Title Blog

As Burns Night comes back around, we prepare ourselves for a night of Scottish celebration with Haggis, a dram of whisky and a few rounds of Robert’s best known work, “Auld Lang Syne”. 

This year, to commemorate the life and works of the national Bard, we’ve taken one of our favourite single malt scotch whiskys, Glenfiddich, and given it a Title twist.

We chose to redesign Glenfiddich’s 30 Year Old whisky, and based the design around several historical elements of the brand.

When it comes to their iconic stag, we look to the heritage aspect rather than the new sleeker stag seen on current packaging. The shape of the stag and the arrow it stands on has been derived from the weathervane that proudly sits atop the pagoda style roof of the Glenfiddich Distillery, still in its original location, Dufftown. 

The logotype has been updated to appear slightly softer and more fluid, taking reference from the Glenn and its Robbie Dhu spring water used in the creation of the single malt whisky.

Finally, the label at the bottom features the unique bottle number for this limited run, as well as the cask selection number alongside William Grant & Son’s signature sign off. The L.T.D name and address also feature in their original form to highlight the 1887 heritage of Glenfiddich.

As the London Boat Show 2017 comes to a close, fantasy boat buying has become a top discussion point at Title HQ. Webpages for the world’s biggest yacht builders start to pop up on our screens, from the likes of Blohm + Voss, Oceanco and Feadship. But it’s not long until we reach Lürssen and we’re introduced to Azzam, the largest superyacht in the world.

Azzam, meaning ‘dedication’ in Arabic, was created by Eng. Mubarak Saad al Ahbabi. The brief was to build a luxurious superyacht, that featured a timeless and innovative design which could withstand high speeds in warm and shallow waters, whilst still providing sophisticated and luxurious accommodation for guests.

At 180 meters in length this superyacht is capable of reaching speeds of over 30 knots. Azzam is not only ground breaking in terms of technology, dimension and performance, but also because it was built in only four years, including one year for engineering. An extraordinary timeframe for a superyacht of its size.

To honor this incredible feat of superyacht construction, we’ve created a luxury brochure for ship builder, Lürssen. We feel that superyacht companies of this nature deserve editorial content and promotional material that is befitting of their incredible design achievements.

Our brochure focuses on elegance and simplicity to mirror that of Azzam’s design.

The double page spreads utilize great imagery of the exterior and interior, letting the grandeur of the lavish finishes and the sheer size of the vessel speak for themselves.

The brochure features technical specifications of the ship as well as a line plan elevation, showing more detailed information.

It is a year to the day that David Bowie sadly departed this earth, Sunday 10th January 2016. With London Fashion Week Men’s ending, we decided to take a look back on Bowie’s effortless style and how it has influenced the male fashion industry and what we will see this Spring/Summer’17.

David Bowie was as much a style icon as he was a musical genius. For Bowie, image was as important a part of the overall package as his ground-breaking compositions. He had an enormously influential and constantly evolving aesthetic, often manifesting itself as an alter-ego or stage character, allowing him to express his latest musical offering as if delivered by a unique artist each time.

Trends we’ve noticed for Spring/Summer ‘17 with strong Bowie overtones include the move to a wider fit, high-waisted trousers. Super skinny, tight fitting jeans and trousers have ruled the roost for the last few years - until now, that is. This season, trousers are getting looser. "Everybody is bored with the same silhouette," says Patrick Grant of E. Tautz, who, alongside brands such as Topman Design and Universal Works, is leading the charge. "It feels more enjoyable to wear clothes with a bit of drape to them.”

The Spring/Summer collection by Lemaire offered up high-waisted, wide leg trousers as a key piece. A regular in Bowie’s wardrobe through more than one of his fashion transformations. Wear them with shirts or t-shirts tucked in to keep the waist line visible and with more substantial footwear to keep everything in proportion.

Just like trousers, suits have seen a move towards more relaxed lines over the past few seasons, a style well worn by Bowie. This season the colour to be seen in is pink, in particular the warm, dusty rose shade, as seen at Gucci and Topman Design. If you’re not as daring as Bowie and a full dusty pink summer suit is too much, you can look at incorporating a pink crew neck t-shirt to liven up sober tailoring.

