Big bid binders win the day

Some great news about the presentation materials I did with 300million for property developers Cathedral: we won!

This was Cathedral's bid to develop a new library, leisure centre and residential accommodation in the heart of Clapham - where I spent much of my London life before upping sticks for Surrey family life.

I wrote and edited the (pretty extensive) documents in double-fast time, and they were delivered to Lambeth Council in the very nick of time. The result: Cathedral, very much the underdogs, won the tender. And won it by a country mile, I'm told.

No doubt this was due primarily to the extraordinary scheme Cathedral proposed, including a spiral library reminiscent of Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim in New York. (To read more, click 'Projects' on the Cathedral site.)


The library interior (image pinched from Cathedral's site with the best of motives)

Even so, Cathedral believed in the value of a professional, original and consistent brand even at this tender stage - including a strong tone of voice. And they've been generous in their apportioning of credit in 300million's and my direction. Which is very nice of them.

Big bid binders

This was a slightly mad project. The good people at 300million asked me to help them put together materials for a major property development bid by Cathedral.

Cathedral wanted a presentation that showed their commitment to quality and innovation. So they hired 300million to create an inspiring identity for the project (which, true to form, they did), and asked me to write a brochure to sum up the hundreds of pages of technical information they had to submit.

It was something of a scramble: as you can imagine, deadlines for this sort of thing are fairly tight. And it was one of those jobs that keeps suggesting ideas, to the point where you realise you've made several rods for your own back.

But we made it (in the very nick of time), and it looked great. As you can see, 300million pushed the boat out when it came to binders, commissioning a vast custom-made one to hold the architectural drawings (by Studio Egret West).

Those are my lines on the covers, by the way: some more of those rods I mentioned. "We really ought to have nice headlines on these binders..." Of such passing comments are desperate late-night scribblings born.

Thanks to 300million for the pic