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!

The brief stated that the new identity had to be 1) modern, dynamic, innovative, forward looking; 2) professional, businesslike, efficient but sympathetic and caring; 3) closely identified with the Highlands and Islands; 4) in touch with centres of activity and influence in Scotland, UK and internationally; and 5) ozone friendly, environmentally sensitive ie. takes a balanced view of development and conservation. Well, that should be easy then!

Both Scottish Enterprise and its sister organisation in the Highlands and Islands were to launch in 1991. To cut a long story short, we won the pitch with a strong presentation to the board in Inverness, but not before the logo was put out to research to confirm its wider acceptance. It passed with flying colours.

Having had the main HIE logo accepted, we had then to meet with all nine Local Enterprise Companies in the Highlands and Islands to discuss and agree briefs for each of their own individual identities, while keeping them within a ‘unified branding structure’.

So with cases (and golf bags) packed, Richard Gourlay and I ventured northwards to meet with all the local boards. Thankfully, all of them liked our HIE identity and were happy to adopt the ‘family look’. Several months later, and nine presentations later, we rolled out the full identity programme.

For the next few years, Baillie Marshall was responsible for all the design and advertising for HIE, across industrial development, product marketing, training and tourism.

Directly below is the original HIDB logo, our starting point, and for those of you who may be interested in reading the actual brief and understanding my handwritten design rationale and logo development, I also attach these below, along with a small selection of logos presented by other design agencies (but, for obvious reasons, I have omitted their names). These are followed by the independent research results that provided overwhelming public support for our newly created HIE identity.

So what did the other design agencies come up with?

And our solution:

And the positive research:

Today, the HIE logo survives, having only recently been minimally altered after the centralisation of the agency’s activities. You can see this at http://www.avian.co.uk/Marketing/Brand/HIE, but please note that Avian’s text (below) is obviously misleading as “the original brand structure and suite of identities” were all done in 1989/90 (as clearly shown on the brief above) and it was developed by Baillie Marshall (not Avian), nor did the design of the identity involve any creative member currently at Avian. Maybe they should reconsider that particular paragraph.

On leaving, we were amused to spot Harper’s Sandwich Bar & Delicatessen across the road.

Later that day, we ended up walking through Soho and into Chinatown, with its colourful decorations celebrating their new Year of the Rabbit.