A little bit of a news update for today’s blog post. Firstly, Executive Creative Director, James Bull spoke to students at the London College of Communication on the subject of “Making the Most of Social Media”. Feedback from the students was great and we have won some lovely new followers on the MB twitter. In the press, Design Director, Mat Heinl spoke to Marketing Week about “pushing boundaries in brand identities“. And lastly, but by no means least, we have been honoured to have a very special visitor from the U.S, George Englund, in the studio. Producer, director, actor, writer, Hollywood veteran, and friend to MB’s founder Ben Wolstenholme, George has been helping us incorporate the power of storytelling into our work as well as regaling us with tales of hanging out with Brando and breaking deals with the Vatican. You’ll be missed George!
I’ve never been to a ‘Designers Breakfast‘ event before, but when I heard the topic of discussion this week was going to be “Free Pitching”, in the wake of the GLA’s London logo tender, I couldn’t resist. Especially as Moving Brands had been at the epicentre of the discussion during our publicly open pitch ‘A Brand for London‘. It was a great discussion and I recommend the monthly events to anyone interested in the issues within our industry.
As for my views on free pitching? It’s up to the agency and individual to make a creative and business decision as to the way they want to pitch. If you want to pitch, pitch. If you don’t want to pitch, don’t… Either way feel happy about your decision and don’t berate others for doing it another way. Diversity of process, skills, billing and pitching is what makes the UK’s design industry the success it is.
This morning we were delighted to play host to ABC News, who came to interview Ben about our Brand for London pitch. We created an open pitch which encouraged the public to lend their voice to the design of the brand. Despite not getting through to the next round of the bid, we have been overwhelmed by the groundswell of support for our approach and the encouragement for us to create an ‘unofficial’ brand for London. We are currently waiting for confirmation, but the piece is likely to air on Good Morning America over the weekend.
Without any prior notification and yet to our surprise and delight, we received our Finalist certificate from Cannes Lions. Our work for Swiss telecoms company, Swisscom, was shortlisted by the Cannes Design Lions in the Corporate Identity Schemes category. You can view our case study here or see the short film we made here. Swisscom has done fantastically in awards this year – winning a Red Dot award, a bronze award at the European Design Awards, being selected by the AIGA, as well as shortlisted by both Design Preis and, more recently, the Benchmarks. Next up Design Week Awards… what a year!
Check out our latest film which shows our “living” cover in action. Click here to download the cover and swipe, tilt and rotate your way through our latest content.
A rainy, cold Monday in London, so what better excuse for a cake off? Paul and I buttered the proverbial baking trays of our cooking finesse and went head to head over that bastion of English high tea, the Victoria Sponge. With mugs of tea in hand, the Moving Brands studio assembled to vote, nominating Paul (right) as the clear winner. Next up Rosie takes on Paul in a cheesecake challenge.
Last Friday we launched our first Moving Brands paper, ‘Living identity’. By its nature, the paper is already out of date so we made a ‘living’ cover which uses augmented reality technology to allow people to see our latest thoughts, news and updates. Using just the cover (also download-able here) and a webcam, users can view live Moving Brands content using gestures to browse and scroll. We believe this is the first time augmented reality technology has been applied to a corporate book, as well as being pioneering in its ability to draw in a range of live feeds. Photos and film of both the launch event and the AR in action to follow. To download and try it yourself, click here.
A big thank you to all who came and made our open studio/paper launch such a fantastic night. We had a great mix of people – from old friends and design students to clients and Twitter followers. We were thrilled to be part of the London Design Festival which, running for the week prior to our event, had really pushed the boundaries and introduced us, here at MB, to some fascinating new ‘finds’. It was also very exciting to launch our first paper, ‘Living identity‘, which explains our approach to branding and looks at some ‘living’ identities we have created for our clients. Last, but by no means least, everyone who came on Friday had a great time playing with the augmented reality cover to the paper we created with Renderheads. For those of you who couldn’t make it, you can download the cover and play with the AR by clicking here. We also encourage you to share your thoughts on ‘living identities on our new Living Identity blog. Enjoy and we look forward to hearing from you!
Aki Shelton, our Creative Director at Moving Brands Japan in Tokyo, sent over these photos of a crazy marketing bus found in Harajuku. Apparently there are 9 TV screens on each side of the bus, blasting music as it goes. I wonder how Londoners would feel about one of those travelling down Oxford Street!
Aki also wanted to let us know that Tokyo is also playing host to the CMWC – The Cycle Messenger World Championships. Since 1993, the event has been hosted in cities around the world, bringing a combination cool bikes and fashion to avid spectators.
Our General Manager, Diane Harwood, in San Francisco has been following the final stages of the rebuilding of the Bay Bridge. On the BLDGblog, Bay Area architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello have called for stabilizing the disused – and soon to be entirely dismantled – portion of the Bay Bridge. They propose turning it into a pedestrianized urban park and outdoor sports attraction. As our urban centres bulge with an ever-increasing population, the re-purposing of existing, heavy-load bearing structures becomes a vital skill when dealing with the cataclysmic change of our moving world.
On a lighter note, Diane has also been enjoying this hyper-American collection of chrome logos.
We are Moving Brands and we like to push the boundaries with whatever we do and if this means sacrificing our favorite biskuits for technological experiments then so be it!
