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[email protected] 937 75101904 347 231

counttoten is a collective of hybrid designers, each with keen eyes for design trends, logo systems, and social awareness.

Our team was chosen to construct a vast design scope; we hire multi-talented creatives, across different backgrounds with an impressive array of skills, to enrich our design process and to deliver professional and unique results.

We pride ourselves on exemplary design outcome and client satisfaction, and are quick on the mark to devise a tailored stratagem to strengthen the image and corporate identity of your product.

We collect trinkets, sketch skits, and play with words. We question continuity errors, spell check websites, and we always watch the adverts. We’re working, fiddling, and debating long after all the biscuits are finished (and there are always lots of biscuits!)

Method Statements

Jade Duque | [email protected] | 07549 937 751

Method statement for a design consultancy project at University. I took two consultancy modules, and was elected manager and copywriter on both occasions.

“Highland wear: attire that has championed globalisation. A shared pride by those with Celtic heritage and those with borrowed privilege, a sense of occasion most other national dress has diluted, forgotten, or lost.

But come winter in Scotland, there’s always that couple who insist that a snowy wedding would be oh-so magical, and you are forced to brave nature (who frankly, envies your manly legs, and decides you’ll look a lot less smug after a few days of sitting in a blanket sipping flu sachets).

KHeat (Kinder Heat, from modern kilt makers and outfitters, Kinder Highland) boasts a cunning thermal design, consisting of thin polymer layers that are designed to maintain body heat using textile insulation. Wool free for vegans and hypoallergenic, they’re about as impressive as socks can get.

Kinder Highland was created to fill a gap in the market for innovation in highland wear that still strives for the level of quality and decorum traditional kilts command.They watch and set kilt trends and supply the best textures and colours, with of course, the old reliables, only much more reliable.

The KHeat sock range boasts 21 combinations: three styles/textures of socks, each available in four colours, and with seasonal colours for A/W and S/S, there’s no occasion left untailored for (or even just for hiking, or a cold day, or your toes are chilly.)

A nod to tradition, a wave to modern male fashion, and a vision of compassion.”

Method statement for a brand concept “Kinder Highland”, a vegan kilt company.

Written to promote a masculine style of brand, happy-go-lucky yet stylish, a solution to the problem “how do we sell ethical products to men who would otherwise reject vegan ideals?”

“1 to 12 is a pact between graduates and employers in their industry to ensure fair practice of unpaid work and work trials.

In this competitive jobs market, work experience is a desirable and valuable attribute for gaining full time work. It gives graduates insight and knowledge of a working practice, and shows potential employers your eagerness to work, some indication of skill, and a practical application of their academia. For employers, work experience can mean an opportunity to test someone’s suitability for work with no strings attached, an opportunity to trim fat, mould clay, or even just a gift of opportunity back to your industry.

1 to 12 is very much pro work trials, but unfortunately the exploitation of unpaid work, particularly in creative industries, has created more problems than it has solved. None of us would care to pay for something we could get for free, but graduates feel increasingly pressured to work long periods of time with no guarantee of placement or salary, and under the daunting knowledge if they were to rise up many would gladly take their place. For most graduates, their degree is their passion, and being active and unpaid not only seems desirable on their CV, but also keeps their minds and practice fresh.

This approach is not limited to small businesses with limited resources; larger companies are just as willing to employ graduate staff, unpaid, long after they’ve been given responsibilities beyond a junior position. Many in these positions are unwilling to quit, under threat of not receiving a reference for a lot of time and effort invested in a placement.

To try and combat this self-defeating circle of desperate graduates and exploitative employers, 1 to 12 is a simple pact made by graduates who stand up to the free-labour market in their field, by saying up front that the maximum period they are willing to work in one job role in a company is 12 weeks. Employers who make this pact agree that when they have opportunity to give graduates work trails they do so with the intention of a minimum of 1 week experience to 12 weeks of unpaid work. After 12 weeks, should an employer choose to keep the graduate on, they must pay a minimum salary relevant to the hours worked and expertise provided by the new employee.

Employers are not expected to keep the graduates and automatically put them onto the payroll after 12 weeks, nor are they expected to reimburse the graduates for their time spent, but if they are want to continue to utilise their skills after 12 weeks, the employee must surely be worth paying (especially when you consider that after twelve weeks an employer has just saved the equivalent of a quarter of that employee’s salary.)

Most sectors of work spend money training staff, whether in money, or patience, or other physical resources, whereas creative graduates in particular have already paid for their own training, yet are usually willing (or pressured) to offer their expertise for much less, or even for free.

