10:AM Design

Brace yourself folks 😱 It’s happening! Following two years of cancellation, the Cambridge Folk Festival is back in business! 🎻🪕🍻
Absolutely thrilled to be part of the team once more, designing anything and everything it seems 😂✍️, and today finally sees the launch of tickets and first line up!

Lots more to come, but for now just feeling so happy to help bring this bundle of joy back to life 🎪✨

🎟 https://www.cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival/tickets

10:AM is 20

This month marks the 20th anniversary of 10:AM, the design business I founded back in 2001.

This puts me in the uncomfortable position of talking about myself for a moment. As a designer, I am more used to promoting other people and letting the creative do the talking.

However, I am going to take a moment to say that I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. 20 years is a lifetime! I have weathered all kinds of storms, both personally and professionally, and at times it’s not been easy, but there have been constants: my clients, friends and colleagues who have been with me all these years, the fact I love what I do and pour my heart and soul into every design I produce.

Design matters. It’s how we communicate to people, it makes them understand what you’re selling and enabling. It’s more than a pretty picture, a font choice or matching the corporate colours. Good design is thoughtful, passionate, relevant and says more about the brand than a thousand words could. Powerful design moves people to action. That’s why it matters.

What’s more, every piece of work I’ve done – from festivals to financial reports – has been based entirely on recommendations. Knowing that other people appreciate the work I do makes me immensely proud.

Two decades based entirely on recommendation. Wow.

Thank you. And Happy Birthday to me.

If you need creative support or advice on branding and design, drop me a line at: [email protected] or visit https://10-am.co.uk/work

Sometimes the simplest of jobs can be the most satisfying ☺️Wordmark design for the wonderful Cristian & Nicole - an award-winning creative combo producing drool-inducing food photography for cook books, magazines and commercials🤤 Mainly used for their monthly mail outs, the design needed to be clean, crisp and stylish ✨ supporting, not competing with, the imagery on offer.

Really pleased with the results, although a little undecided on the choice of colour ways- what do you think? Any preference?? 🤔

More recent work for the team 🙌 Coventry Moves heralds the start of their year as UK City of Culture, providing a playful and engaging introduction to Coventry, its stories and its people 💛💙

2️⃣For the second part of this project, the team needed a strong suite of icons to represent a number of characteristics - or energies - associated with Coventry. These included Resilience, Sustainability, Youth and Social Justice 🙌

Hugely honoured to work with the team over recent weeks 🙌 Coventry Moves heralds the start of their year as UK City of Culture, providing a playful and engaging introduction to Coventry, its stories and its people 💛💙

1️⃣For the first part of this project, the team needed a strong graphic representation of Coventry, creating a hero image for this opening celebration 🎉 I went slightly snow-blind working on it, but I’m really happy with the strength of the result!🤓 I do love a map!


https://coventry2021.co.uk

N E W W O R K !

A spot of branding and musical merch for The Jacwag to accompany his acoustic musings. The custom picks in particular were great fun to produce - I love how they turned out! 🙌☺️🎼

⚠️Work in progress ✍️ Icon and branding for Nick Harris sports coaching. Plenty more to come! 🏉🏏

Who’s missing their gym??🙋🏼‍♀️😩
Alpha Gym branding 🥋🥊🤼 Alpha Gym martial arts and combat sports. A+g combine to make a strong, fluid icon in one of the most powerful colour combinations you can get 🙌 Icon, full lock up, cards and hoodies so far. More cool stuff to follow...

Help us bring back festivals and live music! 🎻🪕🎹🎸🥁🎺

A series of COVID safety poster designs for the Cambridge Folk Festival. The team have been working incredibly hard to get everyone back safely to Cherry Hinton Hall 🙌This includes encouraging the gig-going community to do their part - ensuring the much-loved festival can return next year. The message and design needed to be friendly, not overly officious but assertive, and very much in keeping with the festival brand.

The live music sector is on its knees right now and deserves every bit of help it can get 🎻

A recently completed Annual Report and Accounts for the wonderful - a charity devoted to tackling loneliness and social isolation in older people. This year has seen their work become more important than ever, with the introduction of a Calling Companions scheme offering support and friendship to a vast number of people throughout the COVID crisis. It’s a real honour to work with such an incredible charity.

Part of a mini campaign for Cambridge Folk Festival, encouraging all to do their part to help bring back festivals and live music 🎻🙌

📣 We want to see your faces again so please keep them covered.

Help us bring back festivals and live music! Please do your part with these simple steps

1. Keep washing your hands more often with soap and warm water

2. Cover your nose and mouth in enclosed areas

3. Make space – stay at least 2 metres apart, or 1 metre with a face covering and other precautions

If you have Covid-19 symptoms (defined as a high temperature, new continuous cough, or loss of taste or smell) you should get tested and self-isolate for 10 days.

