Cherry

Alan Fletcher’s retrospective has travelled not just ‘north of the river’ but to the real North and is now residing in the CUBE gallery, Manchester. Packed to the rafters with some of the most highly regarded design examples of the last fifty years you certainly get your money’s worth at a very northern price of £4.50.

Significant highlights include video interviews with Fletcher as he guides you around the studio he built during a career that saw him help establish not only Fletcher/Forbes/Gill in the 60’s but also Pentagram in the 70’s. This is where some of the best work lies as business cards, letter heads and logotypes from countless projects adorn the walls. This more conventional but certainly no less spectacular work shares space with the playful ‘Fletcherisms’ many remember him for and makes for a jolly good afternoon of inspiring design gazing.

The exhibition runs until 3rd April
See cube.org.uk for details.

Lovely stuff.

Fun was had by all as we enjoyed a little get together with the team at Lonely Planet. The most significant news of the day is that the Cherry Kingpins remain undefeated despite a rather shakey start to the evening’s entertainment. Needless to say the karaoke inspired many moments of hilarity that have been banished to the Cherry archive forever, this way we spare our blushes and more importantly your ears! Well, maybe one clip couldn’t hurt…

Cherry and Lonely Planet show their rage from Sarah Harding on Vimeo.

Having had a great year (despite the doom and gloom still out there) we at Cherry decided to give ourselves a well-earned break to the continent for our AGM. Amsterdam was the destination of choice; it’s a fantastic city with a real passion for design. It’s also a great place to unwind – plenty of canals, wonderful architecture and a welcome lack of speeding motorists (not to mention the extracurricular activities on offer).

On arrival we visited Ewald’s typography studio. It’s a treasure trove for creative types with an interest in typography, we were in our element – we couldn’t resist sharing a few photos…

The experience took everyone back to the heady days of Art School. Perhaps it was this nostalgia that was responsible for the subsequent ’studentesque’ behaviour later in the evening? We’ll never know…

All in all a fantastic time was had, with some fairly sheepish looking faces back in the office on Monday morning.

Here’s the Cherry team looking particularly ghoulish before heading out to the Opal Nera Halloween Ball last week. We were special guests of our friends at Inspirit, who exclusively distribute Opal Nera in the UK. In case it’s not obvious; Graham, Mark and Adrian went as the menacing Droogs from cult classic ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Sarah took to the skies on her broom as a wicked witch and Tom, er, well we can only assume he was involved in some kind of horrific construction accident! Needless to say, the morning after we all felt like we’d been involved in some kind of horrific accident…

The world truly is a crazy place… can you imagine spending $15,000 (£9,200) on the hair of a dead person (even the King’s). Someone obviously isn’t feeling the credit crunch!

Last week we were special guests of our friends at Lonely Planet in their London office’s first ‘Hack Day’. Inspired by the practise first used by Yahoo, the whole team at Lonely Planet was briefed to down their usual work schedule in order to ‘mass brainstorm’. The overall goal being to come up with improvements to their flagship range of Country and Regional Guidebooks.

Our job was to help the team develop and mock up their ideas for presentation to the rest of the company at the end of the 24hr session. With prizes at stake, the pressure was on!
The whole gamut of ideas came out, from the common-sense all the way through to the weird and wonderful. We made lots of new friends and got to eat pizza and drink beer, whilst doing design work. What could be better than that? At the end of it all, to paraphrase the immortal Pat Sharpe, ‘prizes were won and we had a whole lotta fun!’ Now we can’t wait to see the all new, improved Guidebooks.

We’ve been lucky enough to have artist Tinsel Edwards at Cherry recently on work placement. Not only has she been doing some great work here, but she’s been dragging us along to gallery openings and upping our cool credentials by quite a bit.

And we think her piece above sums up the Cherry philosophy nicely!

Have a look at some more of Tinsel’s work here on the Stella Dore website.

The long-awaited inaugaral Cherry Kingpins Bowl and Booze evening kicked off – or rolled off, rather – last Friday night at the superb All-Star Lanes, downstairs from our studio in The Old Truman Brewery. The gauntlet thrown down late last year by Cherry was picked up by rival agency Display Digital, who talked the talk in the build-up, but looked decidedly sluggish on the evening due to a pre-match curry down Brick Lane.

Cherry, however, opted for a far superior warm-up routine. Two bottles of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout (10.1% by volume!) gave our elite team a Ready Brek-style glow. What maniac decided to combine beer and chocolate to send our pleasure sensors into overdrive?

Display got off to a flyer, however, with their man-machine ‘Magic’ Mark Hanlon scattering the skittles with a succession of strikes. Their second man, Steve ‘Lemonade’ Levin, put in a steady performance, while their secret weapon bringing up the rear, a man known only as ‘The Apprentice’, found the only ball fitted with a gutter-magnet.

Class began to shine through though, as a black sambuca topup gave Cherry the imputus to grind out results in the crucial ‘last third’ of the game.

A late volley of strikes from Mark Hanlon almost nicked it at the death, but Cherry held on to secure a famous 317–288 point victory.

The Display Digital boys put on a competitive show with Mark Hanlon, coming out as the highest scoring individual, but at the end of the day the team effort from Cherry ensured the glory was theirs!

A highly enjoyable evening was had by all, with bowling itself coming out as the real winner.

Keep your eye on the scores as a trophy will be presented to the highest scoring team at the end of the year. If you haven’t done so already, get your team together and drop us an email if you think you have what it takes to win!

There’s been a real renaissance in the art of the hand-made here in London recently. Just walk around Spitalfields Market in the run-up to Christmas and you’ll be presented with dozens of independent traders lovingly sewing, knitting and stitching an array toys and gifts for shoppers looking for one-off pieces with a little more substance than the usual mass-produced stuff available on the high street. It’s good to see.

Those wanting more should head to Bust Magazine’s Christmas Craftacular – until now confined to New York and LA, this year the indie craft extravaganza comes to London. Happening on 6th December right next to Euston Station, it promises drinks, DJs and classes on making your own gifts. Perfect if the Credit Crunch is hindering your Xmas shopping.

For those unable to make it, there’s Etsy, a wonderful site with over 100,000 independent sellers offering handmade goods ranging from original illustrations to dancing robots. Coming over like a more wholesome eBay, it makes Oxford Street seem very unappealing indeed.

To celebrate the opening of All Star Lanes in The Old Truman Brewery here on Brick Lane, we’re holding regular Cherry Kingpins events throughout 2009, starting in January.

The rules are simple. Cherry Kingpins (an elite Cherry bowling/drinking team) extend an invite to all our clients and friends to come down and challenge us. You’ll need a team of four (no ringers please), and be able to bowl with one hand while holding a Zombie in the other.

Want to take part? Drop us an email or give us a call, and we’ll take on your challenge at the next available Cherry Kingpins night. We can accommodate one team per night, so get in quick.

Keep an eye out for updates and scores as the year progresses.