Hello from The Hatrack. July Creative Diary.

Hello. We had planned to do some more of these little creative diary entries as we settled into the new studio, but as often happens we got too busy with client work and time passed pretty fast.

But it's a new day, it's the start of a new week (almost the start of a new month) and so we thought we'd pop one up before we get into the work for the week. 

So what's been happening?

We've been spening much of our time on a chunky brand project within the health & fitness sector. As it's quite an involved change project, the first two months were spent on discovery and strategy. With that mostly cracked, this last month we've been working on designs which seem to be coming along quite nicely. We're now doing some more engagement and feedback sessions over the coming weeks alongside planning a series of photoshoots as we look to bring the new direction to life. It's been an exciting project to work on with a really nice client team, and we're looking forward to the work going live later on this year. 

We've also been working on our first forray into the non-alcohol spirits sector, with some brand & packaging work currently in the studio for a client based in Ibiza. Sadly we haven't been out to visit them, as it's all been done remotely. But we'll make sure and get across sometime when the project is finalised to toast the new spirit release. 

Speaking of spirits, we've also been busy working with our friends at North Uist Distillery on some whisky related design work which will launch to the world pretty soon. It's always a pleasure to work with the team there, so it's been a nice couple of months getting to do just that. 

A project we were working on with the Edinburgh Gin team went live to the world this month. As usual, we've been too busy to get images of the project taken and up on social, that will be a task for this coming month. 

In the studio, some of our improvements got a little derailed by the nasty covid that was going about and then the summer holiday period, but as of this week we're back on it. Next up, we're getting some painting done, including getting one of the walls done in whiteboard paint - a central point for big brand ideas. We'll also be getting a new studio door sign, to make us official! The new space has been so good, it feels like there's a lot of good creative energy here and we're enjoying being in the city centre - although we're do seem to be spending more money on lunch. Tasty tasty lunch. 

We kicked off an exciting new project with a coffee company at the end of the last week, so we're doing some planning for that this week alongside working with our pals at the Digital Office on some new website developments. 

The Mick Cooke Lunch Club events are picking up a bit of steam, and we'll be joined by our friends from Glasgow creative & digital studio Chunk this week. More guests will be invited soon. It's been a nice thing to do, having some folk up to the new space and getting to catch up with some people that we haven't seen for a while.

Last week we did some organising for Gab. We kind of forgot that we needed more space, equipment, tech support and time as we are having a live band join us for the first time, so arrangements were made for that. We're been thinking about trialling a new Gab event format, A Wee Gab, where we go our and visit some folk at their place for a chat. We've got the first one arranged, and we'll see how that goes before looking to see if it's worth doing some more of them.

Speaking of events, we also popped out to a new creative & design event in Glasgow called Colour Theory, which provides a platform for BPOC creatives in the city. Thanks a lot to Anupa for the kind invitation, we enjoyed the event a lot and look forward to seeing how the team develop it all going forward. 

We've still got some summer holidays kicking about in the studio, so things feel pretty chilled until things kick off again in September when we've got a couple of new brand projects kicking off.

We've also been working on the new Jamhot website, which we were looking to get live in Sept. But we've decided to take it easy and just wait until the start of next year to get it up. There's no rush, and we'd rather get it right than do it quick - which is always a challenge to do when you are busy with client work. The design of the site is finalised, and it's also been developed with the initial content loaded in. But it's going to take some more care and attention to get it all how we want it. So we'll have more news on that soon as we go, as it's probably worth a post in itself talking about trying to do work for your own brand (much trickier than client work for sure). 

And, the final studio update for now - we are very happy that we've been asked out to give at talk at the iconic Offf festival of creativity & design in Barcelona next year. It's such an honour for us to be able to take part in the event, and we're starting to have a think about putting a talk togther for it so that we have the main outline of that done later this year.

Until next time, sending good vibes your way from The Hatrack. 

Jamhot x