“Recently I came to work for Bolland & Lowe for 2 weeks as work experience. These 2 weeks have been enjoyable and fun, and I now feel part of the team. I got to know everyone through making endless amounts of tea and coffee and now know everyone’s name and tea order.

I have learnt how to edit my drawings, improve them and how to use new technology like an Apple Mac. I love using new programmes like Illustrator to bring my drawings to life , as well as making posters, letterheads, stationery and newsletters”.

The renaissance of Liverpool City Centre continues apace, and the next area to have the eye of regeneration cast upon it is the Stanley Street Quarter.

Wanting to give Liverpool’s gay village a stronger identity, Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Vision have turned to Bolland & Lowe to develop a brand concept for the area. We have designed three different options and we’re asking the good people of Liverpool to tell us their favourite.

John Lowe recently joined Liverpool Vision’s Jenny Douglas and Stanley Street Quarter project manager, Paul Amann to announce the three candidates. The winning design will be determined by a Facebook poll conducted on the Stanley Street Quarter’s page and will be key in strengthening the area’s identity.

John said: “The Stanley Quarter brand must have a strong visual identity, helping to drive the area’s community and create ownership of the brand. This is an ideal opportunity for all people, gay or straight, to get involved and give us their views about each of our designs. I have my favourite, but don’t want to influence the voting.”

We visited Cyclopark last week to see how things are shaping up, to say that we were impressed would be an understatement. Opening to coincide with London 2012, Cyclopark will be Europe’s largest cycling venue. We’ve been working with the team behind it from the start and we were lucky enough to be invited down to Kent last week to see how things are shaping up.

We were really impressed to see how quickly things are progressing and the scale of the site really has to be seen to be believed. The BMX track and the mountain bike ‘black run’ look amazing, if a little daunting!

We’ll be working on a number of exciting projects and little surprises in the run up to the full opening of the park next year!

On Friday 7 October between 4pm – 7pm we’re throwing open our studio doors to reveal the inner sanctum of Bolland & Lowe as part of the Liverpool Design Festival’s Design Studios Open Day.

Come along to the launch of illustrator Neil Keating‘s exhibition at the Bolland & Lowe studio, and bring the kids along to his fairytale themed workshop. Chat to designers, clients and printers about their approach to design and marketing with Bolland & Lowe and get tips on working with international licenses and designing for greeting cards specialist Hype Associates. If you’re a graduate who wants to get a taste of a working studio and receive feedback on your creative work then bring along your portfolio for a review with the team, or if you’re a design buff just wanting to have a nose around, then we’d love you to drop in to see us.

Here at Bolland & Lowe we’re proud supporters of Macmillan Cancer Support and were delighted to host our own event as part of the Macmillan World’s Biggest Coffee Morning on 30 September.It was our 5th year hosting a coffee morning and thanks to the goodwill of our generous friends we’re happy to report it was our most successful event so far.

After our contentious (ahem!) defeat in the bake off only a few days earlier we turned to the professionals to provide the goodies on offer, The Quarter, Angels Cupcakes and Cup of Love Bakery kindly donated some of their delicious delicacies for us all to enjoy. A big thank you also goes to illustrator Neil Keating who produced 13 limited edition screen prints (above) especially for us. We still have some left so if you’d like to help a good cause and grab yourself one of the prints then please donate £10 on our Just Giving site and leave us a message with your donation mentioning ‘screen print’.

We’d like to thank everybody who attended the event and those who donated online, so far we’ve raised £475 but hope to tip that over the £500 mark once all the donations are collected.

Our lean, mean baking machines, John, Phil and Barbara went head to head with Helen, Sally and Pauline of Morecrofts in a fight to the death (by chocolate). Both teams had to whip up a cake, a biscuit and a pudding, one of which had to be gluten free, and hope that their efforts passed the taste test of the discerning Can Cook Studio chefs. You could cut the tension with a pallet knife as both teams took to their stations, sieves and whisks at the ready.

All was going well for Bolland & Lowe, we made a good start and even had time to take to Twitter in a gentle attempt to undermine our rivals’ confidence with some social media mind games, then we suffered our first setback. No microwaves meant Phil’s chocolate melting had to go old school, boiling water and a glass bowl forming his makeshift bain marie.

Minutes remained, cakes were carefully freed from their tins, biscuits served up and finishing touches applied. The tension returned as the judges tasted and deliberated, the X-Factor-esque silence before they delivered judgement only heightened the suspense. Despite our valiant efforts Morecrofts were declared the winners of the 2011 Merseyside Macmillan Annual Bake Off (this is the point where that Snow Patrol song usually plays as the director cuts between the jubilant winners and valiant, distraught runners up). We’d like to congratulate Helen, Sally and Pauline, but we’ll be back next year, ready and raring to claim that 2012 title!

