Empire & Love is the second album by The Imagined Village, a veritable super-group of the UK's most revered and successful folk legends. The brain-child of Simon Emmerson, the driving force behind the AfroCelt Sound System, The Imagined Village is an evolving project, and on this new album, which gets a cover and visual campaign courtesy of Mark Higenbottam at Stylorouge, the stars are members of the famous Carthy/Waterson clan, Martin and Eliza Carthy, Andy Gangadeen, Barney Morse-Brown, Sheema Mukherjee, Simon Richmond, Johnny Kalsi, Ali Friend, Chris Wood and Simon Emmerson himself. Illustrations are also by Mark, and Viv Dykes.
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Ten years after its initial release, Kula Shaker's album Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts has its second coming; this time in a special format and including extra tracks. Re-mastered packaging has been handled at Stylorouge by Aaron Munday. The re-release of the album will be supported by the re-emergence of the documentary, Cowboys & Indians produced by Stylorouge for Channel 4 at the time of the album's original issue in 1999. The original Stylorouge promo clip for the track Sound Of Drums which accompanied the album has also been dusted off for this momentous re-issue.
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Stylorouge have been commissioned to create a campaign for a new community health initiative being sponsored by Coca Cola. A potential nationwide initiative to improve the health of NHS staff is kicking off at the Homerton Hospital in January inviting staff to take part in a huge range of activities including cycling, football and cricket and there will also be an onsite lifestyle co-ordinator keeping an eye on things! Design for Stylorouge by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen.
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One of the surprise music-related success stories in the lead up to the Christmas season is Words For You, a hybrid of poetry and popular classical music, that has taken the charts my storm. Stylorouge have created the brand and packaging for the album, which combines the poetry of W.B. Yeats, William Shakespeare and Lord Byron with the speaking voices of Joanna Lumley, Martin Shaw Alison Steadman and the music of Vivaldi, Beethoven and Mozart + many more. Released by Island in November, the design was by Sharon Chai, with illustration by Katharina Asher.
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The UK design industry's foremost and most active trade body, DBA (The Design Business Association) held a two-day event on December 9th and 10th in London, called The Edge, which aimed to investigate the element of risk-taking in design and it's effect on success. Odd then, that one of the "pioneer" guests invited to partake in the various forums is our own creative director Rob O'Connor, who considers that the biggest risk he's ever taken in his time is to buy digestives instead of Jaffa Cakes for a client meeting. Among the other special guests at the Edge were: Erik Speikermann, Malcolm Garrett, Morag Myerscough, Oliverio Toscani, Mary Lewis, Julian House and Nic Roope. One of the highlights of the event was an inspiring talk by the highly esteemed product designer Richard Seymour.

View short interview video clips with Malcolm Garrett and Rob O'Connor here.

The Stereophonics endorse the enduring British stiff upper lip by adopting the world war 2 poster motto, Keep Calm And Carry On as the title for their forthcoming album, which hits the market on November 16th. Stylorouge were appointed to create the packaging for the album which is already enjoying justifiable pre-release attention at Radio One. Shot on location on the Sussex coast, the photos for the campaign were by Søren Solkaer Starbird, with art direction by Tom Bird, Mikkel Lundsager Hansen and Sarah Foley.
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With a new album nearing completion, Kula Shaker have commissioned Stylorouge to create a new website, to serve their worldwide fanbase that continues to grow. Some 15 years since they first arrived on the scene, (as the hippiest most psychedlically charged band on the late BritPop scene), the band are planning a busy 2010, and wanted a simple, online community-biased site to keep their loyal fans busy and enlightened.
Design and build for Stylorouge by Michele Rossi, Daniele Massaiu and Aaron Munday.
> view website

The UK's premier folk/roots act Show Of Hands release their first studio album in three years next month, a collection of mainly new songs by front-man songwriter Steve Knightley. Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed is deemed by the band as their best work ever, and covers territory somewhat darker than the typical Show Of Hands fare, with the title track tackling the painfully topical subject of avarice and incompetence that prompted the current global economic meltdown.
The sleeve for the new album has been designed and illustrated by Mark Higenbottam for Stylorouge. Photographs by Rob O'Connor.
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Playing to your strengths has definitely paid off for our client Day One Productions. A few years ago, director Maria Brosnan created a product to keep her own little tot fascinated (and more importantly quiet) – Babies Love Babies was something of a DVD experiment which documented the behaviour of... babies. Bouyed by the success of this project she turned to the production of another video-based project: a series of story-telling programmes aimed at primary age kids, which have been pounced on enthusiastically by education authorities across the UK. The Story Spinner DVD series required a website worthy of it's growing reputation, and Day One approached Stylorouge to provide them with one.
Designed and built by Michele Rossi, Mikkel Lundsager Hansen and Daniele Massiau, the site provides a comprehensive and entertaining business-to-business overview of the product, including programme sample clips, reviews and video testimonials.

