Electronic Ink

Men's magazine Esquire is celebrating its 75th anniversary in the US with a limited-edition run of 100,000 copies featuring covers using Electronic Ink technology. The technology works by printing ink containing charged microcapsules, onto a sheet of plastic film that is laminated to a layer of circuitry. The circuitry forms a pattern of pixels that can then be controlled by a display driver - powered by a tiny battery. Esquire's 75th Anniversary E-Ink cover took more than a year to develop. 100,000 lucky customers will find an animated panel on their copies of Esquire, displaying flashing text and images, along with an enhanced Ford Flex advert on the inside cover. Watch the video: Esquire . http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/e-ink-cover-video?click=pp

Crystal Ball

Well it seems like Autumn is prematurely here, and mentally it feels like the last quarter of 2008 has definitely started. While we have been continuously busy over July and August, there is a distinct change of pace in the last week – with clients getting focussed on the run up to Christmas and the laid-back August feeling starting to seem like a distant memory. As we go into the last stretch of the year, I’ve been thinking about 2008 so far. Without doubt it has been a bit of a bumpy ride – definitely a game of two halves to use a well-worn football pun. The start to the year was very quiet, and with reports of the credit crunch and impending economic doom doing little to make us feel better, we went into the Summer with a certain amount of uncertainty. But the second half of the year has picked up brilliantly for us. We’ve been doing some amazing things, particularly some great, very visible large format work and are still working with CDP in the run up to the Global launch of their report on 22 September in New York. So thinking about the next 4 months of 2008 – what twists and turns and surprises lay in store for Lavish? It’s hard to know in the current market, but I am convinced the biting credit crunch will continue to put marketing and brand budgets under stress. Clients will be looking to smaller agencies, with lean, agile teams and cross discipline expertise to help them maximise their budgets. I think the model of smaller and mid sized agencies sharing resources and skills will grow, as they look to be ever more effective for clients. And new business and marketing effort is more important than ever to keep in front of people when they are making tough decisions about what marketing activity to do. Only time will tell if my ‘predictions’ will come true. But I do know that Lavish are positioned better than ever before to benefit from this changing market.

How to do just about anything

It's been a bit quiet on the blog front while we've had a busy few weeks. More of that later. In the meantime, I found this great site, which has 'How to' videos on just about everything. Video Jug

Amazing projections and immersive environments

My attention was recently drawn to an amazing US based multi media design lab, through an article in Fast Company. Obscura Digital, who create their experiential marketing magic out of a 30,000 warehouse in San Francisco, have developed their own proprietary software, which literally turns any surface into a stunning high resolution video display. This means that they can create large-scale immersive environments, holographic projects, laser graffiti and motion triggered billboards - just for starters. Think Star Trek holodeck and you’re getting there. For the launch of iGoogle, Obscura turned the whole of New York’s meatpacking district into a massive outdoor art gallery for 3 nights. Over 70 artists participated in this cutting edge marketing campaign and the results were show stopping. Obscura also created amazing viewer activated and interactive displays for the launch of CS3, one of Adobe’s biggest ever product launches. I definitely recommend taking a look at the work on their site, and watch out for these guys, I think we’ll see more Obscura work - in the most unlikeliest of places! Obscura

Headshift Summer Party

Having been chained to the office for the past few weeks and weekends, last night we had some well needed social time at the Headshift Summer Party. I have been working with Headshift for a couple of months, and in that time they have moved into funky new offices in Shad Thames. Headshift is Europe's leading enterprise social computing consultancy. They are expert in designing, implementing and growing next generation social software solutions. We spent a very pleasant evening on the roof terrace chatting to various 'Headshifters' and Stuart and Tim from Made by Many. And the top bonus was - it didn't rain!