The London Design Festival kicks off tomorrow. As part of the festival, we will be hosting an open studio on the evening of Friday, 25th September. Friday is also the East London focus of the festival so be sure to check out what else is going on that night and soak up the best of the East London design community.
From 6pm, you will be able to explore the Moving Brands studio in Shoreditch, view our latest showreels and discuss our work with our designers. We will also be launching the first Moving Brands paper, ‘Living identity’.
‘Living identity’ presents examples of dynamic, living identities created within our studio, as well as inviting conversation about why brands must learn to lose control and love change. In keeping with the idea of ‘living’ brands, our studio will be packed with interactive elements for you to play and experiment with.
If you would like to attend our open studio and paper launch, please email events@movingbrands.com to be added to the guest list. And keep up to date via our blog and twitter.
Following our time in the spotlight during our open pitch for A Brand for London, we have been asked to contribute to a couple of pieces in the industry press. Moving Brands founder, Ben Wolstenholme, was in last week’s Design Week as an “activist” for interactive progress, asserting that ‘Design [should be] for people, not technology’. Click here to read. And in Marketing Week, Ben’s co-founder, James Bull, gave his view on the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile. Returning to the London Pitch, Creative Review published a piece by Michael Johnson, which mentions our efforts. Johnson Banks were also unfortunately unsuccessful in getting to the next stage but, in the spirit of our work, have published their submission in the post (an adaptation of their existing Think London logo).
As a branding agency, we are practitioners in the art of telling compelling stories. Although our work is principally commercial, our interest does not stop there. With this in mind, we are fully behind a personal project of our Executive Creative Director, James Bull. James is in the process of making his writing and directorial debut with a short film called ‘Scotch Corner’. He will be filming on location in East London, North Yorkshire and West Scotland to tell the story of Cassie as she flees from her abusive boyfriend and embarks on a journey that will change who she has become forever. You can follow the progress of James’ film by clicking here.
We had our first Moving Brands Meets… event in Tokyo last week at the Claska Hotel. Our guest speaker was Scott Thomas, the design director from the Obama Presidential campaign.
He talked about his team’s new media design work for the Obama for America campaign. It was so exciting to hear about their communication strategy in detail, and get a few behind-the-scenes stories of their design decisions. He is currently writing a book to explain how an obscure senator rose to the highest office in the land with the aid of branding and design.
Scott also talked about why he turned down the offer from the White House and came to spend 2 months in Japan. Good timing too, as Japan recently had a national election and it is quite shocking to compare the two. Here, no “new media” is allowed. Japan’s election law’s, that limit campaigning methods, are very strict and they haven’t changed in 50 years.
We were lucky to have Scott speak and for the event there were about 50 guests – thanks again all who joined us. No worries if you missed it, we’ll post video of Scott’s interview and presentation on our website.
After a week of running our open pitch blog, we finally submitted our bid to City Hall this morning. Our pitch document went riding on a wave of support from @we_are_london and @movingbrands Twitter followers, 40,000 hits on our site, 300 feedback comments and coverage in the main London evening papers. It’s been a fascinating, fantastic process and one that has started many conversations around the world about new ways of working creatively. Thanks to all who’ve come with us on the journey. We’re still posting and updating to our blog, so stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed that Boris listens to the voice of London.
We think London is having an identity crisis. In response to the release of a public tender from the Mayor, we are pitching to create a brand for London. We have decided to throw the process open to the public – inviting Londoners to give their views on London via Twitter and on our pitch website.
One of our new Twitter fans has summed it up pretty well…
Brit branding shop Moving Brands using social media 2 guide pitch efforts 4 London logo. Bloody brilliant!”
We have also been chatting to Scott Thomas, the Design Director of the Obama Campaign. He certainly knows a thing or two about unifying a country behind a logo!
We want to make as much fuss as possible and win or lose we think this is an interesting approach.
Responding to unprecedented economic, environmental, and cultural change, we used social networking applications and found media to make this film. This movie mash-up explores the nature of our fast moving world and how it is vital for brands to change, adapt or die in order to survive.
We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a Red Dot for our branding/ communication design of Switzerland’s number one telecommunications company, Swisscom. Click here for more about the Red Dot awards and here for our Swisscom case study. Since Swisscom’s re-brand we have been thrilled to learn that consumer acceptance, marketing share, customer satisfaction and customer retainment have all risen significantly.
Here in the studio, we are at the final stages of the NSN Round the World Connected films. Our team have been to seven world regions and discovered how connectivity is affecting people at governmental and social levels. The latest film, on Japan, can be seen by clicking here. Travelling to the world’s test bed for the latest technology, Adrian learnt how mobile phones are being used to both to pay for cheese burgers and read the latest books. Following an experiment with phone decoration, Adrian’s tour guide explained how, for the Japanese, their mobile phones is starting to mean their lifestyle in their pocket.
Moving Brands are proud to announce the appointment of Aki Shelton as Creative Director of our Tokyo office. Previously she was a Creative Director at Apple’s in-house graphic design/marcom group working on projects such as corporate identity, events, and channel merchandising. Aki also spent the last two years as the Creative Director of Apple Japan. We are thrilled to bring Aki’s considerable experience to Moving Brands and we look forward to seeing her grow existing relationships with clients such as Coca Cola, and to further expand our global offer. Aki Shelton will start on 20th July 2009.