http://www.thestoryspinner.co.uk

"The Climate Clinic now enters its 4th year as the hub for environmental thinking at party conferences, but never before has climate change been so urgently visible in the political landscape". So reads the Climate Clinic's website as the party conference season gets into full swing again. In December, just weeks after the conference season ends we will see UN climate change talks open in Copenhagen. These crucial talks are designed to thrash out a new global climate change agreement, setting out the international pathway to take the world beyond the Kyoto Protocol.
Stylorouge are proud to be involved in the work of the Climate Clinic, whose member organizations include Greenpeace, WWF (World Wildlife Fund), Friends Of The Earth and the Fairtrade Foundation. The campaign for the Climate Clinic's activities in Brighton, Bournemouth and Manchester has again been handled by Stylorouge, with design and photographic content supplied by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen and Michele Rossi. www.climateclinic.org

'As Day Follows Night' is the third album from Sydney-sider songstress Sarah Blasko. Produced in Stockholm by Bjorn Yttling (Peter Bjorn and John), her songs on love, loss and retribution are imbued with an old vintage sound spliced up with a modern twist.
The album is available on 4 formats, including vinyl, deluxe & the special super deluxe version, limited to 1000 copies worldwide featuring magic ink reveal cards & numbered & signed by Ms Blasko herself... Design for Stylorouge is by Sharon Chai with photography by Christopher Morris.
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8 years on, 7 Worlds Collide once again. Over a 3 week period, Neil Finn brought together the star-studded stellar cast, including Radiohead's Phil Selway & Ed O'Brien, KT Tunstall, Wilco and Johnny Marr to his studios in Auckland.
The end result is 24 brand new tracks, with proceeds from the album 'The Sun Came Out' going towards Oxfam.
Phil Selway comes up from behind the drums and we see him complete with microphone and acoustic guitar on 'The Ties that Bind Us'. KT Tunstall interrupts her honeymoon to join in. A family friendly event, also sees the families of Johnny Marr, Jeff Tweedy and the complete Finn clan contribute. Again Sharon Chai was in charge of the design at Stylorouge with photography by Daryl Ward & Tony Nyberg.
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Sharon Corr is well on the way to launching her solo career – at the time of writing she is recording a new album featuring a mixture of self-penned songs and covers and is about to release her first solo single, It's Not A Dream.
She's been using the summer festival season to showcase her new material as well as dusting off some of her compositions that became Corrs favourites during the band's ongoing 15 year career.
Stylorouge have been working on the sleeves, video and a website for Sharon; the first results to see the light of day being parts 1 and 2 of a sequential documentary EPK, which is being regularly uploaded to the holding pages of her website, (whilst it is being luxuriously refurbished)!
Barry MacCall took the photographs for the campaign, and art direction was by Rob O'Connor and Aaron Munday; design by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen. The documentary and performance clips were shot on location at the isle Of Wight Festival and at recording sessions at Dublin's Windmill Lane Studios, where Ciaran Tanham was director of photography.
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Watch the EPK at Sharon's new look website: www.sharoncorr.com

If there were a design influence equivalent of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Barney Bubbles would be way up at the top of Rob O'Connor's list. Definitely not alone here, Rob constantly quotes jobs by the long departed Bubbles in creative meetings and thanks to Paul Gorman, author of the long overdue hardback document of his prolific and arcane output, Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Design of Barney Bubbles, Rob has had the chance to see some of his thoughts on Barney published, on the web at least.
Since the successful launch of the book at the end of 2008, Paul has maintained a fine blog about the much-missed Barney (real name Colin Fulcher), whose work for Elvis Costello, Hawkwind, The Damned etc should have made him a household name in both design and music circles, but amazingly, his modesty prevented him from crediting his record sleeve work.
An interview with Rob O'Connor appears on Paul's blog at: http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/1084