Free tool for DIY font design

There may be thousands of fonts available online, but for truly dedicated members of Generation C — who live to create their own, fresh content, that's sometimes not enough. Luckily, help is now at hand in the form of a do-it-yourself font-building tool from digital type retailer FontShop. FontStruc is a free, online tool that lets users quickly and easily create fonts by arranging geometrical shapes in a grid pattern, much like tiles or bricks. Working one letter at a time, users add and remove shapes including blocks and dots to achieve a look they like. Once they're done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application. Users can keep their "FontStructions" private, or they can share them with the FontStruct community for discussion, rating and downloading. They can also display them on other websites or blogs through the FontStruct widget. Several Creative Commons license options are available to allow varying degrees of sharing. Fontstruct Source: Springwise.com

Inhale the web

I am enjoying using Addict-o-Matic. As the blurb on the site says: Addict-o-Matic searches the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos and images. It's the perfect tool to keep up with the hottest topics, perform ego searches and feed your addiction for what's up, what's now or what other people are feeding on. Try it. It's cool Addict-o-Matic

New recruits to Team Lavish

We are so happy to announce that we've added some new top-talent to the Lavish team in the past week or so. We are really looking forward to working again with Tim, who is a senior digital creative. A skilled digital designer, motion graphics design/artist and audio/visual specialist - there's not much digital work that Tim hasn't done. Clementine joins us permanently on 1 September, having freelanced with us for the past year. Clem graduated from Central St Martins with a degree in graphic design. Since studying she has worked freelance on design and illustration commissions for a varied client base and her work has featured in branding, on advertising campaigns, wallpaper and product lines, book jackets and set designs. And Allan, our 3D and Photoshop guru is now based in-house with us at Smokehouse Yard. I think we might be looking for new offices in the very near future.....

Photoshop disasters

Nothing amuses us more in the Lavish Lounge than seeing really bad retouching, artwork or image work out there in the commercial world. Seems we are not the only ones who snigger at this type of thing. Check out Photoshop Disasters. There are some top cock-ups in April - especially the Prince Caspian on the side of the bus. What was that about reading the artwork spec....?

Project Management tools take the strain

I subscribe to Computer Arts Magazine, which I generally enjoy reading. Although a lot of the articles tell us stuff we already know, it is still a good read, and often has some quite inspiring design articles. However, this month, they ran an article called ‘Project Management tools take the strain’. As a project manager in the creative industry for over 15 years I turned with great interest to this article. Boy, was I disappointed. Apparently creative project management has 4 ingredients: - A Gantt chart to keep an overview of demands and deadlines - File naming protocol - Systems for client communication - A system to keep track of outstanding bills and invoicing – to make sure that ‘money turns up when you need it’ This is a massively simplified view of the skills required by a top-flight creative project manager. Yes, project managers utilise programmes to help them run projects – from MS Project, MS Excel, Base Camp and many other tools – but the article missed the most important ‘ingredients’ for a creative project manager. That is, it is not about the software you use, but about what you bring to a project. A good project manager has experience, initiative and insight. No computer programme in the world will make up for a bad project manager; who cannot plot a critical path on the ‘back of a fag packet’, who cannot identify and mitigate against project risks, who cannot talk intelligently and knowledgeably about project planning and who cannot work out a project budget or P+L without the aid of a calculator or sophisticated programme to ‘make sure money turns up when you need it’.

Business Guys on Business Trips

Fantastically funny site. No need to say anymore than that, but if you work in the creative industry you'll recognise plenty of these characters! Business Guys on Business Trips

Web development partners needed

We are currently looking to boost our network of web developers. We are actively looking for web development partners, to work with us on varied client briefs. We are looking for: Front end / CSS specialists Freelance IA professionals CMS developers Application developers Development / Technical consultants We are not looking to employ these resources, we are looking for individuals or small companies that we can build ongoing working relationships with.

Congratulations

So another Tour de France is over.

That wonderful spectacle of team effort, amazing endurance and gladiatorial spirit has once again come to and end. Of course, The Tour has had its scandals this year, but our congratulations must go to Spaniard Carlos Sastre, who won yesterday in Paris.

Vive Le Tour!

