A few of us from the Brand Union went along to the Design Week Benchmark Awards this week for a bit of branding malarky and some swanky food. We were on the shortlist, and and we were chuffed to bits to get a Commendation for our Vodafone Music project.

If you don’t believe me, here it is:

I think it’s supposed to be a big acrylic letter b.

Anyway, there were some nice things entered by other people, I particularly liked the Scottish National Opera logo by Hat-Trick Design…

…Office Games by The Partners…

…and Water Branding (the image doesn’t do it justice) by Williams Murray Hamm even if it was a bit reminiscent of some things Bryan showed us the other week.

And of course there was Mouse, by Johnson Banks, which we just heard today is going up against Mito in the logos and letterheads category of next year’s Design Week Awards.



I’ll start practising my good loser face.

The best in show went to SOS (Sumatran Orangutan Society) by Hat-Trick again, who did so well overall they should have put their table up on the stage to save time on all that to-ing and fro-ing.

I think I’ve pretty much encapsulated the evening there, for the sake of completeness, the main course was venison, the music was strangely techno, and Rhod Gilbert did the hosting. I’m not sure he was everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed his duvet transaction trauma and his torch with the power of a million candles.

Oh, and our Vodafone work also won a bronze last night at the Eurobest Awards in Stockholm, and the Mito went up on the cool wall on Top Gear (obviously due to the logo). Not a bad week really…