Following our last Liberty post, the Government has finally put forward proposals to up the number of days any one of us can be held for detention without charge to a splendid 42. That would make us world leaders on the How Long Can You Be Held With Being Charged league table. Naysayers criticise Britain for failing to make its mark in the world, but this is one league table we certainly lead the way in.

This ad is one of a series we have produced for Liberty and is running in today’s Guardian. Nice, simple and to the point. By focusing on the remarkable excess of the Government’s proposals, and the extent to which we dwarf any other country, we hope to get people thinking about the issue in a new way.

Last week saw the launch of a new brand to help promote social enterprise in England. The project was for Rise, an excellent organisation stimulating social enterprise in the South West. The brand itself, however, is to be used and shared by social enterprises across the country, raising awareness of the sector much as the fair trade brand identity has done.

Provokateur is proud to have worked on the development of the brand and was thrilled to see it launched at the Eden Project – who look like they’ll be amongst the first organisations to be sporting it. Over the next few months, we will be working with Rise to develop further marketing and communciations to ensure the brand travels far and wide. In the meantime though, here’s a little taster of what the brand looks like.

It’s true. Provokateur is hunting for senior designers who can help us continue to provide extra-ordinary creativity for our clients. But we don’t just want any old person, no no. We want someone of unique, brilliant, rare, one of a kind quality – someone who loves their work, who loves great design and shares our ambition to do groundbreaking work. Is that you? Do you know someone who that might be? If so, drop us a line at gimmeajob@provokateur.com.

Provokateur is proud to announce that its designs can now be found in the new People Tree t-shirt range.

We were delighted to be approached by People Tree, who had seen our Acme Campaign Kit, and asked to work some Provokateur magic on their autumn range. The t-shirts above are just two of the six designs we have done for them. And we think they look super lovely. Which is why we’re all wearing “Pedal Power” t-shirts in the office all of this week.  And much of next week too maybe.

Don’t know whether you’ve visited Provokateur Towers, but some oddball has taken it upon themselves to turn our reception into a blissful, acid-flashback pastoral scene. A trifle surreal, but brightens up our day. So if it’s all getting too much for you and you fancy seeing Provokateur’s Secret Garden, just let our team of highly trained pixies know and they’ll bake some magic jam muffins. Or something.

Provokateur is already working on a follow up to its rip-roaringly successful Acme Campaign Kit (Climate Change Edition).

Due to be published in glorious book form, this will be a whizz fizz explosion of ideas, imagination and innovation to get people *doing* something about climate change. Which is why the book is called Acme Climate Action.

You’re going to have to be patient for the moment, but there’s lots happening. Which is why we’re posting a couple of new pieces of Acme artwork here.

We’ll keep you posted on publication dates and suchlike interesting stuff. Yum.

Someone only just done and gone a Harry Potter Plot Spoiler T-shirt and range of accompanying stickers.

Really, we couldn’t possibly condone it. In fact, we’re sure you share our outrage and absolute lack of Finding It Funny-ness.

Which is why we recommend you visit www.harrypotterpublicenlightenmentproject.com to buy a t-shirt – oops, we mean, register your fiercest indignation.

And if we get our hands on the ones responsible, why we oughtta rip them a new Hogwarts.

Faced with legislation that would enable central government to drastically cut public consultation around major building projects, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, bringing with it a coalition of organisations with membership totally 5,000,000 supporters, asked Provokateur to produce newspaper advertising that would help get their message out and into the headlines. So we did. And this is one of the ads that was running in The Times, Independent, Guardian and Telegraph.

The introduction of the smoking ban in the UK proved to be an irresistible opportunity for our client at Enough’s Enough. If you open a copy of today’s Guardian, Times or Indie you’ll find a selection of anti-flying ‘warnings’, produced by Provokateur. The idea is simple – we’re addicted to flying, despite the knowledge that it’s harming our planet. And the remedy? Well, it’s time we started cutting down. Or put some kind of flying replacement patch on. And you – no more sly short haul flights behind the bike sheds!

Provokateur is chuffed to have been appointed by RISE – “The Voice for South West Social Enterprises” – to create a brand mark for social enterprises to use, akin to Fair Trade and organic products.

As big fans of the social enterprise sector, this will be a very interesting project to work on. We are already consulting with social enterprises across the country and believe this has the potential to be a powerful driver for the growth of the sector.

