For the last couple of years I’ve been writing The Memory Stick Adventures. These are our way of making the boring memory stick a bit more fun. For the last few years our sticks have been on a crazy rollercoaster of a journey. The latest set even has a stamp from all the exotic places its visited.

2011

What can I say? They are fun, but tricky to do. You only have so many words that will fit in the space. But I tell you, that stick has had a crazy life… phew, mental really.

2010

If you get one you’re bloody lucky, even those of us who work at Albion struggle to collect them, for they’ll inevitably be worth a fortune on The Antiques Roadshow 2067.

2009

The guys over at Diffusion Media Group asked me to create a new tone of voice for them. I developed a structure that would work through all their companies going forward and then I had a really fun few days just finding and writing their voice. Here’s how it works for The 7th Chamber- their video seeding company…

Here’s part of my presentation…

And here’s how some of the longer copy worked on their website. Please try to ignore the lovely colourful pictures and focus on the words – that’s the bit I did. Like, Share, ROFL.

I worked with Joe Holt on the branding for property website Zoopla. They don’t just show you house listings. They give you everything from local schools, to house price trends, to valuations… Their site is full to the brim with data, but it was mostly hidden and not something they shouted about. We wanted to change that and show how much knowledge they have – so we came up with the notion of integrating live data into their branding – while still having a simple brand that was easy to use.

We created the Zerif for them to own and gave them new fonts, logo and colour ways. The Zerif is used on everything from on-site iconography to map pointers. They are currently implementing the brand.

With Natalie Ranger and Illustrator Camille Bozzini I developed a brand for a new Riviera product. They had a machine that could make custard, but was sitting there unused.

Custard is simple, unflustered. This led us to developing their Custardology, which we made into a little handwritten book and a poster for them.

Once we found custardology we realised all custard needs is a spoon. From there we created Custard & Spoon and developed really exciting integrated ideas. We kick started it by writing tons of simple one-hit stories for the chilled custard lids – each separate lid was a cartoon so they were interchangable.

Here are a few of our stories…

And the chocolate flavour ones

Custard & Spoon are best friends. They spend their days doing things to keep themselves entertained. We often bear witness to brief snapshots of their day as they happen. They live in a simple, realistic world (they would never go into space) where any little thing can be exciting or a bit of an adventure.

Who is Custard?
He’s energetic, inquisitive and a bit slow. He’ll try anything once. He wears his heart on his sleeve and can be cheeky and a bit of a trouble maker. He always thinks he’s right, but he also loves Spoon, as a friend.

Who is Spoon?
He’s sensible, has a tendency to be a bit camp. He’s smarter than Custard but doesn’t gloat about it. He’s a bit geeky and yet more of the older brother. He’s patient and likes to dress up.

The Devil’s in the detail
Now the pot of custard doesn’t actually come with a spoon. So to warn worried parents we thought we’d go over the top and develop a series of unique messages that say Spoon in not actually included. These sat on the 4 packs and on trays of custard.

We developed advertising to introduce them to the mums and we’re looking to make a cartoon series, have a mini-site on Nickelodeon and seed cartoons and games across the internet to get kids excited by the characters and see them as entertainment.

For sampling we have limited edition spoons with eyes and sticky eyes for kids to put on their pots or anywhere else they like.

It may sound dull but all this work researched incredibly. The audience loved it. Mums and kids. One mum even thought that all Riviera do all day is think about Custard.

A logo I developed for a new stock photography industry periodical/blog. Made using, then distorting, 3D software. Then traced in Illustrator. Wow – that’s the geekiest thing I’ve ever written on this site. Boobs! Phew. Think I saved it at the end there.

“In business big round numbers are good”. I helped to develop the new business brand for Skype along with Mike Reid. I developed the strategy “Actions Speak Louder” and direction for this part of the Skype business. Then created a tone of voice and art directed the design, new Skype for business orientated colours and photography with Mike. They needed to speak to their audience in a different way. A more straightforward way. But I wanted them to constantly prove themselves. Showing how they can be integrated into a business.

We then went on and created a Case Study using this new brand style – while Skype applied our brand to their site their site.

As well as developing the script and Art directing the film I worked with Stephen Moynihan on the animations which defined how the new brand style moved. But as the brand was all about getting to what you want to know quickly I developed a special player that enabled the user to jump straight to the topic in the film they were interested in.

Watch the Case study below.

Skype for business from Hinchion & Sons on Vimeo.

Or you can watch the Case Study in it’s chaptered player glory here.

N.B. The VO guy was drinking JD while recording. I think it helps with the voice.

More tone of voice from the brand book:

Atomico an investment company. I developed the strategy “Investing In Disruption” and with Joe Holt rebranded them – creating a brand book, stationary and launching their new website. They are the guys behind the scenes of brands like Skype, Joost, Last.fm, viagogo and FON.

Their portfolio and the huge amount of interesting information each product throws out affects how the branding looks, live. Making the brand ever reflective of what is happening in the world. To put it simply the branding circles change depending on how many people are using FON Spots, the most watched shows on Joost, the extreme weather forecast from Weatherbill, People dating on WooMe… and so on.

Did the design, illustration and branding for Albion Live. An Albion birthday party – but with actual live bands playing. Yeah.

I created the album release for The Feelers Best Of album, along with Matt Gibbins. We knew it was celebrating 10 years of The Feelers so we developed the patch concept to give it a real visual language.

Alongside this, The Rock radio station asked fans to write in with their favourite moments from the last 10 years to help inform the work

The cover opened up into a poster so you could effectively fold it to choose your favourite image.

Each patch is a story from the last 10 years that fans could decipher. It allows us to take the language into singles and posters and merch.

As with all the releases the patch and type was sewn and photographed… oooh.

They’re the no.1 band in New Zealand, and the album has gone Platinum.

This is the first single from The Feelers album The Best 1998-2008. This is where the first patch concept started to come to life. It got a really big response from the band and fans.

The single is a promo book printed on recycled stock and you can also download the song from i-tunes.

The second single from The Feelers was Whoever Said. Again like ‘The Best’ and ‘Beautiful Feeling’ we have a specially made patch. It was a digital release.