The development of a fun inquisitive culture within a small agency is a hard thing to juggle. Over the last eight years we have gone from setting up a company with a few clients and lots of time on our hands, to gaining clients and having less and less time on our hands. This is great as a company but the issue of time and space to think and create is at risk of being forgotten. We have been guilty of it within Hoffi on a number of occasions. So how do small agencies with large work loads make time for research, discovery and perspective?

In short it is not easy but here are a few pointers.

1. Eat Lunch away from your desk.
During the years we had slowly become drawn into the desk eating mentality of lunch. Each day had slowly made us sit at the desk consuming content off sites such as BBC and Guardian. But what we realised was it had stopped from actually doing what lunch is for. Having a break from work and socialising with each other. In more recent times we have made a conscious effort to get away from the computer and play some games over lunch we have a league and we are also socialising.

2. Create joint projects and try and make together.
We have always done this however more recently due to the workload it has taken a bit of a back seat. So once again we have started to spread our wings and start a project that we are all working on. This is great to bring people together, as well as allowing us to experiment and try things out that we preach.

3. Bring in new people and share space.
This year we have had a number of changes within the studio. For a long time we have felt that it would be good to increase our offer however for us as a branding company we have never wanted to dilute our offer. To this end we have been looking for companies that we can genuinely partner with. After many years of creating some strong associations we have also found that some companies do not have the same vision as us so this year we have welcomed yello brick into the studio. The diversity has already allowed us to work together on a number of projects and the general feel within the studio is very different.

4. Reward investigation.
This is the hardest thing to do. We have been primed to understand work as attendance and amount of time put in, and to some extent this is correct if you look at the 10,000 hour theory from Malcolm Gladwell. However the issue here is trust and also to realise that by people experimenting and then providing a culture that allows people to share things they have found, seen or even experienced is a great opportunity to learn and develop as individuals as well as a company.

5. Interrupt often
So this one I stole form Pervasive Media Studio, but then realised that we have always done this by how we have positioned the studio. We have always sat on the same desk even from the early days. It has always allowed us to make eye contact with each other and ultimately allowed people to ask questions and interrupt. There are many occasions that we over hear each other and add something to that conversation a perspective or viewpoint even an experience or story. This allows our work to be stronger but also the culture of allowing people to interrupt is also very important.

Hope some of these point have struck accord

*If I am honest I probably beat Andrew as much as he beats me in FIFA.

In early 2012 we began a conversation with National Theatre Wales' communications team covering the pitfalls of their first website and how their audience and expectations have developed since they formed in 2009. Most of our informal chats surrounded improving website accessibility and introducing the Welsh language into the site, which remained core throughout our redesign process. There was however one major factor that we didn't foresee when we first developed their website in 2009, which was how people were accessing the site now 3 years on.

In just three years the amount of people accessing the site on mobile devices had jumped to 30%, including both phones and tablet computers. Its a little crazy looking back how technology has changed since 2009, just thinking about Apple's 1st generation iPad which launched in 2010 and now we're on the 4th with countless other brands following. It was inevitable that any modifications to the existing National Theatre Wales site needed to respond to this change and allow users access to content on any device.

A good starting point for us was to squeeze a large number of National Theatre Wales' people into our space and hold a workshop, developing ideas of what they wanted as individuals and collectively as a company. Several hours, three large blackboards and countless post-its later and we began to get a picture of the new site. Planning a website on this scale was a first for us, but I think it worked really well: being able to understand and interpret what is needed with a group of users was brilliant. This collaborative process continued throughout the redevelopment process by prototyping navigation trials and developing a beta version of the site that could be tested and changed by the team.

View the original prototypes online

This rapid development allowed us to test the user experience as the build took place, whilst working closely with National Theatre Wales to develop additional ways to interact with their content. Giving us insight to develop pages for individuals using pools of visually rich images, listings for quick access and implementation of the Google Maps API to show the true spread of National Theatre Wales' shows and community members.

The website itself isn't that far away from the original produced in 2009, with the core structure begin identical. Ok, it looks a little different, but the thought process surrounding the new site, its users and how they will access content has gone far beyond what was originally envisaged in those early accessibility and Welsh language discussions.

