X Accountants?’. The cost came back along with all other account charges to date. It appeared we had been getting charged for every email and phone call we'd made to the accountant during the year. Without our knowledge.

What’s wrong with that, you might be thinking? Well, take a look at what we were getting charged for and ask yourself if you would like it?

What makes matters worse is we had been quite clear with X Accountants about all charges. We are a small company and didn’t want any surprises. We were explicit about all charges being approved up front. But that’s the problem with a verbal agreement, it's not worth the paper it’s written on.

If this hadn’t been picked up when it was, we could ended up with a bill in excess of 5k. It would appear this is ‘standard practice’ - so be aware.

The lesson here is: Always read the small print in any contract.

We’ll finish this bit with some good luck.

Thoughtful have been asked to judge the D&AD global awards this year. It’s a huge honour for such a young practice. And we're really, really looking forward to it.

HARDWORK
We’d say being a single parent and trying to raise a family is hard work, not what we do.

So, to sum up m’lud. If you’re thinking of setting up on your own, here’s a few tips that may help smooth out the ride a little:

1. Don’t do it on your own.
It’s a huge task for one person. There's so much that doesn’t involve ‘designing’ which will have an impact on how much work and ultimately money you can generate. Of course it can be done, and successfully, but make sure you know what you're taking on before going it alone.

2. Know what you’re all doing.
If there is more than one of you, make sure you all know what your role is in the company. At Thoughtful, James handles new business and the money side, Chris handles creative and keeps the blog moving and Stuart handles creative and awards. Any other bits, like recycling or ordering stationery we sort between us.

3. Be interesting.
Don’t just pick any old name for your company. Think long and hard about how it can help get you in front of clients. Take design group LOVE for example - a great name, in our opinion.

In an increasingly crowded marketplace, a good company name opens up a myriad of ways to sell your business. And, think about who you want to work for. This sounds obvious, but everyone is chasing the likes of Honda, Nike and Royal Mail. Improve your chances of getting a brief by going after clients off the beaten track. Besides, if you're not going to do something new, why bother? We're trying to find the next Honda, Nike and Royal Mail.

4. Give some thought to the company you're leaving.
Three people leaving in quick succession is a big blow to any business, so do as much as you can to make your exit as smooth as possible. And, don’t steal your employer’s clients, it's bad karma, plus designers love to gossip - this is a small industry and bad news travels twice as fast as good news.

5. So, what do you do if you don’t have any clients on day 1?
Make sure you have at least 12 months wages behind you. And, even then keep a tight rein on what you spend - we've lived off Diet Coke and Jaffa Cakes for quite some time, this year. Why? Because it takes about 12 months to turn a phone call into a presentation, and a presentation into a job, and a job into money.

6. If you’re going to speak to a bank, don't just speak to one.
We're still waiting to hear about our application for a business loan, from the bank that thinks there is ‘Another Way’. And, get a good business plan together with projections - an accountant will do this for you (but see point 9 first). This process can take 2-3 months, so bear that in mind.

We don’t want to go into too much detail about the financial side of setting up Thoughtful, other than to say, if you want to borrow money from a bank you need:
- some of your own money to show the bank you’re serious
- a well thought out business plan
- a reliable accountant to help with your projections

Remember, a bank manager doesn’t know the design business, how good you might be as a designer, or what award you’ve just won. Think of it like you're about to go on Dragons’ Den. Banks deal in facts, and are risk adverse. They want to see you’ve done your research. They want to know about your competition, if you have any clients, how you plan to chase invoices and where you see your business in five year’s time.

7. Do your homework (or legwork to be more precise) regarding a studio space.
If you’re planning to rent some space, make sure it’s flexible (no long term contracts) and very cheap. As we said, clients don't care where you work from. The only way to do this is to get out there and see what you can afford, it can take up to two months to find the right place. It’s tiring and depressing but stick with it. We'd suggest not paying more than 5k a year for about 300 sq ft (including service charges, business rates and rent).

8. It might be good to talk, but not for four weeks.
If you have a new studio, it will take BT about four weeks to come and hook you up to the interweb, and it'll cost about £180 . So either have your studio space sorted before you leave your current job, so you hit the ground running. Or make sure you know what you’re going to be doing in that time e.g. working on your presentation.

9. Learn to ask questions.
No-one cares that you’re a new start-up with limited funds. Make sure you ask up-front about any charges before you meet ANYONE, and before ANYONE starts work on your behalf. If a print spec changes, ask how it will effect the final invoice. If an accountant needs to speak to you face to face, ask if it's absolutely necessary - and if it is, go to see them.