1 to 12 is simple pact aiming to protect graduates, and ultimately, their respective industries, supported by strong graduates and firm employers, with both interests at heart.”

Vision Statement


Copy to explain the principles of a pact that safeguards standards within the creative industry: vision statement and about section.

“Feeling bereft of summer I decided my first post should be an ode to sunnier days, with, frankly, an enormous portion of berry flavoured jelly beans, from the Jelly Bean Factory (JBPlanet in America).

Unlike a lot of jelly beans, they don’t have a similar taste, (i.e. all sour) with palatable opposing flavours like Blueberry Pie, Wild Cherry, Cranberry and Apple, and Strawberry Smoothie.

I don’t necessarily just buy VegSoc approved products, but it’s a nice plus, and is the only real competitor (and in my opinion, champion) against Jelly Belly, which are not currently suitable for vegetarians in the UK.

I shared the rather piggy portion of 175g (served in a rather long tube) with my fiancé through a trip to the West End, but they’re admittedly not priced for casual consumption.That said, I picked some up from TKMaxx for a fraction of the cost, where you can find a large range of Jelly Bean Factory products much cheaper than in most stores (perfect for stocking fillers/secret Santa gifts).

So, the final verdict? They didn’t make it back to Stokey, why do you think the photo is of the empty tube?”

Blog Contributions


Left, written as part of Sweet Reviews: a series of food and confectionary reviews specifically for vegetarian sweets.

“American sweets are a growing trend in the UK; specialist candy shops are popping up in more towns, availability in the big four supermarkets are increasing, and fashion retailers such as Topshop and Urban Outfitters display American candy on their till-snakes as a trendy add-on sale.

Personally, I see American sweets as a really mixed bag. They all seem to promise big flavour from their packaging and colour, but often the results are disappointing, faint, and often very artificial in taste. We’re constantly exposed to references to these sweets in American media: Twinkies, (not veggie) Red Vines, (vegan) and Kool Aid (vegan) are common household names in the US that are regularly referenced in TV and film.

Vegetarian parents out there may have already encountered the influence US TV has on their children’s pocket money; my advice to you would be to visit a a US specialist store and buy a big range of treat-sized candies. Encouraging knowledge and choice is always favourable to exclusion. Good candy shops will know, or can easily look up for you, which sweets are veg(atari)an (try Candy Hero in York).

Whatever your opinion of American candy, the labelling often leaves vegetarian consumers mystified, and can lead to misunderstandings when American brands manufactured and sold in the UK. For example, in most UK shops, you can buy a share-size bag of Sour Patch Kids for around £1-£1.50, but in American candy stores, you should expect to pay closer to £2 for 99g. The price? The American recipe is vegan, and even feature in the “Accidentally Vegan” list on PETA US, yet the UK recipe contains gelatine. Unfortunately, my only advice here is to endeavour to check labels (as always, the far worst part of living a vegetarian lifestyle is becoming a food scientist!)

If you’d like me to review my favourite American sweets (check out my other re-views to see my taste!), or have any other helpful tips, don’t forget to leave a comment below. Thank you.”

Below, article on American candy for Sweet Reviews.

Essay Question: Loft spaces have become a fashionable lifestyle choice in London. The design of loft interiors, their accessories and associated urban lifestyle have become iconic images of cool London or cool Urban Living (Jamie Oliver’s first series, shops in the East End that cater for loft accessories, Wallpaper magazine, Frasier, Grand Designs etc, and any number of show flats that you can view as potential buyers).

Select either a representation of loft living or visit a real loft space (show-homes) and describe and assess the way in which the spaces and accessories you see are designed, arranged, and packaged as ideal contemporary urban living, to aspire to.

My essay describes a contemporary interpretation of affluence and culture that is London loft spaces. I will assess the history of loft spaces, how and why they have become fashionable, and how lofts have become their own brand of cool urban living.

From Industry Place to Design Space: A Brief History.

Loft living is like the coffee shop at home, born from the ashes of industry modernisation to become an icon of wealthy bohemian living. In the 1940s America was suffering from the aftermath of The Great Depression, and with it the loss of industry. The architectural concepts from the modernist movement had given light and airy industry venues, which were spacious with glass frontages.Despite the huge numbers of these buildings that were erected, the working conditions became so crowded that they resembled sweatshops, and by the 1950s industry had moved on, and the buildings became obsolete. Soho (the area south of Houston, in New York formerly nick named “hells one hundred acres”) is a prime example; after the industries left the area, landlords where forced to rent out these spaces cheaply. This was excellent news for the expressionists, a group of artists who needed big spaces for big canvasses. In the Parisian art district of Montmartre, the expressionists began renting large attics for live-in studios, and New Yorkers wanted Soho to be their Montmartre.

