Jam/Jan/Jun. 6 Month Studio Review. Creative Diary.

Well hello there.

As it's coming to the end of the month of June we thought it would be nice to do a wee recap of the last six months in the land of Jamhot. And what a half year it has been, with some great projects, amazing clients and lots of stories to tell (some of them best reserved for a chat over a few pints in the big slope next door).

So we thought it would be nice to reflect a bit on some of our highlights of the year to date...

Hello Scotland

We kicked off the year with a trip to the stunning Isle of Lewis to start work on a new distillery branding project which happily will launch to the world next month. Not long after we arrived back in Glasgow, we then found ourselves heading off on another island adventure on Islay working on a repositioning project for an island whisky and we'll be heading back across in August to do some filming & photography as we look to bring the new strategy & positioning to life. Last month saw us heading up to the Black Isle in Inverness, where we were treated to some glorious sunshine, as we kicked off another new drinks industry project - one that's we can't wait to get our teeth into. Getting to work in some of Scotland's most beautiful locations has been a total privilege and something that we never take for granted. The stunning scenery has provided us with a lot of creative inspiration, as have all of the interesting people that we have met along the way. Most of our current adventures started when we got to work with our friends over at North Uist Distillery - and we're delighted that we still do to this day. This year has seen the distillery team installing all of their new Whisky equipment and we can't wait to head back over to the island in the second half of the year to see them all and kick off some more new island adventures.

Gab Gab Gab

It's been another great year for Gab, and we've been fortunate enough to host two excellent events in Glasgow. The first one saw us take over our regular haunt at Sloans ballroom, for an evening of creative chat that saw us hear from a great range of guests - including Scottish actor & director Eilidh Loan who spoke about her amazing journey. Our second event saw us revisit one of the most unique buildings in Glasgow - the world's oldest surviving music hall - The Britannia Panopticon where Max from Ragged Edge in London gave the sold out audience a rallying cry towards creativity and the difference that standing out makes. The events are always a highlight of the year for us, and it's not just the brilliant speakers - for us it's all about the great people who support the event and come along, with the chats in the bar afterwards as valuable as anything that happens on the stage. The strong feeling of community we felt after the last event was a great boost of motivation for us to keep the series going, and we're current planning our next event that will be coming at the end of August / Start of September.

Get The Drinks In

We've been lucky this year to continue to dip our toes into the world of drinks branding & design - launching a new custom whisky bottle to the world, branding a new Scottish Island Distillery, re-positioning a historic Islay Whisky blend, creating a refreshed look and packaging for two of Global Whisky's brand and creating a new campaign for Downpour Gin. It's been an area that we've wanted to work within since we started the studio 16 years ago, so it's really rewarding to get the chance to do this type of work. I guess it also goes to show that some things do take time, and the power of being patient and doing the best work you possibly can, improving each and every year. Hopefully there might be more projects like this in our future too.

New Talent

One of the most rewarding things we get to do at Jamhot is spend some time with current creative students and emerging design talent. It's something that we have always enjoyed doing, and getting the opportunity to give something back is always worthwhile. This year it's been a pleasure to continue our student mentoring work with Glasgow Caledonian University, the team there is one of the best around and we are always impressed and inspired when we get to work with their students every year. We also had the pleasure of extending our mentoring work with Edinburgh College of Art - with the students there forming their own agencies, which is such a good idea. We got to visit Grays School of Art to give a talk to the students there, and had the pleasure of giving two lectures on the power of brand and creativity to some very nice masters students at Strathclyde University. We're looking forward to doing more of the same over the remainder of '24, as we always get as much out of these sessions & activities as the students do.

A New Brand for The Queen's Hall

It was great to get to launch one of our favourite projects of the last few years last month, as we were able to get some of our work for The Queen's Hall in Edinburgh out and about into the world. As big music fans, you couldn't ask for a much better project than getting to create a new brand for one of the most unique venues around. Sadly we've been a bit too busy in the studio to get the work fully up on to the Jamhot site yet, but we'll get to that very soon hopefully.

Meeting Some New Friends

It's been great to welcome some new clients into the studio over the last six months including the fine folks at Stornoway Gin, Islay Mist Whisky, Robinsons Beds, Glasgow Life, Falkirk Council, Global Whisky, Fairisle and some more besides. It means the world to us when people trust us with their projects and it's something that we never take for granted - it's given us some very nice creative & design challenges to get our teeth into and we'll be launching some of the work we've been doing after the summer holiday period.

Old Friends Return

Alongside our work with new client, one of the things that we take the most pride in is when people return to us again to work on more new projects. This is the 16th year that we've worked with our very good friends at Glasgow's Tron Theatre, and it's always an absolute pleasure. With their new artistic director now in place, we're looking forward to many more adventures with them. We've also been doing a lot of work with the team at Worldwide Cancer Research which will launch over the next two months - and we can't wait to let everyone see what we've been creating for them. Arts client Cryptic have returned and we're busy working with them on all of the campaign design for their upcoming Sonica festival this September. We launched a new brand and website for our Scottish Government pals at the Digital Office and have been collaborating with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations on some tasty new design work - again launching soon. As well as working with our friends at Celtic FC, Edinburgh Napier University, Willo and a few more it's been a very busy year for the Jamhot crew.

Some New Things Soon...

One of the projects that we've had on the boil for a while is our work with The Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh - it's been a total joy to work with this 500 year old institution to create a new look and feel for the college. We have met some very (very!) talented people along the way - including the world's brightest brain surgeons, so it's fair to say that we've had to be on our A game for this one. As the project starts to come to a close in the studio we can start to think about getting it out into the world - which we'll try our very best to do after a bit of a summer break.

So, What's Next?

At the start of the year we had very little idea where '24 would take us, and it's fair to say that the year to date has been well beyond our expectations. So we're hoping that the second half might treat us well too. You never know in this game, that's one things we'e learned running our little studio over the last 16 years - so let's see where we end up. At the moment, we've got a lot of projects to launch that we been beavering away on this year. We're also heading back over to Islay soon for a filming & photography project which we can't wait for, and we'll be doing the same back up in Inverness too as we kick off a new brand project there - so we're just hoping for some good weather as our adventures continue.

If there is anyone out there who has bothered to read any of this chat, we not only thank you from the bottom of our hears but also would like to wish you the very best for the rest of '24 - we hope you get to do nice things with interesting people and have some fun along the way.

Cheers, from your pals at Jamhot x