Welcome to the Lavish Lounge

Tasty snippets from the Creative Services World, the Lavish world, the virtual world and even the real world.

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Pick Me Up



Our lovely Clementine Mitchell is running a workshop on 29 April at  at Somerset House.

Go along between 6pm and 8pm in the evening to join in the fun and take the challenge to create a portrait entirely from different fonts and letter stamps in this free session which celebrates the Pick Me Up: Contemporary Graphic Art Fair.

Monday 5 April 2010

iPhone Typography

The disposable memory project

The disposable memory project are leaving disposable cameras around the world, for people to pick up take photos and pass on. Then when the cameras are returned home their stories are published.

Cameras have been released and returned from all over the world. Camera 184 was released on July 10, 2009 in Narita Airport, Japan and returned August 11, 2009 from Shanghai, China. Camera 160 was released on June 19, 2009 in Swansea, Wales and returned from Greenland on July 24, 2009.



The disposable memory project is creating a wonderful crowdsourced photolibrary.

Saturday 5 December 2009

Luxury Vandals

 



























It's been a very long time indeed! We've been very busy this year, working on our current clients and developing our Not for Profit offer. Unfortunately this has meant that we haven't devoted much time to The Lavish Lounge. 
 
But, we're going to change that in 2010.  

For now, here's a little look on the above at something we bought today. It's a beautiful piece, which takes the Louis Vuitton insignia as its starting point. Originally released for the Japanese market, a few were kept back for release in the UK.  

Technical details:  
10 colour screenprint with watercolour washes, spraypaint background and metallic gold on the 'I / L V' + varnish 
300 gsm Fabriano paper 
56 x 56 cm  
Signed and embossed  
Edition: 20

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Helping British Talent take off

British Airways has launched a new site, aimed at encouraging talented Britons to reach for their dreams. As the official airline partner of the London 2012 Games, British Airways has launched a programme called Great Britons, which will help and inspire people in the UK to be the best they can be. The scheme will look for individuals who demonstrate the values associated with Olympic and Paralympic Games and who strive to be the best, whether their passion is in sport, music, fashion, performing arts, art and design, innovation, or community. BA is giving away 180 flights, to British Airways destinations, to talented individuals and groups. It is open to everyone (16 and above and UK residents) who need support to develop their talent in any field. Lucky winners will also have access to luxury Executive Club lounges, and each will be given a winner’s pack which includes a camcorder, perfect for recording their amazing adventure. Take a look and see if you could be a Great Briton.

Thursday 19 February 2009

Uterus product recall

We are sad to announce one of the most bizarre product recalls in living memory. DKE Toys has issued a statement informing the public that the Pink Uterus from the 'I Heart Guts‘ range of body part plush toys is a potential hazard to children. Just read that again. Apparently the problem all stems from the fact the purple ovaries are detachable. Unfortunately, this means the uterus has been withdrawn from sale. But offal fans don't despair, the brain and pancreas are still available. The I Heart Guts gang

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Designs of the year

It's been a while....Let's face it Lavish Lounge has been a bit lazy since our break over Christmas. But we're back, with information about a great exhibition. The Design Museum are hosting their annual exploration of the best of new design work, from around the world. The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year features around 100 shortlisted projects - nominated by respected experts, curators and practitioners. Design work is shown in seven categories - architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. A winner for each category will be selected by an international jury and one overall winner will be awarded Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009. The exhibition runs until 14 June. Get down to the Design Museum or check it out the blog. Designs of the Year

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Carbon Disclosure

We were asked by the Carbon Disclosure Project to design their online Christmas card this year. Check it out. CDP Xmas

Sunday 30 November 2008

Reasons to be Cheerful

A new book about the life of graphic designer Barney Bubbles is out now. Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles, by Paul Gorman, is a celebration of the creative legacy of one of the most mysterious yet influential figures in graphic design. Barney Bubbles work influenced a generation of graphic designers, including Neville Brody, Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville. Bubbles designed sleeves for The Rolling Stones, Billy Bragg, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello to name but a very few. Bubbles committed suicide in 1983, leaving a body of amazing graphic design work, including videos and product design. Reasons To Be Cheerful is available from 4 December online and book stores. The forward is written by Billy Bragg.

Saturday 29 November 2008

Common Craft videos.

