Annuallyretentive

January

• Apple unveils its revamped iMac, designed in-house under the direction of Jonathan Ive. It is the first news from Apple in what turns out to be an award-winning year for the company (see May).

• Landor Associates creates the identity for British Midland’s low-cost spin-off BMI Baby, as low-cost airlines continue to dominate the British skies (see February and November).

• Arclight designs a ‘virtual tour’ of the National Air Traffic Services’ new control centre in Swanwick. It’s the smoothest landing for technology at the centre, which is still dogged by computer problems as the year closes.

• Parker Williams repacks 400 Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself products. Later in the month Harrods appoints Lewis Moberly to redesign its own-label packaging, putting an upmarket spin on what has traditionally been seen by retailers as the entry level product range. Own-brand packaging becomes a theme of the year with all the major supermarkets and other retailers updating their offering throughout the coming months (see February, April, August, November).

• FutureBrand hunts for a creative director as Bill Wallsgrove goes to join Big Idea Brand Management. Big Idea hopes to collaborate with groups including FutureBrand, Volcano and Vivid on a series of projects.

February

• James Beveridge, formerly of The Partners, leaves CDT Design just weeks after joining the group. He will re-emerge later in the year with his own consultancy, Brownjohn. CDT doesn’t replace him, saying the ‘experiment’ with an external appointment ‘didn’t work out’ (see November for another partner shift).

• Ethos revamps the brand identity for London’s toy store Hamleys and begins work on the own-brand packaging.

• Dutch-based Marcel Wanders Studio delivers final concepts for Mandarina Duck’s flagship UK store. The retailer is renown for ground-breaking store design but shoppers must wait until September to see Wanders ‘extremely unusual’ concept, which includes a giant, naked ‘man’.

• Basten Greenhill Andrews rides high with two major job announcements – the rebrand of house builder George Wimpey’s three sub-brands and master identity and a six-figure review of brand strategy and identity for the National Employers Liaison Committee, part of the MoD. The work turns out to be one of the group’s last bright spots before its autumn demise.

• Synergy is in court – creating the identity for the Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority, the overseeing body for London’s 38 magistrates courts.

• Creative Design is appointed to refurbish Chiltern Railway’s fleet of trains and design interiors for the company’s new stock.

• Blue Marlin has a corker of a month, rebranding Cadbury Schweppes’ global soft drinks portfolio and identity in a project worth over £500 000 and completing a £150 000 project for Kraft Foods.

• Walkers moves into the ‘adult snack’ market with the launch of Sensations, packaged by Landor Associates and promoted by Gary Lineker and Victoria Beckham.

• Two of the biggest groups hint at a difficult year ahead. Enterprise IG makes 12 staff, including four designers, redundant and FutureBrand implements a global restructure with implications for redundancies across ‘scores’ of jobs.

• Gordons Gin gets a Design Bridge makeover, the first revamp of the brand in 60 years.

March

• DW hears on the grapevine that Brown KSDP will be re-badged as Enterprise IG, a story not officially confirmed by both groups until October.

• Casson Mann walks away with Best of Show in the 2002 Design Week Awards e e for the Design Council’s travelling exhibition Great Expectations.

• Raymond Turner leaves BAA to pursue a ‘broader’ career as an independent consultant.

• JHP and Interbrand are appointed to collaborate on the revamp of up-market supermarket Waitrose’s identity, scheduled for an autumn launch. Interbrand is to create the identity and JHP retail interior signage and graphics.

• Low-cost airline Monarch unveils a Communique-designed identity revamp – worth a £100 000 fee to the consultancy.

• Chocolate lovers find a new-look Mars Bar on shelf – its first update in 14 years – with revamped packaging and identity by Jones Knowles Ritchie.

• The sweet sector gets another make-over as Design Bridge gives Basset sweets icon Bertie Bassett a new look, the first in almost 20 years.

• London Mayor Ken Livingstone announces his support for creative industries with the launch of the Venture Capital Fund, which will invest up to £500 000 in small, London-based businesses.

April

• On-line banks cash in on brand makeovers as they look to ‘mature’ their images – Wolff Olins refreshes the Egg identity and Underground the Brand Laundry reviews Cahoot’s proposition.

• John Sorrell launches his campaign for a London design festival to widespread industry acclaim.

• Corporate Edge updates The Industrial Society brand to the more 21st century-sounding Work Foundation.

• Foundation 33 gets up early to brand Channel 4 breakfast show Rise, the successor to The Big Breakfast.

