Second Draft

This is one of our latest websites to go live and it is for a truly delicious restaurant in Lostwithiel, Cornwall,  Trewithen . We started with the brand, creating a logo, and some elements of illustration, menu backs, business cards and bill holders. Then we came to the website. Trewithen is the perfect balance of first class food with a friendly and personal service. The brand and website needed to reflect their quality, but also the approachable nature of the restaurant. To add to the brand, I drew a selection of forks showing the range of their fine dining, and we settled on a colour palette of silver grey and teal blue. The brand also picks up on the circle shape of a plate which we used throughout.  With the brand in place the next stage was the website. This site is responsive so it will change to fit the format of the device it is viewed on, be that monitor, tablet or mobile. The website is beautiful designed to show off the lovely photog...

You may have seen our 2015 calendar circulating social media or in our latest newsletter. Every year at Pickle Design we like to put together a calendar and present it as a gift for our clients. Over the years this has taken the form of bookmarks, badges, concertina folds, colour wheels and illustrated trees. Last year we created a poster celebrating great 20th century chair design. This year, 2015, held some significance for fans of the movie Back to the Future 2 as this was when Marty Mcfly travelled to in their version of the future. This captured our imaginations so we started to think time travel. 2015 doesn't feel that futuristic (so far) but a few things from the movie have come into being. Take when Marty Mcfly (Micheal J Fox) sees Jaws 19, the reference to countless sequels and movies in 3d is pretty spot on. There is also hand held computers, hands free gaming and video conferencing.  So in the studio we decided to take the theme of time travel and create ...

We recently have been designing quite a few business cards for our clients, this one in particular is for luxury holiday cottages in Polzeath, Mesmear. I love business cards as they are a chance to have a little fun with the brand. In such a small space, bold colour and design can be used to full effect.  With these cards I wanted to make the most of our client's location. Being so close to the sea and great holiday spots on the North Cornish Coast, I thought the best way to communicate this was by drawing a little map. As well showcasing location, the friendly style of illustration speaks of escapism and holiday vibes right from the outset.  The business cards are full colour using soft blues, greens and grey, and for added interest we picked the logo out in blue hot foil. The foil makes the logo shimmer beautifully, just like the sea.  The tone of voice is friendly and inviting with a well-chosen quote setting the scene, The Sunday Times writes "This is as...

Recently we were approached to design a website for an antiques shop in the heart of Wadebridge, Cornwall. The challenge was to create a clean, modern website that was easy to use and navigate, that would be packed full of historic and eclectic pieces of furniture. I wanted to keep the colour palette very simple as there would be so much detail in the products themselves, so created a minimal layout using a soft grey and shades of British Racing Green. I also used period style swirls of illustration to add some flair and creativity to the white website. The Home page has fading images, hinting at the hugeness of the space Victoria Antiques has. Featured products are also included here to encourage viewers to become buyers.  Our client can add and remove  products , and each product has the option of different views that can be browsed. The shop itself is in the centre of Wadebridge selling everything from barometers to bookcases, Georgian chairs to pine dressers. We wa...

We thought you would like to see a brochure we designed for the Wheelhouse. We posted a story about their website in 2012 which you can read here . This friendly guest house has a great location, right on Porthcressa Beach, St Mary's, on The Isles of Scilly. Previously our clients sent out a leaflet to anyone enquiring, but we wanted to create more of an upmarket brochure. We preposed larger sized pages to a standard six page DL, to allow more of a journey, meaning the central spread matched their panoramic views. We printed the brochure on uncoated stock to add texture to the feel, adding quality and really making use of the great photography of their location. There are elements of the website that we carried across, sky blues and boating navy complement the Polaroid style images. We layered the pictures - images of sea views, details of hospitality and pictures of the rooms - to create interest. Phrases from the website were brought in accompanying minimal text, making ...

Having our design studio based in beautiful Cornwall means we often design for accommodation clients. Every cottage, hotel, campsite has its own personality which we really enjoy trying to capture. Clients Lanneves Cottage Holidays approached us to design them a logo and a website to promote their self-catering cottage in Lanivet, the heart of Cornwall. First we designed their logo, capturing the holiday feel. This lovely cottage has been thoughtfully decorated and comes with a private garden and access to vegetable patches and play equipment. We used the hens and chicks to suggest family and illustrated elements, which we picked up on the website, show the country location and homely feel. We used bright bold colours of rosy red, bright Cornish blue and a verdant green. Next was their website. We kept the handmade feel throughout with illustrative touches, bright and beautiful photographs and a contemporary mix of fonts. Using fading images on the Home page to suggest the life...

This week we enjoyed having Carissa in the studio for her work experience, she wrote a little about her time with us: "Hi guys. My name is Carissa, here's a bit about my week at Pickle Design. First of all I don’t think it could have gone better as I am a very nervous person and Carl (although absent most of the time as his wife had twins!) and Emma made me feel very welcome, which made it easy to work and learn from them. When I started I had not use the Apple programming before, so I was introduced to that as well as the programmes I used throughout the week. The programmes I used were InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, all made by Adobe. They each had their difficulties and challenges, but with help from Emma I managed to figure out basic use of them. My first project was to create a logo for a local restaurant that my father owns called “The Granary”, this took the longest as I had to learn all the programmes, but I learned a lot from this. Next, in Photosh...