Towards the end of the morning, Nick asked if I would carry out some research in support of a live brief being undertaken for Bendicks. Armed with £80 I scoured Waitrose on Marylebone High Street and then Selfridges and John Lewis etc for any examples of card packaging that incorporated a warm 'champagne' silver colour. Apparently Bendicks are keen to utilise a colour of this type and Nick wanted examples as points of reference.
Three hours or so later I returned in frustrated mood. At the moment the market divides neatly into gold or steely silver. I managed to find half a dozen examples of the palest gold but even these were too golden. I suggested to Nick that I believed they were breaking new ground.
Julian gave me some pointers for developing the invitation and I worked on that for the rest of the afternoon. He seemed pleased with the final result but as we were about to leave he asked Roger, the creative director, for his approval in preparation for sending it out.
While Roger agreed it was a satisfactory image, he regarded it as very much in keeping with the style of work carried already out for Danone. He suggested using the opportunity to do something a little bit different, to show a degree of greater creativity. Spurred on by his suggestion of sending an invitation that might have a tactile quality that could sit on the recipient's desk, I revealed a further idea that had occurred to me: uniting the ideas of water and a meal in a napkin folded origami style into the form of a boat. Roger saw some merit in this and was further buoyed by Julian's revelation that the meal was planned for The River Cafe. Roger encouraged me to think some more and try to create a kind of 'joined up' concept, i.e. how might the preliminary electronic contact, the physical invitation and events on the evening itself all be related.