Carbon Disclosure Project

We are very proud to announce that we are working with The Carbon Disclosure Project to produce their 2008 annual reports. Lavish are currently working on the production of 3 reports, due for publication in September of this year. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an independent not-for-profit organisation aiming to create a lasting relationship between shareholders and corporations regarding the implications for shareholder value and commercial operations presented by climate change. Its goal is to facilitate a dialogue, supported by quality information, from which a rational response to climate change will emerge. Lavish is proud to be supporting CDP in this vital work in the area of climate change. Carbon Disclosure Project

Design and the Elastic Mind

I love this online exhibition site for MoMA’s ‘Design and the Elastic Mind’. The exhibition itself highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behaviour—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This website has over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition. The navigation takes a bit of getting used to, but it does feel like an exhibition after you’ve used it for a bit. I haven’t yet picked my favourite, but there are plenty to choose from. Design and the Elastic Mind

Flash website for London agency

We have just completed a new website for design and communications agency Metier.

Not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but nicely designed and effective anyway. We like it.

As well as being Metier's digital partner, we also provide print-production and project management consultancy services to them. That's why we appear on the 'Who we are' page. Metier have an impressive roster of clients in the petrochemicals and property sectors.

Metier

Train in Vain

The past 12 months have heralded my long-overdue introduction to the world of proper grown-up commuting. For the last 7 years I have lived a sum total of 1.25 miles from my place of work, and had the luxury of the fact that I could either walk to work to take a cab (which invariably happened much more often that the walking).

So, as a novice to this commuting thing, I am still stunned by some of the things I encounter on the journey. Some questions I have often asked myself:

Why do people feel the need to eat the equivalent of a medium sized meal on the way home? Do these people have no kitchens, or is the lure of Burger King simply so great it can’t be ignored?

Why is the woman sitting next to me picking bits of skin off the side of her fingernails with her teeth like a woman possessed, and then spitting them out into the aisle? (I think I might have to move…oh my God she’s now picking her head.)

How interested are we in the social arrangements of the girl 7 seats away, who has so far covered every banal subject you can imagine, from what she is wearing on Saturday night to what she had for lunch today?

I could rant on….but also, I have seen some really heart-warming things. Like the whole carriage that have a train party every Christmas, and invited us newbies to come along. They even printed tickets and organised food. Or the set of 4 girls who meet every morning and chat like old friends, even though their only contact is the journey to work. And the very pleasant chat I had this evening with a fellow commuter to distract me from the amazing skin picking woman next to me.

So all in all, it’s still proving to be quite an experience this commuting lark. One thing it is good for is an extra hour’s work each way….or is that a bad thing? Time will tell....

Past Masters on Motorbikes

Lavish are currently designing a small website for a friend of ours, Spencer Reeves, who is competing as a rookie in this year's Yamaha Past Masters Racing Cup (YPMRC). Billed as 'Competing on a budget - Racing to the limit' we got to see some motorbike racing action first-hand this weekend.

The boys were at Brands Hatch for the 13th and 14th rounds of the season, and unfortunately Saturday turned out to be unlucky 13 for Spencer. A blown up engine during Friday's practice session meant a hasty engine-change and a distinct lack of power when it came to race speed. That, combined with an unscheduled trip over the grass on the first race saw a 19th place finish. Unfortunately he didn't fare much better during race two, again losing speed on the straights, despite being quick through the corners.

Aside from technical troubles, we had a great day on Saturday, and were very proud to see our lovely logo loud and proud on the bike.

Spencer is scheduled for some coverage in Metro newspaper, so more when that appears. The website will be finished this week, but check out progress so far:

Spencer Reeves

Interesting and Influential bloggers

I have been following the trials, tales and tribulations of my friend Alex, as she goes walkabout through South East Asia on her way to Australia, via her blog
Alex's Great Escape.

Although I don't really know Alex that well as we only met shortly before she left London, through reading her entertaining snapshots of life on the road I've certainly got much more of a sense of her as a person. Writing a diary or a blog can be so personal I wonder how long it would have taken us as friends getting to know eachother for me to have got such a deep insight into her thoughts and feelings?

