Apologies for that! It's been nearly a year since our last blog post - which is very remiss. However, we do update our Facebook page on a regular basis so for the latest info and work examples follow us there: facebook.com/hughes.design.london

That aside, we've had another great year producing loads of work for a variety of excellent clients.

Below are just a few of the visual highlights from 2015:  infographics, music promotion, newsletters, reports, logos, retail advertising and websites...

But first - our seasonal greeting:

Inspired by type specimen sheets

Diagnose Me Infographic

And they're back - with revised name and a Spirit of '76 logo

Ominicell newsletter - Adherence matters - discussing medicine wastage in the NHS 

Trinity PR - this is how they do it.

 CRY Week infographic

Hughes & Mercy's Motown Night

Just the facts - for Clement Clarke

The Finchley Society needs you!

The headlines write themselves!

Recruitment advertising can be fun

Skills for health e-learning

24 Page report on Adherence

Ferguson Hill's new website

Beer infographic 2015

Infographic to be used as part of a campaign to increase awareness of low alcohol beers as a healthier alternative to higher strength beers or wines. Client: BBPA & Trinity PR

Lunch Bier by Anton Stankowski

How times change - Lunch Bier 

One from the history books - 1965 Lunch Bier. Logo Designed by Anton Stankowski - it seems this was an attempt to create a national beer brand for then West German market by standardising the labelling and packaging yet brewing and bottling locally.

A selection of stationery

New online typography Project

Inspired by our wall posters we've created www.FaceType.co.uk - an online font project using Adobe Muse and Adobe Typekit. The plan is to grow the site over time - adding new pages and fonts.

We feel it's a nicer way to view the typefaces available via Adobe Typekit using a simple typographic background template and subtle colours.

New Typography posters for the walls

We're looking at brightening up the office with these:

Pizza Hut

With the return to simpler ways that we've documented over the years - starting with Coke and most recently Microsoft - it's about time Pizza Hut looked at their branding and go back to their classic logo...

SalesAPPROACH™

Scotland based Sales Training company SaleAPPROACH™ asked us recently to design and build a new website with animated banner. We looked to Saul bass for our inspiration here :

New website for Local Gift Store

Elegant one page website produced with local photographer Ruairi Winter Johnston.

www.thecherrytreeuk.co.uk

Check out our Xmas card - 1 seasonal message with 1,024 different image combinations that will not repeat in sequence for another 12,252,240 seconds.

Because it wouldn't be Christmas without some pointless trivia...

There are 16 fixed windows and each window contains two images, which is a total of 32 images. This means that there are 1,024 possible combinations: (16 x 2) x (16 x 2) = 1,024.* However, if the 32 images loaded randomly in the 16 windows, the potential combinations are huge. In order to find out how huge, it is necessary to calculate ‘the factorial n!’ (32! =). This number is arrived at by calculating 32 x 31 x 30 x 29... and so on, all the way down to 1.  If we had arranged for the 32 images to load randomly, the potential combinations would be more like this:

263,130,836,933,693,530,167,218,012,160,000,000

Put another way, that's 263 decillion 130 nonillion 836 octillion 933 septillion 693 sextillion 530 quintillion 167 quadrillion 218 trillion 12 billion 160 million.* That's a brain-achingly big number, especially if you consider the universe has only been around for approximately 432,329,886,000,000,000 (432 quadrillion 329 trillion 886 billion) seconds.*

Each box window rotates at a different frequency - 2 seconds (top left) through to 17 seconds (bottom right) increasing in one second intervals. When the boxes start opening, so begins a sequence that will not catch up with itself for another 12,252,240 seconds.  The reason it takes so long is because of the ‘lowest common multiple’. The  ‘lowest common multiple’ is the first number that two different numbers share when multiplied. For example, the lowest common multiple of 6 and 7 is 42 (which all Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans know to be the answer to the ultimate question).  The ‘lowest common multiple’ of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ,13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 is: 12,252,240*

So how long exactly is 12,252,240 seconds?
12,252,240 = 204204.0 minutes or 3403.4 hours or 141.8 days (or some time in May 2014 if you’re reading this in December 2013)

However, if you haven’t got one hundred and forty one point eight days to wait to see the sequence  repeat - there is an easier way -  click “home” or refresh the landing page to see the message sequence start again.

*If you feel any of the numbers or calculations above are not correct, please let us know, but do remember, it's just a bit of fun!

Once again - we hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We suspect that it's not really John Smith...

 The perils of stock photography... 

This diagram says it all really. While stock photography has its place, you should always check how many times an image from a commercial library has been downloaded by others before purchasing it. 

We saw John Smith featured above on a website next to a testimonial. Recognising it as a stock shot we ran it past Google images to and discovered that this image is in use on over a 100 different websites with in the first 10 pages of google alone. 

Which is why we suspect

Battle of the Bands

March 16 sees the annual Battle of the Bands at the East Finchley Constitutional Club. We kindly obliged with the poster:

The Simple Life

We have been meaning to comment on this for a while. Previously we've noted a design trend to strip brands back to basics - Coke and Pepsi - well software giant Microsoft have followed suit with their new look for Windows 8 and accompanying revamp of the windows logo. We approve. Understated, simple and elegant.

Beer - the natural choice

http://www.beer-the-natural-choice.co.uk/

Now live - a new site we've produced for the BBPA containing the most recent research about beer, calories and the beer belly.

Pipe10’s website of the month!

We are very proud to see that the website we produced for our client Essential Reading Plus (ERP) has been selected as website of the month by hosting company Pipe10. ERP specialise in educational books and send out thousands of emails a month and receive thousands of unique visitors annually to their site which they regularly update with new products and offers.

Each month Pipe 10 review and nominate a site and then email all their customers and post it on their site - which is great publicity for nominated site and by association, the designers.

In their review Pipe 10 say ‘Essential Reading Plus are a comprehensive and up-to-date, independent online educational bookseller. They carry books that cover early years, right through to youth work therefore providing you and your children with a vast array of literature. If the title you are looking for is not on their site there is no need to worry, if you let them know what you are after, they will see if they can track it down for you.

Providing an extensive category list on their site means you can cater your search to find the right books for you, or alternately have a look at their carefully produced list of useful links to help you find exactly what you are after. Why not have a look at their Book of the Month and see if it is something that interests you or browse through their sale items to get yourself a great deal.”

Websites

Hughes Design have extensive experience of e e-commerce sites - if you'd like to know more please contact us to discuss your needs.

MMM - TASTY! THE PROCESS OF BREWING BEER

Launching soon a new microsite about beer that we've been working on for the British Beer and Pub Association. The new information site highlights the potential health benefits of moderate beer drinking on a healthy diet, and attempts to undo myths like the "beer belly" and the perception that beer is a high calorie drink.

As part of the design exercise, we've produced an infographic of the step-by-step process of brewing beer. 

HO! HO! HO... here we Go! Go! Go!

We'd like to wish all our clients and friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and thank you all for their support throughout 2012.

Check out our all singing and dancing e-card here and if it gets too much, just click on one of the swinging red baubles to escape!

More "Keep Calm"

This beer mat caught our eye: ticking all the boxes for Great Britain in 2012. Union flag? Check. Keep calm? Check. Celebrating the war? Check. Olympics 2012? Alluded to. Conclusion: This beer's a Great British winner!

Omnishambles

According to the BBC website, "omnishambles" a word invented by the writers of The Thick of It has been voted Word of the Year by the Oxford English Dictionary. Read more here.

BRAND NEW WEBSITE

Visit my new website: www.northlondoncopywriting.co.uk

Enjoy. x