teaching & learning

THE BIG IDEAS COLLECTIVE

Intelligent creativity.

Small, medium and large wise owls

WE 

create beautiful brands, books and websites. Produce inspiring and engaging content matched by technical expertise.

Brand Identity

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

Content Creation

Words and images to inform and engage, move and motivate.

Web Development

Let’s make it bold and beautiful.

Search Engine Optimisation

Be found.

Publishing Design

A book is a thing of beauty.

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The Big Blogs

William Nash, Out-Take & Stu

In early 2001 I got a call. I was running late for a meeting, and I debated whether to pick up the phone. I did and a voice at the other end said, “Do you want to design the best rock ’n’ roll book this century?”

I did. This is not the sort of offer a book designer gets everyday.

Design, Running ‘the Board’, the Gauntlet and the power of Healing Ash

My 20 months at Slatter-Anderson were a blur… Learning a lot in a short space of time, I worked on a truly diverse range of design jobs

Endings, beginnings and an unexpected offer

At the beginning of 1988, and still at Slatter-Anderson, I was getting busier with self-employed work. I was being commissioned by Transworld books, plus regular cartoon and design jobs for Video Arts. Meanwhile, at Slatter-Anderson I was working on an extensive test packaging project for Elida Gibbs for All Clear hair products and “re-imagined” toothpaste tubes. I was doing all the lettering artwork and technical drawings – oh, the glamour!

The Right to Know

Clive Ponting was the civil servant who, along with Tam Dalyell MP, was instrumental in revealing Whitehall secrets behind the notorious Belgrano Affair and I was given the job of designing the cover of his exposé. 
The General Belgrano was an Argentinian cruiser, sunk on 2nd May 1982, during the Falklands War. Clive’s book would reveal that, when struck by two torpedos from HMS Conqueror, a British hunter-killer Churchill class nuclear-powered submarine, the General Belgrano was, not only outside the combat zone, but also sailing away from it when hit. She sank with all hands, 323 lives were lost.

80s Gaming: paper heroes, tight kerning and silver foil

Back in the late 80s the Falcon Game Book Series was highly innovative; the reader was the hero, taking a story path of their own choosing. Today, this is laughably tame and laborious, compared with our easily accessible digital escapism, role playing on our smart phones across time zones and continents. But, remember, this was all before Alan Sugar introduced the Amstrad home computer, complete with its 3.5” floppy discs. Internet for all was in its infancy and Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was THE ‘gaming’ experience.

Content Marketing – profitable engagement

The main focus for content marketing is not the hard sell; its function is to consistently communicate valuable information to engage current and attract new ‘buyers’. And by ‘buyers’ I mean people who you need to either buy, buy into, comment upon, support or participate in what you are offering.

Quick Website SEO Test

Here’s our Quick Website SEO Test to the two most important facts of SEO and a quick website SEO test to get your started.

Nick Hern – the play’s the thing

Towards the end of 1991 I bumped into Nick Hern on the third floor of The Random House building in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Nick’s ‘list’ had just become one of Random House imprints, having been part of the Walker Books group since 1988.

Nick was (and happily still is) publishing plays and books on all things theatre. By setting up a specialist list of play scripts and play script programmes sold in theatres, Nick had quickly built on his reputation at Methuen and Walker, as the ‘go to’ man for every new and established playwright both in the UK and around the world.

The Road to Fulham and the Soap Stars of Slatter-Anderson

After clearing my desk at Sphere Books on Friday afternoon, Monday morning found me sitting down at a corner desk of the Riverside Studios in Fulham. Perched on the north bank of the Thames with a view of Brompton reservoir and the most spectacular sunsets in West London, I was now a Senior Designer at Slatter-Anderson.

Danielle Steel | 1985-6

For relatively small publishers, like Sphere Books, there are always a few authors about whose axis the company’s survival often revolves. Prolific, high-profile, bestselling…  Danielle Steel was just such an author for Sphere where she had full cover approval and maintained a very tight control on all design decisions.