For our recent Sprout Christmas competition, the development team were tasked with the creation of a 360 degree spinning representation of our prize jar of sprouts.

Having some keen photographers within the team, we jumped at the chance to bring our gear in, and convert the kitchen area in the manor into a quick photo studio.

First we decided upon how many photographs / angles we wanted to have, which came down to every 10 degrees (36 shots). To ensure we got it right, we marked down every 10 degrees around a template that the jar would sit on – unfortunately we didn’t have a turn table available so we relied on our calm and collected coding hands for the movement.

Armed with a roll of brown paper, we covered the kitchen table and wall to remove any items which may cause post production an issue.

Consistency was key for making this work seamlessly, so we setup our DSLR on a tripod, with a nice fast 85mm 1.4 lens and used a remote to fire the shutter. We did a couple of test shots for lighting and reflection testing, then our photo studio was complete!

We focus locked the camera, and carefully rotated the sprout jar whilst taking the 36 photographs needed. The design team then did all of the post processing and beautification necessary, and handed us back the files.

As we were going to use a sprite sheet method involving just one image file, we had to collate them all together in a row – thankfully stitching them together was nice and easy due to Photoshop’s distribution alignment tool.

The HTML was nice and easy, just needed a div container with the correct dimensions, with the background of our sprite sheet set.

Next was to setup the JavaScript, using the jQuery library we were able to quickly track mouse movements when the jar had been clicked, to determine which direction the user would be panning around.

A little logic to decide what frame number should be next displayed, and/or if it should loop back around to the beginning, the background position on the sprite sheet that sprite number relates to and we were there! A HTML only method of creating a controllable spinning sprout jar.

Matthew Pierce was nominated to win, with the correct guess that there were 127 sprouts jammed in the jar. He is now the proud owner of an awful lot of sprouts:

(Look at his happy face at winning.)

Congratulations go out to Matthew – we hope you will look after them well!

Arriving at the office at 5am was a small struggle, but excitement prevailed. Arriving in Paris, we spent a short while navigating (getting lost) the Metro, but once we had our bearings, were in for a great day of hot chocolate, art galleries, delicious cocktails, Christmas markets, mulled wine, and crazy Parisian weather (see windswept and interesting photographs).

We were too busy having a marvellous time to do any shopping, resulting in most of us buying last minute cheese as souvenirs, so I apologise to fellow Eurostar travellers for the strong fromage odour, but when in France…!

A brilliant end to the year – good job Niko!

Merry Christmas!

The humble sprout – affectionately known as the vegetable of Christmas, is largely overlooked the other 364 days of the year. So, we decided to give them their moment to shine…

We don’t want to give anything else away. So don’t delay – check out the humble sprout now.

When a Quick Response (QR) code is scanned by mobile phone, it directs information and messages to the device. The use of QR codes is increasingly popular among marketers as a low cost method of communicating brand information, and according to one study, code scanning has increased by a huge 4549% between 2010 and 2011. For the consumers who are using them, they are a quick way of engaging with brands and receiving vouchers and other brand related rewards through their mobile phone.

Despite the clear benefits to brands and consumers, it remains that only a small proportion of consumers uses or understands them. Barriers to use include the consumers lack of knowledge, not owning a device which is capable of scanning the code, and the apathetic – those who feel there are little benefits to their use, and they can use a website more easily and quickly. Marketers, though using them, are generally not making them integral to campaigns, tucking them away in the corner of advertising and packaging, leaving them easily missed and remaining outside of the mainstream.

How can these barriers be overcome? I think most important is to define a clear USP for the code, and do this creatively, inspiring consumers to engage with the technology and the brand.

Some cool examples of QR code positioning:

In Korea, a leading supermarket has created a virtual store in a subway. When commuters scan the QR code on the image of an item, the item is added to their shopping list and delivered to their home, resulting in greater brand awareness customer loyalty.

In Tokyo, it is popular to project huge QR codes onto the sides of buildings. When scanned, consumers are taken to a website which offers discounts for local shops and restaurants. Away from the cityscapes I seem to associate them with, this one was mown into a field in Germany. The message decodes to “Hello World!” and could be seen from Google Earth.

It’s not only for shopping; BBC3 has integrated the first QR code into on air animation to advertise new drama The Fades, as a way of engaging with the digitally minded target audience, and the NHS is also tapping into this audience by using QR codes to connect clubbers to drug advice.

Which QR codes you would recommend?

Podge is an opportunity – and one James and myself most heartily enjoyed – of our industry getting together to eat and be merry – both big and small companies, and not just agencies… anyone who plays an active part in the industry, was there. It may sound like just another ‘network’ event… but it’s not. It’s been a while since I enjoyed such a shindig so much. Meeting some great new people, some of them my heros in the design world when I was still a young nipper, as well as bumping into old friends.

Everyone left the ego’s at the door and set about having a good chinwag about what we are up to, how to safeguard against tough times, new opportunities or opinions on old. Remembering that we should always be collaborative, that we love this space of ours and should be looking to the future not protecting the past.

Anyway, enough of my chitta-chat. Many thanks to Phil for organising. Many thanks to FutureBrand for such an engaging concept. Hope to be back at Podge next year to say hi to everyone again.

We were asked to To educate prosperous young professionals aged between 20-39 years old, about the options to purchase, through shared ownership, the 1 and 2 bed flats at the new Putney Hill . Communicating through social channels not only the specifications and details of the building but highlighting the vibrant local community on the development’s doorstep.

And for those of you that have yet to see our full nominated work – you can still visit it here.

Unfortunatly this was not to be our year and the award was won by Soverign Housing. Congratulations to them, however, all this means is that we will be coming back next year to gain that second award!

Well done however to all of team how did work on this exciting project.

The awards themselves were heaps of fun as you can see below! We even got a sneaky pic with the presenter Jo Brand (who by the way was hillarious!) Lucky we had our old award with us – haha!

It therefore gives me great pleasure to welcome a new developer to the team. Say hello to Stefan.

Stefan (or Stevo as we call him) joins us as a front-end / flash developer. He has vast experience working on some great projects and will be a great asset to the team. Already impressing with his Slovakian coding wizardry, he brings humour, strawberries and a wealth of knowledge  to an already highly talented, humourous and good looking  development department.

Be sure to look out for his thought provoking blog posts under his handle of ‘Iron Man’, and to say hello.

Welcome to team Stevo.

Something a little off-piste for today’s blog. Feeling the 80′s vibe this week, after finding a Sooty puppet in a vintage store this weekend, and I thought I’d share the love (or should that be magic?)…

Whilst musing over the cult classic that was The Sooty Show that started back in 1955, I was interested to find out the entire idea for Sooty was born in much the same way – a cute hand-puppet teddy found in a vintage shop on a day out at Blackpool pier, as a last ditch effort to entertain a small child.

The Sooty Show was a father / son enterprise that spanned across BBC and ITV without falter, something that many modern shows, with all their hype and ratings, fail to do well.

I wonder how many of you still hold a soft-spot for Sooty (…or Sweep, Soo, Butch, Scampi, Muffin and Snuffles for that matter)?