Our motives of starting an agency were questioned, but we believed in a better creative world – where an agency got back to its routes and produced great work without charging (let’s face it) the inflated and greed orientated fees of others. Work that benefited the intended audience, not purely the agency.

Our sense of timing was questioned, but we welcomed the recession, I know that sounds misguided, but in our industry great agencies are born out of recessions – There is a flick of the reset switch, the fat is removed – we remember it’s about great creative, marketing and communications. Simple.

So what has been the secret to our last 4 years? Well, I won’t give it all away, but…

…in the beginning we had no clients, no website and no folio. All we had is what all creatives dream of… A completely white piece of paper to do with as we wished, along with our hard won reputations. It was time to start afresh – to reinvent what an agency should be and remember why we got involved in this industry in the first place – align our ethos and ethics to an ever (rapidly) changing and demanding world – get out there and spread our message. One of creative love.

We went against the grain when others played it safe and employed top of game talent to deliver on our promises of great creative and management. Within this structure we fostered an environment that invested in staff, encouraged creative thought, and empowered individuals to take ownership and accountability of their work whilst developing the concept of the team and not rely on hero dependency.

We found a niche. We developed an approach to transparent management and communications – allowing staff to have voice and help shape the future of the company. There should be no secrets.

We worked hard. Often above and beyond the contractual agreements we had made… Even today, if it needs that little extra we will give it, meaning that we do it better, faster, cheaper, more honestly, and with a wider range than our competitors.

But most of all, we created an environment that allows people to work with a smile. Promoting people to look at things with new eyes, to not be afraid or think of limitations.

Things great and small

With each dollar having to work harder and the amount of channels now available it pays to stay small and agile. It pays not to be the ’800-pound gorilla’. It allows us to work under the radar of the bigger agencies.

By staying small and focussed we hold on to the things that are dear to us, our passion of ideas, our love of storytelling and the acceptance of making mistakes. Mistakes are OK… If we don’t make them, then we aren’t pushing hard enough.

And what of 2012…

As advocates of design and communication we will be thinking about how we can change the world. To make it that little bit more special and leave a legacy – gifting back to the audience we rely so heavily upon to love and be influenced by our work. Yes, we live and work within a commercially driven world and environment, but it’s evolving… And brands can and will be playing a central role within this communication evolution – To make the world a better place to live in. It’s not all about the financial rewards… It now incorporates the story we are telling and the smile we should be leaving behind.

Our mission

As always; To over achieve – to deliver time and time again on our promise. To change the world ever so slightly for the better. To make the complex simple. To love what we do.

Here is to what we believe is going to be a most excellent 2012. Have fun with it.

Mark Anderson / Creative Director and Founder

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.

Senior Project Manager

What we are looking for…

The best of the best! You have dealt with large and small clients alike and understand the variables in each. Be technically aware… We are digital after all. You keep your head at all times, can manage clients and staff, and keep projects on track and on budget. Agency experience is a must.

Find out more and get in touch >

Junior Frontend Developer

What we are looking for…

An individual who can be responsible for innovative, well conceptualised and well developed multi-platform solutions for projects within the tech / creative department. You will be supported by a dynamic team in delivering high-quality end requirements for International clients.

Find out more and get in touch >

Typo Talks has been running for about 16 years in Berlin and this year was the first of hopefully many set in London. There were a broad range of topics covered over the three days from animation, art, signage, digital, print and of course typography. They were all loosely based on the theme of ‘Places’ but some more loosely than others. I can honestly say, there wasn’t a talk I didn’t enjoy and I even got to try a bit of calligraphy although I think I need a bit practice. I do plan to do a few detailed posts around some of areas covered, but for now here is just a few of my favourites from Typo.

Nat Hunter from Airside, ran through of a few of their latest projects but with particular focus on storytelling. I really liked the work they did for the Virgin Airlines inflight entertainment system, showing that a better design solution aids in a better experience, which then makes people happier, and then leads to other outcomes (such as drinking less from the free bar on Virgin flights, which then saves money).

“Pain is temporary. Suck is forever”. This is what Michael B Johnson from Pixar told us on Friday morning. I have always loved the way Pixar approaches a project and the attention to detail they put in. He gave an overview of a few stages of the Pixar process such as storyboarding and animation lighting, and finished on talking about the software they produce within Pixar just to ease the process and removing tension. After all, Pixar produce a playful product.

The talk that really stood out for me was from Karin von Ompteda. She did a very interesting experiment on typography, first conducting a survey to find the top 100 most popular typefaces and then analysed the individual letters with each other to find the areas of similar density. I won’t go into detail but I thought the images of each typeface placed onto of each other were really cool. I’d have then as a print on my wall.

An entertaining talk from Chip Kidd was a great way to end the conference. Briefly going over some book covers he had worked on over the years, he then told us about his obsession with Batman and the opportunity he had been given to write a Batman comic. All good stuff.

Like I said, I plan to do a few more posts on what I learnt at Typo so stay tuned. For now I’ll leave you with a few statements from Joachim Sauter on how to stay creative that I liked:
Reinvent yourself (every 7 years or so). Have the courage to fail. Share your experiences. Inspire rather than motivate. Teach.

Stephen Gray joins us with varied experience working across different areas of the Industry…
With a background in print, coming from the same uni and course as myself, he made the transition into a more digital orientated role through his interest in User Interaction and UX Design.

Stephen is an ambitious designer, whose enthusiasm and creative vision will surely prove to be a great benefit to the team! Welcome Stephen!

