Launched today, the Coulson Macleod Gift Pack.

We’ve designed it so it doesn’t look like a last minute pur­chase. Or a ‘I haven’t got a clue what to buy. Oh a voucher will do’.

A Coulson Macleod Gift Pack is more than just a gift voucher. What you’re in fact buy­ing is a little work of art. A Coulson Macleod hand­made work of art. Simple, dis­tressed, typo­graphic… just smal­ler than usual.

We send our Gift Packs in a simple, brown, but utterly gor­geous Coulson Macleod-branded gift box. Made from recycled paper. Of course.

And inside is a unique Coulson Macleod typo­graphic art­work.

• Unique as it’s hand­made from reclaimed Vic­torian roof timbers.
• Unique as it’s white-washed by hand.
• Unique as it’s prin­ted by hand.

Of course, each of these stages brings its own slight variations.

• Each piece of wood has its own knots and cracks.
• Each paint stroke car­ries a dif­fer­ent amount of paint.
• Each hand-inked print is laid on to a dif­fer­ent sur­face tex­ture and a dif­fer­ent amount of pres­sure applied.

Res­ult­ing in a one-off piece of art. Which is what makes own­ing a Coulson Macleod so special.

Then of course we add your Gift Voucher. You can add your own per­sonal message.

Then your spe­cial someone can use their Gift Voucher as pay­ment, or part-payment, for any of the art­work on our website.

Well, that’s your Christ­mas presents sor­ted then!

Related art­icles: Brown Paper Pack­ages Tied Up With String

Hand­made. Hand painted. Reclaimed wood. Dis­tressed typo­graphy.

So very Coulson Macleod. Unique. By design.

Hand­made. Hand painted. Reclaimed wood. Dis­tressed typo­graphy.

So very Coulson Macleod. Unique. By design.

Hand­made. Hand painted. Reclaimed wood. Dis­tressed typography.

So very Coulson Macleod. Unique. By design.

Today is a good day. Why? I hear you cry.

Well folks, we have beaten our sales record. We have sold more prints in August than in any other month in the entire his­tory of Coulson Macleod. And we’ve been up and run­ning for almost eight­een months.

We have a white­board on our office wall. Every time we make a sale we wipe off the old num­ber and write up the new one. I say we, but actu­ally I usu­ally do this, partly because my hand­writ­ing is neater, but mainly because it gives me a huge amount of pleas­ure. Every month we write down how many we’ve sold, whether they’ve been sold via Not On The High Street or through shops or if they’re bespoke and how many came via one of our adverts in Elle Dec­or­a­tion or Livin­getc.

We love our white­board. We quite often catch each other star­ing at it fondly. Because every month the fig­ures go up. And that is super exciting.

And this month, only half way through August I might point out, we’ve notched up the biggest num­ber since our records began. To let you into a secret, we only star­ted record­ing this on the board since Novem­ber, which was when we star­ted selling in ser­i­ous num­bers and the idea of a white­board sprang into our heads.

So ladies and gen­tle­men, tonight we may clink our glasses and say a little toast to our little boom­ing busi­ness that we love so much.

A bit of a strange post today. It’s all about packaging.

Coulson Macleod HQ has been try­ing to buy shred­ded newspaper.

Why?

Well firstly by its very nature it’s recycled. Which is good. And it’s in keep­ing with what we do. Typo­graphic pack­aging. Perfect.

But can I find a com­pany that does it? No.

We recently ordered some plants from a nurs­ery in Corn­wall. Inside the box was shred­ded news­pa­per. And we thought how much bet­ter that would be than using bubble wrap to keep our art safe on its journey.

So I Googled. And Googled. But could not find any­one that sells it. I con­tac­ted our local coun­cil. They didn’t provide a solu­tion. So I con­tac­ted the nurs­ery and they buy it as animal bed­ding. But the com­pany they buy from only sup­plies Corn­wall. Then I found a com­pany in Scot­land. But their min­imum order was 20 x 20kg bales. Yikes! We’re not farm­ers and we don’t have a spare barn.

So if any­one read­ing this knows of a com­pany, prefer­ably within the Mid­lands, that sells clean shred­ded news­pa­per, please let us know.

Coulson Macleod has been invited to sell via the very hip and trendy mydeco boutique. How lucky are we?

The main site of mydeco is a home décor portal, cre­ated by Brent Hober­man and Martha Lane Fox, of last​minute​.com.  mydeco “brings together the country’s widest range of home fur­nish­ing products from over 700 retail­ers into one place. From high street stores like Heal’s and John Lewis to niche retailers.”

Within the site is mydeco boutique, which “aims to show­case a lim­ited num­ber of lead­ing inde­pend­ent design­ers that mydeco feels rep­res­ent the UK’s innov­at­ive design talent.”