What's On - Screenshot

#Tonypandemonium - Screenshot

#Tonypandemonium Writer Rachel Trezise - Screenshot

Visit nationaltheatrewales.org

I'm not sure where it all came from, but I woke up one morning and thought, today i'm going to make some macaroons. Didn't give it a second thought that macaroons are very difficult to make or that i'm as good as baking as I am at football (crap by the way)

So thanks to Mary Berry I attempted my first batch, which to be fair went better than expected, but they weren't as smooth as they should be, the colour was a bit pale and the 'feet' (the fluffy bit) was blowing out. See below:

So a bit or research on the texture and I found out that even though the ground almonds you buy are very fine, they need to be sieved and processed further to get a smoother finish. This did help the texture, but it's still not as smooth as it should be. Colour was still a problem though, it was still very pale, as you can see in the below pictures they go in quite pink but come out pale. The feet are still blowing out though, so two problems to tackle

Ok, so liquid food colouring is a no no, it thins our the mixture a bit but more importantly it really fades when cooking. The solution? gel food paste, it's very thick so doesn't thin the mixture out and keeps it colour when cooking, problem solved. Next problem, the feet, so more research and the heat in the oven is crucial and I don't trust my oven so an oven thermometer was purchased. Turns out my oven is about 10 - 20 degrees out!, so I have the perfect temperature, but what else? I found that I should be using two sheets of parchment paper to insulate the bottom of the macaroons, this stops them cooking to quick and causing the blow out of the feet! Things are looking up now, but I still need to get the mixture smoother and the right consistency, I think this is to do with the eggs. I have read that there is an ageing process to the egg whites and that you should separate them out and leave them in an air tight container for 2 days before mixing as fresh egg whites are not the best for mixing? Below are the latest efforts, I will be carrying on with experimenting to get them perfect!

We (Rebekka and I) bought our first three hens back in the summer of 2011 after I lovingly built a coop from scraps of wood, Carwyn and Julian tried to convince people I bought it from B&Q, but at least I know different. Now 15 months on the coop has expanded and our family of hens have grown to 9, accompanied by a cheeky little Cockerel called Yoda. We've always been big believers in experience at Hoffi, but being the tech/geek I'm always a little quieter than both Carwyn and Julian; preferring the slow life outside of office hours. And keeping chickens was, I think the perfect choice.

Earlier this year we thought it would be a nice idea to rear our own hen's, but without a Cockerel the only choice we had was to purchase chicks that were a few days old, so in mid March 2012 we did just that buying 3 Buff Sussex chicks that were then about 4 days old. The following few weeks were interesting, with the chicks at home in a wooden box, occasionally treating them to a spot of orienteering on our living room floor. Within three weeks they had grown enough to escape the box and explore at will: it was time for them to venture outside.

More coop building was to follow, this time making use of some dismantled pallets to create a smaller holding coop which became their home for the next 3 months. As they grew we soon came to realise that two of the chicks were hens and we had one cockerel, a big decision followed. To kill or not to kill that was the question, it was also the first time I'd every considered killing a living creature larger than a slug, but for me keeping chickens was different to a dog or cat. They are obviously a source of food, whether it be for eggs or meat. So, six months after we brought the chicks home, I slaughtered, plucked and gutted my first chicken. It wasn't long before it was filled with stuffing, draped in bacon and sizzling away in the oven.

After that experience we truly had the chicken keeping bug, fuelled by the morals and responsibility of keeping chickens we bought another four chicks unfortunately only two survived. One hen Barbera, who we have just introduced to the larger coop and one cockerel, Yoda, who will remain on his own until he's big enough to enter the coop and state his authority on the older hens.

2012 has certainly opened my eyes to the ups and downs of keeping chickens, but I'm still excited to check the nesting boxes for todays egg yield and having them fresh for breakfast will never get tiring.

Last night I attended the first ArtsTechCymru event at Chapter Arts Centre. The event was billed as the following:

"We're about bringing together passionate people across Wales who are interested in how social media and technology can help engage arts with audiences. It's an informal network based on sharing and sparking new ideas."

To me that brings three things to mind:

1. Venues and organisations using (effectively) internet based systems to engage with audiences and sell more tickets.
2. Artists and technologists coming together to create new work that engage new audiences.
3. The opportunity for 'marketing, advertising' people to meet 'production' people and start to question what are the differences (if any)?

The first event is always going to be hard to capture all of that however the first was centred around point 1. I hope that in future events we can look at the other two points a bit more. When it comes to productions the tech industry particularly within the arts sector really does need support, and I hope this group can really help with that. I also hope that smaller groups such as hack space in cardiff and culture hack events that seem to be in the early stages of development all get an opportunity to involve their projects with the group. The idea of audience for me is becoming more and more blurred so any group that can keep on making that blurrier is a good thing. I believe people want that investment in time and consultation. The ability to be involved in work and its development and to be given an opportunity respond and feedback.

It's been a busy few weeks. After talking at the launch of ACT (www.actirelandwales.org) I was asked no to Jason Mohammed Radio Wales show to talk about branding and companies online presence. The segment centred around a recent story from Totnes where they had successfully stopped a COSTA coffee from being allowed to open in the town. I think that planning had been allowed however the locals had objected to it strongly, which then made COSTA decide not to open for fear of tarnishing their brand.

