Move Over October. Creative Diary.

October is over, and we’re into the final few months of the year. We’re not sure if it’s just us, but this year has passed very quickly indeed. It’s almost time to dust down those new year's resolutions - the very same ones that we failed to do in '25.

Guess it’s good to recycle. But there’s enough time to think about that…

So let’s start with some Hatrack studio news. We’ve finally opened the tins of whiteboard paint that we’ve had lying around for a while (since we moved in June). Thanks to Jamie’s stellar efforts we now have a nice white board wall in our creative area where we can collaborate with clients on ideas & plans. Due to his quick fire painting method Jamie’s whole body looked a bit like a human white board, we were tempted to write this week’s to-do list on him for fun, but decided against it. Luckily he’s fine, recovering well.

On the new business front it was a pretty quiet summer. Although that’s usually the case, this year it did feel eerily quiet, the sort of tumbleweed feeling that convinces you that it’s time to shut up shop and join the circus instead (happens every year). Thankfully that has changed quite dramatically over the last month as we’ve welcomed five new clients into the studio in quick succession, alongside some tasty briefs from current clients and long lost friends who have returned (more on that in the coming months). Now we’re deeply into that ‘how are we going to get this all done’ territory - which is a feeling we’re far more comfortable with. So we’re feeling very grateful and excited to be starting several new things.

Alongside that, quite a few large scale brand projects that we have been working on this year are now at the completion stage. We can’t wait to share them with the world. We’ll likely wait until next year to do that though, as we’ve plenty to be getting on with for now.

We’ve kicked off some work with an amazing new client CalMac, Scotland’s West Coast ferry operator. To say we were delighted to work with them would be an understatement. It’s only been a month, but already we’re loving working with all of the team there and it really does feel like one of those perfect partnerships where the work we do is a great fit for what they need. We can’t wait to get things moving, and we’ll be launching some new work to the world for them in the first half of next year.

Last week saw us hand over a big brand project to the internal design team of one of our clients, and we’ll be working with them over the coming six months on roll out. It’s always a really nice feeling to get a project to that stage, and see it come to live across the organisation as their team gets involved.

We’re kicking off some new projects across a diverse range of sectors this month - charity, sports, drinks, retail, travel, housing, hospitality and the arts. This type of variety in the work that we do is what keeps the studio atmosphere fresh and lively, meaning we’re very rarely working on too many things that are alike at once. It’s exactly what we dreamed of doing when we started Jamhot - so to see it come to fruition is so satisfying. We don’t take any of it for granted, that’s for sure.

Last week saw us having our first ever Wee Gab event, a mini version of our usual Gab creative & design event series. Now in our 13th year, we thought it might be nice to try something new and it’s been nice to see an idea we had at the start of the year come to life just as it ends. We’ll hopefully have some more of these next year. Speaking of 2026… the first Gab event of the year (number 42) has been booked. We’ll be back in the Sloans Ballroom for an evening of creative chat on Thurs 29th January. We’ll be announcing the speakers & tickets later this month (it’s going to be a good one).

It might sound strange, but since we moved to The Hatrack back in June it feels like there’s been an exciting new energy within the studio. I guess it’s easy to get stuck in your ways a little when you go into the same space every day - even though we had an amazing studio in Finnieston.

Sadly one thing we have’t been able to find in the city centre is a good replacement for our old local The Big Slope. We knew it was a great bar, but we didn’t realise just how perfect it was until we moved away.

While we have visited several fine establishments in the local area we just haven’t had that feeling of finding the one. So on a recent visit to The Horseshoe last week we got to talking about what would make the best local, and we decided that we needed to get some sort of score card, get these printed out then start to visit some different places and see how they each placed on our hunt for a Jamhot local.

We’ll keep all you eager readers (whoever that is, probably no one at all) up to date with our progress. And we might open up the pub trips to others to come and help us out with the scoring, that’s if we remember - as we usually only decide to do last min - we did invite one of our suppliers (Innes... although his real name is actually Cosmo!!!) for a Guinness with Inness and he accepted. We shall report back. 

That’s about it for now… we’re off to plan some Scottish island visits for one of the projects we’re working on. 

Cheers, Jamhot x