Not For Squares

It’s my birth­day today, and yes, I’m an April Fool!

I’ve been sal­iv­at­ing over the Ginkgo print from Daniel Baer since I first saw it, flick­ing through the graphic design magazine Grafik. This morn­ing I unwrapped my gift from Coulson, and Ta Da!

A gor­geous A3 poster of ginkgo leaves by the super-talented Daniel Baer.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saat­chi & Saat­chi World­wide wrote this lovely piece about us on his blog KR Con­nect,

“A few weeks ago, I dis­covered Coulson Macleod, an art busi­ness mak­ing waves from Northamp­ton­shire. It’s the cre­ation of Mark Coulson and Han­nah Macleod, a couple who share a strik­ing design aes­thetic, rad­ic­ally pos­it­ive ambi­tion, and, most import­antly, love.

I’ve bought sev­eral of their pieces, which are all hand-finished in lim­ited edi­tions. The works in the Love Col­lec­tion are favor­ites of mine – bold typo­graphic designs fea­tur­ing declar­a­tions of feel­ing and fam­ous romantic lines from clas­sic movies. Other col­lec­tions cel­eb­rate the pop cul­ture of dec­ades past, the icons of music his­tory and the spirit of Cool Brit­an­nia – all top­ics close to the heart.

After I sent the team a note of encour­age­ment, Han­nah Macleod shared the company’s “simple little love story” with me. It’s also a story of smart, down-to-earth entre­pren­eur­ship. After fall­ing in love, the couple began work­ing together. Want­ing new art for their home, but not able to afford high-end prices, they decided to design their own rather than deign to buy mass-produced prints, and thus Coulson Macleod was born.

Start­ing small in March 2009, Han­nah and Mark didn’t have big dol­lars for pro­mo­tion, but built their own web­site and show­cased their designs online. The work spoke for itself, and with grow­ing sales they could soon begin advert­ising in top interi­ors magazines. Now, Coulson Macleod fields orders from all over the world, and tracks the buzz on their blog. Brides-to-be have con­tac­ted them to ask if they can read out the quote from the “What Is Love?” piece at their wed­ding – a spe­cial request as this was writ­ten by Mark.

As Han­nah described it to me, the com­pany is “built on love and driven by pas­sion”. The world needs more entre­pren­eurs like this. Here’s to spread­ing the Love.”

Yes, that’s right, Coulson Macleod is one today!

The idea to sell art popped into our heads just over a year ago. And by the 4^th March 2009 Coulson Macleod became an offi­cial business.

We launched our web­site on the 20^th, and cel­eb­rated our first sale of a lim­ited edi­tion print two weeks later. Now, in the nor­mal world of retail, two weeks would be rather a long time to wait for a cus­tomer. But at this stage you couldn’t have found us by search­ing on the inter­net. And we hadn’t advert­ised. We were ecstatic!

It’s been a bril­liant year.

We’ve shipped prints to far away lands. Aus­tralia. New Zea­l­and. Canada. And to prac­tic­ally every state in Amer­ica. Cus­tom­ers some­times buy more than one print at a time. Cus­tom­ers are com­ing back to buy more. For birth­day gifts, wed­ding gifts, or another print for their own walls.

So we’d like to take this oppor­tun­ity to thank all our cus­tom­ers. And to every­one all around the world who has taken the time to write about us. Whether you’ve just pos­ted an image of our art­work with a link back to us, or writ­ten a gush­ing wordy art­icle, we still get totally excited at see­ing our name out there.

We’ll be drink­ing a toast to our next year, which we’ve already got heaps of plans and designs for.

Cheers!

Just had some really great close-up shots of our lim­ited edi­tion can­vas print ‘Amer­ican Noise’ — and we think they look fantastic.

Our can­vas prints are fin­ished by hand, by exper­i­enced local crafts­men.  We use a nat­ural (100% cot­ton), tex­tured can­vas, com­ple­men­ted by a chunky (45mm deep) Dutch spruce frame.

Let us know what you think.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic art

The ulti­mate romantic gift. Writ­ten by Coulson for Macleod when he fell in love with her.

If any of you received a Coulson Macleod Love print for Valentine’s Day, do let us know. x

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic art

The per­fect gift for Valentine’s Day.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion (x 250) vintage-style typo­graphic art print. £149.

Free deliv­ery within the UK.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic art

The per­fect gift for Valentine’s Day.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion (x 250) vintage-style typo­graphic art print. £149.

Free deliv­ery within the UK.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saat­chi & Saat­chi has bought sev­eral of Coulson Macleod’s Love prints.

Kevin Roberts very kindly gave Coulson Macleod per­mis­sion to use his name.

In fact Kevin (yep we’re on first name terms!) sent me a hand­writ­ten note that basic­ally said well done and that the world needs entre­pren­eurs. He also said that I could tell the world that he’d bought our art and that if I sent him our story, he’d put it on his blog.

Saat­chi & Saat­chi is one of the world’s lead­ing cre­at­ive organ­isa­tions, and Kevin leads a team of 6,000 people in 150 offices across 86 coun­tries.  And yet  he some­how found the time for Coulson Macleod. It’s nice to have friends in high-up places.

Saat­chi & Saat­chi cre­ated Love­marks. They wanted to know what makes some brands inspir­a­tional, while oth­ers struggle?  Their answer was “future bey­ond brands”. They write on their web­site, “Love­marks tran­scends brands. They reach your heart as well as  your mind, cre­at­ing an intim­ate, emo­tional con­nec­tion that you just can’t live without. Ever. Love­marks are a rela­tion­ship, not a mere trans­ac­tion. You don’t just buy Love­marks, you embrace them pas­sion­ately. Love­marks inspire.”

Now we like to think Coulson Macleod is a Love­mark. And maybe, just maybe, so does Saat­chi & Saatchi.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic art

The per­fect gift for Valentine’s Day.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion (x 250) vintage-style typo­graphic art print. £149.

Free deliv­ery within the UK.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic art

The per­fect gift for Valentine’s Day.

Coulson Macleod lim­ited edi­tion (x 250) vintage-style typo­graphic art print. £149.

Free deliv­ery within the UK.