10. NEVER take ‘no’ for answer.
If there’s a client you really want to work with, keep knocking on their door. They’ll either get really annoyed and issue you a firm but fair solicitor’s letter, or eventually see you're serious about their business and let you in - either way you'll get an outcome.

11. Don’t expect a supplier to care about your work, sometimes they don’t.
We briefed one of Manchester’s biggest and brightest web agency’s to put together our small Thoughtful mini-site which we wanted to launch on Christmas Day, last year. It took them 3 days, it wasn’t anything like we briefed them to do, and they couldn’t put it right because they were going on their Christmas do - they went and got merry and we got a bill of £500. In the end, we did it ourselves in couple of hours, on Christmas eve with the help of a friend. Oddly enough the same web company we used recently went into liquidation.

12. Free pitches are shit.
We liken it to walking into a restaurant, ordering six main courses and then telling the owner you’re only paying for the meal you liked (and after a team of chefs have spent two weeks preparing the dishes). But they are a reality, and if you have no clients they can be the only way of winning work. They also give you a better chance of winning work than spending three days filling out a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire. Despite all our account experience, on paper Thoughtful ranked 46 out of 66 companies looking to get on the NWDA’s recent design roster (we dread to think who was below us). If you don’t know, PQQ’s work on a scoring system, we failed to get scored in 7 of the 16 sections of the PQQ, largely because we haven’t been in business for more than three years. We even got ‘nil point’ for awards. We’re not suggesting don’t do them, we’re simply saying don’t be surprised when you get knocked back.

13. Design relationships.
Put as much effort in designing relationships, as you would designing a new visual identity. We are in the business of communication, so get to know what makes the people in the companies you work with tick.

14. Be generous with your time.
(If you’ve made it this far, you clearly have time to spare.) Make time to see everyone and anyone who wants to see you. Take Michael Johnson for example. He’s a designer at the very top of his industry, and with that comes the inevitable increased demands on his time. Yet Michael has always made time to speak to us, respond to emails or offer advice. He’s set a great example for us to follow. We can’t understand why heads of design groups suddenly behave like heads of state when they get ‘Creative Director’ printed on their business cards. We work hard to ensure we respond to all emails (especially students) and see anyone that wants to see us, but we limit any meeting to 15 minutes. (If we've missed any emails, sorry, please get in touch again.)

15. Life can be hard enough, so make time to enjoy yourself.
We like to attend as many talks as we can, to learn as much as we can about the industry we’re in (as well as industries we’re not in). It often means we have to sleep on trains, work weekends or late nights but we were doing that anyway.

None of this is by any means the recipe for success. There’s so much beyond our control that can go wrong. We’re currently discussing the impact a recession would have on us, and what we would need to do to get through it. Because as we all know, if it happens, marketing budgets are ‘first to wall’. Thankfully, we’d never have the unenviable task of letting the receptionist go - we don’t have one. And, we quite like diet coke and Jaffa Cakes for lunch.

Well that’s it. Setting up Thoughtful hasn’t so much been a learning curve, more a vertical line, so we have to doff our caps to those of you who’ve done it. You have our deepest respect.

Thanks for taking the time to read this Christmas post. We hope it's been of some help. And, fingers crossed we’re still around this time next year to write a new chapter.

Thoughtfully.
James, Chris & Stuart

(By the way, nearly 11 months on, the builders are still working on the School House.)

Thoughtful thanks must go to (in no particular order):
Lindsay Camp
Mat Wright
Billy Harkom
Anna Gerber
Tamsin Valentino
Louise Wookey
David Hieatt
Clare Hieatt
Scania Price
Ade Gunn-Wilson
Sami Kortemäki
Bas Jacobs
Akiem Helmling
Daniel Eatock
Maragret Harry
Mike Forrest
Patrick Burgoyne
Eliza Williams
Peter Williams
Michael Johnson
Jane Littlefair
Paul Smith
Louise Merrin
Sean Hawkridge
Ben Casey
Richard Scholey
Katie Alcot
Tom Alcot
Helen Ruse
Gary Stevens
Rosie Budhani
Galahad Clark
Stephen Owen
Hugh Gummett
Sarah Fleming
Carol Ainscow
Teresa O’Dwyer
Helen Carroll
Sam Coombes
Laura Drummond
Emma Sinclair
Tracy Graham
Daniel Graham
Leo Graham
Ian Campbell
David Crow
Pollyanna Clayton-Stann
Andrew James Jones
Joseph Keirs
James Callahan
Ian Stevenson
Dave Harrison
Steve Daniels
Kate Plowright
Nick Shorney
Phil Dust
Ken Garland
Vicky Eltringham
Lionel Hatch
Chris Greaves

If there’s anyone out there who can offer up a bit of advice or horror story of their own which could help someone who’s thinking about starting up, please leave a comment.