Recalling the news item from February, Revolutions is the exhibition dedicated to the history of music packaging 'from gatefold to download' which ran throughout March and April at Barnsley's The Gallery@ The Civic.
The show included a series of interviews with those whose work has been included, Stylorouge creative director Rob O'Connor being one of them. His interview can be seen here
O'Connor gets another web-telly interview role as part of the 'related video' item for Sarah Brightman's Winter Symphony album page on Amazon. (Jonathon Ross's Friday night job is clearly safe).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Symphony-Sarah-Brightman/dp/B001H3M4VW/ref=pd_sim_m_h__4

Japan's coolest creative magazine Design Notes features Stylorouge in its forthcoming September issue as part of a look at the current design scene in the UK. Based on two visits by journalist Ryoko Mutasono and photographer Taka to Stylorouge's Shoreditch studio, the article gives an overview of our work and our approach to cross-media creative direction, which will presumably be of more interest to Japanese speaking readers than those who are just happy looking at the pictures!
www.design-note.jp/

A new book is in production which celebrates the singles bags of the late 1970's and 1980's. Partly driven by a passion for the imagery and partly by the 12 inch remix music culture of the time, You Spin Me Round will be published in Europe and the USA by Plexus UK later this year. The author, Matthew Chojnacki, has made a personal selection of favourite releases and has already undertaken interviews with over 100 of the artists and designers involved to add anecdotal and insightful comment to the pictures.
A motley selection of oddities from the Stylorouge archive have been pulled out for inclusion; Johnny Hates Jazz's Shattered Dreams, Calling All The Heroes by It Bites and the 12 inch 'Info Psycho' remix of Jesus Jones' Info Freako

To add to our current Blur merch range we have created the official Blur tour program. It contains a range of old and new Paul Postle images, intro from former Essex boy Steve Lamacq, an article written by our old friend Martin 'fan club' Hayward, full discography, accompanied by stats and reviews from it's release, articles from fans re-living their memories of gigs in the 90's and a truly fantastic piece of information design in the form of a tube map. Each stop is dedicated to one of the 850+ blur gigs in their 20 year history.
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Since the Hyde park gig was annouced to the world back in January; Blur have continued to add more and more dates to the list. Since our 2009 retired grey hound was at the centre of it all we were called in by merchandise company De-lux to produce a range of new and retro blur tshirts and other goodies. Members of the Stylorouge team have managed to catch them live 4 times already this year! It's quite clear that "They love a bit of it!"
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To celebrate the realese of the Japanese movie Amalfi we created the packaging for Sarah Brightman sound track, Amalfi, Love Songs. The movie, features an appearance and performance by Sarah, and is a special production marking Fuji Television's 50th anniversary. The first Japanese movie to be shot entirely on location in Italy. Both movie and accompanying love songs cd will be released in Japan in July.
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Introducing the charismatic Livan. The resolute rocker from from Greece with his steely gaze on the american market. Stylorouge were commissioned to support this exciting project with an all in campaign including Web, Album artwork & promotional videos... Long live the king!
Website designed and built at Stylorouge by Aaron Munday, Michele Rossi and Daniele Massaiu utilizing images from Rob O'Connor's photoshoot with Livan, the band's vocalist frontman and songwriter, and still life images made by Aaron.
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Rehearsal performances of several of the songs to appear on the album were filmed by Stylorouge for inclusion on the website.
www.livan.co.uk

Today Broken Records eagerly awaited debut album, Until the Earth Begins to Part, was released on 4AD. So far reviews of this album indicate that this is not one to be missed! “Full of originality and promise” “Wonderfully vibrant and inventive songs” says NME. "Thrillingly Victorious" says the Guardian. Artwork and illustration was created by Sarah Foley. Available in special edition digi pack with pull out poster and 12" gatefold. To buy this album from the 4AD shop click here

The celebrations kick-off in earnest for Island Records 50th Anniversary on 20th May, when the first event will be the opening of a retrospective exhibition of the images that have accompanied the record company's various successes since its inception in 1959. Photography and artwork of artists from Traffic to Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley to Grace Jones can be seen at the gallery at Phonica, the music store in the heart of London's Soho. The following weeks will see the various other Island-related activities, including the publication of the previously mentioned hardback book, the Island Life week of gigs at Shepherds Bush Empire and the re-release of 50 of Island's classic albums. A print campaign and a publication cataloguing all the details of the celebrations have been designed by Mark Higenbottam for Stylorouge. Signage for the exhibition has been designed by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen.

