We were super excited to find out our favourite confectionery client has now launched in London. Hitting the shelves in Selfridges we had a mini-studio outing to have a look at the display and catch up with the lovely Nicole. This was really a clever guise for the girls getting out the studio to sample some of the Pandora Bell treats...
Further to our little outing, we were flicking through the pages of Vogue and discovered this Easter article featuring Pandora's yummy praline chocolate egg. After starting out as a small company in Ireland we are really happy that Pandora Bell is starting to make waves in the confectionery world, watch out world!
Find Pandora Bell in Selfridges, London and Harvey Nichols nationwide.
Pandora hits London!
Rebecca Johnson
BBC 6 Music – 10th Anniversary at the Southbank Centre
Lucy Gibson
Last Friday was BBC Radio 6 Music's 10 year anniversary. To mark their birthday they had an event at London's Southbank centre which we were lucky enough to be a part of.
The night featured a range of the iconic station's presenters over the years and live music from artists such as Paul Weller, Graham Coxon, Laura Marling and more. Alongside this were DJ sets in the foyer from Lamacq and other presenters (including Jarvis Cocker) that demonstrated the stations outlet for alternative music to its full.
We were asked to create the branding for the event, with visuals for the various screens which were projected on-stage throughout the night. All in all great fun!
Finance Manager wanted
Studio Output / London
We’re looking for a full-time Finance Manager to work in our London studio, managing the accounts and financial reporting of the company.
You'll support the management team by creating and updating financial reports, administer invoicing and credit control, manage purchasing, banking, payroll, benefits/pension scheme and liaise with the accountants.
You're ambitious to progress your career in a dynamic, expanding business, think outside the day-to-day functions of the job and see opportunities to deliver efficiency and growth. Most importantly, you're able to stay focused and thrive in a creative and informal atmosphere.
If this sounds like you, email your CV, covering letter and current salary to ian@studio-output.com by 5pm on Monday 12th March 2012.
Click here to download a PDF of the full job ad.
Ministry of Sound – weekly artwork round-up
Mike Lythgoe
A selection of recent Saturday Sessions posters from our designer Mike for Ministry of Sound…
Saturday Sessions 28/01/12
The line-up for this night had a an underlying deep disco feel mixed in with some future garage acts. I started to play around with disco-ball imagery – I wanted this reference to be a subtle base for the rest of the design, along with using a cold, 'mirror-like' colour palette. I also reflected the future garage side of the night through the choice of typeface and by giving the whole poster an almost space-like theme.
Joris Voorn
Joris Voorn is quite different to a lot of the DJs that we work with, he is super-keen on design and likes to his artwork to reflect this. For this event he was playing a seven-hour set, so this was a great foundation for design ideas. I portrayed this theme with my typeface choice as well as the use of all the time-related design elements.
Saturday Sessions 18/02/12
This being the last standalone Saturday Sessions night in February, we wanted to create something bright and positive as a celebration of end of the coldest coldest three months of the year. Keeping things cleaner and more current will hopefully bring in a wider audience whilst still pleasing the regulars with the big name DJs week in, week out.
Funk Farm
A new year and a new series of posters for Funk Farm. A notoriously fun night with a real party atmosphere. It's a strong brand that pulls in the crowds, so using the Funk Farm chicken and bold colour was an obvious choice!
Squarepusher at the Warehouse Project
James Gilmore
On Friday the 9th I headed up to Manchester to attend one of the Warehouse Project club nights. Set in railway tunnels underneath Manchester's Piccadilly station these nights have become a regular fixture in the Manchester club scene for the past 5 years. Friday nights entertainment was curated by Modeselektor, with Squarepusher undoubtably being the highlight.
Part of what made his set so amazing was the live visuals going on as part of his set. Sporting an LED Daft Punk style helmet, animations and graphics moved between his helmet and the LED wall behind him. Creating a real sense of inking the artist with the AV set to create a more rounded experience. Everything had a very strong simple palette and a heavy 8-bit style to it, which all complimented the music and atmosphere perfectly without detracting from Squarepusher's work.
If he performs this set again I'd definitely recommend trying to catch it to experience something both visually and sonically exciting.
The most insane immersive movie experience ever!
Ian Hambleton
It's been a long time coming, but we're very pleased to say we’ve just launched an epic trilogy of short promos for PlayStation®Store – to showcase the ‘Movies On Demand’ service from PlayStation Video Store.
Once again we were able to collaborate with some amazing creative talents in the FND Collective and MLF, who helped us to bring the campaign to life. All three virals use some exciting creative technology, combining projection mapping, 3D realtime tracking and ‘whizz-bang’ pyrotechnics. There are even some Morph-suited ninjas in there for good measure! We should have the making of video up later next week if you're interested in seeing how these were made.
So far the films have had over a million views in just a week since their release, but we’re hoping this is just the start. Please take a look and if you like them, would it be cheeky to ask you to share them with your friends?