Find more info about how to fight the virus and protect yourself gov.uk/coronavirus

🎻 REPLACEMENT FOLK SERVICE 🎻
The weather’s about to heat up again, perfectly timed for this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival. Only...well, you know the story 😔 But WAIT! The event team have put together a wonderful At Home edition, with radio and online performances and activities for families and aficionados alike 🙌 thank folk for that!
To accompany this content, I’ve been busy designing a number of downloadable printed items, including wristbands, programmes, AAA passes and... commemorative posters. 🪕Head over to Cambridge Folk Festival to get stuck in.

Did you know that music festivals support 85,000 jobs? Festival and event design, marketing and merchandise are a huge part of what I do; it’s something I’m passionate about. And so I’m proud to support the campaign to call upon the UK Government to offer support to the live music industry.

90% of grassroots music venues are under threat right now. Please get involved🙏🎙

I’ve just finished this Annual Report and Financial Review for yet another wonderful charity Right To Play 🙌 Their incredible work uses the power of sport and play to protect, educate and empower disadvantaged children across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. They are so dedicated to transforming vulnerable young lives and I’m immensely proud to be able to work with them💛

https://www.facebook.com/RightToPlayUK/

This week marks 10:AM’s 19th birthday! 🎂 In light of this, I’m going to attempt to get a post a day up this week! 😬✍️ Starting here with the recent Annual Report and Financial Review for The Air Ambulance Service who provide an incredible service and, like all charities, deserve our continued support - particularly in such difficult times. Annual reports are significant, hard-working documents to take on, and it was a real pleasure to work for these remarkable life savers who have recently completed their 40,000th mission - a monumental milestone 🙌

Design, marketing and promoting other people? ✔️no problem! Putting my own work out there and showing others what I can do...a completely different matter! 🤦‍♀️To kick myself into some form of post-lockdown action, here’s some pre-lockdown branding I produced for Jem Bahaijoub Consulting . Jem is a wonderful social media strategist, and her Social Never Sleeps mastermind courses help small business owners implement and develop their own social media and content marketing. I really should pay more attention, as she’s most definitely a woman worth listening to 🙌

I’m delighted to be working with the team again who are working so hard to bring on the Big Weekend this year! This time the ‘At Home’ event will be online and on air!👏🍦🥁

Have spent the last week updating my online portfolio ✍️ have a little look around and drop me a line if I can be of any graphicky assistance! ☺️
You can find it at https://10amdesignandletters.myportfolio.com

One of the highlights of this year was working with the wonderful Right To Play UK on their annual report. The charity does incredible work to protect, educate and empower disadvantaged children, transforming young lives through the power of play. I’m so proud to work with the UK team, and we’ve produced some great materials this year, from fundraising event programmes and invites, to big, serious brochures ✍️.

Starting to feel proper Christmassy now, so here’s a festive flashback. Seasonally specific addition to a bespoke range of soap packaging 🛁🎄luvverly bubberly!

A bit of a break from the norm, here! For those who want to release their inner fighter and try MMA - it’s time to get off the couch and into the cage 🥊. Movie-esque poster design for the challenge of a lifetime!

Right To Play’s Race Night! So thrilled to be involved in this fabulous fundraising event. Logo, promotion, and 48pp programme designed by yours truly ✍️.

Renowned Broadcaster, Clare Balding and Right To Play Ambassador, Chemmy Alcott, hosted the inaugural Right To Play Race Night on 6 November at the InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane. With gregarious hosts, a competition for best hat, five thrilling races and sought after prizes - the entertainment all evening was non-stop fun. The inspiring Right To Play film featuring the story of Solange from Rwanda captivated the guests and brought them closer to Right To Play's life-changing work.

BOOM!!💥More event promotion 😃 A series of designs for City Events in Cambridge throughout this year. Tomorrow night it’s the turn of fireworks, funfairs and toffee apples🎠🔥🍭Can’t wait!

Programme design is always such a satisfying job to get stuck into. It’s one of my favourite parts of event marketing and this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival was no exception.

If you haven’t already, please show your support for this brilliant festival by voting for it in the UK Festival Awards 2019. You can vote in two categories: Best Medium Festival and Best Metropolitan Festival 🗳

Time is almost up, so vote here
https://bit.ly/2MBuYgr

Logo design for Volume Four communications. Cards were printed with gold foil for added ooomph!
Chris Gibbs

‘B’ is for Bank Holidays, Bright sunshine ☀️, Branding and... Burwash Larder / Foodhall 😋 a tasty bit of logo design for the foodies amongst you!

In contrast to all that colour - Illustration and book cover design for The Silver Empress by Ed McWatt, an author of historical fiction for young adults.
“Ruth has managed to convey the menace and looming disaster that took me more than 600 words to capture in text. It’s the perfect cover for the book.”