Christmas Card Making Machine

We've just recently completed the Wieden and Kennedy London's Christmas card. David and I had a chat with Joel Gethin Lewis in the summer and decided to collaborate on proposing a Christmas Installation that in return could work as Wieden and Kennedy's Christmas card. So we had a brainstorm and 4 months later we've completed it. The result is an interactive installation that works by taking a picture of your face and placing it randomly on one of 12 characters (Thanks to Johnny Lighthands for the illustrations), creating a never-ending Christmas chain. You then log on to the site, find your face and email your very own personalised christmas card to all your friend and family... all for free!. Here's a little video of how it works


The windows been getting lots of attention on the weekend.

The technology behind the window.

Here's what the website looks like.

And a final personalised card.

Visit the window at 16 Hanbury St and visit http://www.christmascardmakingmachine.com.

Care Label Press

I received an email from IPA Advertising and spotted a familiar piece of work. In the creative corner on the news page was an article about the Care Lables written by Paul Briginshaw from MCBD. To see more click here. Nice to see people still like simple ideas.

Howies Care Labels

I've just ordered the new Howies Winter catalogue which features an idea that I ran past David Hieatt last year. I worked on this with Alison who made the Blackboard Van Tour happen.The idea was to create a range of oversized care labels to be put into relevant environments with suggestions of how to look after the beaches, forests, rivers, sea and mountains. Here's a little sketch of the idea

Some images of the labels being constructed.

Putting up the label.

And standing all by itself on the beach.

And the whole range.

Unfortunately by the looks of things not all the labels survived the shoot.

If you want you a closer look at the Howies winter catalogue, click here.

Hidden Art interview

This interview was after I had exhibited at Milan with two of my own products, the Scrath Lights and the Note Table. Click here to see more.

Grapple

Our new window installation went up this week. We have worked with a young artist called James Capper. After going to his graduation show at the Chelsea College of Art we were so impressed that we invited him to do a piece for our agency window on Hanbury Street.


James has a fascination for industrial and construction devices, designing and building interactive machines with a life of their own. And since this year’s window theme is interaction, we thought it would be a good idea to let people try out one of James’s machines. If you're passing, feel free to have a go. No hard hat needed.

If you want to see more of James’s work, visit the Hannah Barry Gallery

Grapple grab times: Monday – Friday 6 -7, Saturday - Sunday 10 - 4. It's a bit noisy for the people whose desks are nearby, so we've had to limit hours of operation.

Nokia Headset Competition

After roughly 3 months we have finally finished our first website. <The Nokia Music Almighty Headset Competition went live on October 1st. We pretty much self initiated this project as well. Wieden + Kennedy wanted to produce some physical headphones for the Music Almighty campaign. After a conversation internally, we suggested that the best way to achieve this was to produce a competition where the public can design their own headphones and then physically make the best 5 designs which would go on to be exhibited across all the flagship stores. After pitching the idea to the client we got the go ahead.

We sourced the judges from design and music backgrounds, which consist of Felix Buxton from Basement Jaxx, Dick Powell founder of the design agency Seymour Powell, Eddi Yipp the founder of Adfunture in Shanghai, Tokyo Music Lab who are a music label under the Wieden +Kennedy brand and Tej Chauhan creative director of Chauhan Design Studio.

We have designed the website so anyone can design a pair of headsets using the Style Palette where you are able to choose from a range of materials colours and parts. Alternatively you can use Freestyle where you can download the template and use any medium possible.

As you can see the gallery is filling up with some great designs, Fifty pages to be exact. The public award their favourite designs with stars. The 10 designs with the most stars are shortlisted for the judges to choose their favourite 5 designs which will then go on to be made into a fully functioning pair of bespoke headphones.

The competition finishes at the end of the year so you have a few months to show the world your designs. Thanks to all the judges and the team we worked with on this project to make this a success, Daniel, Eze and Anna. Thanks guys.

Sneak preview

This is a quick preview of a project we've been working on for nearly four months. All will be revealed next week. Until then.

Blackboard van press

Click here to see more.

