Mailer proving a bit of a hit

My mailer seems to be going down well, I'm happy to say. Latest responses include:

"Thanks for sending me your mailer, I LOVE it. Love it soooo much. LOVE IT.
I'm gushing, but I loooove it. It's lovely."

And:
"Just a quick note to say thanks for the booklet. Very clever and very beautiful."

And:
"I've had a glorious day with my new friend, taking it out and about and indeed showing it off to friends and colleagues. So I was devastated when I opened my work bag to discover it had gone...
So with my bottom lip quivering (and fingers crossed) could I be so bold as to ask you for another one of your little booklets?"

And:
"Just got the mailer - very lovely, very jealousy-inspiring."

And:
"Just got your mailer in the post. And what a lovely piece of work it is... Brilliant idea and beautifully executed."

300million's little video is helping too.

"Hi Mike," says one emailer, "(if there are any left) I would love one of the 'And' books...for the simple reason I MUST KNOW HOW IT WORKS!"

Somebody else wrote that, "we had a good crowd of designers around the youtube clip here in the studio I wondered if I could trouble you for a real copy..."

There are more, but I think you get the idea. It's all doing my ego a power of good.

If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, there are some left. Just ask: mike[at]reedwords.co.uk

My mailshot. At last.

It's here. It's actually here. My Christmas 2007 mailshot - all pretence at a New Year deadline long discarded - has finally arrived from the extraordinarily diligent presses of Gavin Martin, via the admirably ambitious design heads of 300million.

It's become an all-round self-promotional doohickey by now - and is all the better for it, I reckon.

My initial idea - a riposte to the dozens, if not hundreds, of people who tell me it's ungrammatical to start sentences with 'And' - has become a sort of sleight-of-hand origami masterpiece. Just watch 300million's little 'unboxing' video:



The thing just opens, and opens, and opens, and opens. (And with good reason - it reflects the rhythm of my ongoing conjunctions through the piece.) I've actually pulled one to bits and I still can't really work out how it works. But it's brilliant.

So enormous thanks to Gavin Martin, for running their presses on this for real four times to make sure they got it spot on. That's not service, that's something beyond. And (there I go again) thanks to 300million: top clients, inspired designers and some of the nicest people in the business to boot.

As you can tell, I've come over all emotional and Academy Awardish.

(There aren't that many spares, but if you'd like one, let me know: mike[at]reedwords[dot]co[dot]uk.)

New work for Sightsavers

This month brought the exciting news that I'll be working with Sightsavers over the coming year, on fundraising communications with their high-level donors.

I pitched for the work as part of a team with the International Fundraising Consultancy and freelance designer Piers Rutterford. And Sightsavers reckon we've got what it takes to bring in thousands of pounds from a very select group of rich supporters.

The first creative presentation went extremely well. Rather than picking one concept, as was the plan, Sightsavers are keen to produce two or three of the routes we showed, over the course of the next twelve months. Hopefully those on the receiving end of our DM packs will be just as enthusiastic.

If you don't know Sightsavers, have a click on the link below. They do tremendous work. Indeed, it's humbling in the extreme to realise that for the price of a hardback novel, or a decent-sized round in the pub, you could give someone in the developing world their sight back.

Our work is at a very early stage, obviously, so I can't show you any of it yet. But keep an eye on the website, and I'll reveal all as we go along.