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Film workshop and the digital revolution

Yesterday saw me visiting Wales Millenium Centre for a Crossover workshop. The workshop was held as part of a short film competition based around the Sheffield Documentary Festival, with the brief around how digital has effected our lives over the last few years. As someone with an interest in film it was interesting to see how they used the workshop to create ideas and a mini script for a prospective film.

It was also great to see a workshop that worked well and you never thought about how long it was taking. Below are some wise words about how workshops should be run.

Carwyn talks Photomarathon on Gofod

On June 12th, the cameras from S4C magazine show Gofod followed Carwyn around for a few hours to catch him taking part in this years Photomarathon and to find out a little more about why so many people take part in the annual event.



You can view the full clip at http://www.s4c.co.uk/clic/e_level2.shtml?programme_id=368306450 or find out a little more about Photomarathon on http://www.photomarathon.co.uk

Bank Holiday

We managed to get to a showing of Mnemonic on friday. The piece is by Jorge and is a step back in time for the participants. Recalling your last memory. Very enjoyable.

Cardiff Design Festival Voting

The submissions for the Cardiff Design festival are in and this year their is a public vote. We have a few projects on the site that we have been involved in over the last year so if you think any are worthy give us some love...

you can find all of the projects here, and ours are listed below:

Truly Scrummy
Menter a Busnes
National Theatre Wales

puma love

It's refreshing to have something about real people, and it not being about space age technology. There is something about the advert that gives you energy. Similar to the old movies that you watched and then wanted to be one of the characters. Very well pitched piece by Droga5. Courtesy of Creative Review.

Interactive playtime

Floating Forecaster from Richard Harvey on Vimeo.

I came across this while searching for some recent interactive projects we have been playing with. While ours are mostly web based I thought this was a very interesting mix of physical and digital. Hope you enjoy

Mad Men - You decide?

I recently wrote about how choice, power, involvement and basically being ASKED are key to being cool and a genuinely nice brand. While this is a slight departure from this I came across the following ebay listing via the infinite knowledge that it twitter.



The item in question is for a walk on part in the very famous Mad Men tv show. Once again it is opening doors and breaking down barriers like the membership to the National Museum, or the Tesco Clubcard. Yet there is an interesting thought that came into my head about the idea in general. I think the money goes to charity which is great, but then it does rely on rich and by the bids so far very rich people to bid. which kind of seems to defeat the idea of the project? I mean for me the idea was for a genuine fan to get on and meet the people they had walked hours on end, yet this is unlikely to happen now?

I wonder what people think?

ADDITION TO ORIGINAL POST:
As i sit in one of the most vibrant arts centres in Europe (CHAPTER) I also thought about other issues that have come to mind. Walk on parts are normally the preserve of the struggling actor waiting for his big break. The walk on parts are normally paid and so form a fairly good part of young actors finding their way. If the actor was never to be seen again then perhaps no big loss but what if that person was a Marlon Brando or De Niro for the next generation? and it was the walk on that was the catalyst?

Doing our best to protect the Welsh language!

During a recent visit to Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on the weekend, I came across the above sign, being a Welsh speaker I was shocked to see such bad Welsh translation, so I decided to twitter it. Lots of people picked up on this and the result is the council have decided to take the sign down!

Below is the article from the WalesOnline:

Council takes down poorly translated sign
Aug 12 2010 by Lisa Jones, Western Mail

RED-FACED officers at a local authority have been forced to take down an official sign because of a case of severe mangling of the Welsh language.

The sign at the car park at Sophia Gardens Caravan Park in Cardiff is the worst case of bad translation ever seen, according to the managing director of Cardiff design company Hoffi, Carwyn Lloyd Jones.

He was so dumbstruck he posted a photo of the offending article on social networking website Twitter and photo-sharing site Flickr.

Mr Jones, 28, of Cardiff Bay, said: “The sign caught my eye. I thought it was written in crazy language as it was quite hard to understand. I was confused as to what it was saying.

“We do quite a lot of bilingual work in my company, so we work with translators and the Welsh language a lot, trying to promote it in a positive light. We come across a lot of stuff that has been badly translated.

“It’s the worst case of bad translation I’ve ever seen. If you just read the Welsh, I don’t think you could translate it into English.”

Aran Jones, chief executive of Welsh language communities group Cymuned, said the council owed an apology to the Welsh-speakers of Cardiff.

He said: “There’s an individual who’s made an extremely poor decision. It’s a matter for the council to apologise.