Yesterday, we took a trip down to Mwnt beach in west Wales, to meet our friends at howies and talk about a project we’re all working on.

After our beach meeting, we spent a few minutes picking up the litter which had been washed in, just a few hours before we arrived.

Mwnt beach is a beautiful and small beach, and it was a real shock for us to collect (amongst other things) over 50 plastic drinks bottles. If this happened everytime the tide came in, in a year the number of bottles would be close to 38,000.

Thankfully, the people at howies take time out of their business and regularly come down to Mwnt beach for a trash walk – even in late December, when it's ‘minus seven’.

Good work howies.

Thoughtful’s ’Environmental News Story’ on the issue by reporter Stuart Price, can be seen below.

Yesterday, Thoughtful took part in a Santa run around Salford Quays in aid of the BHF. It wasn’t a long distance to run (3km) for someone like James, who is used to doing regular 9-10 mile runs. But for someone who is just about used to running for the bus (Chris), it was a quite a challenge. The event was also good practise for Stu, who is due to take part in the Bath Half Marathon in March for FRANK Water.

We arrived at Salford Quays to pick up our Santa suits and were met with the sight of hundreds of Santas doing a mass warm up. It was quite a surreal really. To top off the good spirits, the race was kicked off by the one and only Chesney Hawks.

Here are a few shots of the day.

Chesney is the one in the beige coat and turned up jeans. He was quite short.

We wish we’d thought of getting round the course like this.

This is about 20ft from the finishing line. Notice how James looks as if he’s just warming up, while Chris looks as if he wants to keel over and die.

We managed to complete the course (without stopping!) and think we all finished in the top 30. All in all, it was a good way to spend a Sunday morning. Ho ho ho.

howies invited us to the opening launch of their shop on Carnaby Street, London, yesterday. We’d seen pictures of the shop, but it’s even better in the flesh. Even though it’s small, the shop if perfectly formed with loads of nice details, including hand-drawn illustrations on the walls, a sink so customers can re-fill their water bottles, bookshelves crammed with interesting books, and an amazing wooden table upstairs that has the girl’s jeans laid on. The shop really captures what howies is about, something that can’t have been easy to convey with it being in central London. For a first attempt at a shop, the howies team have done brilliantly.

All the guests that attended were given a tree sappling as a present. As it’s coming up to the end of Thoughtful’s first year, we had the idea of planting the trees, and taking pictures of them every year. The pictures would make nice page dividers if we ever do a 20 year book of Thoughtful’s work.

While we were on the very boring trip down to London, we played a ’designers edition’ of eye spy inpired by a post on Russell Davies’ blog. The game was to spot vans and lorries with the most useless company straplines.

Here’s our top three.

Morning, we’d like to offer our apologies to any Thoughtful blog readers out there who have tried to watch one of our movie clips over the weekend, and was denied access to them.

We think the problem is down to our webhost blocking them for taking up too much bandwidth (we’ve been told before). We’ll try and fix the problem as soon as possible.

James was flicking through A Smile in the Mind yesterday, and we all got talking about how there hasn’t really been another book since, that has come close to ASitM in illustrating what graphic wit is. ASitM by Beryl McAlhone and David Stuart, was published in ‘96 and showcased the best, most witty work from the last century. But there has been tons of great work since then, that could have easily made it onto the pages, had the book been published later.

So we were thinking ‘A Second Smile in the Mind’ would make quite a nice follow up to the original, and include a new generation of agencies and designers who play with graphic wit in their work, Purpose, Johnson Banks and Daniel Eatock to name a few.

In 1996, 'digital' was still finding it's place and 'viral' meant something bad, so perhaps only exploring wit in graphic design is a much too narrow a view to take? Or, perhaps the world doesn't need another book, and this should be purely an online gallery?