With the arrival of January, the phrase “New Year, New Me” is on everyone’s lips. Whether it's Dry January, Veganuary or signing up to the gym, health and fitness is the biggest focus on most people’s minds throughout the month.

In keeping with this theme, we’ve been looking at some of the premium brands that people are buying into to aid their health and fitness journeys. Misfit, the wearable technology brand, produces fitness smart-watches and trackers for the luxury market. For our first in studio project of the year, we decided to take on rebranding their Ray fitness & sleep tracker packaging.

The branding itself has undergone a subtle transformation; the overarching Misfit icon has been dropped and the logo simplified, anchoring the Misfit name with an underline. The new packaging has allowed RAY, the product, to have a logo of its own and personality. The letters R, A and Y are separated by small dashes designed to look like rays of light that mirror the small LED strip on the product itself.

The design of the Misfit Ray collateral takes cues from the sleek and minimal styling of the product itself. The box has been updated to have a more premium feel; it now has a foam insert that houses the product in its individual pieces ready to be put together for use. This is housed in a box with a magnetic tab closure which all slides into a sleeve with a leather emboss effect and foiled text.

The accompanying literature gives a brief explanation of the product and its specifications as well as some imagery of the product and an exploded diagram explaining what each element is. The printed collateral is a double sided, tri fold booklet printed on matt stock.

Part of the magic of Christmas is giving and receiving a beautifully wrapped gift. We thought we’d create our own gift-wrap, but give it a personalised twist for the team here at Title.

We’ve used traditional etching styled illustrations over a contemporary, colour palette and simple hand written tags. The design would be screen printed by hand to give a more crafted, yet luxury finish.

Each one of the illustrations has been designed with a specific team member in mind:

Starting on the far left, Owen’s packaging features cinnamon, spiced orange and pine cones to represent his love for Christmas scents.

Gary’s gold wrapping includes illustrations of corks and pheasant feathers to represent his passion for wine and love of rural pursuits.

Lucy loves making her home look and feel as Christmassy as possible, so we’ve used fuchsia tones and bold and bright illustrations of Baubles to emphasise this.

A gold and teal colour scheme and illustrations of scissors and bows has been used to translate into Abbie’s love of wrapping gifts.

And finally, to the right, Peter’s nature inspired gift-wrap represents his love for chopping logs in the garden and throwing them on the fire, making his house warm and cosy in winter.

Every year, the world looks to iconic brands and department stores to see what Christmas window displays they’ll be unveiling.

We’ve looked at this year’s contenders and chosen those we think have really outdone themselves for 2016...

John Lewis

Turning to Harlequin Design for help, the John Lewis’ design team drew inspiration from their heart warming #BusterTheDog Christmas ad campaign.

Merchandising plenty of wonderful gift ideas from the department store’s Christmas range, Harlequin created a window display on John Lewis’ Oxford Street store that invited passers-by to join the cute woodland creatures in their burrows, whilst Buster can be seen on the snowy lawn above.

Humanising each woodland creature with home comforts such as fires, lamps and soft furnishings, John Lewis has created an uplifting and humorous window display that invites the audience to take a closer look and engage further with the story created for their TV campaign.  

Selfridges

One year in the making, Selfridges’ humorous ‘Gather, Give & Get on Down’ windows took 24 hours a day for an entire week to install and it’s not hard to see why.

Using 90 disco balls, reclaimed ski equipment from the Alps, soundtracks to accompany five windows, and not forgetting pastel sheepskins, gold lame and iridescent snow, Chief Window Designer, Morag Hickmott and her team really enjoyed thinking up different scenarios for Santa to be partying in – and it shows.

Not only did Selfridges commission handmade bespoke sequin Santa suits for the 12 famous Oxford Street windows, each mountain-scape was individually hand-painted by set designer Clementine Keith-Roach and are all based on real mountains.

The attention to detail on these windows is outstanding and with all products featured in the windows available to purchase from Selfridges, the audience is invited to party like Santa!