“There has been a complete breakdown in internal communication. They have plenty of Welsh speakers and professional translators. It’s absolutely staggering. It looks as though someone has used a particularly bad online translator. They ought to be very embarrassed.”

Meirion Prys Jones, chief executive of the Welsh Language Board, said: “The board advises all public bodies not to use automatic translation unless they have access to a qualified translator to edit the text afterwards.

“With some types of automatic translation programs, there will be need for a lot of editing – as in this case, where the Welsh version makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

A Cardiff Council spokesman said: “Cardiff Council apologises for the wording on this sign, which was removed as soon as we were made aware of the mistakes.

“Unfortunately, on this occasion the normal checking procedure was not followed,” he admitted.

“We are currently investigating why this happened and will work to ensure any similar mistakes are not repeated in the future.”

Article Link

The brightest car around!

Yesterday I went down to Wyeverne Electrical to see their car that we have just designed and had wrapped for them. It was originally a white Toyota IQ, but after a full wrap in yellow, it's now probably the brightest IQ on the road.

We have been working with Wyeverne Electrical for a while now, re-branding them, producing new signage for their shop and producing off site window displays in high traffic locations to attract people to the shop. The car is already working great for Wyeverne as people can't help but notice the little yellow car!

BT Advert - Adam & Jane

I have been meaning to write about this for a while. For those who have not seen it, BT are running an advertising campaign where you can vote for what happens next. It's a bit like those adventure books where you used to turn to a certain page if you decided to turn right or left. It's an interesting premise and I am sure people will tell me its been done before. I wonder if this thinking could go further in the future with people actually broadcasting live? it is also a similar train of thought to the recent Old Spice campaign where the Old SPice man replied to people on twitter. You can see one of his videos below:



It is quite interesting how the two campaigns approached it. One has used social media to broadcast it's message and created their own community, while the other has used social media to talk with the people they are involving with no apparent private community. I can see advantages for both methods but I wonder the idea of creating yet another platform for people to login to might be a page too far?

Would be interested to hear what other people think?

Social Networks

A really great presentation about how we live and interact.

Hoffi - Cardiff Design Festival support and submissions

It's come around again this year. Submission's for the Cardiff Design Festival that is. We are again helping out with the design work on the website and few other bits of brand communications. We are also going to be arranging some of the events through various other things we are involved in such as Creative Wales, and ThinkARK.

For us I think the great thing about the Cardiff Design Festival is that it has grown year on year. Sometimes through the sheer amount of events other times through networks and links created during the festival that turn into new projects/adventures.

What can retailers do?

A lot of this is common sense but hopefully it gives you an idea of what people are expecting in the future (now).

New business models and ideas from Design Council and The Economist

Challenges and Opportunities for Business from Design Council on Vimeo.

BBC developments in Roath Basin with Jana Bennett

This morning I was lucky enough to go and listen to Jana Bennett Director of Television at the BBC. The talk took place in Cardiff Bay with the new BBC development in plain view across Roath Basin. Having previously attended an invitation from Igloo to help shape their Media Centre. Which is proposed to be built near the BBC site in a few years time. I s was interested in hearing why the BBC had started to move out of London. The talk covered a number of issues that seemed to link nicely into recent thinking about brands and businesses as a whole.

While business are becoming ever more global in terms of reach, these same channels are allowing for ever more intimate relationships to take place in a much closer proximity. Tools like twitter help you talk to people across the world yet they also help to make contacts with local people who have the same interests. So the BBC's recently commissioned research which found that people want to feel like the BBC represents them and this should be done through local programmes. That have a few attributes.

- Above all else they must be good stories
- Secondly they must have levels of information that are universal as well as strongly local. thus catering for the largest possible audience.

This kind of thinking reminded me of a theatre group called the Spirithouse Theatre Company, and their play Vigil. In the play they decided that people go to see people in a play because they know them. In the same way do you watch a TV show because you know the area?


Find more videos like this on AdGabber

Game evenings

Last night myself and Carwyn got out in Cardiff to play a quick little game with ARK LAB. It was the first time ARK LAB has held a game event and so it was interesting on a number of levels. I think the biggest thing that everyone found was the ease of which people slip into playing and ignoring the world around them. It's a very powerful aspect and something we are looking into for future workshops.

In a store near you - Truly Scrummy Organic

Well it's been a few weeks now but we have got a few photo's through from Truly Scrummy Organic. They have been running a treasure hunt. Which you can see on their facebook page. We are going to be working with them over the next few months creating further content and journeys for people interested in Truly Scrummy Organic and nutritional information about babies and weaning.



So if you are walking around your local Sainsbury's store check them out. Also they should be launching in further stores later this year. Fingers crossed.