• Tim Pyne, Brian Shepherd, Marcus Fernandez and Bump gather round to form ‘virtual’ consultancy Table, but redundancies hit Enterprise IG and Fitch as larger groups feel the pinch from the economic slowdown.

• Douglas Cooper announces the end of an era for the design team at John Lewis Partnership – he is to go into semi-retirement in June to set up by himself.

• Packaging designers keep it rolling in – Dew Gibbons gets back to basics on Boots Essentials, Ztwo Design takes the biscuit with the Fabulous Bakin’ Boys and Williams Murray Hamm spices up Phileas Fogg’s globetrotting crisps.

May

• Graphic Thought Facility furnishes Habitat with an identity that will be in the shops by the autumn, though Terence Conran’s return to the mid-market furniture fold before Christmas will raise questions about the group’s performance (see December).

• Checkland Kindleysides rings in Vodafone’s first-ever concept store – in Watford of all places – and struts its funky stuff at Levi’s retail ‘independent’ Cinch in Soho.

• Ex-Conran Design Group creative Sasha Vidakovic flies to Italy to become creative head of Landor Milan.

• Lumsden Design Partnership waltzes off with the retail brief for the Albertina Museum revamp in Vienna, due to open with a song and dance in March 2003.

• The Nest redesigns the on-board shopping brand for British Airways and also updates the in-store communication at furniture giant MFI.

• Studio Myerscough provides the graphics and Gerrard Taylor designs the product range as seating brand Giroflex relaunches in the UK as Orangebox.

• Siegelgale axes four senior staff, including managing director Peter Gilson and creative director Peter Rae.

• Parker Williams drops the tartan-and-castles imagery of Scottish mineral water brand Strathmore as it goes for a more modern packaging look.

• Priestman Goode designs kitchenware products for Boa as it cooks up a mid-price British alternative to European brands like Alessi, meanwhile Turner Duckworth prepares the packaging.

• Apple chief executive Steve Jobs jets in to accept a D&AD Gold award for the Apple iPod and finds time for an exclusive interview with Design Week.

June

• Fitch London, which has experienced more than its share of ups and downs (not to say comings and goings) this year, maps out a suite of identities for Transport for London, as Mayor Ken Livingstone extends the famous London Underground ’roundel’ to other modes of public transport.

• John Mathers quits Fitch to become managing director at Brown KSDP, which will be subsumed into the Enterprise IG network in the autumn. Creative director Steve Haggarty follows him to hook up with Enterprise IG Brand Experience chief executive and former Fitch man John Harrison.

• Wolff Olins comes up with Monday as the name for PwC Consulting, but its days are numbered. Most commentators don’t like Monday’s brand credentials and by the end of the summer it has been dumped by PwC Consulting’s new owner IBM.

• Technology-led product design enjoys its time in the sun, as Kinneir Dufont dials public use interactive phones for Marconi and Therefore pops a secure pill dispenser for GW Pharmaceuticals.

• Spin rebrands Channel 5 to reflect the station’s move away from its ‘football, films and pornography’ scheduling. It is a busy year for TV branding as platforms like Freeview come on screen.

• WPP Group boss Sir Martin Sorrell describes the advertising recession as ‘bath-shaped’ and suggests the economy won’t clamber out until 2004. Meanwhile, Havas scoffs at speculation it is to buy Cordiant Communications Group.

• Malcolm Garrett leaves Arnold Interactive, formerly AMX. Senior creatives becoming ‘lone rangers’ is fast-becoming one of the trends of the year. Nine jobs also go at Landor Associates

• Navy Blue nets the identity job for Royal London Group’s category-challenging insurance brand. The name, it will later transpire, is Bright Grey.

• Pentagram New York and Casson Mann collaborate on the year’s most eye-catching gallery project, the Museum of Sex in New York’s Fifth Avenue. It opens in September. Casson Mann also creates the Crime Against Humanity installation at the Imperial War Museum and the Gallery of Craft and Design at the refurbished Manchester Art Gallery.

July

• Barry Robinson, Royal Mail’s stamp programme director, retires after 25 years at the heart of British stamp design. Over the years he commissioned widely from the art and design community.

• Aukett Europe is appointed to the design the interiors at the new Radisson SAS hotel at Stansted Airport in a project worth a seven-figure sum.

• The Royal College of Art appoints Design Week founding editor Jeremy Myerson as Professor of Design Studies and Roger Coleman as Professor of Inclusive Design. Both are newly created positions.

