from the Echo Department
Date
2025
Location
Glasgow
Website
Services Provided
Sector
Creative Director of Graphical House, Daniel Ibbotson, has been living with (and being treated for) Mutiple Myeloma – an incurable blood cancer that primarily affects the patients bone marrow – for over a decade.
Whilst there is no cure the disease is treatable and so, Daniel has been on constant chemotherapy since diagnosis. Many of these treatments have been early stage clinical trials. He has also had two stem cell transplants.
Daniel is accutely aware of the costs for of all this and how fortunate he is to have access to an incredible organisation like the NHS. Of course the NHS is supported by many smaller charities who receive no Government funding, such as Myeloma UK and Beatson Cancer Charity, both of which have been critical in his treatment.
This is where the idea for this project started. As an electronic musician Daniel realised he had a collection of unfinished tracks that felt like a kind-of diary from the last decade, perhaps they could become an album with 100% of profits going to these two charities.
1
Over £10,500.00 raised for charity.
2
Sales globally from Australia to Canada.
3
A truly collaborative project.
The Record
From the Echo Department is a double LP featuring 13 tracks of music written and produced by Daniel, however it took a lot of people to make this project happen. The starting point was Seabass Vinyl pressing plant in Edinburgh who were instrumental in the process, showing incredible enthusiasm and flexibility along the way.
Two editions of the record were made: a pink vinyl edition and a marbled vinyl limited edition; each with printed outer and inner sleeves produced by Anglo Print. Audio mastering was taken care of by Grammy Award winning Star Delta.
Artwork
All of the artwork for the project was made in collaboration with long-standing friend of Graphical House, Fraser Taylor. This felt like a natural partnership as Daniel and Fraser have been working on projects together for many years.
The gestural and organic nature of Fraser's work softens the sometimes angular texture of the music plus there is also something about Fraser's rhythmic mark-making that feels in itself, musical. The limited edition print was produced by the wonderful Glasgow Print Studio.
“
Pulling a project like this together would have been very difficult without the energy, enthusiasm and generosity of everyone else involved.
Daniel
Portraits
In order for the project to resonate with the audience it was important to be able to put a face to name, something Daniel was not that keen on! However, photographer Gordon Burniston took on the challenge.
Gordon created a set of images, shot around the Anderston area of Glasgow, which captured the harder edges of the story along with a certain optimistic quality that is so important.
Digital
Social media played a massive roll in spreading the word about this project. Creating a constant stream of engaging, sharable content to drive audiences to the e-commerce website was key. Daniel's Instagram was an important platform as well as LinkedIn as a place for the longer-form, more in-depth parts of the story.
Overall impressions for the campaign reached into the hundreds of thousands thanks to the support of the likes of Optimo Espacio, The Skinny, Hammer, Signal Sounds and Tom Churchill, to name a few.
Film
The final piece of the puzzle was a short film, conceived and made by photographer, filmmaker and professional do-gooder Steven MB Jones. The film condenses, into a relatively short space of time, the lengthy back-story of the project and Daniel himself, giving context to the why as well as the how.
The film often provided that motivation to tip a prospective buyer into an actual customer, whether they saw it on social media or directly on the project website.
“
I can't thank everyone enough for the time and effort they have invested to help me realise this project and to maximise the financial outcome for the charities.
Daniel