And it seems that blogging is definitely no longer a boys sport. NorthxEast's list of the world's most influential female bloggers makes interesting reading. A really varied selection of some smart and sassy blogs that I would definitely recommend you bookmark.

Most influential female bloggers

First press coverage

Metrotwin got its first bit of press coverage today, in Marketing Week. I am sure this is just the start of things to come:

Marketing Week Metrotwin article

Metrotwin

For the past 5 weeks or so I have been working on the launch of a new community based website for a client, and after a lot of hard work from a very talented and visionary cross-agency team we went live yesterday with a private beta.

Metrotwin brings the world’s two greatest cities together in one space: an online community for people to share recommendations of the best places to go in New York and London.

There are hundreds of sites providing reviews, but where Metrotwin differs is that we are only interested in the ten best places to do things. So for instance, the ten best places to drink coffee, eat cupcakes or take a client to lunch. Recommendations can also be sub-location based – so within London you can find the coolest places in Clerkenwell or wherever. Every recommendation has a Metrotwin rating (a number out of 100) that updates as you use the site based on the number of times it’s viewed, commented, rated and saved.

While we are in the private beta phase participation is by invitation only, but within the next month or so the site will be open to the public and out there on the t’internet.

Become a fan of Metrotwin on Facebook. Just search ‘Metrotwin’ and join up. Or visit the ‘request an invitation page’ and put your name down to join the most exclusive, ‘in the know’ club in NyLon.

Enjoy:

Metrotwin

Ideas for entrepreneurs

One of my favourite websites at the moment is Springwise. Positioned as ‘new business ideas for entrepreneurial minds’, Springwise uses its network of 8,000 Springspotters in over 70 countries worldwide to showcase the best ideas from around the globe. Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Current ideas include a Dance-Powered Eco Nightclub, innovative new street advertising and a US-based nightlife mapping tool that uses GPS to reveal hotspots. Take a look at some of the weird, wild and sometimes brilliant ideas at Springwise

What are we working on?

I never fail to be surprised at the sheer diversity of projects we work on in any one month. Offering the full creative services spectrum means our talented team never know what could be coming in next. This month it all seems to have been digital. We have been doing a lot of video editing work for a museum website, finishing building a Flash website for an agency, providing project management consultancy on a social networking site build, building some data capture functionality for a charity, and pitching for a new website project. It’s funny – some month’s it’s all print work, but at the moment the focus has been online. As well as this variety of projects, we have also been working hard on our Big Stories campaign, which is starting to reap rewards. The offer seems to be being very well received by our target charities, and we’ve had some nice compliments about the microsite and DM pack. Hopefully we can convert this into some new clients and make some new Lavish friends in the coming months.

Persuasion

I’m reading a good book at the moment. ‘Persuasion – The art of influencing people’.

There are some interesting facts around the importance of body language and non-verbal communication. In the 1960’s, Dr Albert Mehrabian conducted a research study that concluded that the impact of a message could be classified as 55% visual, 38% vocal and 7% verbal. Meaning that our body language and tone of voice are infinitely more important than our actual words, in day-to-day communication.

It is interesting in this day and age, when so many of our relationships, friendships and business communications are conducted over text, email, IM, Facebook, Twitter etc how much we are losing in the message, by not focussing on the delivery. If 93% of the impact of our message is based on what you see and how it sounds, our listeners are only actually focussing 7% on what we are actually saying.

So even with all the technology available to us today, it shows that a bit of good-old fashioned ‘face-time’ can’t be beaten.


Persuasion is by James Borg and published by Pearson.

Who would win in a fight?

So, as a bit of light relief we have started a regular debate with our favourite bar staff at St John.

The 'Who Would Win in a Fight' debate started like this:

Who would win in a fight between a duck-sized horse against one hundred horse-sized ducks?'