I really like the work that the two guys at Common Craft are doing. Through the use of short, entertaining videos, they make really complex subjects easily understandable. All of the videos use a white board and paper style of production, and copies are available to share online. For commercial purposes you can license hi-res versions, or even commission Common Craft to make a bespoke video. I like their philosophy of keeping the company small and the quality high, and am looking forward to future productions.

Thursday 27 November 2008

Uamou and Boo

The latest addition to my Japanese toy collection. This is becoming an expensive hobby.

Saturday 22 November 2008

Goodness and Happiness

The one thing we all know from the credit crash is that the way we do business will change. When we come out of the other side of this financial crisis we will have a new breed of organisation and a new way for brands to operate and communicate. Many old, slow and lumbering business will fall by the wayside. In fact, we're already seeing that happen. This presentation by Neil Perkin really sums up for me how businesses that are more open and honest and even generous will have better interactions with their customers. In a hyper-connected world the next generation businesses have a unique opportunity to really interact with the world in a totally different way. neilperkin

Do schools kill creativity?

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. Robinson's point is well-made, and difficult not to agree with. A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. I saw this brilliant film yesterday. It's nearly 20 minutes long, so get comfortable and watch to the end - it is one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever seen. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I did. You can download it to your desktop if you want it to run faster. Source: TED

Thursday 20 November 2008

Website launch

Today we launched the new website for Callender Howorth, an amazing firm of London-based interior designers. The HTML and Flash site features some stunning imagery from their interior design comissions. Callender Howorth

Cooliris

I've been experimenting this week with Cooliris. Cooliris transforms your browser into a lightening fast cinematic way to discover the web. It's a bit weird to get your head round at first. Essentially it could potentially change the whole way we look at websites, providing a virtual 3D window to shopping sites or a 3D wall to discover a whole range of media. As I understand it, websites need to incorporate Coliris code into their sites to enable it to be viewed in the platform. But I'm pretty sure more and more sites will cotton on to this in the coming months. Download Cooliris now and have a play. Let me know what you think! Cooliris

Friday 14 November 2008

Busy-ness as usual

The past few weeks A busy few weeks as usual at Lavish Towers. We’ve been doing some video and sound editing for the IWM. We delivered 16 bespoke typefaces and helped one of our clients with some artwork and print consultancy work for a product brochure. We delivered some roadshow materials for a major communications organisation and are part way through a Flash website for an interior design company. In the next few weeks we’ve got a heap of InDesign templates coming up, some more print work for Public Concern at Work and a website for an amazing creative concepting team. So pretty much business as usual for our studio. We never know from one day to the next what we might be asked to do. But it’s all in a days work for one of London’s leading creative services studios.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Web 2.0 women

Only a quarter of those involved in computer and mathematical occupations are women. And yet, in the ever-evolving world of Web 2.0, women have often been pioneers, redefining the way we interact online. Fast Company magazine has tracked down the most influential of these innovators. The most influential women in web 2.0

Plug in to NOW

Cool widget wall. Now

Saturday 8 November 2008

Degrees of separation

Interesting article on John Caswell's Just Think blog about how social media is challenging the '6 degrees of separation' theory. "Is it time to revise the old saw that everyone in the world is connected by just six degrees of separation? A study from French mobile carrier O2 has found that strangers are more connected to each other than they ever have been. According to the study, the average person is now connected by just three degrees within a shared “interest” or social group instead of six. In fact, it found that people are usually a part of three main networks: family, friendship, and work. O2 asked adults across three different age groups — 18-25, 35-45, 55+ — to make contact with random strangers from areas all across the globe using only personal connections. By linking their shared interests, the participants were able to connect to that person in three person-to-person links. Stanley Milgram originally coined the term “six degrees of separation” in 1967 to show that everyone in the modern world was capable of connecting to another by linking people and interests. But in today’s world of social networking, links between strangers are closer than in Milgram’s day. According to Jeff Rodrigues, a social networking specialist that carried out the study, 97 percent of the participants said they felt more connected to people today than they ever have in the past and for older respondents, email and mobile phones were the key factors in reducing the degrees of separation. But for those in the younger generation, Facebook was the main factor. Text messaging was also mentioned as an important component in reducing degrees of separation. “What the study has brought to light is that the way we now interact means it’s never been easier to make connections and build networks of contacts,” Rodrigues said in an interview. It should be noted that the research is not the epitome of a real scientific study — O2 paid for it, after all. And anyone who has a LinkedIn account knows that it is still easy to find plenty of people who are more than three degrees away from you. But the study does underscore something we all know: more so than ever before, everyone is connected (even if it is only tangentially). Maybe it is time to revisit Milgram’s study in a more robust way. It could help silence the critics who believe Facebook and the rest are nothing more than places for kids to waste their time. Let’s face it – how often will you find one service or industry that can totally transform the way people are connected? Just Think

