We love design and music (you know that right?) and we love to support truly great and inspiring social enterprise projects like Under The Stars. The first album and band to emerge from the workshops is called The Stars Band – We Are Stars. All the members have learning difficulties, and the album is a true labour of love – the result of three years of intensive work for the band and Sheffield musicians and producers Chris Morris and Moony Wainwright.

We designed and produced the CD packaging which included a limited run of 1,000 copies split into 13 individual covers one for each band member. We pooled resources form some brilliant people to make this happen – a real pure piece of design and a truly collaborative effort from a broad range of disciplines; Photography – Johnny Carr, Photo retouching – Papa Imaging, CD production – Breed Media, CD packaging – ASAP Digital & PDF and finally the PR – Rootstock PR.

Sponsorship to make the project happen has come from some of our friends; Radio One DJ Toddla T, Warp Films and music industry accountants Brown McLeod.

The sleeve notes from Chris Morris sum up the sentiment and the attitude: This is an album made by people with a range of disabilities. Consider that every note, beat and lyric has been born from a remarkable two and a half years of work, dedication and musical progression. The very process of making this music has created new friendships and new skills, new ways of thinking. We live in a society that can make too much of our differences, The Stars band don’t. They think and work together and share and celebrate their individuality. Under the Stars supports people’s right to be different, we all unite in our work, our music and the freedom to express ourselves, no matter what challenges are put in our way.

Going live this week, our work for the Sheffield Hallam University student recruitment campaign. Work began back in October last year when we won a five way pitch to carry out the work for their national campaign, incorporating outdoor, print media and digital. Our solution is focused on the university’s employability credentials, and how the experience can focus and prepare people for the career they aspire to. The campaign message ‘Discover Tomorrow’s You’ is a bold statement so we wanted to ground the message in something authentic. We used real Sheffield Hallam students as ambassadors to front the campaign and made films for each of them where they share their dreams and ambitions and the Sheffield Hallam experience. Eventually the same ambassadors could be involved with the open days, so prospective students gradually build a relationship with existing ones, and that’s how the University tells its story. The campaign will roll out over the next two years with additional media going live at core points in that period, we’ll keep posting updates as they happen.

We directed and edited all photography and films with Johnny Carr, photo retouching by Dan Watkins at Papa Imaging and animated graphics were added to the films with the help of Joe Brooks. A real team effort!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The Heeley Development Trust has long battled for permission to revive the three beautiful C. J. Innocent designed school buildings at the top of our road. The plan to bring these back from the brink (seven years of dereliction) and put them to use as a brilliant little neighbourhood of community facilities, commercial workspace and artists’ studios has been really enthusiastically received. We are going to be branding the development and creating marketing plans and designing collateral.

Brimming with all sorts of period features, this place is going to give us a lot to work with. Preparation work has unearthed parquet floors, custom made bricks and tiles and cupolas that will be restored and reinstated, giving the area a distinctive multipurpose centre. There’s talk too of places to eat and drink, and the buildings will open up onto a great little park complete with climbing boulders, BMX track, bandstand and views out the Peaks. The scrap for the first commercial units begins here…and they’ll be open for business Spring 2013.

A year into their role as the national agency behind the growth of our film, TV, games digital media and creative industries, Creative England is celebrating. We’ve been working with them in developing their visual identity, a project we won last year. As part of that work, we’ve designed this review document to spread the good news of its achievements and to go further than anything so far to set out the Creative England stall. We’re now working on rolling out the second stage of the identity development so, as always, keep your eyes peeled.

Happy birthday Creative England!

Several pieces of Identity work we have designed have been published in a book called Logotype, written by Michael Evamy and published by Lawrence King.

The old St. John’s Convent and orchard at 17 Grove Park  located in the leafy surrounds of Dulwich – refurbished and transformed into four elegant homes. Marrying the victorian buildings rich history with a contemporary aesthetic. Each home like family members has its own unique qualities including individual names; Quince, Myrtle, Mulberry and Damson (all fruit). We were commissioned by Bespoke Homes to create an identity for the development and individual homes, a brochure, hoardings and marketing material for the launch. The trellis pattern work we designed as part of the identity has since been integrated by John Smart Architects into the large stone floor tiling within the houses.

As if they weren’t content with putting on the hugely successful Tramlines festival 2 weeks ago, some of the same team responsible now give us SHEFTIVAL. We’ve been involved in creating all the marketing for the event with the help of the brilliant Jon Boam. It’s two days of sport and music where you can try and punch a boxer (he’s not allowed to hit you back), play crazy golf, go ‘Zorbing‘, drink some Thornbridge ale and then watch Toots and the Maytals (and loads of other live music too). That’s not even the half of it though, so to find out more go here, and here. To see how you get around the festival go here. And to get a ticket for it (which you absolutely should do) go here.

We curated, created and grafted to put on South Yorks at Sheffields Tramlines festival alongside fellow conspirators Kid Acne and Hannah Wilson. Running from 2pm till 2am we hosted the world premiere of Zebraface the animated series (on telly tomorrow night as part of Channel 4′s Random Acts series) – we had live performances from the cast including Juice Aleem, Infinite Livez and Chester P. Also amazing live performances and DJ sets from the legendary Forgemasters, Earl Shilton, Flaming Skulls, Trellion & Sniff, Chips for The Poor, Methodist Centre, Mad Colours, Slick Dixxx and me (Pipes).

We also had amazing artwork and visuals from Sheffield Publicity Department, Shaun Bloodworth, Elliot Holbrow and Ackers himself.

At 12.05am tonight you need to be sat in front of your telly with Channel 4 on to see the first episode of Zebra Face! For the last year we’ve worked with Kid Acne and Universal Spirits to produce these animated shorts for Channel 4′s Random Acts series, with direction credits going to our very own Paul Reardon! Get some popcorn in!

Some of you may know that last year we produced an identity and campaign for the Tramlines Music Festival – the Free For All yearly shin-dig taking place across the city of Sheffield. Well, last weekend was this years’ offering. As well as producing all new campaign work for Tramlines 2012 (posters, at event branding, online application) we were keen to build on last years work and get involved on an even deeper level: Producing their first ever proper printed programme, an App, and main stage visuals for sponsors Nokia (more on that in a separate post). Alongside all that we even (somehow) found time to get involved in the South Yorks event with Kid Acne (a separate post about that coming soon too).

The reaction to this years event has been amazing, with visitor numbers estimated at 150,000. It’s hard to imagine it getting bigger and better next year… but it will… you watch.

Our client the British Institute of Interior Design is going the extra mile with this year’s annual conference for interior designers and architects and throwing a celebration of British design. With an admirable list of speakers that includes iconic Brit designer Sir Paul Smith, the event needed a jolly British identity that sat neatly alongside the BIID branding. We stuck with their ‘cube’ shape, stacking the shapes to create a B, which we then shamelessly red, white and blued…Designed for use at the show on conference screens, we designed a range of animations that will move and adapt to work with specific speakers, or conference events, like the giving of honorary fellowships which will see Sir Paul Smith, designer Zandra Rhodes and photographer Andreas Von Einsiedel recognised. Flags at the ready, all.