now is the splinter of our discotheque

A very lovely mailer. Three A2 posters from Jim (one of the nice men of 26), designed by Elmwood.

new matterbox arrives

Matterbox arrives from james_h on Vimeo. My new Matterbox arrived on Saturday. I loved the look of the first one, so signed up straight away to receive them. My verdict? It's not as fun as the first. There's nothing like a Wii sweatband or a pack of crayons that turn out to be soap, and it's almost just a collection of free samples. That said, a couple of playful bits were interesting. The roaring fire DVD that promoted Pimm's Baileys, Bell's and Gordon's winter recipes captured a bit of seasonal spirit. The other bit was of Cadbury's cranberry and granola Dairy Milk, which was elevated above the basic sample by a business card that points you to this digital toy, where you get to create your own taste combination.

and another thing

It's been ages since I've found any DM that really moves me, so I was delighted to discover this by Mike, showing how it's perfectly acceptable to start a sentence with the word "And". Bee-yoo-ti-ful.

stuff that matters

Came across this in the creative/advertising/design blogs last week. Matter is a new experiment in direct mail from the nice people at Artomatic and Royal Mail to: "create a vehicle for the creation of real, physical objects that communicate ideas and feelings and that people feel good when they get them." Looks like they are doing just that too, with a little vinyl figure for Sony Erickson, a Nintendo Wii sweatband and other fun stuff. If only more brands thought about DM this way; as a tactile way of talking about their stories and values, creating more emotional investment rather than simply as a way of eliciting a direct response on a product. There's a nice mixture of journey/exploration stuff and instant hits too. There's also something interesting about the combination of brands in there... It's DM to look forward to - I just wonder if there might be a shelf-life on it from the consumer's point of view - I didn't get to the site in time to receive their pilot box, but signed myself up to receive the first proper one later this summer, so I guess I'll find out then.