• The LGS Partnership rebrands the Dartford River Crossing vehicle identification system and all accompanying material, including road signage, in a project worth in the region of £250 000 in design fees to the consultancy.It is the identity’s first review after ten years.

• Harvey Nichols’ fifth-floor restaurant is revamped by Lifschutz Davidson. Lighting design is by Equation Lighting Design.

• Poole Pottery appoints former Wedgwood designer Charlotte Whitfield as design manager. Whitfield is headhunted by Poole’s external design director Frances Sorrell, who is overseeing a rebrand and new direction for the 130-year-old pottery. Ben Kelly for stores and Vince Frost for the identity are also new recruits of Sorrell.

• John McConnell, Boots the Chemists’ external brand guardian for more than 20 years, steps down from his position. The company will have to wait another four months before an appointment is made (see November).

• Mothercare appoints Big Fish as its first brand guardian. The announcement coincides with the troubled retailer’s third profit warning in under a year. The consultancy is to develop brand guidelines to standardise the brand’s presentation across all platforms.

• Smith & Milton designs the packaging and the identity for Sainsbury’s range Perform+Protect, the supermarket’s first cross-category, own-label brand for health and beauty as well as household products.

• Michael Wolff, one of the founding partners of The Fourth Room, leaves the consultancy.The press statement issued says Wolff ‘has been dismissed for gross misconduct. [He] ceases to be an employee and partner at the company, with immediate effect’. The company ceases trading two months later.

• Fitch London makes 15 redundant, as it struggles in difficult market conditions.

• Wells Mackereth finalises the new Pringle interiors for two stores due to open at the end of September in London and in Tokyo. The appointment of the group coincides with the company’s brand revamp and move into the luxury market.

August

• Coley Porter Bell designs graphics, signage and interior concepts for wedding planner Confetti’s flagship store in London’s Tottenham Court Road. It also completes a six-figure revamp of the Strongbow Cider identity, aimed at premium lager drinkers.

• Tim Pyne develops a new affordable housing solution, the mobile M-house, which he plans to launch at 100% Design in September, only to be scuppered by a puncture.

• Jaguar plans to launch a revamped corporate identity and a refreshed retail estate in the autumn, in a major investment designed to reposition the luxury car brand in the global marketplace. The Partners is working on Jaguar’s visual identity and brand strategy, while Fitch London is re-evaluating the company’s retail experience. Both groups were appointed late last year.

• Ian Rowland-Hill steps down as chief executive of the Design Business Association to set up as a consultant. A replacement is due at the end of this year.

• Fitch London associate directors Sue Daun and Shelley Weyman plan to join Enterprise IG Brand Experience in the autumn as design director and associate design director respectively.

• Garrard, the Royal jeweller since 1735, unveils its £1.75m flagship London outlet, with interiors designed by Tom Bartlett of Waldo Works. It follows the brand’s bid to contemporise its image under the creative direction of jewellery designer Jade Jagger.

• Land Design Studio is appointed to create exhibitions at the National Waterfront Museum Swansea, a £31m interactive heritage centre opening in 2005 that celebrates the industrial and seafaring history of Wales. Three months later, Corporate Edge wins a four-way pitch to develop the museum’s name and identity.

• WH Smith hires Philip Ridge to replace Liz Lyons as head of design.

• Somerfield relaunches over 100 own-brand products, including its entire health and beauty range, with packaging designed by Taxi Studio in a project worth more than £100 000 in design fees to the consultancy.

• Sir Martin Sorrell reiterates his warning that global media markets will not recover strongly until 2004, on the back of a 17 per cent fall in WPP’s half-year pre-tax profits.

• Conran & Partners collaborates with food writer and broadcaster Nigella Lawson on a range of kitchenware.

• Roundel seeks final approval for signage and identities for three international Channel Tunnel Rail Link stations, in a project worth in excess of £50 000 to the group.

September

• The design industry get its equivalent of the Turner Prize with the launch of a £25 000 Designer of the Year award by the Design Museum. Open to designers working or born in Britain, the prize will go to e e the person who has ‘made the biggest impact in the preceding calendar year’, according to Design Museum director Alice Rawsthorn.

• Selfridges opens its Manchester store with interiors designed by five groups, Future Systems, Adjaye Associates, Stanton Williams, Vincent Van Duysen and Cibic & Partners.

• Bonadio leaves C21 where he was creative director, but continues to work as a consultant for the group.

• Pentagram plans to open in October its first continental office in Berlin, in a bid to win business in the lucrative East European market and build its credentials in Germany. The Berlin office will be headed by partner Justus Oehler.

