It’s our sixth year working on the Shine School Media Awards project and every time we get involved, something fascinating comes out of it that none of us expected.

The Awards programme recognises talented young people from around the UK who produce a school newspaper, magazine, podcast or website. Each summer, nominated students gather at Stationers’ Hall in the City of London for a day of workshops, talks from industry experts and of course an exciting and frequently moving awards ceremony.

Our design job is to create an overall look for each year’s awards including a ‘step and repeat’ backdrop for photos or selfies, a day programme and a forty-plus-page book of the winning and highly-commended students and sponsors’ ads.

Our goal each year is the same – to create a fantastic piece of modern print design.

The Barbican Estate is an internationally recognised Grade II* listed brutalist masterpiece revered by students (young and old) of the genre and most crucially by its residents.

You wouldn’t think such an icon it would be subject to fundamental structural change – but it seems there are no sacred cows when it comes to London’s built environment in 2019. To local dismay, the City of London School for Girls has announced proposals for a significant expansion within the Barbican Estate.

Supporting a grassroots appeal to debate these plans, we have built a new photography library and created materials for the press to give life to this nascent movement. This has unexpectedly turned into a smart little design project – and a great case study of graphic design for campaigns.

Every January, wine importer Maison Marques et Domaines holds a tasting of their new portfolio of wines at a central London venue. With buyers from across the UK attending, MMD hand each visitor a spiral-bound notebook covering all the exhibitors and wines.

Experiencing perhaps dozens of wines in a session, this notebook acts both as each visitor’s guide to the event and reference to the tasting.

We were approached by Maison Marques et Domaines to create a new version of the notebook that felt both considered and professional, giving a fresh look to the piece. Having worked in this industry for many years, it’s a real pleasure to complete this piece and create some new print design for the wine trade.

How best to convey a sense of exclusivity? Whenever designers face the challenge of creating something that stands out, the best way is to define the brand in a distinctive way. That’s great but in a world of aspiration, the fundamental question is… how?

Devising the brochure design for lifestyle management business Thadeus, we quickly realised that they work in a very distinctive way. So designing for them could follow this lead.

A simple way of describing this difference is to say that Thadeus are as likely to be sourcing a pair of limited edition trainers as an Hermès handbag.

There’s a combination of thoroughness with informality and they apply the same vigour to both searches.

Every summer at Stationers’ Hall in the centre of London, there’s a day of creative celebration. The Shine School Media Awards rewards the talent of secondary school students around the UK who are working, sometimes entirely outside their schooldays, to better themselves and forge the path to their future career.

We’ve been a contributor to the Awards programme now for five years, giving our time to this fantastic endeavour.

It’s a great portfolio example of our work when we design for charities.

Over the past few months we have been working with executive search business Fraser Giles Partnership. With extensive expertise with the hospitality, retail, travel and leisure sectors, they spend their days finding the perfect people for the perfect roles.

In fact for this particular design agency, they were the perfect client. It’s as though, enjoying a ‘good fit’ by instinct every day, they just knew. We began our work for Fraser Giles Partnership with a brief for a new website but that proved to be just the starting point for this project rather than the defining parameters.

By the end of our work we will have effectively been rebranding an executive search firm – but in such a way that it enhances rather than departs from where they’ve been.