So it came to be that artists, designers, and performing artists, would benefit from the first lofts, taking advantage of the large open-plan areas flooded with light, their own live-in studio/stage, and most pertinent for their bohemian life-style, very low rent prices.It is worth mentioning that these spaces were far from the luxurious apartments Londoners inhabit today; they were empty shells, with no defined areas and no heating, and often, no running water. Over time, this environment became increasingly popular as studio spaces amongst other artistic groups, and large districts of cities utilised their former industry areas and rebranded them into art districts.

It is astounding to imagine the difference between the quality of life workers would have had in these beautiful buildings to those of today’s occupants. Browsing through property agencies, I came across a site that specialises in one-of-a-kind properties. The Unique Property Company boasts properties selling for millions, but more intriguingly, lets high-value properties, the current highest loft-conversion costing £1,750 per week. This is proof, if anyone ever needed any, on how simply desirable loft living is, potential tenants are willing to pay what would equate to the mortgage per month of a large expensive house, in one week, on a converted building, or even part of a converted building, to live in this living symbol of art.

University Essays


The evolution of lofts becoming synonymous with wealth could be the impression of space. Wherever you’re from, space is affluence; if you have more money, you can afford more space, perhaps even more space than you need. Interestingly, some space is worth more than others, though other factors must be considered.

The average price for a detached home in the UK is currently £352,699, but that varies from county to county, even town to town. Using East Riding of Yorkshire as an example, where the average detached house sale was £248,711, you can easily deduce the desirability of certain areas in London; an average detached house in N1 2QX, or Upper Street in Hoxton, which is predominantly made-up of loft spaces, you’d have to separate with around £1,599,166.So how does the design of a loft reflect these ideals?

Lofts: Setting the Standard in Design and Innovation. The loft space isn’t just defined by a conversion, or a room at the top of a building, the loft space is defined heavily by its particular interior design. Lofts are typically in cities, where factories had resources, and lofts in London in particular have evolved to utilise London’s small, but valuable, space. Interiors are crucial in utilising a pre-industrial space’s typically open floor-plan, and one such way is to create the illusion of space. The contemporary furniture company, Dwell, whose dictum is “live like this”, implies a desirable quality of living, and amongst other typically metropolitan style trends, “Urban Minimalist” features furniture and objects perfectly suited to London’s Urban Loft space:

“The dwindling size of interiors has seen space-saving transparent furniture pop-up all around the home. Of greatest benefit are bigger, bulkier items like desks otherwise in their solid form they can carve up a room and block precious light”

Loft walls are typically painted white, despite having open-plan space and huge windows, the additional illusion of space is still necessary in what is often now a smaller square-footage.Of course, white walls keep the space light, important traditionally for artists who needed to see their projects properly, and pays homage to the original clinical, factory feel.

“Think of Robert Rauschenberg’s 1950s loft, or Warhol’s Factory. Their style was no style, “spontaneous” or just as found, which, since they were usually former industrial spaces, meant exposed pipes, acres of rough brick walls and huge steel windows. They were cold, not cosy, anti-domestic spaces, or rather, spaces reformed for an alternative domesticity.”

This industrial design is often adhered to, but many lofts have become a more corporate friendly, luxurious, and mainstream image for the wealthy who romanticise the bohemian lifestyle.These interiors are softer, but with a big focus on exuberant space and culture.


Pictured is a converted church-organ factory (Fig 1); whilst it resembles an industrial building, the white metal garden furniture set in the secluded, leafy courtyard gives off a more care-free, traditional countryside France feel than contemporary, chic city living. We step inside (Fig 2) and the interior is far from what you’d expect from a contemporary loft. You anticipate an open space, packed with crisp lines, clean and spacious, with a down-to-earth industrial feel. Even a more modern, cosy interpretation, would stay in keeping with

Fig 1

The inhabitants have decided to furnish their conservatory with ornate and contrasting wooden furniture, which you could argue is to contrast the industrial feel, but with bare floors and walls it seems far too cold, like the room is not in use. Their audio-visual equipment clashes with these pieces, in fact, nothing seems to sit right, the white spotlights, with the medieval-style candelabra, and the various shades and types of wood, and how they are combined, they too organic in appearance when you consider the modern shell of the property.