Friday 7 November 2008

Showcasing Australian Creativity

Australian Edge is a really nice independent site maintained by Clayton West and Tey Vandenberg. The idea is simple: to promote Australian creativity in all forms. There's some beautiful creative work on here, along with interviews with designers, directors, animators and others. It's a real mine of talent across all creative disciplines. Australian Edge

True to type

My pals over at Made by Many have spotted a great series of postcards based on typefaces, and the subliminal messages we send out by using them. As an old-fashioned lover of type, and a member of the Metrotwin team, this article definitely hits the spot for me. You'll know from previous posts that last month we had the dream brief to create 16 new typefaces for a client. We take our type very seriously here at Lavish. Oh, and did I mention the fact I'm on a personal, one-woman crusade to promote the banning of Comic Sans forever! How do you say London in type? .

Thursday 6 November 2008

Facebook facts

Interesting information on who's using Facebook, and the opportunities for marketing that Facebook offers, which was published on my friend Iain Millar's blog this week. Who's using Facebook? .

Saturday 25 October 2008

Putting the sans in Comic Sans

Having spent many years despising both the use and users of the travesty of a typeface that is Comic Sans, I am pleased to report that the cause to ban it forever has been taken up. Since its creation in 1995, the typeface Comic Sans has enjoyed immense popularity among numerous digital type users including librarians, human resource managers, Powerpoint presenters, and Disney advertisement designers. The typeface has recently become so popular in fact that it has attracted the attention of several important typographic institutions, most notably the Foundation of National Typographers. A recent study by the FoNT foundation reveals some remarkable trends for the fledgling face. These projections are based on a scientific survey of long-term type usage trends and include a standard margin of error. The report finds that Comic Sans usage has steadily increased since 1995 at a geometric rate and is well on its way to becoming the most universally used typeface surpassing even Helvetica and Times by approximately 2018. Even more astonishing is the typographic event horizon predicted for the year 2027. The FoNT foundation has determined that according to these trends the only typeface anyone will use by the year 2030 will indeed be Comic Sans. STOP the march of the evil Comic Sans. Visit the Ban Comic Sans . website and register your support!

Sunday 5 October 2008

Big Stories Blog

We have recently launched a dedicated blog to support our Big Stories campaign, and to provide insight into great campaigns and news in the not-for-profit/third sector. Lavish has strong not-for-profit, brand, marketing and direct response experience. We have worked with leading charities, including Crisis, Public Concern at Work and the Carbon Disclosure Project, as well as some smaller ones throughout our careers. Big Stories is our dedicated not-for-profit campaign, showcasing our specialist offer and experienced team. If you want to find out more about Big Stories it has it's own website . The site is currently undergoing a design and content refresh, so it will change slightly over the coming weeks, with new content being added all the time. Lavish Big Stories blog

Saturday 4 October 2008

Nonsense

Slugs have 4 noses. Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue. In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child No centipede was ever found with 100 hundred legs. Octopus have 2 legs and 6 arms. Ergophobia is a fear of work. Our eyes are always the same size from birth. that’s why some babies look like frogs. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. The flea can jump 350 times its body length A cockroach will live nine days without it’s head, before it starves to death. Butterflies taste with their feet. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than it’s brain. Starfish don’t have brains. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider? Right-handed people, on average, live nine years longer than left-handed people Polar bears are left-handed. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath. Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Cartoon from Savage Chickens Nonsense from Karlology

Friday 3 October 2008

We're moving

Due to expansion and our need for more space we are moving offices. Not too far, just down the road to Old Street. The new studio is going to be named the 'Lavish Lounge' so now it will exist online and in reality! More details next week.