Harrods

This year Harrods joined forces with Iconic British brand Burberry to create ‘A Very British Fairy Tale’ collection displayed across all 65 windows.

Covering ready-to-wear, accessories and gifting products across womenswear, menswear, childrenswear and home, Lily James was at the iconic Knightsbridge store to turn on their Christmas lights and unveil the wondrous window displays.

Deborah Bee, Director of Creative Marketing at Harrods explained the partnership, saying: “Both quintessentially British with a heritage that stretches back to the 1800s, Burberry and Harrods are perfect partners for the festive season. This year’s theme combines nostalgia with innovation, a modern-day fairy tale with interactive elements, and of course, many special Burberry pieces made exclusively for Harrods.”

Using a simplistic and modern design, the craftsmanship within the windows is still visible with intricate silhouettes of British towns and countryside and a fantasy organ played by a Burberry adorned mannequin.

Fortnum & Mason

Our favourite windows this year are Fortnum & Mason’s collaboration with communications agency Otherway.

Named ‘Together We’re Merrier’ each window, tells a story of an unlikely pairing - from a wolf and a sheep to a butcher and a turkey – who have put aside their differences for the festive season. Using sketches by Otherway, illustrator Bret Ryder has given the characters personalities whilst a team of 3D sculptures have brought them to life.

“Christmas is a time of togetherness and celebration and in the current climate, we felt this message was never more relevant,” says Zareem-Slade, Fortnum and Mason’s Customer Experience Director.

With the most lovely message and nostalgic childhood characters, you can’t help but fall in love with Fortnum’s window display.

When discussing our favourite memories of Christmas, board games was a reoccurring theme that popped up amongst the Title team and with the exhibition ‘Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered’ currently open at the V&A Museum of Childhood, we thought what better way to honour our favourite board game than give it a little Title twist.

Our redesigned Monopoly focuses on simplifying the board and accessories by using a subtle, premium colour palette and a modern logo.

The board has a felt finish, for a more tactile gaming experience, similar to a card table in a casino. All of the locations on the board have been redesigned to include their postcode and to mirror the design cues from the new and updated Monopoly money.

On the subject of money, we’ve given the humble Monopoly note a complete design overhaul. The design now features a layered effect with the focus on making it look like real currency. We’ve also added small hidden design details such as the copy which states: ‘This currency is upheld by the integrity of every player’.

All of the denominations have a different image in the background that represent different areas on the board; from famous underground stations and Trafalgar Square, up to Park Lane and Mayfair on the higher value notes.

David Bailey has always been a huge inspiration to the team here at Title, and when we heard his NW1 exhibition was opening this month and the book was being republished, we thought we would visualise our own version of it.

The book’s cover is inspired by Bailey’s old contact sheets, we’ve added details like handwritten notes and a hand drawn frame to create authenticity.

The re-published book and exhibition focus on Bailey's images of the fading and dilapidated areas of Primrose Hill and Camden where he resided for over 30 years. In order to capture this look and feel, we’ve recreated a monochrome, double exposure image using an image of the young Bailey himself.

The typography on the cover reflects the design of London street signs. Our version of the book would be black cloth bound with white foil embossed typography.

With the Christmas season well underway, the team at Title are looking forward to snuggling on the sofa with a mince pie and our favourite Christmas films on the box. But which movies will we be choosing and why?

Owen – Senior Designer

“Die Hard!

I love an action movie and the combination of Bruce Willis, bad guy Alan Rickman and great Christmas one-liners is spot on for me. It’s on TV every year at Christmas and I never miss it, it’s almost become a tradition now.

There are so many great bits, but one of my favorites is when he throws a guy out of the window and shouts: “Welcome to the party pal!” Absolute classic.”

Abbie – Account Executive

“Love Actually is the epitome of Christmas for me.

Set in glorious London with an incredible cast and emotional and fun-filled storylines, you can hardly tell it’s 13 years old.

My guilty pleasure is that I’ve always wanted to be the young lady smashing ‘All I Want for Christmas’ in her GAP glitter flares whilst comforting the lovely Emma Thompson when Alan Rickman let a nation down by breaking her heart.