At the tail end of 2008, Music journals and national newspapers alike were queuing up to cite the band Broken Records as one of their tips for success in 2009. So far this year they have had 1st class ratings, including 5/5 from The Guardian. From Monday 11th May, the world at large will be better placed to discover why – Until The Earth Begins To Part will be released as their first single on 4AD. They plan to follow up the single with the release of the album (of the same name) on the 1st June. Anyone not yet aware of the band's music, but who are intrigued by a rock band that incorporates cello, trumpet, violin, accordian and ukelele in their line-up should investigate them online at www.myspace.com/brokenrecordsedinburgh or www.brokenrecordsband.com. Design and illustration for Stylorouge is by Sarah Foley.

Eighteen months after the release of Ali Campbell's first post-UB40 solo album Running Free, he prepares for the release of Flying High, another collection of original songs and covers which again features duets with a diverse array of guests, but this time with a strong international flavour. Jamaica's LadySaw, South Africa's Danny K, German reggae star Gentleman, and the UK's Sway and Craig David are all featured on the new album, which gets a Stylorouge media campaign to accompany it's release. EPK, packaging design and a TV campaign will be rolled in the forthcoming few weeks, with design for Stylorouge by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen and video by Rob O'Connor and Jamie Gibson. Watch a short clip of Ali in the recording studio

Greenpeace, WaterAid and Oxfam jointly sponsor the annual Glastonbury Festival with support from the Guardian Newspaper, and in the lead-up to this years festival have commissioned Stylorouge to produce press ads and a micro-site to promote their ongoing involvement in this most successful and enduring of UK live music and culture events. With the offer of free tickets up for grabs, the alliance of NGO's wated the campaign to promote traffic to their respective websites, in a consciousness-raising bid to make would-be festival-goers aware of some of the issues that continue to concern Greenpeace, WaterAid and Oxfam, even with specific reference to festivals themselves (do you know how many tents are abandoned on Worthy Farm each year?!). The campaign was designed by Sarah Foley and Mark Higenbottam with illustration by Migy.

Brett Turnbull's credits as a director of photography read like a who's who of the history of '80's, '90's and noughties music. Beginning his career in music as a member of hardcore agit-punk band Test Department, he moved into film as a director of pop promos in the 1980's, but is better know now as one of our top lighting cameramen and a DOP (director of photography) for TV advertising, documentaries and, of course, music videos. With such a wealth of visual material to present, he approached Stylorouge to design and build a robust website that could successfully host his extensive archive of video clips and reflect his history of working with film, as well as making it compatible to the iPhone generation. Design is by Mark Higenbottam and programming for Stylorouge by Daniele Massaiu.
Check out Brett's work at www.brett-turnbull.com

Stylorouge were recognized by Cancer Research UK yesterday (28th April) for our contribution to Sound & Vision, the annual music auction fundraiser, for which we have designed the identity and marketing materials since it started in 2006.
At a swish bash hosted by Gaby Roslin (off the telly) at London's Lloyds Building, Stylorouge picked up the award for Best Corporate Supporter of An Event. Our thanks to them, the judges, and also to McFaul and James Moriarty who have both collaborated with us and given their own skills during these four years of charitable endeavour. We're already looking forward to February 2010...

Another ingenius way to raise funds for the cash-strapped art education sector... Thinking outside the box, Ravensbourne College have organized a silent auction of 'found objects' which have been customised by the Graphic Design and Moving Image departments' "favourite designers". Reassuringly, Stylorouge are among the esteemed list, (that also includes Milton Glaser, Jonathon Barnbrook, Paula Scher, Airside, David Carson, Research Studios and Bo Lundberg). The auction takes place on Thursday 30th April at The Vibe Bar in East London's Brick Lane.

Beckett Solicitors is a law firm comprised of female professionals, and they wanted a website to reflect the caring, personable nature of their service as well as emphasising their experience and professionalism. Stylorouge have created a very compact site for the company, which specializes in family, property and financial disputes. Design and Build for Stylorouge by Michele Rossi and Daniele Massaui. www.beckett-solicitors.co.uk

