Vision was commissioned to design Arcapita's annual calendar for 2017 and to also recommend a corporate gift for VIPs. We created a concept using ancient coins - tokens of wealth across the ages and well-suited to a financial organisation such as Arcapita. With Arcapita's offices in Bahrain, Singapore, the UK and US, our concept was to depict ancient coins found at archeological sites across each of the locations. Illustration of the coins was accompanied by text providing a brief history.
To create a corporate gift that would be valued and kept, we decided to create a case bound book - a brief glimpse of ancient coins, entitled 'Circles of Time'. Our research and editorial took us from 2000 BC to the early 20th century. Far from being able to just write a brief description of a few old coins, we created a monster...
Each coin throughout history is linked to its predecessor - and linked to world events of the time - making what seemed a simple design project become a massive undertaking of research, of image search and of verification of facts. The result is a book of 160 pages.
This was a fascinating exercise that threw up a myriad of little known facts. One example is this: At the time when Christianity was establishing itself across England and Scotland. When Viking raids on the east coast were beginning, King Olla of Mercier (now England) minted a gold dinar in 774 AD. On it was the Arabic inscription, "There is one God but Allah". Why did he mint such a coin? In order to trade with the powerful Umayyad Empire sweeping its Muslim armies across the Mediterranean! As another example, a silver Dineris, minted only weeks before the assassination of Julius Ceaser in 44 AD, contributed to his untimely demise by containing the inscription "Dictator for life', which proved the final straw for Brutus and his cohorts.
The book was created in dual language, with foiling, spot varnishing and de-bossing on the cover. Endpapers were die-cut to showcase one coin from each of Arcapita's four locations and cloth binding was used on the spine. The book was presented in a custom presentation case together with the 2017 calendar, to create a lasting and treasured corporate gift.
