October 2008 Archives

So it’s off to SW6 for us, after our launch period in W1.

We were more than a tad compressed in the Media Village, and it’s great to to have our own place with our own front door. It’s also a stone’s throw from The Bridge, so becomes a sea of blue on match nights.

West Brompton isn’t as homogeneised in terms of stores and cafes as most of London, and the slightly higgeldy-piggeldy vibe is actually quite engaging.

The Atlas a few yards away is one of London’s best gastropubs, chocca with local professionals on most weeknights.

Perhaps it’s time for a tiny bit of reflection. We set out on day one a few short months ago to create advertising, design and web in one space, under one system of creative direction.

In the last two months alone, we’ve done a national advertising campaign for a market leader, created a brand identity for a major charitable initiative, and have just been hired to re-engineer a large travel website. It’s satisfying to come good on your own business plan.

But – and a big but -  we know it’s a tough market ahead, and we have to be even better. No room for complacency.

Anyway, to all our clients and friends, we’d love to welcome you to Rickett Street very soon.

To Dinner at the House of Commons (as you do) to celebrate the launch of the Health and Fitness Foundation, a charitable initiative set up by Britain’s Fitness Industry.

Percival created the new logo, an elegant mix of minimal typography and a stylised ‘barbell’. We also created the identity last year for the HFF’s sister organisation, the FIA – the trade association of Britain’s gyms. (Read about that here.)

I hadn’t been to Parliament before, amazingly, and walking through the various halls I felt my jaw dropping again and again. The ancient Westiminster Hall, literally smelling of antiquity, the vibrant friezes of the galleries, the statues of PMs past, and the unmistakable aura of power that infuses the place. You can see how politicians get addicted.

Met some very nice people at the dinner. The HFF’s remit - part of which is to get disadvantaged youngsters trained up as personal trainers or through fitness-related higher education – is a really useful part of the UK’s wider fitness agenda.

That would have been a great headline if Elle John had been a Designer. But she’s not, she’s our latest Account Manager. But she has a Mac so it’s sort of OK!

Elle’s previously worked for Provenance, the luxury division of M&C Saatchi, so has the perfect background for our growing roster of high net worth clients.

She’s also been client side with bespoke shirtmaker Frank Rostron, so is very much au fait with the luxury sector.

‘Ello, El!

Savills is Britain’s No.1 estate agent, a global player, and we have joined their roster of agencies with a new national advertising campaign.

Our strategy was very simple: everyone’s worried by the market – to make something of an understatement – but Savills has a great combination of national scale/resource and local knowledge.

We felt the message had to be unerringly positive and came up with the campaign theme ‘We have the power to move you.’

The photography was equally ‘up’ in the usual Percivalian style, with unusually cropped shots of jaunty movement. The words were by yours truly, the art direction by the creative (and life) team of Gideon van Lill and Maryke Olivier, our resident Springboks.

The campaign featured in national press, local press, in-store posters, digital advertising and direct mail.

We’re thrilled to be working with a professional services company of this calibre, and we strongly believe that the hardness of the market, if you can inject some positivity, creates the perfect environment for winning market share.