Changing online behaviour to cope with credit crunch

There's some interesting research on how the credit crunch is affecting UK internet behaviour. The findings highlight three key areas in which UK online behaviour has started to adapt. 1. Consumers are searching for cheaper prices online No surprise there then that UK consumers are increasingly using price comparison and other discount websites to find the cheapest deals online. Following a 2 year decrease in traffic levels, UK Internet visits to retail price comparison sites increased by 20% between July 2007 and 2008. Similarly, searches for the summer sales have trebled this year compared with last, while consumers searching for discount vouchers have led to a 130% increase in traffic to specialist voucher websites. 2. Property searches have fallen, but traffic to House and Garden retailers has reached a new high The credit crunch has hit online estate agents hard: in August 2007, websites in Hitwise's Business and Finance - Property category accounted for 0.85% of all UK Internet visits, but last month (August 2008) this figure fell to 0.55%. Falling demand for houses is mirrored by consumer search behaviour, with UK Internet searches for 'houses for sale' down 53.1% between August 2007 and August 2008. At the same time, the share of UK Internet visits to websites in Hitwise's Shopping and Classifieds - House and Garden category increased from 0.49% in August 2007 to 0.59% in August 2008, overtaking the Business and Finance - Property category on the way. One of the factors behind the success of House and Garden retailers online has been the increase in online DIY queries, as UK consumers look to improve their accommodation on a budget. UK Internet searches for the top 10 DIY-related 'how to' queries have increased by 25% over the last 12 months. In August 2008 the top DIY search was 'how to plaster', followed by 'how to lay decking' and 'how to wallpaper'. 3. Consumers are shunning ethical consumerism in favour of energy efficiency UK Internet searches for ethical consumer products such as fair trade and organic have not increased over the last 12 months, but searches for energy efficiency terms, such as 'loft insulation', 'underfloor heating' have more than doubled over the last 12 months. Similarly, UK Internet traffic to the websites of gas and electricity providers has also doubled over the same period, as consumers hunt to find the best deal. Find out more about this research Net Imperative Source: Hitwise

Tuesday 30 September 2008

Metrotwin is live

Metrotwin, the British Airways powered online social recommendations resource I have been working on is now live. It's still in Beta, and will be for a while, but you no longer need an invite to get in. As I've mentioned before, Metrotwin brings the best of London and New York together in one place. Some of the key new features are: The Metrotwin Index - an attention-based, dynamically generated score that applies to every place in both cities on the site. When people pay a place attention it goes up, and when no-one’s interested it ticks down. Metrotwin Recommends - a new personalised recommendation panel within the user profile. It works by looking at everything you and everyone else have loved, saved, visited and reviewed - and it tells you the kind of places that people like you are interested in. The ability to add links to external services (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, IM and Skype) to your personal profile City-wide map views - a nicer way to view. A Site Tour - to help you find your way around. Metrotwin has been delivered by a highly talented multi-agency team. Visit Metrotwin

Monday 29 September 2008

Drinking vessel

Two birds. One stone.

The Sewerside Chronicles

I've just finished reading a brilliantly funny book by Tim Lay. The Sewerside Chronicles charts the story of a small fashion label based in a seaside town in North Devon. Che Capri is approaching 30, and living the dream. He and 'business' partner Travis, run Sewerside – a cutting edge streetwear clothing label. It’s the Millennium and Sewerside’s quasi-apocalyptic sense of style has won plaudits from style magazines and the fashionista crowd. However, having hit it lucky with their first collection, the money’s now running out and their dreams of making it big are fast disappearing. But somewhere along the way Sewerside stops being about the money and becomes about an ideal. While the marketing buzz on the fashion streets is ‘keep it real’, Sewerside intend to do just that. As the business chugs towards financial disaster, The Sewerside Chronicles charts a hilariously painful campaign of manufacture, retail, black economics, trade shows, fashion circles, rural deviancy, violent demos, raves in the countryside, and anarchy at Glastonbury festival. Representing the hopes, fears and the naiveté of creative industry and protest idealism, The Sewerside Chronicles provides a humorous snapshot of a time when counter culture was all but swallowed-up by its commercial counterpart. This book is for anyone who's ever run their own business, tried to make a creative idea profitable or just generally likes to laugh out loud on the train while reading. There are some hilarious extracts on the website. Buy a copy today. Sewerside Chronicles Extracts