Back in March, Thoughtful were asked by the YCN to contribute to a new publication titled Ideas Illustrated. The idea behind Ideas Illustrated is to showcase the work of YCN’s artists, by asking them to supply an illustration to go with a piece of editorial. We were asked to write a short piece around the theme of communication, which would be passed to an artist at a later date. We wrote about misunderstandings, and how they can sometimes be a good thing. Today we had a copy through the post, and discovered our story was illustrated by Valero Doval, who has done a great job, thanks Valero. To see more of her work, click here.

Good night.

Last night James attended the Irma Boom talk for one of the D&AD President’s Lectures. Irma told of her early creative years, and how, when designing a commemorative Dutch stamp book, life wasn’t made particularly easy for her by her colleagues, as her working methods were a little different. Despite this, she wasn’t deterred by the industry. Irma’s determination eventually paid off, after she set up her own practice. Her design for Sheila Hicks’ book ‘Weaving as Metaphor’ was awarded the title of ‘The Most Beautiful Book in the World’ at the Leipzig Book Fair (shown below).

Irma’s style of presentation was refreshingly different too, choosing to have a projector focused on her hands as she flicked through her books, rather than just showing slides of them. One other interesting point she made was how she would sometimes determine type sizes by the amount of copy she had to work with for each spread. If there was lots of copy, type would be small to fit it all in, and if there was little copy, the type would be bigger. This allowed the pages of the book to ‘breath’.

While we’re on the subject of book design, Hugh (our current placement) picked us up this copy of Alice in Wonderland. It’s part of a series of Penguin books with the line ‘Books by the greats, covers by you’.

I made it over to Liverpool to see the Peter Blake retrospective at the TATE before it closes, this week.

It is fantastic - the guy is a prolific painter.

As a designer, it would have been good to see a bit more space given to the legendary Sgt. Peppers cover, but several pieces from the original set up were on show.

- The comic, Max Miller.
- Stone figure of Snow White (above the 'B').
- And, (although I'm not 100% sure) artist Richard Lindner.

I suppose, at the time they had no idea what impact the album or cover design would have, and saving the props was the last thing on their minds (a bit like the clay head in Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello' video).

Then, took the opportunity to see Antony Gormley's Another Place at Crosby Beach.

Our guide for the day was Emma's uncle Pete.

Absolutely stunning...I'd urge anyone to take an afternoon off to see these figures looking out to sea.

Here’s the first update of the running progress, too.

Last Sunday, our friends at FRANK Water took part in the Bristol Half Marathon. The money they raised will go towards funding clean water projects for villagers in developing countries. We wanted to help, so Stu signed up to take part in the run. Unfortunately, one week into his training, he pulled his hamstring, so was unable to do the run on Sunday.

Now fighting fit again (and after having his last Jaffa Cake), Stu will continue his training, and do his 13 mile run sometime in the next few months. We’ll be letting you know how he gets on, on this blog, but you can also track his progress on the Nike Plus site. The login is stuart@wearethoughtful.com and the password is runfatboy. Stuart will be using this site, so please be thoughtful and don’t tamper with the account (or he may think he’s doing better than he actually is!) and remember to log off when you’re done.

If you’d like to wish Stu luck, or offer any motivational tips, please leave a comment below. Thanks.

We finally made it to the 25 year Haçienda exhibition at Urbis today (having found an hour when we were all free at the same time). You’d be forgiven in thinking it was an exhibition purely about design, rather than the club, due the the massive amount of great posters, flyers, T-shirts, and other pieces of print there. You can see how important it was that the era-defining music went hand in hand with era-defining design, to make the Haçienda one of the world’s most famous nightclubs.

It’s easy to see the influence Peter Saville’s work has on today’s designers. This poster below, was designed in 1978, but looks as though it could’ve been done yesterday.

One piece that really stood out for us was this poster, designed Mark Farrow in 1997.

It’s only when you get some light on it, that it really comes alive. (Imagine it on a busy road at night, with all the headlights from cars going past...)

Another thing that caught our eye, was a written piece by David Crow, Head of the School of Design at Manchester Metropolitan University.

He talks about how Factory Records has left a lasting mark on contemporary design, and in a nice surprise to us, he mentions Thoughtful.

It’s safe to say, at only 9 months old, we can only dream of having our work talked about in 25 years time.

The exhibition is on until February, and it’s free to get in. In case you can’t make it, Tom from TDC has taken lots more shots which you can see here.

A few months ago, we were asked by D&AD to produce a set of cards that would list all the benefits you would receive if you applied to be a D&AD member. There were five levels of membership, each with their own benefits, so there was a lot to squeeze in. Because only one of the cards would apply to the recipient, we were conscious there would be a lot of paper left over.

To make sure nothing went to waste, we designed the pack so the application form could be sent back in the same envelope it arrived in, and the rest of the cards be passed out to creatives who might fit the other levels of membership. Thoughtful, you see.

The Serif are running another good Redesigner brief again. This time it’s to design a badge for the Serif. We’ve had these lying in the bottom drawer for a while and thought they’d be perfect. We did four because we felt they belonged in a sett.

Here are a few pictures from the Soil Association Bristol Organic Food Fair. Thoughtful went with a mission to give howies' Doh Boy a voice, and it’s safe to say, it went just swimmingly.

The stall was set.

Kim, Scania and Kenny from howies came to lend a hand. They got stuck right in and were great.

The fat-free bread was baked (Thanks Syd)...

...which virtually flew off the stall...

...as did the catalogues. The last one was bagged by baby Reah.

Doh Boy was brought to life by Nick, who was fantastic. He wore his specially made sandwich boards with pride.

Doh Boy then went on to spread the word further by crashing the organic fashion event, and against the more conventional models, Doh Boy stole the show.

You can see a few more shots here.

We’d like to thank howies, the Soil Association and everyone else who was involved for being so helpful and making our lives a lot easier.

Doh Boy came to life this weekend at the Bristol Organic Food Fair. We’ll be posting up the shots shortly, but for now you can see James and Stuart in action here.