Whilst some old and new co-habit perfectly, or contrast purposefully, the old alongside the new is clumsy here. People combine old with new out of necessity, having a functioning home they had the challenge of creating balance between an older building and the necessities of modern life. That’s why the clashes are so unsettling; the balance is now between modern life, a hundred years ago, and the building is the largest, most difficult aspect to change, and ostentatious copies of a much older taste in furnishings. From homes like this, it’s possible to deduce that some of the occupants have more money than style, in this case, £3,450,000 more than style.

Many people want loft living, but how many people are willing to live in a loft?

On the opposite end of the scale, loft living has become so desirable that some people have forgotten the fundamental element, owning a loft. Increasingly, typical suburban houses are furnished to look like the interior of a loft. This to me demonstrates another flaw in fashionable trends that has led to the signature loft minimalist aesthetics becoming watered down for the mainstream audience. From an elevating status, trends become more publicly acceptable as the rich covert them. Without the wealthy and influencial, the public often disregard art forms as an artists’ attempt at being original. If you cannot afford a large home, you will be content with a conventional home, for acceptance, which is ready to change for the craze, but the interior is a reflection on something painters like Warhol made from nothing, before they themselves were icons, and loft living is iconic.

“The 1990s London loft took these bohemian ideals and turned them into profit”

Imagine the most comfortable and in-keeping loft space possible; the front room would be stripped bare for potential buyers to visualise their new home, pristine white walls, but with beautiful dark wood floors, original fireplaces and vintage radiators. The exposed beams and brick walls would be authentic, but each room would have new chrome fittings, spot lights, a defined living area, a bathroom like a hotel, but even basic hygiene facilities would be light years away when you consider the original artists’ lofts. Few are willing to sacrifice on this type of luxury to pay homage to the building’s history. You could justify appropriating these spaces for typical living when you consider the coveted light this space gives, especially considering 17% of this country has mild SAD, but generally, lofts are now galleries for the masses definition of what


the origins of loft living by the owners taste in modern art, design, film etc. Instead, we are met with rooms that look purposefully, but poorly, designed, the owners desperately trying to express their interpretation of style and affluence.

Looking at the ceiling, you can see that the conversion had been treated with care, with the intention of keeping some of its industrial roots, exposed brick, large metal beams, with a straight line of spotlights for clearer, purer light. Fig 2


cool urban living should be, or what it has become.

More people watch cookery shows than political shows or current affair programming, a nation of foodies have meant the houses of Britain have evolved to view the kitchen as a social area. Kitchens in modern houses are a potential for expressing wealth, depending on the quality of the kitchen fittings, how social/how many friends you have, depending on the amount of people a kitchen can accommodate, and how cool you are, depending on the style and layout of the objects in your kitchen. The fantasy foodie, with a kitchen island, a wine fridge, and two agars, is a long haul from the starving artist, and yet these are features we believe are synonymous with loft living.

Like all things fashionable, loft conversion has become mainstream practise for those wishing to increase the value of their homes:

“With loft conversions being the new ‘black’ in the property market, imagination and innovation are the key for developing creative loft conversion ideas in such a competitive housing market”

Other methods of increasing a property’s value could include aesthetic enhancements, building an extension, modernisation, including most importantly in our society Eco innovation, but a loft sells all of these things, with the added bohemian appeal. This has devalued the sense of loft living as it once was, to fantasy images of bohemia, and/or the fantasy images of urban living.

My Conclusion on Cool

Urban living has become somewhat of a myth within communities who can afford these properties. Where once abandoned factories where laden with struggling artists who rented cheaply for unwanted space, they are now is filled with those who can afford London’s new prime land, regardless of their sense of style.As with anything bohemian, the fantasy dies when it is taken to a mainstream audience, those who fancy themselves arty and cutting edge take what is appealing from loft living and fill in the gaps. The whole loft package seems rare and difficult to obtain, whilst few have kept the beautiful raw elements of loft living, the exposed brick, the powerful steel windows, the shocking skeletons of stripped down domesticity, lofts are nowadays confused with minimalism with more art.Interiors in excellent buildings have also suffered, and these buildings are often wasted on those who can afford them, and merely coveted by those who desire them, and would respect them.

The struggles of bohemians long forgotten, comfortable modern “lofts” remain, their owners filling them with little regard of keeping in the spirit of loft-living alive, in favour of satisfying their own sense of affluence and cool. This privileged, yet somewhat ignorant position, to own a loft space without sensitivity (or even aspire to, blindly) is demonstrated perfectly, albeit simply, through Friends character Joey, played by Matt le Blanc;

“You don’t have a TV? Well then what does all of your furniture point at?”

Essay adapted to an article on Loft Living and its Origins.

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