Johnson Banks think it’s a case of sour grapes from MinTat

Alex Maranzano’s letter forces me to set the record straight. In August 1997, Johnson Banks took part in a paid pitch to Yellow Pages concerning the directory re-design. Our presentation could be summarised in two points:

Make it more readable and easier to use

Exploit yellow on the covers

Our presentation included a series of roughs of yellow objects on directory covers. We proposed a new cover for each year, featuring a new yellow object for every new cover.

Simple stuff – you don’t need to be an astro-physicist (or a great mind) to make the link between yellow and rubber ducks.

Johnson Banks was appointed and we immediately began extending this idea using daffodils, lemons, tennis balls and so on. The re-designed directory was test launched in Autumn 1998.

Six months after our first presentation, Minale Tattersfield presented a “yellow objects” route for the sub-brand Talking Pages. Its pitch was unsuccessful, it was paid a rejection fee and now claims that their intellectual copyright has been breached by our designs, presented six months previously.

Work that one out if you can, but the grapes do seem a little sour in Richmond.

Michael Johnson

Johnson Banks

London SW10