As part of the brand development of Shared Interest and the Shared Interest Foundation, Provokateur was asked to redesign their quarterly magazine – usefully called Quarterly Return. First issue now out. Hope you like.

And be sure to check out the folk at Shared Interest. They invest your money in fair trade projects and support some great work.

Initiated by Action Aid, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and bringing together fifteen European health NGOs, Action for Global Health is a newly launched campaigning and advocacy group. Targeting national governments and EU institutions, they will be working to make sure the world makes good on their promises on health as part of the Millennium Develpment Goals.

This has been an ace project for a great client, working on the name, brand identity and messaging for the campaign. Intelectually, quite a challenging one to get inside given the complexity of the issues involved, but the final brand looks great and Provokateur is working on reports, publications and lashings more. Just the kind of client we like. Interesting, ambitious and committed to making a real difference. Oh, and the fact that it all had to work in five languages just added to the fun.

We’re proud to launch the first in Provokateur’s t-shirt range. Taken from our Acme Campaign Kit, you can now buy a rather glorious Save the Planet t-shirt. We’ll release details of stockists shortly, but we’re over the moon with this new avenue for Provokateur. Get in touch if you want to get your grubby paws on one – a mere £10. Damn bargain, we reckon.

The problem with looking for the *right* quotation is that, in the process, you come across so many other great lines. Not quite ‘what you’re after’, but amazing nonetheless. So, following from the previous post, here’s a fantastic quotation from Martin Luther King JR.

“When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.” 

Perhaps quotations should become a regular feature of the blog. We’ve already demonstrated our ‘quote junky’ commitment on the main site (check out the Heroes bit in the Provokations section) – but it wouldn’t hurt to start a thread here.

While working on a nice project for the civil liberties organisation Liberty, we turned up a rather brilliant Gandhi quotation. We share it here for no other reason than that it’s great.  

There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.

Crikey that’s good!

Not content with pushing out the boundaries of fair lending and opening up even more branches, Fair Finance has just produced their ‘goodie bag’ to help spread the word. With help from Provokateur, the nice folk of East London will be receiving advice cards to help them manage their finances, a natty Fair Finance calculator and some other pretty cool items to help them sort their accounts and keep the loansharks at bay.

As ever, Fair Finance is going where the big banks and dodgy lenders fear to tread. Hooray for them.

Exciting news.

Having been featured in the Evening Standard and with stacks of folk getting in touch to find out how they could get hold of the Acme Campaign Kit (Global Warming Edition), we kind of ran out. Which is nice. But when something is this good, you can’t just call it a day. With a fresh lick of paint, we’ve redesigned the Kit and it will very soon be available in shops and online. And of course, you can always just buy a pack direct from us. 4 sheets of tip top stickers designed to spread the word and get people thinking about the biggest issue there is. Give us a shout if you’re interested – info@provokateur.com

Just a quickie project for the folk at Fair Finance. Here are just a few of the new promotional stickers we’ve done for them. We particularly like ’sharks not welcome’, which looks like it might form the new identity for their anti-loan shark campaign. Which is nice to know.

Across double page spreads in The Times, Independent and Daily Telegraph, the now legendary Sir Montgomery Cecil takes the stage again, advancing his own inimitable case for flying. This time, however, he is faced by a feisty penguin, equally determined to explain, “from one flightless species to another”, just how flying could be the death of us.

 Yup – it’s another Enough’s Enough spectacular. It’s so exciting to be working with an organisation who has the energy and passion to really get their campaigns out there. This is the biggest campaign issue there is, and Enough’s Enough is one of the few organisations trying to take the bull by the horns and really get the debate moving. Today, aviation. Tomorrow, the world. Great stuff! Hope you like.

Climate change is sadly one of those issues that attracts warm words but scant action. For evidence, regard Tony Blair’s comments this week that he would be unlikely to cut back on his long haul flights, preferring instead to cross his fingers and hope that Science somehow comes to the rescue. Hmmm… not quite the leadership many hope to see from the Prime Minister.

Enough’s Enough were itching to get a public response up and asked Provokateur to come up with some creative scullduggery to do the job. The result was British Blairways… “fuelled by wishful thinking” and using “revolutionary ‘Spin’ technology”.

Sadly, the ad got pulled at the last minute when it became apparent that the story had gone rather ‘cold’ - but we post it here because, well, we like it!