London's Design Museum will be mounting an exhibition to run from 03 June – 04 October "to celebrate the fearlessly progressive spirit of London's greatest creative minds, past and present" The Design Museum's press release continues: "the exhibition will illustrate London's pursuit of new, better and braver, across architecture, industrial design, graphics, fashion and communications alike" Among the exhibits will be Stylorouge's original poster design for the cult British movie Trainspotting. The recognition heaped on the poster since 1995 has been remarkable – it will also appear in a new book written by Art & Design journalist, and former director of Intro, Adrian Shaughnessy. His book, User Manual, looks at the working process behind a variety of well-known designs. Art direction and design was by Mark Blamire and Rob O'Connor. Photography by Lorenzo Agius. For further details of the Design Museum's Super Contemporary Exhibition go to www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2009/supercontemporary

One of the great success stories of the british music industry is Island Records, which has grown from a home-grown importer of Jamaican bluebeat and ska to the career-developing major-player that it is now, giving us U2, Tom Waits, Amy Winehouse, Cat Stevens, Traffic and Bob Marley along the way.
Keep On Running – The Story Of Island Records is a 224 page hardback journey through those five decades, in words (articles by associated Island luminaries) and pictures (historic photos and iconic record sleeve artwork). Edited by the author of the definitive Clash biography, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, Chris Salewicz, the book has been designed at Stylorouge by Mikkel Lundsager Hansen. Due for publication in May.

To coincide with the anniversary of one of the UK's best-loved record labels, a host of current and former Island Records acts have been booked into a week of gigs at London's Shepherds Bush Empire, with some imaginatively year-spanning billings. Psychedelic pop-rock innovators Spooky Tooth will share the stage with 'Victor Meldrew with a tan', Paul Weller (Noel Gallagher's description, not ours), and Amy Winehouse will be supported by Reggae superstars Toots & The Maytals, whose 30 year old hit Monkey Man has previously been given the Winehouse treatment on stage.
Advertising for the event has been designed by Stylorouge, with illustrated typography by Job Wouters.
The full details of the show can be found at: http://www.island50.com/diary

...is apparently Future Disco, a new compilation of LCD Sound System-generation dance-floor grooves due for release on March 23rd, with suitably fuschia-tinged packaging by Stylorouge. The collection features floorfillers of the moment; Chaz Jankel - Get Myself Together (Hercules & Love Affair Herc Bump Mix), Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Re-animation), Friendly Fires - Paris (Aeroplane remix).
Sarah Foley put on the design glitz for Stylorouge.

Our congratulations go to Morrissey on the chart success of his latest studio album, Years Of Refusal, which was only kept off the top spot in it's first week of release by Brits-inspired sales activity around other recent releases by Lily Allen and Kings Of Leon. The second single to be taken from the album is 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull' and once again, design is by Anthony Lui.

Our long standing relationship with The Climate Clinic, an organization pulling the strings on environmental issues in politics, were the link for us to produce a series of banners for Coca Cola, the world's biggest drinks company. After a concerted effort to position the brand as a healthy drinks company and numerous healthy initiatives, the banners were needed to emphasize the many positive, and perhaps less known, initiatives at the Responsible Marketing Charter as well as other events around the country. Illustrations by Bulletproof.

The Gallery@ The Civic in Barnsley has created a retrospective exhibition based on design for the music industry.
As suggested by the name of the show, REVOLUTIONS: Gatefold To Download documents the history of music 'packaging' from the glory days of the vinyl album to the present day. Stylorouge will be represented in the exhibition with work for George Michael and Blur, and an accompanying documentary featuring interviews with Stylorouge creative director Rob O'Connor among others will constitute part of the show which runs 6 March - 1 May 2009 . For final dates and details see
www.barnsleycivic.co.uk

...and thereby we break a 17 year promise never to make a cheap word-play on the name of one of our favourite bands... but it was irresistible, as Cancer Research UK announced the 4th annual Sound & Vision charity auction on 26th February, and Stylorouge's contribution was a signed print of the memorable images from the band's Modern Life Is Rubbish album.
The now well-established celebrity event took place yet again at Abbey Road Studios, and apart from the auction itself, Paul Weller was amongst the guest performers on a hugely enjoyable and successful fund-raiser for Cancer Research. £200,000 was raised on the night, the Blur print accounting for £1,300. Our thanks to the generous bidder and to the band for agreeing to add their monikers. Illustration by Paul Stephens.

Coventry University's Graphic Design department have established Charge, a series of talks to raise funds for their annual degree shows, and as part of the series they have asked Stylorouge's Rob O'Connor to contribute. Rob, who spent a year at the university (then known as Lanchester Polytechnic) will make the journey back to the West Midlands on March 12th.