Due to a number of exciting projects in the pipeline, we currently have our eyes peeled and on the lookout for some seriously talented creatives to come and join the team! Including:

Senior UX / IA
Senior Designer
Creative Traffic / Project Manager
Senior Project Manager
Junior Front End Developer

Come and be a part of these exciting times at the manor! Visit our jobs page to find out more and get in touch.

What we are looking for…

The daddy (or mother) of Project Managers! You have dealt with large and small clients alike and understand the variables in each. Be technically aware… We are digital after all. You keep your head at all times, can manage clients and staff, and keep projects on track and on budget. Agency experience is a must.

Find out more and get in touch >

I say dotBrand – you say What? So, let’s start with the basics. DotBrand is the moniker that’s been given to the new raft of impending top level domain names.

We are all currently aware of at least a handful of the 22 existing traditional endings to a domain address such as .co.uk, .com, .org, .net, .biz, .fr, and we get along quite nicely with them for the most part. People have come to understand that a ‘.co.uk’ site is the UK version of a website, or that ‘.edu’ is limited to use by educational institutions, and is likely to be the domain name for your childs primary school, or your university.

dotBrand opens up the top level domain names to ‘.anything’… It could be .coke, .london, .music… and so on, creating with it an entirely new online landscape. Brands could essentially have total ownership and management of their own unique name space. No longer would they have to check whether a domain name was available at the start of a new product launch, or advertising campaign. Instead they would simply just add it in their repertoire. For example if MGM studios launched a new film, lets say it’s called Violet… they could simply have www.violet.mgm (instead of a) not being likely to get www.violet.com as another company will probably already own it and b) not having to use something along the lines of www.mgm.com/movies/newrelease/violet). Obviously the latter is a lot less effective, less memorable and holds less retention with the audience.

All dotBrand domain name requests have a 90 day period to be submitted to ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, starting Jan 2012. After which time a review process will take place, and names granted or declined… More of this later.

So, next comes the fact that a new digital landscape calls for a new digital strategy. Obviously there are immediate pluses and minuses to the arrival of a dotBrand era, and questions to be considered.

• How will it be received by the public? There is likely to be early confusion and potential reticence to change.
• How will brands educate the public, and encourage them to use their new dotBrand top level domain?
• Will cybersquatting increase? Will dotBrands be bought up by people who have no right to them?
• Will dotBrands be perceived as more or less trustworthy?
• How will dotBrands affect the online search strategies and effectiveness for non-dotBrand’ers?
• Will dotBrands give a competitive advantage to their users, or will they be yet another top level domain name in the mix of the existing ones?
• Will the obvious simplified url’s create a noticeable amount of stickyness for a campaign?
• …And the list goes on…

One immediate problem is that credible and agreed names that are submitted for registration will not only be approved, but will ensure that similar names, or different versions on a similar theme will be declined. The example given in the recent webinar was for Deloitte – if registered, .deloitte will be acceptable, but .delloite / .deloite / .deloittr will all be declined. The irony for me is that dotBrand itself is a company name… Will ICANN buy the .dotbrand top level domain for all registrations, and if they do, do they have ‘more right’ over it than a company whose registered name is DotBrand?? Wow… the mind boggles. Gap is another great example, as a colleague pointed out. There is currently thegap / gap/ gapadventures / gapinc / gapantenna / gap-software… Who can lay claim, and who will be shoved out of a dotBrand world? Or will it come down to those that can pay will muscle out those that can’t and stake their claim on a name?

The digital landscape may also change more dramatically than one would first envisage. There is the potential that dotBrand websites will eliminate the need for a website hierarchy, as you will be pointed exactly where you need to go by a short, snappy, memorable dotBrand url (www.contact.amazon or www.soul.kia). No website hierarchy and a direct route of navigation potentially means no Homepage doesn’t it? – a concept that all website users are currently familiar and comfortable with using and navigating. Obviously the immediate question raised in my mind, is around the interconnectivity of pages within the same dotBrand domain, and how users will find their way from one place to another if the navigational homepage is made redundant…? This may currently appear to be one step too far.

Now back to the process of registering for a dotBrand, as promised. There will be an initial 90 day registration period, after which the current schedule is that further registration for dotBrand domain names will be closed until 2016. That is a long way away! My initial fear on hearing this, coupled with the fact that each submission for a dotBrand domain name will cost a whopping $185,000 (please don’t gasp aloud as I did upon hearing this figure), is that all of a sudden the internet will become yet another landscape of have’s v’s have-not’s. For me the beauty of the internet is that it allows everyone an equal playing field – whether you’re a small start-up, or a big fish in the marketplace; equally it has allowed some amazing entrepreneurial successes that may never have got that first break had it not been for a unified global online space…

And let’s not brush over the $185,000 price-tag itself. What exactly are brands paying for? I’ll repeat that. What EXACTLY are brands paying for? And frankly, aren’t we simply saying to companies over a certain size and turnover ‘welcome to a brand new web’, and to all you others ‘goodluck’…

Whilst you read this, there will be more Top 100 companies publicly setting their stall out (to register or not to register, that is the question?), with the likes of Deloitte and Canon quickly announcing that they would be buying their respective dotBrand domain names. It would seem that there are therefore two options – dotBrand, or don’t. A third, slightly questionable, route is also being put out there by ICANN: register and then retreat. You register and essentially ‘reserve’ a domain name so others can’t get it, and then withdraw your application after the 90 day deadline. This would mean that between April 2012 and sometime in 2016 no-one else would be able to get your dotBrand domain name, however it would also cost you $55,500 for the privilege (30% of the original fee would be retained)…

I guess we shall just have to wait and wonder…

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)?