Here at 400 we love bouncing ideas around and we know our clients do too, so we’ve introduced an exciting new way for us all to spend our Friday afternoons which we’ve imaginatively titled ‘400 Fridays’.

We’re opening our doors and inviting into the studio existing clients, potential clients or anyone who has something interesting and/or challenging that they would like to discuss. It can be a new business idea, a change of direction, a different way of communicating with your audience… basically anything that needs some strategic or creative help to get it off the ground.

All you need to do is drop us a line outlining your idea and if it’s something that excites us we’ll pick a Friday afternoon and invite you in for a free, informal, no obligation chat. You’ll get direct contact with some of 400’s creative minds, a couple of hours of stimulating chat, tea and possibly biscuits.

It might make you think differently, inspire you to try something new or even spark an idea that transforms your organisation. It could be the best way ever to spend a Friday afternoon.

It looks like this offer has already started to capture the imagination, we’ve started receiving some interesting emails and are booking in the first slots, so don’t delay, send your thoughts to design@400.co.uk and we’ll put the kettle on!

With the Grand National just around the corner we thought it was a good time to tell you about one of our newest and most niche clients Dodson & Horrell, Europe’s leading horse feed manufacturer.

They approached 400 to reinvigorate their printed collateral and design a Thoroughbred brochure aimed specifically at racehorse trainers and breeders. More than just a products and services guide, it also needed to act as a practical feeding handbook for the industry.

Clear layout and navigation was required to ensure the complex, technical content was easy to digest, and a premium feel necessary to reflect the quality of the feeds and the breeding of the thoroughbreds themselves.

We combined an elegant new typographic style and sophisticated colour palette with engaging black and white imagery to produce a brochure that confidently communicates industry-leading scientific proficiency with an understated heritage feel.

Spring has officially arrived in London (going by the extra daylight, if not the unseasonal chilly weather!) With it comes the launch of Pardoe & Wood’s tempting Spring menu. The high-quality sandwich, hot food and coffee shop asked us to create a set of window graphics to be rolled out across their City branches to encourage more footfall and inject some warmth and personality into their sleek, modern brand style.

After styling and photographing their entire Spring menu, we developed a colourful hand-drawn illustrative style across a series of frames and prints. Double-sided prints alternating menus and Spring-themed illustrations mean that the graphics are as flexible as possible and can be constantly updated according to the time of day.

Pardoe & Wood were already a firm lunchtime favourite with the studio even before they became our client – go and check out their legendary fish finger sandwich, treat yourself!

2012 looks set to be our busiest year yet with lots of exciting new clients already knocking on our door.

To ensure we maintain the high quality of service that our clients expect we’re looking to expand the team, starting with the addition of an experienced account manager.

If you have a minimum of 3 years proven experience ideally within branding, are inspiring, calm under pressure and have excellent client facing and project management skills then we’d be interested to hear from you.

It goes without saying that you should have proven budget administration experience, excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to multi-task, analyse problems, generate ideas and deliver solutions to tight deadlines for multiple clients across a variety of sectors.

If you tick all those boxes please email your CV to paul.dennis@400.co.uk with ‘Account Manager application’ as the subject.

At this time of year it’s always nice to reflect on the variety of new work and clients that the last 12 months have brought to 400. We’ve been fortunate to work on some really exciting projects for some really inspiring people, from businesses as diverse as a global construction company to a world class concert venue, and a high end ski retailer to an international firm of economists.

We haven’t got time to sit back though, because we’ve already started looking forward to 2012 and the clients lining up to work with us in the New Year. We obviously can’t say too much just yet but suffice to say we could be learning a lot more about biotechnological research, online art retailing, information security, racehorses and the tallest building in Europe.

Thankfully we’re still finding time to get into the Christmas spirit, helped in no small part by the numerous festive projects that are going through the studio. Hot off the press is the set of cards above, a new take on the 12 Days of Christmas for one of our favourite clients, RBB Economics.

And Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without our own limited edition festive mailing, which this year we think has bettered all of our previous highly creative efforts. Only our clients will be fortunate enough to have one land on their doormats, so if you’d like to see what we’ve been up to please call or drop us a line with a brief that you think we might be able to help you with!

When we were approached by the charity Solidarity Sports to design a bold and impactful leaflet promoting their forthcoming healthy cook book, it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. As a studio of committed foodies, we jumped at the chance to get involved with a charity that provides affordable sports provision and healthy eating initiatives in deprived areas of London.

‘Kids Cook the World’ is a celebration of global food and recipes that contains easy, affordable family meals. It features an exclusive foreword by elBulli’s Ferran Adria, and is described as “a beautiful and inspiring family cookbook” by Marco Pierre White. All profits made from the book by Solidarity Sports will be invested back into their community work.

Solidarity Sports was founded in 2007 to teach children from disadvantaged communities key life skills including team work and self-respect – improving their health, confidence and aspirations for the future.

For further information on the book or charity, or if you think you could offer support through donations or volunteering, please contact Sean Mendez on

www.solidaritysports.org T +44 (0)20 7376 0032
E info@solidaritysports.org

Whether it’s hand-written letters, signage, or self-initiated projects, there has been a huge resurgence of hand-written type in the design world recently. There has always been a presence of this in the industry, but it has moved to the forefront as of late. The personality of someone’s handwriting is something that standard typefaces (no matter how aesthetically pleasing) just can’t replicate, and as far as we are concerned, it will always have its place in design. We have highlighted some of our recent favourite examples below:

Snail Mail My email
Type out a letter to someone in an email, and a volunteer will write it out and send it for you. Delightful! (If you would like to do this, hurry up, the project ends on August 15th!)

The Hand Written Letter Project
If you work in design, you can hardly have escaped this project, which has received widespread attention. Craig Oldham asked some leading designers to send him handwritten letters on their studio letterhead and exhibited the results. The exhibition (KK Outlet, Hoxton Square) is open until August 27th.

Let’s Make Some Great Art
The immensely talented Marion Deuchars has put out a fantastic new book that we cannot wait to get our hands on.

Dana Tanamachi
Dana Tanamachi’s splendid chalkboard lettering has us practicing our own chalkboard skills on our new studio chalkboard walls. Wonderful!

Recently, we completed a piece of work for dance organisation One Youth Dance. We were so impressed by their passion and enthusiasm that we agreed to design a launch poster for their first round of auditions. One Youth Dance is a company for 14-18 year olds who might not normally have access to or be able to afford regular dance classes.

Experienced dancers Amelia and Joanna, along with some of their choreographer friends (all under 18) will run classes ranging from hip-hop to ballet and designed to appeal to all abilities. They’re holding auditions soon to recruit a dancing team who will partake in shows and events too. It’s all self-funded and they’re hoping to be successful with grants from the Prince’s Trust so they can spread the word of the joy of dance throughout London!

We wanted to create a striking, impactful poster that would stand out on a noticeboard in schools, colleges and leisure centres so we chose a bold typographic design and white reversed-out type with bright accent colours to pick out the ‘one’ in ‘youth dance’. This style can be developed to be applied to a range of future materials, so we wanted to keep it simple and flexible. We’ve already seen the poster in Pineapple studios and it definitely stands out!

The girls were kind enough to bring us some flowers, wine and chocolates yesterday to say thanks for our help, which was very lovely of them and we will certainly enjoy those later to round off our busy Friday.*

*Clients, take note, we are always grateful to receive edible treats.

Check OYD Company out here on Twitter: www.twitter.com/oneyouthdance