Hasta La Ideas

Artomatic and Clinic were briefed to create business cards for MarketReach, the Royal Mail’s new specialist direct mail media service.Their solution: to create a bespoke card for each member of the team based on their personality…

“Our brief was to create a set of business cards that would break the ice for MarketReach’s media consultants meeting new clients with a new proposition in a market that’s so often fixated by all things digital,” explains Artomatic’s Tim Milne who produced the set of cards.

“Our insight was that people buy people,” Milne continues, explaining that the idea was to make each business card personal to the person whose details adorned it. “I asked each consultant what brought them joy,” he says, “in order to identify a physical object that represented their passion and a material that we could use to reference that in business card form.”

Artomatic has now produced all the business cards, all of which are different. Gig-loving Louise Murphy’s card (above) represents her love of live gigs. Wine-loving Stephen Paterson, meanwhile, is the proud owner of a set of cork business cards:

“The corporate graphic design (by Clinic) talks about the robustness of MarketReach, while the materials speak with a completely different voice about the personality of the consultant,” says Milne.

“On some of the cards, the connections between the materials and their interests are obvious, others less so, he continues. “But, the objective is to stimulate conversations, so it’s ultimately down to the consultant to explain the connection–with a twinkle in their eye because it’s their passion.”

Above, Jon Skitt is a lover of old music tapes so his cards have been made from clear plastic cassette cases. Below, Cheri Davies lives to travel so her cards are made from the same material that Globetrotter suitcases are made of.

Above, Mike Rowell’s business card folds out to reveal an ordinance survey style map of his favourite trekking spot in Spain. Below, Gordon Doherty’s love of 60s 7″ singles is represented by his cards, all of which are cut from old unwanted 45 singles

Above, it might not be obvious from this image but Rob Wainwright’s cards are actually made from a blue European road sign (he loves road trips), and Stefan Mills card (below) is made from super light titanium to reflect his love of his golf clubs.

Above, Emma Parker loves to shop!

You can see the rest of the cards in the set at artomatic.co.uk.

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CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

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