The most amazing stop frame

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Has to be one fo the all time greats.

Hide & Seek - weekender 2010

Got back from the Hide & Seek weekender and pretty exhausted. Never thought gameplay would be so tiring, looking forward to seeing if we can work some of these techniques into strategy and workshops.

game playing weekend

It's going to be hot. This weekend, so I have decided to go and run around London all day??? Crazy I know didn't think it through at the time. Seriously I am going to London to find out more about pervasive games and the impact they may have on steering future BRanding strategies with Hoffi and community based projects with ARK LAB I think I have been interested in the idea of games being integral for a number of years but it only now seems like these maybe genuine journeys to look into.

We (me and Allie) are going to get involved in Hide & Seek's Weekender which looks really interesting and something I can't wait to get involved in. You can see some ideas of the games through this lovely video.

Playmakers from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

Design Week Second week in a row.

It's the second week in a row that Hoffi has managed to get into Design Week. It's like buses. You wait for one and two come along at once. The piece is about this years Cardiff Design Festival and talks about the launch of the new website. This year we are aiming to align the festival slightly differently. So the website is more about attracting a wider audience to the festival events.

Climbing, Military, Video, Empty Shop, Kite Boarding = Lots of Photos!

This last week I found myself doing allot of photography so I thought I would write a long overdue blog about it. Saturday I was with Julian helping him with a project for Ark, we were going out to video interview some people on the street. Seeing i was meeting him at an empty shop in the Castle Arcade (where the Ark project is being held) I thought I would have a look around the shop, and I found the basement!





Next stop was doing the video interviews, I was on video duty for half of it, then Julian took over and I managed to get some shots of him and Allie in action





Also on Saturday was the National Military Day, I was just in time to catch the parade and then pop down to Cardiff Bay to see all the Military goings on.







After all that I was done and sunburnt a bit I was knackered, roll on Sunday, the day of rest. Unfortunately i got a text off Andrew saying he was going kite boarding, if anyone hasn't read Andrews blog I suggest you check it out here as he has recently taken up kite boarding and has been blogging about it. So off I went down to Aberavaon to meet Andrew and have a go at his kite, really suprised of the power of the kite, when the wind picked up it was dragging me across the beach! and now he wants an even bigger one. Unfortunately while I was having a go on his buggy the lines of the kite frayed and the fun was over! gutted!, but here are some snaps:





Next was Monday and a trip up to North Wales, me and Julian and meeting on Tuesday morning, so after the meeting we took advantage of the situation and headed to Llanberis to do some road side bouldering. I have done some indoor climbing but have never been outside climbing, Julian thinks this is hilarious as I grew up a few miles from Llanberis, never climbed, moved away and now i'm back there climbing! Here are some shots, Julian looking skilled, me looking like i'm hanging on for my life!







After all that, the last few days I have been trying to get out to take some photos for my course, I think I have decided on my theme 'Unloved/Left Behind'. Here are some more shots:





That is all... for now!

Kiteboarding and sunburn

I've been kiting and kiteboarding (ish) for a few weeks now and have started to get a good feel for the control of the kite. So after going on about my experiences in the studio, Carwyn decided to come along and have a go.

So Sunday morning we took to Aberavon beach and he was surprised at how fun standing with a kite is, and after a few hours flying managed to pluck up the courage to have a go at kite buggying.



Unfortunately my strings wore through when Carwyn was flying the kite, which disappointing him for drastically reducing flying time and I wasn't to pleased either. Not that I hold grudges, but he broke my kite.

So we're back in the studio this morning generally looking sun kissed, with a few stories to tell, and the odd patch of sunburn.

We are in this week's Design Week - twice!!! Well kind of

As well as being on Design Weeks website we also managed to get into their printed version this week. Ok it's tiny but really happy to be in the publication. If you are a subscriber to Design Week you can find the full article at the below link.

http://www.designweek.co.uk/hoffi-brands-truly-scrummy-organic-baby-food/3014785.article

Finally congratulations to ARK LAB who also got a small piece about the ARKADE project they are working on. You can see their piece here:

http://www.designweek.co.uk/ark-lab-to-launch-cultural-space-in-cardiff/3014822.article

Irony of life - A good omen?

Yesterday myself and Carwyn went to a meeting with a customer who is looking into Lactose free products. The meeting was very productive even if the drive was slightly warm due to the black car and the glorious sun shine. On the way back though we were confronted by this scene. For me it was a sign that the project is going to be a success. The cows giving us their blessing.

We will keep you up to date with the project.