Geenee: writing a new brand

Since about May this year, I've been working with the founders of an entirely new travel brand called Geenee. I've been developing a tone of voice and then writing the fairly enormous website that is geenee.com. It's all been very hush-hush.

I was recommended to Geenee's founders, Allan and Lorraine Rienecker, by the nice people at 300million. They'd already come up with the identity, and both designers and client were convinced of the need for a distinctive, human, accessible tone of voice. Which was good news for me.

Geenee is a home exchange holiday company. Basically, you go and stay in someone's home in, say, New York or Sydney, and they come to your place. It's a not a new principle - people have been doing this for about 50 years. But Geenee brings the whole thing into the 21st Century. Not only do they personally visit and rate all the homes in their featured cities, they've also done exclusive deals with local suppliers. (Like surfing schools in Sydney, for example.) It's all about helping people get under the skin of a place and live like a local.

I think it's a great service, although of course I'm biased. I also think the copy on the website's pretty hot stuff, but there the bias-o-meter goes off the scale. However, I can say without any hint of prejudice that the web design by With Associates is brilliant. They've created a great-looking site that works beautifully - and they wrote me funny emails when we were both working on the site at midnight. This was my first job with them, and I'm hoping it won't be the last. (Hint, hint, With.)

Definitive Greetings

This is one of the dozen greetings cards I've created in partnership with Polite Cards. Polite publish a select collection of card ranges from artists and photographers like David Shrigley, Sebastian Hamel and The Barefoot Doctor.

Each Definitive Greetings card introduces a word you're unlikely to have heard of, although they're all legit - I got them from the OED. Click here for a PDF sample. (Print it out, fold it in half and hey presto: a free - albeit wobbly - greetings card!)

The cards are now on sale up and down the land, from Scotland to Southampton, and they're doing pretty well. If you'd like to see the whole range, and even order some for yourself, have a look at the Polite Cards website.

I've also just done two 'Definitive Christmas' cards, which will go into Polite's special Christmas pack alongside cards by some of their other artists.