To celebrate the Society’s 250th Anniversary, I was asked by its committee in 2009 to design and produce a book to commemorate this significant milestone.

So, for the last two years, it has been my pleasure and honour to work with the Secretary and Past Captains of the Society and, in particular, it was a delight to work with Pat Colledge, the book’s author, on what has been another mammoth golf production.

Pat had spent the previous three years researching and writing the Society’s history and finding old cuttings and images, a total of five very active years on this project.

It was on my early suggestion that we decided to publish the book in March 2012, so that we could include all the 250th Anniversary events within the book.  I’m very happy to say that the Society also agreed that we keep the book’s production in Scotland.  So, hot off the press last week at Haddington, each of the Society’s 1,150 members will now receive one of these 280 page, Wibalin bound editions, while a further edition of 50 leather bound issues are available for collectors and buyers.

Obviously a Society of such antiquity and importance – that has moved home from Bruntsfield Links to Musselburgh, then back to Barntongate, Edinburgh – has many stories to tell and I must admit to enjoying many of them over and over again as I designed each page, checked, double checked, made author’s corrections, and final proofed the book (several times).

Thanks also go to Kenneth Grieve, a member, who took many of the photos in the book, GSR Photography, Dundee, who photographed all the trophies and prints, and Margaret Paterson, the Clubmistress, for her patience in typing the entire text in Word for me.

It has been such a privilege to have worked on this most enjoyable project, to enjoy the hospitality of such a wonderful club, and to play its course.  In return, I hope its members enjoy their book.

He and Jane will marry in Lucca, Italy later this year, so ‘an Italian theme with a link to music, theatre, movies’ was the brief.  The red and green colour combo seemed obligatory from the start.  It is fair to say our client turned down a good number of concepts before going for this final design by Aaron.

His dad wasn’t totally useless in this production, however, having been responsible for the selection of paper stock, envelopes and a suitable letterpress printer for the job – 300gsm Conqueror Oyster, Conqueror Contour Oyster, and Windill Printers, Aberdeen respectively – resulting in the invitations having a wonderfully tactile feel.  The labels for the envelopes had to be printed cream to match, and these were all handlettered (then stamped and posted) by yours truly.  All in all, a good team effort.

Anyone out there looking for wedding invitations?  If so, I’ll give you Aaron’s address!

The Menu borrows imagery from the Society’s 250th Anniversary book that I’ve been producing for the last two years.  The 280-page book, written by Pat Colledge, will be published on 30 March 2012.

Admittedly for the first 10 years or so, when Aaron and Simon were growing up, the cards tended to feature them with humorous captions.  The first of these saw the pair of them at our dining table, aged 6 and 3, both bespectacled, ala The Two Ronnies, captioned “It’s a Merry Christmas from me… and it’s a Happy New Year from him!”  Others borrowed from topicality and fads including, among other things, the Ninja Turtles and our ‘new’ Commodore computer (which is still up the attic somewhere).

More recently though, I literally stumbled upon a theme that might last for the foreseeable future – the Madonna and Child.  I happened to produce our 2007 Christmas card using an image of the Madonna and Child, taken in a monastery in Alcobaca, while on holiday in Portugal, but the following year we nearly fell over a pavement sculpture in Monopoli, Italy depicting the same subject.  I snapped it and suddenly we had a theme.

Needless to say our holidays now include a search for Madonna and Child images.  Crakow alone has given me enough images for another eight or nine years!

This year is the 5th in the series.  The image turned up most unexpectedly, not in a church or a chapel, but at an antiques market in Lucca, Italy, in July this year.  There they were, mother and child, sitting on a beautiful antique chair, between a coffee table and chest of drawers, in the shade, out of the heat of the gorgeous Italian sunshine!  Beautiful.

The four previous Christmas Madonnas are shown below.  By a coincidence, the tapestry was hanging in the apartment we rented in Crakow, Poland, while the wooden icon was spotted in a Cracow museum.  Following these are some of the early ones, namely ‘Dots’, ‘Two Ronnies’, ‘Star’, ’E.T.’, ‘Good News’, ‘Red, Red Robin’ and ‘Commodore’.

Merry Christmas to you all.  Have a great 2012.

This year, Elaine and I revisited Pisa during our week’s stay in Lucca and walked around most of the town’s landmarks, bridges, shops and cafes.  The tower was no less impressive this time but unfortunately the t-shirts and souvenirs on the many stalls lining the roadway along to the tower don’t seem to have changed much since ‘88!

It proved to be an excellent base from where we would drive west to the beaches, north into the mountains, west towards Florence and south to visit Pisa and the coast down to Livorno.

Planned as a recce trip ahead of Simon and Jane’s marriage next year, it was a fun-packed, fact-finding week which included visiting the wedding villa and gardens, experiencing an excellent 9-course food and wine sampling from the caterers, and taking in an Elton John concert in the town’s main square.  Of course, we also had to sample much of the local food and wine, then work it off with miles of footwork and cycling.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until our last night that I discovered cafe corretto – coffee with alcohol, sambucca preferably – very more-ish!

Peter Nelson and I were paired against Umberto and Mauro. After quickly going two down, my putter began to work and we won the day by 2 & 1 and our team won 3-1.  Golf was followed by coffees in the Links Clubhouse then later, after watching Andy Murray lose to Nadal in the Wimbledon semi-final, we proceeded to The New Golf Club restaurant for an excellent evening meal and trophy presentation.

On such a lovely warm evening, we then had a stroll over the Swilkan Bridge and the 18th fairway of the Old Course, before saying goodnight to our new friends.

I look forward to the return match in Rome!

Subject matter ranges from photos of friends, college mates, girl friends, locations – including the Fife coast, a distillery, a shipyard and others – objects and things.

In my (limited) spare time, I’ve scanned the negatives on my flat bed Epson (4990 Photo) scanner and have been impressed by Photoshop’s ability to rescue some of the over- and under-exposed negatives, mostly by using Levels.

Below are a small selection. I’ll add to these as I work my way through the folder.

To establish one logo that could be used consistently on all types of packaging and across all media, one that was particularly legible on tartan, I combined several of Walkers key selling elements into the identity – the name ‘Walkers’, of course, in white with a strong gold outline; introduced ‘Product of Scotland’ and ‘Established 1898’; and specified the exact relationship between these elements and the ribbon containing the painting. This arrangement also ensured the consistent positioning of the branding at the top left of all Walkers packaging.

In the 15 years of working with Walkers, over 100 different packs and tins were designed to these guidelines, as well as all their corporate brochures, sales material, livery, worldwide airport signage and magazine advertising.

The idea for a Walkers centenary ‘logo’ lay in my top drawer for about six years before I could use it! Their three best selling shortbreads – finger, highlander and round – combined to spell 100. Tasty!