As well as being ridiculously talented and creative in the work place, here at Bolland & Lowe our skills extend into the kitchen and we’re dab hands when it comes to rustling up tantalising treats to tickle your sweet toothed taste buds. Ok, maybe we’re exaggerating a little bit but we’re going to give it our all when we take on the might of Morecrofts Solicitors in a baking battle at the Can Cook Studios on 21 September.

We’ll go whisk to whisk to promote Macmillan’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning fundraising event and we’ll be playing our part by hosting our own coffee morning at Bolland & Lowe on 30 September. The 2 teams of 3, John, Phil and Barbara of Bolland & Lowe, and Helen, Pauline and Sally from Morecrofts will have 90 minutes to whip up a cake, pudding and cookie, one of which must be gluten free, before their efforts go before the judging panel of the Can Cook chefs.

We’re very proud to be helping this excellent cause, it’s our 5th year hosting a Bolland & Lowe coffee morning and we’re sure that with your help we can beat last year’s fund-raising total of £315.

Having been raised on the not so mean streets of Merseyside’s suburbia my knowledge of graffiti history is somewhat lacking. Nevertheless, Channel’s 4 excellent Graffiti Wars made for fascinating viewing for somebody whose tagging experience started and finished with exercise book doodling.

Graffiti Wars introduces us to the imposing King Robbo, arguably London’s graffiti godfather, telling the story of his influence on the London scene and his ongoing feud with Bristol’s Banksy. We’re shown how the feud emanated from Banksy’s vandalism of one of King Robbo’s last remaining pieces which ignited a street war of tit for tat retaliation.

There’s no doubt that this feud increased the profile of King Robbo as his work becomes acknowledged in the commercial art world and subsequently leads to his first gallery shows. He is commissioned to paint a silhouette of actress Zoe Kravitz for the promotion of Yelling to the Sky at the Berlin Film Festival and begins to enjoy some of the acclaim that had been long bestowed on his more mainstream nemesis.

The programme also presents the conflict of graffiti styles, from Robbo’s freehand technique to Banksy’s use of stencils. French graffiti artist and pioneer of the stencil use, Blek le Rat is one of the shows contributors and his frustration at the adulation received by Banksy is understandable once you see his work. The similarity between Banksy’s and Blek’s style is inescapable, although the Frenchman’s work predates the Bristolian by at least a decade.

Much like Exit through the Gift Shop, it’s difficult to decide how much of what we’re told is the complete truth, although the animosity between Robbo and Banksy appears genuine. Irrespective of any dramatic license employed, Graffiti Wars is an engrossing documentary that shines a light on one of the most influential art forms of recent decades.

We have recently been appointed to create and help implement a social media strategy for the International Cotton Association (ICA).

The ICA is the world’s leading international cotton trade association and arbitral body. Established in 1841, the ICA has 400+ members and it provides a worldwide service for the international sale, purchase and movement of raw cotton between producers, traders and consumers.

We began by learning more about the ICA – understanding what it does and how it works across the globe, looking at the demographics and where its members are located. We found that, due to the legal nature if the ICA’s work, there would be obvious limitations to what could be shared ‘socially’, which added another dimension to the brief.

Working with the ICA marketing manager we produced a strategy and held a series of workshops to determine the best way to implement it.

We targeted LinkedIn as the main channel, utilising Facebook and Twitter as additional vehicles. During the workshops, we focussed on how the ICA could engage and interact with existing members, attract new members and promote future networking and training events. In addition we identified the use of specific blog posts and guest blogs to influence and demonstrate the ICA’s position as a global industry leader.

Going forward, we will continue to work with the ICA on a longer term strategy to address some of the global barriers to social networking, such as cultural and language differences plus the  restrictions of social networking sites in countries like China – an area where the ICA is looking to develop.

We have been working along side Hype’s creative director, Paula Ford, and the license company based in London and Sweden to create a new range of greeting cards and gift wrap, including poster wraps.

Wanting to preserve the authenticity and the artistic integrity of the Moomin illustrations, these designs are based on the original novels published between 1945 and 1970. The stories are not set in a geographical location or time so they work well on greeting cards and gift wrap regardless of the consumer’s nationality or age. Using themes that are dear to most people, such as friendship, adventure, happiness, longing, curiosity, family and friends, they are just fun designs and beautiful illustrations. Take a look…