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

First sight of my Christmas mailer

And as many of you know, that's Christmas '07, not '08. Still, it's turned out beautifully, thanks to the very generous hard work of 300million (design) and Gavin Martin (print).



Naturally, I'm not going to spoil what I hope will be a very nice surprise, which is why you're only getting this sneak peek through the packaging.

It's not really a Christmas mailer any more, of course. By force of circumstance it's become a general purpose promotional piece. And to be honest, I'm delighted about that. I haven't done any proper self-promotion for ages. So I'm cleaning up my database, as they say, and will be dispersing little grey boxes across the land (even the world) very shortly.

Hello, johnson banks

A very welcome addition to the client list this month, in the form of celebrated design consultancy johnson banks, creators of brilliant branding and graphics and home to one of the most engaging design blogs around.


Johnson Banks' recent splendid stamps celebrating 50 years since Lennon met McCartney.

I'd love to be able to add to this news with details of the branding project Michael Johnson and I have been collaborating on, but it's super-confidential. Suffice it to say that it's really rather big.

When words can mean life or death

Yet another new client this month, thanks to a kind referral from The Partners. Airwave is the company - until recently part of O2 - that runs the emergency services' dedicated communications network.

As tragic experience has shown, public networks are often overloaded in the wake of major emergencies like 7/7 or the recent floods. And even in the normal day-to-day, emergency teams need a network more resilient and reliable than the standard public services.

That's what Airwave provides. A lot of the detail is secret, and I'd have to eat my laptop if I wrote it here (or something). But suffice to say that the Airwave network is impressively sophisticated, and there's an extraordinary amount going on behind the scenes to make sure it stays reliable in even the toughest conditions.

All of which is very reassuring for me as a member of the public, and rather fascinating to talk about as a copywriter.

I've been drafted in to help implement The Partners' new identity for Airwave (above). That process began, as it must, with tying down the brand's tone of voice, and I've just completed the first of a little mountain of product brochures. Then there's the website and a corporate brochure to do. So that lot should keep me out of mischief for a while.

One deeply unpopular logo, one much more popular copywriter

The launch of Wolff Olins' enormously controversial new London 2012 logo (left) has created a welcome flurry of interest in my site.

I usually get around 60 to 80 hits a day. Occasionally 100 or so. But yesterday (6 June), I got almost 400 hits, almost all of them on the page showing my entry for the 2012 London Olympic bid logo competition (shown below).

Vast numbers of Europeans, mainly Germans, have come through a German blog about the new logo. (As a non-German speaker, I have no idea if my link was complimentary or not - any enlightenment welcome).

I was also mentioned (way down the comments list) on a Digg blog called Olympic Logos That Aren't Awful, which is nice. (The nice chap in Canada who handed me this free PR has also commented on my site.) And there was another complimentary link from someone called Machie on a forum called London Olympic Logo Yay [sic] or Nay.

All this frantic activity may explain why a Google search today for '2012 London ideas' put me top of the list (and brought in some more hits).

As I write, the visits for today have already topped 100 (and it's not yet 11 o'clock). Thank you very much, Wolff Olins. The only problem is, I am going to feel very downcast when all this furore dies down and I go back to being little old niche copywriter me.

Christmas card of the year

According to Noisy Decent Graphics, an entertaining blog by Ben Terrett of The Design Conspiracy, my Christmas card for 2006 was the best of the year.

What a very nice thing to say, Ben, thank you.

He's even included pictures and everything. Have a look.

(If you think you should have had a card and didn't get one, let me know. They've got my new address on, so they're very important.)