So it’s Wimbledon time again, and as regular readers of the blog will know, as I live just down the road from the epicentre of the madness, so each year I take an extra interest in the promotional activities being undertaken.

No fancy tennis typography at the tube station this year, just a very pedestrian FedEx branding and contrived sentence (‘Live to deliver’ – Really?) accompanies the traditional grass carpet on the platform, but I did come across this from one of my favourite design companies, hat-trick. They’ve only gone and redone the Wimbledon identity…

…what I wouldn’t have given for that job! And as usual they’ve done something lovely with it.

Also Sony have reshot their famous Bravia balls ad in SW19 with, yes, you’ve guessed it – tennis balls. Apparently it’s to do with it all being filmed this year in fancy 3D-o-vision. Anyway, it’s nice, and somewhat weird to see the balls cascading down the streets in my neighbourhood.

So if you follow me on Twitter, prepare for a fortnight of cranky tourist-frustration tweets, and if you’re travelling to the tournament on the tube in rush hour, expect to encounter my tennis elbow.

I live in Southfields, South West London, which is where anyone who’s anyone will tell you is really where the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament is. It’s not actually in Wimbledon you see, it’s down the road from our house which makes Wimbledon fortnight a little bit like Dawn of the Dead, but instead of fighting off hoards of flesh eating zombies, I’m barricading myself in my house to keep out the American bumbag (fanny pack) wearing tourists.

Anyway, I digress. Every year they dress up the local tube station to within an inch of its life, and this year is no exception. Perhaps tourists think this is what every English tube station is like all the time.

This year HSBC has put up the usual tennis regalia, but the reason it’s featuring on this blog is that someone has gone and done some typography…

It’s not going to win a D&AD, but it is appropriate, unnecessary and fun. I like it. And from a bank too…

Now that Andy Murray has been served, please can everyone clear off and let me get to work on time…?

To celebrate the end of Wimbledon and all of the spatially unaware tourists leaving our neighbourhood for another year, I thought I’d post this image of grass photographs by artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, grown by exposing the grass to negative light 12 hours a day for over a week. Lovely.

I guess the Nike Tennis store which was hastily constructed 3 weeks ago and is usually the local video shop will be being converted back to its former glory now, what with the neighbourhood market for tennis whites and racquets collapsing overnight. Rental prices for a burger van sized part of your front lawn have also plummeted… [via]