In August, we went on a European tour with The Studio – taking in Norway, Germany, France, Russia, Holland and Portugal and ending up back in Blighty!

Out this month were static themes from Sicksystems, On Repeat, Mago, Mr Jago & Andrew McAttee and Roya Hamburger. Alongside these were dynamics from MVM, Bob London, Matthew Green, Check Morris, Jeffrey Bowman and our own Sonbr.

Shown on the left are a selection of this month’s Themes. For more in-depth information on the Themes and artists involved visit The Studio website.

July in The Studio saw a distinctly British flavour to the artists involved, mixed up with some really interesting themes from further afield.

Released this month were collaborations with Pete Fowler and Tom Hingston, left-field contributions from Maharishi and the artist Richard Woods, static themes from Mads Berg, Jody Barton, Hydro 74 and Tom Sewell – and finally, a really exciting stop-frame piece from Argentina’s Cherry.

Shown here is a selection of some of the themes, along with the Month 2 showreel. For more in-depth information on the themes and artists involved, visit The Studio website.

DanceStar PARTY turns your living room into a dancefloor. Using the PlayStation Move motion controller, players can perform dance routines individually or with up to 20 friends.

We developed a brand identity for the game, including the packaging and a comprehensive style guide. This included colour palettes, model photography and a suite of brand assets.

In January 2011 we were asked to help Syco Music develop a multi-platform brand and marketing campaign for Cher Lloyd, one of the most talked-about artists from last year’s X Factor. Deliverables for the project so far have included a branding device and visual assets, single artwork, mobile app, website, interactive digital media, flyposters, press shots and even her music video – which has had more than 10 million views.

The campaign builds upon the label’s positioning for the artist as ‘The Princess of Swag Pop’ and reflects a musical direction which has one foot in urban, one foot in pop. We created Cher’s ‘Urban Wonderland’ – where real life meets illustration, quirky props and fantastical special effects.

Syco were also very keen to distance Cher from the TV show, so we devised a strategy based on collaboration; working with only the coolest up & coming creative talent. This was obviously something we took great enjoyment from!

The roll-call of credits for this project includes Jared Ryder (NY) for sleeve photography, Sean Vegezzi (a junior at Annie Leibovitz NY) for press photography, the illustration collective Good Wives and Warriors (UK), stylists Ayishat & Louize (UK), videographer Kellen Dengler (US) and Punktilio (UK) who look after all social media for Syco.

Cher’s debut single, ‘Swagger Jagger’, went straight into the UK charts at number 1.

When the nights start drawing in, office conversation inevitably wanders to talk of the Christmas do. (Usually along the lines of ‘but I thought you’d booked it?’) This sort of thing happens marginally less in May, when we started work in earnest on Pitcher & Piano’s latest seasonal campaign.

Drawing inspiration from Dickens novels and other Victoriana, we built on the recent branding work and created an illustrative composition for the Christmas menus, with assistance from the chameleon-like illustrator Martin Berry. The ensemble was then copper foil-blocked onto an uncoated board printed in rich purple, with subtle banding evoking vintage wrapping papers. The final attention to detail was to source copper wire for the saddle-stitching which binds the menus.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The BBC has a strong connection with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, broadcasting across different network channels from venues all over the city. In 2011, for the first time, the output was consolidated into one venue, giving a greater focus to the corporation’s presence. Having worked with event teams across the radio channels, we were invited to create the visual identity, extending this into a graphic scheme which could dress the site.

It was important for the branding not to appear ‘owned’ by any single station or channel, but to feel at home across all of them. Our solution is loosely inspired by the satirical comedy formats of the 1960s, and reflects the spoken word output of the venue without being overly ‘comedic’. The condensed, hand-drawn letterforms have a practical function and allowed us to create something unique with only a few elements.

We designed the event branding and site guides, and worked with the BBC web team to deliver a microsite. Along with the visual work, we named the venue ‘The Bubble’, resulting in the café venue being called ‘The Baby Bubble’.

Nottingham Playhouse has always had a place in the heart of British theatre. And its home – designed by Peter Moro in 1963 – was voted one of our best-loved Modern buildings in a recent RIBA poll.

To coincide with a refurbishment by regular collaborators Macaulay Sinclair, we were asked to design and install a timeline along the illuminated glass wall of the theatre’s restaurant, CAST. Across 13 metres, the timeline charts the history of the theatre; from its first home in Goldsmith Street and the move to its current site on Wellington Circus; to the installation of Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror in 2001 and the most recent festival, ‘neat 11′.

In homage to the building’s history, we created a typographic layout based on a flexible grid – with a tight, muted colour palette which is inspired by 1960s Modernism without being a slave to it. Many of the images used took some time to track down, making this one of the longest projects we’ve worked on – at almost two years from start to finish!

As any idiot can tell you, there’s no better way to get hot in the city than raving in your winter woolies. That’s why our summer 2011 Saturday Sessions campaign featured this hand-knitted scene, with famous Elephant & Castle landmarks (and some robots) warming their cockles around the infamous Ministry of Sound decks.

The first fold-out poster in the series shows the buildings waking from slumber – maybe after a hard night’s work on the dancefloor? Next, we continue into sunset, when the dry ice livens everyone up a bit and the friendly Elephant opens his eyes to contemplate the night ahead. The final installment shows the city at night; but a bit of darkness doesn’t stop these little fellas from switching on the lights to enjoy a 
night out at the world’s most famous nightclub.

This series was created by the now-freelancing Shahnaz Ahmed and shot by Richard Paul.
Look them up!

When approaching this website for award-winning photographer Josh Cole, we wanted to build something that would really maximise existing web services (in this case Picasa, Vimeo and Blogger).

The site is built in HTML5 using JavaScript to make it backward compatible. Navigation and animation is done completely in JavaScript with HTML5 video via Vimeo, so it works beautifully on all non-Flash devices. It also uses responsive design – CSS and JavaScript help to adjust site layout flexibly to different screen resolutions.

We’ve wrapped all this up in a design featuring very large thumbnails, bold colour overlays and, most importantly, the ability to show all images on the site at one time – something Josh was keen to do following feedback from many art directors.

Visit the site here.

Alongside developing the Cher Lloyd brand, we were also charged with putting together her first music video. After one listen to ‘Swagger Jagger’ we all knew it was going to turn heads, so we needed to create a video which would do exactly the same.

Taking the ‘Urban Wonderland’ theme we’d devised for the branding deliverables, we wanted to really get across Cher’s personality: both her fun, girly side, and the edgy attitude which she’s best known for. Working with the very talented FND Collective for direction and production, we set up a two-day shoot covering a variety of set-ups, all with a transatlantic feel.

In post-production we worked with Mainframe to develop the illustrations we’d using for the single sleeve and across digital elements. The end result was a rather epic music video! And it caused the exact reaction we wanted; gaining 3 million views in its first week, and helping to propel ‘Swagger Jagger’ straight into the UK charts at number 1.