Coulson Macleod will be sold along­side such huge names as Atelier Abi­gail Ahern, Kelly Hop­pen and Celia Birtwell. Swoon!

‘It’s the indi­vidu­al­ity and char­ac­ter you get that make designer pieces spe­cial,’ says says interi­ors expert Rachel Moses from Design Nation. “Most of the beau­ti­ful items you spot in mydeco boutique are hand­made in Bri­tain. They are all bang on trend, ori­ginal in design (no cheap imit­a­tions here), pro­duced in small batches, and well respec­ted in their indus­tries.” Yep! that’s us.

Keen to find some­thing unique that you won’t see on the high street? Then mydeco boutique is for you. An “exclus­ive treas­ure trove of avant-garde, inde­pend­ent design­ers at your fingertips.”

IMPORTANT NEWS: As of 1^st Septem­ber 2010 Coulson Macleod will be a little bit more expens­ive to buy. Sorry.

We’ve been debat­ing this for some time now here at Coulson Macleod HQ. Basic­ally we don’t want to put our prices up. But if we want to con­tinue grow­ing, then we have to.

For any reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog, you’ll have been fol­low­ing our pro­gress as we grow and learn, the way you do when you launch a new business.

In Septem­ber Coulson Macleod will be 18 months old. It’s been a fant­astic 18 months. When we star­ted the busi­ness we had no idea just what a global brand Coulson Macleod would become. Of course we hoped that people would like our art, and that some would become customers.

As the busi­ness has slowly grown we’ve made little tweaks here and there. And occa­sion­ally we make some whop­ping changes. Over the course of 18 months, we’ve had three com­pletely new web­sites, can any­one remem­ber the first ver­sion? We’ve cre­ated then deleted entire col­lec­tions. And we’ve talked end­lessly about where we want to go in the future. Some­times to each other, some­times to any­one who’ll listen.

The out­come is always the same. That in order to sell through stock­ists, and online mar­ket­places, and to go to trade fairs, and to cre­ate new and excit­ing col­lec­tions, (and then there’s some­thing called VAT, which I don’t under­stand and Coulson gets fed up try­ing to explain!), our prices are just a little too low to make this a long time viable and prof­it­able business.

Our plans don’t involve char­ging Damien Hirst prices so we can retire to a villa in Anti­bes (although that would be nice). When we set out we wanted to cre­ate afford­able art that we loved. This will remain the same. But you’ll just need a few more pen­nies (oh OK then, you’ll need a few more pounds).

So if you fancy own­ing a won­der­ful and unique piece of art at their cur­rent bril­liant prices, then I’d sug­gest buy­ing your Coulson Macleod before 1^st September.

Our latest typo­graphic col­lec­tion ‘Words’ is now avail­able to buy online at Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is made in the exactly same way as our hugely pop­u­lar ‘Love’ col­lec­tion. Gor­geous chunky hand­made prints. But only half the size, just 29cm x 29cm x 8cm.

We’ve kept the lovely vintage-style, with a rough-sawn solid oak frame sur­round­ing a white-washed oak panel prin­ted with dis­tressed typo­graphy. All hand­made with love in the UK.

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is unlim­ited in print quantity.

For any­one inter­ested in know­ing just what goes into a Coulson Macleod wooden art piece… the oak panel is cut and sanded by hand before being covered with a coat of diluted white lac­quer wash to fill the grain, and then sanded and re-washed with the lac­quer a second time. The panel is then over-printed with UV ink. The mitred frame is hand­made using rough-sawn solid oak with a shadow rebate on the groove. We pur­pose­fully retain any defects in the oak to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, warps and water marks, so each frame is totally unique. The prin­ted panel is then encased into the frame which is then glued and pinned, ready for hanging.

Inspired by a cus­tomer who wanted a ‘Love’ print, but just half the size. And we loved it so much, we just had to cre­ate some more. Let us know if you like them!

Our latest typo­graphic art col­lec­tion ‘Land­marks’ can be per­son­al­ized. And we think this would make a totally superb wed­ding present.

All you need to do is give us a list of words (we use roughly 70 words to make up the ones in our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion pic­tured below).

You could cre­ate one that was based on their hon­ey­moon des­tin­a­tion. Or cre­ate one that focuses on places in their lives together, such as where the couple met, the pub they hang out in — you get the idea.

And we at Coulson Macleod HQ do the rest. We’ll find an image that suits the art­work. The res­ult is a one-off piece of bespoke art­work. A totally per­sonal gift. And you’d be loved by the couple forever!

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print

Your per­son­al­ized art­work based on our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion fea­tures a hand­made frame and pan­elled back­board made from reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers. The planks used to make the back­board vary in size for each print and we retain all those lovely defects in the wood to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, nail holes, warps and water marks, so each art­work is totally unique.

The fin­ished item is then over-printed with dis­tressed image and typo­graphy in UV ink.