My favourite part has to be the iconic scene between Andrew Lincoln and Keira Knightley and the note cards! Slightly inappropriate, but I still love the sentiment!”

Peter – Creative Partner

“My favourite Christmas film has to be The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Spooky stories have been a part of Christmas lore for 100s of years, with the likes of M.R James and Charles Dickens penning some of the best. The Nightmare before Christmas continues this tradition with gorgeous stop motion animation by Henry Selick and fantastic characters designed by Tim Burton.

The soundtrack was written by Danny Elfman, with Elfman also singing the Jack Skellington part.

The best line from the film has to be; “There’s children throwing snowballs / instead of throwing heads / they're busy building toys / and absolutely no one's dead!”

Lucy – Account Director

“Home Alone 2: Lost in New York has to be my favourite Christmas film.

With an iconic soundtrack and incredible booby traps this film brings back lovely memories of Christmases gone by, spent cosied up with my Mum on the sofa.

With the festivities growing ever nearer we thought we’d take a look at some of this year’s biggest Christmas ads and share some of our favourites with you.

10. Alzheimer’s Research UK: Santa Forgot

We’re massive fans of anything animated and love Alzheimer Research UK’s ad made by Aardman Animations in collaboration with Freuds. Narrated by the legend that is Stephen Fry, the ad tells the tale of a little girl and her mission to retrain Santa Elves as Researchers to find a cure, when Santa gets struck down by Dementia.

The ads clever use of storytelling and delightful illustrative style, reminds viewers that Dementia can effect anyone and raises awareness of a topic that not necessarily everyone is thinking about at this time of year.

9. TK Maxx: The Sing-Song

Breaking away from the generic, product placement heavy ads of years gone by, TK Maxx have taken a play on their strapline of ‘surprising gifts at surprising prices’ by creating an equally surprising ad. Featuring a family’s rendition of Misirlou, a track used in the film, Pulp Fiction, we love the fact that TK Maxx have taken their own USP – surprising shoppers with big brand gifts for small prices, to a new and bizarre level.

8. Harvey Nichols: Britalia

Harvey Nics have used their Christmas ad for 2016 as a chance to promote their extensive range of Italian goods and new festive marketing campaign ‘Britailia’.

Repurposing a scene from the classic Luigi Pirandello play ‘As You Desire Me’, Harvey Nics have dubbed over the clip to make it look like the characters are in fact angry about Harvey Nichols taking the finest in Italian goods from the Italians themselves. The comical nature of the ad certainly means it stands out from the crowd and Harvey Nics have fully embraced the Italian persona of the campaign, even replacing their Twitter name with Harvey Nicolo for the Christmas period.

7. John Lewis: #BustertheBoxer

With the preview sending Twitter into a frenzy on its own, it’s clear that John Lewis had a lot to live up to this year. Thankfully they’ve managed to do it again by delivering the classic combination of a boxer dog and trampoline? Someone’s been watching too much YouTube.

The fun and dare we say it, bouncy theme of the ad combined with its ironic soundtrack (a cover of Randy Crawford’s ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’) is an unexpected move, but the spot’s much needed humility is a welcome change to previous years’ efforts.

6. Heathrow Airport: Coming Home for Christmas

The cynics and Scrooge’s out there might call it a festive cliché but we love an ad that pulls at the heart strings. ‘Coming Home for Christmas’ details two teddy bears journey through the airport to meet their relatives, with the surprise at the end being the bears are in fact two sibling’s grandparents.

Not only do we have a soft spot for Mr & Mrs Blair (the bears) but we love the relatable nature of the ad and the way it showcases the airports USPS; excellent customer service and array of duty free shopping.

5. Quality Street: The First Sign of Christmas

In at number 5 is Quality Street’s new Christmas ad for 2016, featuring Quality Street wrappers falling from the sky like snow. We love this ad because of the brilliant use of an iconic element of the Quality Street branding and the brands connection to the fun and frolics of Christmas.