If there were ever to be ‘A Second Smile in the Mind’, here are a few of the contenders we feel should go in:

Cock-a-doodle-do book by The Chase

Price Label Wrapping Paper by Daniel Eatock

Bolton Indian Cricket Club logo by Origin

Christmas Pudding Sacks by WKside for W + K

Eurostar 1st Class Catering by GBH

Fruit ‘n’ Veg stamps by Johnson Banks

We like the idea of extending it outside of graphic design and advertising.
The Marto money box by C.Quoi definitely made us smile.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on other work that you’d love to see make an appearance, should ‘A Second Smile in the Mind’ ever happen? If so, please leave a comment with your name, your chosen piece and if possible, a link to the work so everyone can see it.

Thanks.

Last night, James was one of three guest speakers at the D&AD talk ‘Design with a conscience‘ at Urbis, Manchester along with Jai Redman from UHC and Michelle Brand.

Unfortunately, the speakers weren’t given microphones, so we couldn’t record the talk for you. There were some interesting points of view though, and what was notable, was that the speakers didn’t always agree with each other’s opinions. You’d think that a subject such as designing ethically would almost unite everyone who practiced or was interested in it.

Jai, who is a self proclaimed ‘artist first, activist second, and designer third' started by showing us a video of himself and a group of activists stopping work on a new motorway. It was clear Jai’s method of tackling issues was through a hard, direct action approach, and this was the way more companies should operate who label themselves as ‘green’. So, next to our claim that we use energy saving lightbulbs, and use recycled paper, we looked a bit wet behind the ears at first!

But James did a great job in explaining that in Thoughtful, the lightbulbs, recycled paper and similar actions are done as standard, and really, should be by everyone. Thoughtful’s ethical approach to the work we produce, from start to finish is what we really like to highlight. We always aim to steer the clients requests in a 'Thoughtful’ direction. For instance, if a client wants 100,000 leaflets designed and printed, that’s fine, we’ll source recycled paper and an eco-friendly printer. But first we’ll see if there’s a better way of communicating the message. The client wants 100,000 leaflets, but what if their message on a balloon above the city gets seen by 300,000 people? How much paper and ink would that save? It’s this way of thinking that gets us excited as a company.

Jai explained that UHC only works with clients such as campaigning organisations, not-for-profit companies, volunteers and communities. Thoughtful love to work with these sectors too, as more often than not, they’re on our wavelength. But what about the other organisations out there who aren’t doing things as ethically as they could be? Well, our third commandment states that we won’t work with companies who operate solely through unethical practices. But we will work for companies who have the potential to make changes that will help them become more environmentally friendly. Why? Because if we can convince, guide or educate these bigger companies into making better choices in their communications, that would have a massive impact. And it only takes one brave client. That’s another reason why we don’t just work with the ethical sector, because they already believe in working in a better way. We’d be preaching to the converted.

I think last night brought the realisation that everyone will have a different method of designing with a conscience. But as long as everyone IS designing with a conscience, then that can only be a positive thing.

James with Jai, Michelle and David.

Thoughtful would like to thank Sarah Austin from Urbis, Tamsin Valentino from D&AD and Prof. David Crow from Manchester Metropolitan University for putting together the event, and Jai and Michelle for giving us an insight into their companies.

And if there was anyone at the talk who didn’t ask a question but would have liked to, feel free to get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

We’ve just added Naresh Ramchandani’s talk. Click below to hear it.

http://wearethoughtful.com/AP.html

It’s taken a bit longer than expected to get the Applied Green talks up, and we’re still not quite there yet. We’ll be adding a few more later today, but you can hear the rest of the talks by clicking the link below. Enjoy.

http://wearethoughtful.com/AP.html

When we set up Thoughtful, one of our main aims was to work with other people who are like us. Printers, accountants, paper suppliers, photographers, copywriters, you name it, when we met them, we told them why we are Thoughtful, and how being Thoughtful can lead to great working relationships that benefit everyone. We strive to be punctual, responsive, flexible and fair, and it’s great if others can show similar traits.

Over the last couple of weeks though, we’ve learnt that in business, some people find it much easier and beneficial to themselves to be, well ‘Thought-less’. Well, good luck to them, but we couldn’t look ourselves in the face if we were like that. Maybe we’re naive in thinking everyone can be like us, but it’s been a tough pill to swallow, and it’s cost us.

We’ve learnt we now have to hold on to the people who are like us, that do go the extra mile, people like photographer Mat Wright and writer Lindsay Camp among others. We've relied on their talent, generosity and good spirit to move us forward, and we'd like to say a big Thoughtful ‘thank you’ to you. We'd like to keep them for ourselves, but the Thoughtful thing to do is share them with everyone.

Mat Wright  - mat@matwright.com
Lindsay Camp - lindsay.camp@eclipse.co.uk