We got a variety of answers - but the common consensus was that the duck-sized horse would win. Reasons given included 'enormous webbed feet that would squash the horses' - right through to 'ducks are evil'.

This week's animal-based fight conundrum is:

'Who would win in a fight between one human-sized ant against one hundred ant-sized humans?"

Early indications are in favour of the ant-sized humans... based mostly on the concept of conscious thought and our ability to invent weapons of mass-animal destruction.

Although Madge is valiantly fighting the corner of the human-sized ant - but only on the basis that he/she/it could run faster than the time it would take the hundred ant-sized humans to invent anything...

Your comments / thoughts / ramblings are welcome...

Challenging Times

As we approach the middle of 2008, the challenges facing charities and not-for-profit organisations continue to grow. The global credit crunch is adding even further to the problems of fundraising in a society where donation fatigue is a common problem and disposable income is at a 15 year low. For all charities and not-for-profit organisations, maximising marketing budgets during these times is top priority. This still needs to be married up with producing inspiring, creative work and marketing campaigns that deliver fundraising results, be it acquisition of new donors or retention of existing ones. We have recently put together a marketing campagin aimed at this issue. At Lavish we have many years of experience of delivering cost effective, budget-driven creative projects to audiences in both the corporate and charitable sectors. Our charity clients include: Crisis, Public Concern at Work and The Carbon Disclosure Project. Our 'Big Stories' campaign was launched last week with a DM piece and supporting microsite, and initial responses have been very encouraging. We are following up with calls and currently arranging appointments. We are approaching 75 hand-picked charities in the London and surrounding areas, and are looking forward to talking to them more about how we might be able to help. Take a look at our microsite: www.bigstories.co.uk

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Apple today previewed Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the next major version of their operating system. Rather that rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation.

Snow Leopard is optimised for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

Read more at: Digital Arts

For more information see Apple

Tea

Like most offices around the country, who makes the tea, and when, is a hot topic in our studio!

More anal than most we have even created a tea style guide, which gives pantone references for all of our tea choices and is stuck on the wall! No-one can say we don't take our tea making (or colour management) seriously!

I came across this innovative way to take the pain out of the tea rota:

Make The Tea

Loss

On Easter Sunday we found out that the wonderfully talented tattooist Jason Saga had passed away. I didn’t know Jason that well myself, but Madge has been seeing Jason for over two years, and proudly wears two beautiful and vibrant Japanese half-sleeves created by him. Your relationship with your tattoo artist is a very special one, as it is essential you build a connection. They were just starting to plan a large Hanya back piece, and I can remember Madge coming back from his appointment and telling me how excited and keen Jason was to start working on it.

Hearing about Jason’s sad and untimely death has left a shadow over our week, and only now has the sense of shock and disbelief begun to lift a little. Our hearts go out to all of the people who knew and loved Jason and everybody who’s life he touched. His legacy lives on with every person that carries his ink.

Stacey

View some of Jason’s amazing work at Saga Tattoo

Cobblers children

So the quote is not original. We’ve all heard the one about the cobbler being too busy working to make new shoes for his children. Well I find internal projects are our version of the poor old shoemaker’s time management issue. We always seem to have a full ‘to-do’ list of marketing materials to create and internal projects to finish. Blogs to write (yes, more than once every 8 weeks), showreels to compile, animations to finish and tailored campaigns to our target sectors are only a few of the things that never seem to get crossed off the list. Every small to medium business owner I speak to suffers from the same problem, and there are plenty of surveys and management training books that seem to back up the feeling that there are not enough hours in the day. The only trouble is, if you don’t keep up to speed with your own marketing activity then new business leads can suffer and before you know it you’re playing catch up. So this month we’ve worked hard. Our Head of Business Development started on 1 March, which has given us a fresh impetus. By the end of the month we will have finished our new CGI showreel, launched a targeted offline and online campaign for the not-for-profit sector, and refocused our sales and marketing activity for the rest of 2008. And we will be posting our blogs more often…watch this space.