4. Aldi: Kevin the Carrot

We’ve had a snowman, a penguin, a bear and Mog the cat, so what’s next? Kevin the Carrot of course.

Narrated by British actor Jim Broadbent, Aldi’s story of a cute, button eyed Carrot is accompanied by an equally cute script. Guaranteed to appeal to children and adults alike, not only have Aldi accomplished a highly endearing ad, the discount retailer is also supporting a good cause, with all proceeds from the limited edition Kevin the Carrot soft toy going to children’s charity, Barnardo’s.

3. Waitrose: Home for Christmas

It’s said that you can’t really go wrong if your Christmas ad contains either people or animals and in at number 3, Waitrose have used the story of an adorable Robin making its journey home to resonate with its shoppers. Featuring a heart-warming score, CGI animals and beautiful landscapes throughout, Waitrose manage to tug at the heart strings without being forcibly clichéd.

2. M&S: Christmas with love from Mrs Claus

A change from their usual product placement bonanza, M&S have gone for a storytelling format with a modern twist. Featuring Janet McTeer as Mrs Claus, not only do we love the twist of using Mrs Claus instead of her better known, other half, but the subtle use of modern propping and a beautiful score make for a truly enchanting and magical Christmas TV spot.

1. H&M: Come Together

Call us bias, but our number 1 Christmas ad of 2016 has to be the H&M ad created by Adam&Eve/DDB and one of our favourite Directors of all time, Wes Andersen.

On 5th December, the 2016 Turner Prize Winner, Helen Marten was announced.

Whether you’re an art lover or can’t understand the premise behind a massive gold… behind, the Turner Prize is an art award that most have either heard of or visited the Tate Britain in the numerous years it's been exhibited.

By beating off fellow nominees Michael Dean, Anthea Hamilton and Josephine Pryde, whilst ensuring she’ll be sharing the £25k prize money amongst them, Marten has become the youngest winner of the Turner Prize at the tender age of 30.

Nominated for her series of works from ‘Lunar Nubs’, the sculptural installations consisting of everyday household items and found objects, from cotton buds to fish skins, her work combines writing, sculpture and screen printing and is a reaction to the “vast grey milkshake of information” we process every day.

Marten is a relatively new talent but unlike previous winners such as Damien Hurst or Grayson Perry whose personalities are as renowned as their work, she has quietly amassed many accolades. Last month, Marten was awarded the Hepworth Award for Sculpture, pledging again to share the £30k cash prize with her fellow nominees Phyllida Barlow, Steven Claydon and David Medalla. With her solo show at Greene Naftali and a solo show at the Serpentine Gallery that coincided with the opening of the Turner Prize’s exhibition at Tate Britain, followed by the Hepworth Prize group show, 2016 has been a huge year for the young artist.

Graduating with a BFA from the Ruskin School of Fine Art at Oxford in 2008 after a stint at Central Saint Martins, the Macclesfield born artist staged her first solo show two years later at the T293 Gallery in Naples, one of the four blue-chip galleries that now represent her work. Delving into the animation world with her 2011 film ‘Dust and Piranhas’, she chose to focus on sculptural pieces that eventually won her the 2016 Turner Prize.

With mumbled concerns from art critics and journalists, there’s worry that this could all be too much too soon for the emerging artist and she’ll be stuck with a signature style, never developing into the artist that the art scene believes she can become.

Looking back at previous entrants and winners such as Damien Hurst with his 1995 ‘Mother and Child, Divided’, Jake and Dinos Chapman’s 2003 ‘Sex and Death’ and Tracey Emin’s 1999 ‘My Bed’ instillation, their mediums and concepts continued to change and develop, even now, with huge successes.

Emin’s ‘My Bed’ recently sold for £2.2million and The Chapman Brothers have continued to exhibit in the best galleries in the world including their solo show at the Serpentine with their 2013/2014 ‘Come and See’ exhibition.

At such a young age, Marten has time to explore new mediums and spread her artistic wings. Whether you find her work visually pleasing or perplexing, there’s no doubt that the art society has fallen for her and we’ll be seeing her name appearing more in the future.

