Just over a couple of weeks ago I completed a month contract at MerchantCantos. I'd never heard of the agency in all my time in the UK. It turns out Merchant as been around for twenty plus years and is a substantial corporate reporting firm. Merchant joined forces with Cantos in 2010 and announced the merger during my time there. Cantos is a communications firm specialising in corporate videos.

More production-oriented than I'm used to, the studio tends to be 'heads-down' and less discussion-oriented than the strategic brand consultancies with whom I normally work. However, this may be set to change as the creative director has a very good grasp of the role of brand and is looking to get more directly involved at a top-tier strategic brand consulting level. To this end I was brought into a small team of senior brand consultants to work on a pitch presentation for the branding of the merger of a major satellite company.

There were a number of personal highlights during the project and I look forward to showing the ideas I contributed to the project. Hopefully I'll be doing this on the back of a win, and not, as has happened all-too-often in the past, end up consigning these ideas to the concepts section of my portfolio. Either way, expect to see a proprietary interpretation of 'think global, act local' in a brand-idea and the use of a fractal in a 'new school' kind of way. I've longed to get a fractal into a major brand identity. I'm hoping this project will be the one as the fractal I've chosen couldn't be more appropriate.

At the tail end of my contract I also contributed to ideas for the re-branding of a prestigious Jersey-based wealth management firm. These were rapid-fire ideas and this 'shoot from the hip' process appears to have produced at least a couple of gems. Hopefully I'll also get to show these ideas in the not too distant future but most importantly, for now, it's fingers crossed for the pitch presentation results.