Most Insane Immersive Movie Experience EVER - Part 1
Most Insane Immersive Movie Experience EVER - Part 2
Most Insane Immersive Movie Experience EVER - Part 3
Cher Lloyd makes her mark in Shoreditch…
Rebecca Johnson
In anticipation of her new album we wanted to do something a bit different with the billboard space we had for Cher Lloyd. With the mix of press she is getting at the moment our aim was to create a piece which would make people stop and go 'wow', so we enlisted the help of the super-cool people at Paintshop Studio and came up with a design that was really going to get noticed.
With our design as a base, Dep and Tizer set in for a long day's work covering the huge 96 sheet and adding their awesome style to the Cher campaign. The results are even better than we hoped for, these photos (big thanks to Jeff Metal for these) speak for themselves. If you're in the area go and check it out!
Flying Lotus and the Anti VJs
James Gilmore
Last Saturday night I saw one of the most exciting live audio-visual shows I've ever seen. The one-off show at the Camden Roundhouse was a collaboration between groundbreaking music producer Flying Lotus and audio visual specialists the Anti VJs.
The show was dominated by large-scale projection-mapped animations, constantly playing and evolving whilse Fling Lotus went to work to provide the soundtrack. Leading the audience through an interstellar journey, past galaxies, meteors and strange worlds – all the while only using a limited palette of black, white and grey to increase the visual impact.
I can't stress how impressive it was to see projection mapping live with such an experimental soundtrack. I'd recommend catching the show live, although unfortunately it's only going to be performed twice more, once in Paris and once in LA!
Shedding light on recruiters’
shop fronts
Ian Hambleton
I recently wrote this piece for Recruitment Consultant Magazine, following our successful launches of sector-leading websites for Source and RedLaw.
Here's the transcript in full:
Recruitment companies rely heavily on websites as a virtual shop front. So, if the old saying “first impressions count” is true, why aren’t they trying harder to make a better one?
Having been asked by Source, a recruitment agency specialising in the creative industries, to overhaul their website, we started looking into their competitors. We uncovered the ugly truth that most recruiters’ websites we viewed are a good 10 years out of date, and aren’t working to their maximum, stuck in a cyber rut. In an age where social media is infiltrating every area of our lives, with every industry moving at a breakneck speed, recruitment agencies have to harness the power of new digital technologies to streamline and improve ways of attracting the best talent, through the likes of data tagging, testimonial barometers, search, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Social media should be at the heart of every recruiter’s business, and as a result, should feature prominently on their website.
Having worked with the likes of Ministry of Sound, Simon Cowell’s record label Syco, Sony PlayStation, BBC and HMV, we were intrigued when we were approached by Source to give their site an overhaul. They wanted the site to have a creative approach, to work much harder and create a more effective user experience. Having become accustomed, in our own searches for new talent, to recruiter websites being outdated and rather sad, we were happily surprised that they were bucking the trend and finally wanted to create a destination for unique content rather than just a job board, of which there are thousands.
We were briefed by Source to create a recruitment website with a difference: innovative, cutting edge and using the latest social media and technologies available. Let’s be honest, the recruitment industry isn’t the most trusted out there, so it was important that more focus was placed on the personality of the business and of the people within it. We worked with Source to build a face for the brand, ensuring that case studies linked back to specific recruiters, their social media stats and information were clearly visible and the jobs that they are currently recruiting for are easy to see.
The Source website is now very clear from the offset, with links to searching for a job and the latest recruitment news. However, most importantly, there are links to sections where candidates and clients can vote on their opinion of Source’s helpfulness, honesty, and knowledge of the industry, overall quality of service and the likelihood of passing on recommendations. All are displayed in live percentages in their unique Source-O-meter. There are also live links to the team members, their biogs, their LinkedIn pages and personal blogs. Candidates can now apply for jobs on the site, engage with Source through reading their blog entries and contact individual consultants on social media platforms.
Of course, while having all these exciting features is great, we didn’t forget the nuts and bolts. Recruiters aren’t web designers and we looked to create a site that could be easily maintained in the future and was also accessible on mobile.
Since the website overhaul, Source have had a very positive response from clients and candidates alike and seen a huge interest in their blog posts. Those that have written blogs for the website have seen their profiles targeted by clients and candidates more than their colleagues that haven’t. This leads to more direct applications to them rather than the company and more importantly their colleagues, and as we know this is know is no bad thing. With an average dwell time of nearly 12 minutes around the articles, this proves that recruiters don’t have to be seen as the faceless enemy but can represent a portal to industry insight, as well as access to hints and tips on getting your dream job.
So as you can see recruiter's shop fronts really are the most important first impression, get them right and clients and candidates will be hunting you down to work with your organisation. However getting it wrong leaves you languishing in the last decade working harder and not getting the best results. If 85% of companies are looking to Twitter as a way to recruit new staff, recruiters need to make sure that social media is at the heart of what they do and is prominent on their website.
A little creativity can go a long way.
BLAB 8 talk
Rob Coke
Ian and I ventured to Manchester to speak at Northern Digitals' fabulous BLAB night on Thursday 18th August. Warming up the crowd for talented director Ian Wharton, we spoke long into the night and drunk even longer. Check out the (very) full-length video of the talk here, courtesy of BLAB organiser Matt Booth.
Glug