With 2016 being such a tough year culturally, we’ve turned to the Hygge trend that is sweeping the UK for some well needed comfort.

The Nordic word – pronounced “hoo-gah” - describes a feeling of cosiness and contentment of social gatherings in winter. With food and drink, fires and inviting interiors, enjoying the good things in life with good people around you.

The practise of making everyday activities more meaningful or embracing simple pleasures such as purchasing flowers, cuddling up on the sofa or brewing real tea sounds like pure heaven to us. With candles being a huge part of Hygge we wanted to create our own Hygge, inspired candle and brand.

With the Hygge translation ‘Live Well’ as the brand name, we visualised this on a curve, together with the dots these elements create a smiling face, in a minimal Danish design style, of course.

The elements created include a candle and a paper wrapper for the candle, as well as a small pack of branded matches. Across all of the packaging is a small series of had drawn illustrations representing the scent of the candle, in this case Spruce/Pine.

@selfridges, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason have proved that advent calendars aren’t just for kids and we agree! Here at Title, we’re all partial to a chocolate treat throughout December after a long day at work, but we’ve also been dreaming about the luxury adult advent calendars currently trending.

Inspired by the big luxury department stores, we looked back at all the wonderful clients we’ve worked with over the years and thought why not develop our own with the products we’ve helped design or market.

Off the back of the release of H&M’s Wes Anderson directed Christmas campaign, our concept took inspiration from one of his greatest films, the Grand Budapest Hotel and the amazing illustrations and hotel model used in the movie.

We’re very fortunate to work in a beautifully styled building and have taken advantage of this by basing our concept on an illustration of the front of our studio against a starry Christmas night backdrop. The colour palette uses a lot of similar tones, a technique often used by Anderson, finished with gold overlay text and advent numbers.  To finish, we’ve used an emboss on the advent numbers and Title logo to increase stand out and make the finer details pop.

With a mini gin from Silent Pool, a tester bottle from The Posh Handwash Co and some Body & Massage Oil from @cocodemer’s Sensual Intimates range as just a few of the daily treats you’ll find behind each door, we believe our Title Advent Calendar is a strong contender within the luxury market.

Browsing the headlines this week, we couldn’t help but blog about the awesome OOH campaign launched by our friends at Spotify.

Entitled “Thanks 2016. You’ve been weird.” Spotify analysed aggregate and individual data, to convey the emotional relationship that people have with music. The campaign is not only engaging and relatable but creates a sense of community through its OOH comms.

Another great example of using data to reach out to your audience.

With the end of #Movember in sight, we wanted to celebrate the art of beard grooming and care, and who better to create concept products for than Dr. Harris & Co.

Holding Royal Warrants to Her Majesty the Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales, we thought the British traditional gentleman’s chemist and perfumers was perfect to create some concept grooming products and accessories for.

Our Dr. Harris & Co concept focuses on retaining the heritage of brand whilst appealing to younger, yet still very discerning clientele.

The brand marque presents ‘Harris’ as the focal point, with the ‘Dr’ and ‘+ co’ balancing nicely either side. This is a visual cue to the precision and quality of the brand, with the two royal warrants bestowed upon the brand positioned above.

Congratulations to Kenzo & Spike Jonze on winning the Film Grand Prix at this year’s Epica Awards for their Kenzo World fragrance spot. This is our favourite ad of the year so far, we love their contemporary take on the more stereotypical perfume campaign.

As the days get shorter and the cold weather draws in, we thought it the perfect time of year to look at a Winter staple, the garden boot.

For this week's studio project we've created some marketing collateral for a heritage favourite amongst Royals and celebrities alike, Le Chameau, and their collaboration collection with the wonderful Kew Gardens.

We've taken Kew’s history and expertise in botany, as the foundation of our designs.

Using botanical illustrations to highlight Kew’s commitment and expertise in the scientific study and preservations of plants.

The subtle colour palette reflects the heritage and styling of the Le Chameau brand, with the addition of a bright pop of colour to grab attention and keep the design current. We've created a design that runs across all touch points for the collection: press event, including a double sided invitation, event poster, event brochure and a guest ID tag.