Outside/Inside by Susanna Hertrich

Since this year’s theme for Wieden + Kennedy's window displays is ‘interaction’ we thought it would be a good idea to approach the interactive design course at the prestigious Royal College of Art and ask the students to submit some ideas.We spoke to Brendan Walker (www.aerial.fm), course leader and interactive specialist, who put forward a very simple brief to his students, ‘engage the passers-by’. As you would expect the entries were top class but Susanna Hertrich was by far our favourite and walked away with the prize money that we provided to make it happen. Susannah's simple and charming Installation consists of a garden of windmills that magically come to life when people walk by. Nice.

Hex Furniture

A quick concept of a multifunctional piece of modular furniture. It would be made of polystyrene sandwiched between two pieces of steam bent ply.

A random thought

The loaf toaster.

Observer Book of Invention

We have been working on our first print ad for the Observer which was out in the newspapers a couple of the weeks ago. Its for the The Observer Book of Invention.
The print ad was based on a exploded view of the book and it's contents...

and here is the 10 second TV ad.

The ad has been put onto the Wieden and Kennedy website as well.

Thank You for Your Socks

We have been working on quite a few projects recently (hence the reason for the lack of posts). This is one project we have been working on for a few weeks now.

Its for the a London based charity called Broadway who help the homeless. They told us that if its one thing that the homeless need its a fresh pair of socks. In a bid to collect as many socks as possible for the charity we have hung a magic washing line which grows every time a pair of socks are donated.





Here's a little video of us going out the window and across the road.

Changing rooms

We have just completed a couple of internal projects recently. One being the Board Room. Here are a couple of shots before and after. Its basically an enlarged cork board peppered with oversize pieces of furniture. The Note Table is there accompanied with over size computer buttons and other accessories.

Th Observer's Book of Art

A little internal project David and I did a couple of weekends ago. One of the creative teams asked the company to help out and creat a piece of art from the Observer's Book of Art. We made the book into a....
A painters pallette and a...

A minature sculpture.

Unfortunately our pieces of art were'nt chosen for the print ad but it was still fun to do.

Nokia Green Room title sequence

I've been busy working on various projects at Wieden and Kennedy. One project that we have been working on is the Nokia Green Room title sequence. We finished it a few weeks ago and we are really happy with the result. We had roughly 6 weeks to find the director, animator and illustrator for the idea and make it happen. Luckily our chosen illustrator, Will Sweeney, was available.

We then chose Steve Scott and Dan O'Rourke from Not To Scale to direct and animate the piece. David and I were busy signing off characters components and sharing and agreeing on ideas for the animation with Steve and Dan as well as overseeing the logo which was designed by Johnny Lighthands.

The idea behind the sequence was to fill the small box on screen full of music genre non specific musicians, show them relaxing and drinking then suddenly switch to an on stage performance which is really the essence of the programme. There is so much going on that you want to see it over and over again to spot new things. Its only 20 seconds long so don't blink you might miss something. Click play to see more. Thanks to everyone who helped out on this.

Blackboard Van Tour in Cooler Magazine

I was just having look through the Howies blog for some inspiration and came across a post that Scania had posted regarding an article in the urban sports and fashion magazine Cooler.

Click here to see more about the article. There is also a small film of the tour attached to the link.

Honda Glass photo

We recently had some photos of the Honda glass taken by Russell Duncan. He did a really clever shot of it completed at the top and all jumbled up in the reflection. Unfortunately these glasses have been pulled but its fantastic they have been produced.

Rat Race

David and I are have been working with the new WK Side team on their idea for the window display at Wieden and Kennedy. Its called the Rat Race. The window display consists of three dimensional tubes which represent a localised area of the tube map. Inside the tubes are eight rats who are running around the tubes. This idea took a while to come off the ground but we're really happy with the result. And by the look of things the rats are enjoying it as well. Here are some snaps of the installation.

This is Sir Alan checking out his new pad.






Here's one of the rats in their little home. We have one big cage attached to the window where they play. If you want to find out what they have been up to visit them on www.ratbook.co.uk.