• HMV kicks Nipper the dog out of stores in a six-figure signage and graphics overhaul managed by Corsie Naysmith, aiming to harmonise and clarify in-store communication. Work will roll out across HMV’s entire 150-strong estate and is expected to be completed by December 2003.

• Tesco is to roll out a revamped Metro store format, following a successful trial of an Astound-designed pilot at its Canary Wharf store. The new formats will be applied to key urban locations including London’s Oxford Street and roll out to ten-15 stores.

• A £100 000 annual prize for the UK’s most innovative and inspiring museum or gallery is launched by the Gulbenkian Foundation. The inaugural award will go to the ‘exhibition, new gallery, public programme or important new initiative developed during 2002’ that is deemed to have made the most impact on the public.

• Design Council chief executive Andrew Summers is to leave in March 2003 after eight years. An appointment is expected at the end of the year.

• Enterprise IG New York makes eight redundancies from its corporate identity team, including British-born executive creative director Helen Keyes, who goes solo.

October

• Virgin Trains unveils the first of its branded mainline stations, by Fitch London, at Manchester Piccadilly. London Euston is next in line, early next year.

• Brown KSDP is finally absorbed into Enterprise IG and drops its name.

• London Mayor Ken Livingstone announces he is setting up a Creative Industries Commission, designed to recommend creative policy in the capital.

• The Partners creates an identity for diamond brand De Beers’ first foray into the consumer market.

• Pentagram kicks off work on signage for Birmingham’s Bullring retail development – the largest currently underway in Europe – led by partner David Hillman.

• The BBC’s digital channel for young people, BBC3, is unveiled with idents by Lambie-Nairn. The service is scheduled to go on air next February.

• The Medical Research Council unveils a revamped identity, designed by The Workroom, to improve awareness of the council’s role.

• Rodney Fitch executive creative director Gabriel Murray resigns with no immediate plans.

• Design Week’s annual salary survey reveals wage increases for designers outside London have risen twice as much as those in London.

• Ben Sherman opens its first flagship store in London, designed by Caulder Moore, as its seeks to smarten up before next year’s 40th anniversary.

November

• M&K Design founder Paul King quits the consultancy to pursue other interests.

• Another budget airline is launched, Jet2, flying from Leeds/Bradford airport to destinations across Europe. Design and branding is by Poulter Partners.

• The Design Council sets out to raise the profile of design in industry and engage more directly with business with the launch of its Design Demonstrations initiative.

• Former Fitch managing director Giles Marking resurfaces with his own group, Marking Design, staffed by ex-Fitch employees. The group will focus on retail interiors.

• Corporate Edge acquires environmental consultancy C21, and C21 managing director Rebecca Collings becomes a director.

• Long-serving CDT Design director and creative partner Iain Crockart quits the consultancy after 15 years to ‘pursue a career in photography’.

• The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts receives a £95m Government funding boost to extend its Invention and Innovation programme.

• Jon Turner joins Boots the Chemists as creative director, filling the creative vacuum left after the departure of John McConnell during the summer. He joins from Enterprise IG, where he was executive creative director, a position which is assumed by Dave Brown.

• Fitch London, BamberForsyth Fitch and PSD Fitch look set to combine under a single Fitch banner early next year.

• The London Institute, a federation of five London design colleges, unveils a new identity by Imagination, as it seeks to become the UK’s first university of the creative arts.

December

• Design Week exclusively reveals that four UK groups – FutureBrand English and Pockett, Interbrand, The Works and XTV – are pitching for the rebrand of UEFA’s Champions League football tournament.

• Rodney Fitch and Co folds as Fitch himself emerges at Portland Design as a director.

• Imagination is forced to make 15 staff, including four designers and two copywriters, redundant, blaming the ‘continued market slowdown’.

• David Stuart steps down as creative partner at The Partners, ready to take on a part-time role at the consultancy next year, around ‘two or three days a month’. His position will be filled by creative consultant Gillian Thomas.

• Habitat founder Terence Conran makes national headlines as he re-enters the mass furniture market through a deal with furniture manufacturer Christie-Tyler. Content by Conran, pitched as a total living concept, will appear first in January.

• Selfridges’ charismatic chief executive Vittorio Radice grabs more headlines as he is poached by Marks & Spencer for a £1.2m golden hello to head its home division.

• JHP co-founder John Herbert steps down to join his wife Patricia as a non-executive director.

march