One man and his 2B

Writer Oliver Wingate has climbed aboard the good ship District. Having worked on a number of projects with Oliver we thought it was time to cement, or at least sticky tape the relationship.  He is a very talented poet, script writer and copywriter.  In 1999 he was shortlisted in the Orange Prize for Screenwriting with an original Screenplay and in 2004 he was nominated for a D&AD in Writing for Design for his work on the Science Museum’s Dana Centre. He recently completed his MA in Writing the Visual at Norwich School of Art and Design. With over 30 years experience in advertising, design and direct mail he will be working with us on all things conceptual and writingy – that reminds me another talent of Oliver’s is to make up words when the dictionary is just not up to the job. Apart from his exceptional experience we came to realise we just clicked creatively and got on so look forward to working with him in the months to come.

Welcome aboard. We have only one request, alright three – no running, diving or heavy petting.

You can’t please all of the people etc

To start our shiny new blog, a story, a Christmas story. A story of our Christmas card or as it turned out book. Bored with discussing the artistic direction to take with this years, or should I now say last years card, we decided to ask everyone we knew:

Christmas – what do you make of it?

We emailed our friends, family, suppliers and clients from Long Beach to Ludlow (honestly The District’s global reach is a constant wonder to us). We plastered our studio windows with graphics posing the question, hanging a pad next to the window for people to scrawl on, we hassled and hounded, we sat back and waited. We were pleasantly suprised.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed, supported, laughed, scribbled and stole our pen. A particuarly big thank you to the Cambridge News (our local rag) who described us as ‘inspirational’ – you are too kind and probably, no definitely misguided.

As with all good yarns there is a twist. On our return to the office after a well earned break we recieved a copy of the said book back in an unmarked envelope, adorning only a slightly dog-eared post-it note which read and I quote ‘Not my idea of cool marketing – returned for recycling’. Ah well, most people seemed to find something enjoyable or interesting about it and no doubt we helped a few wonky tables.

We would love to find out more about what particularly offended the recipient but unfortunately their response was anonymous, hey ho.

If by any chance the person responsible has got drawn into this blog do give us a shout and we can discuss it further, or at the very least remove you from our database so we inflict you no further pain.

Happy New Year.

P.S. If anyone fancies a book, we have a few left so give us a shout.