The conversation moved quickly onto why people seem to becoming anti-big brand. There are a lot of thoughts as to why people are challenging brands and looking at their responsibilities as companies, but I though tI would look at this a bit deeper than I could while on a radio show. Also I hope to put it down in more of a cohesive train of thought.

Firstly for me there are two strands of this argument. On the one hand we are discussing big business and looking at how the recession has shone new light onto how businesses conduct themselves – banking is obviously been the main thrust to the outcry – I believe people have become more aware as to where their money is going. So if they spend £20 in their local Tesco they are realising that this doesn't necessarily go back into their community. This was recently pointed out through the disclosure of Starbucks and their tax avoidance measures. Equally while prices are low which is appreciated during a recession there seems to be a growing awareness that this is due to farmers and other producers being forced to reduce their prices by the big supermarkets and other retail chains. The power they have allows them almost to call their own costs and if producers don't match it they realise someone else will. The questions that start to surface in this scenario are.

They are always lowering their prices how can they make money?, and How can their produce ever be the best quality when competing in such a cut throat environment?

In the past we have worked with a number of companies that have supplied to supermarkets and their experiences have been mixed. Some like the constant orders and money coming in. Others feel like they have been squeezed by the supermarkets and have vowed never to supply to them again. Looking at other opportunities such as cash and carries, wholesale and supplying to local stores.

The second strand in my eyes was something centred around need. I believe competition is a great thing and the way our society has developed with the fittest surviving and thriving has always been the mantra. However what seems to be crazy for example is that somewhere like Totnes has over 40 odd coffee shops. In a population of 8,000. So there is thinking along the lines of how we responsibly create and develop our spaces in our towns? do we need 6 huge supermarkets surrounding towns? do we need 40 coffee shops?

I think the answer is NO. And I think we should look at it like this. Each town is very much it's own. They are geographically different, they have different populations and they have different histories and cultures. To this end they are almost like different people. So just like people, each person having similarities, they also have differences and therefore different needs. People need a balance of shelter, play, exercise, socialising, food and work and this is how I believe we should look at our towns. So we do not indulge solely in supermarkets, Equally we don't gorge on independent stores. We need a rich and varied diet. There seems to be a need for a lot of things that need to intersect for this to happen.

Policy, business, brands, local governance and communities all have to look at the spaces and places we inhabit and look at how we can bring the thinking together that responds to it's unique characters.

Further reading:
www.actirelandwales.com
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20079092

I was on my way to work today. We go past a number of schools on the way, and as we were running late, the pupils were all streaming through the gates. It struck me just how similar they all looked. Obviously the uniforms, but also the extra things like bags and jackets. The same brands same colour (generally black). Same shoes. I remember back to my time in school and can recollect the idea of keeping your head down and trying to fit in. This seems to then continue within the structure of the education system. The idea of testing and being fitted into a silo which can then allow you a chance of getting a certain grade. The pass and fail nature all then seem to bring a 'fitting in' feel to how we see success.

Their is a logical, methodical approach to the process that then allows people to be placed on a matrix to understand how clever, or suitable they might be for jobs or further education. The thing about it, is I am not really sure it works. I think things have changed and the idea of progress is exactly that. Our lives progress, they dont go back and fore, they are a continuos timeline. Of course we get up's and down's but these experiences allow us to learn and to develop.

Over the last year I have been to a number of talks and events that have highlighted that we are scared of delivering work that has a possibility to be rejected. This idea of failure has been popping up all over the place. I wonder were this comes into our thinking does the way the education system works at the moment hinder an approach that allows innovation? or at least different thinking? I wonder also is the idea of failure and in a sense hardship also been driven out of what we produce. Within a lot of the conversations I have had there is a sense that the edges are where ideas come from. What I mean by this is. There is a desire to react to focus groups and people's opinions when it comes to an idea or a product or a venture. So much so that people have incredible power to stop things from being produced.

In a recent talk there was an example of a video game that was being tested. One individual tester (for over 30 minutes) kept on getting lost in a maze. Over and over again he came to the same place and turned right. He was one tester in a large group, yet the case was made for the maze to be simplified. The question for me is, are these experience's becoming sanitised and 'safe'? it feels like we do not want to create anything that could possibly create a negative emotion or bring frustration. The problem seems that this approach is stopping emotion all together. You only have to look at the games charts to see the same genre over and over again. Yes these are popular but they also show something else. They show a commercial and conceptual wariness of creating new and different. Something that sits alongside this type of thinking is the idea of how we work. Going back to the education system I can count on one hand how many times I was involved in a group project. Yet generally what type of work do people do in work? well for me it's group work. We co-create and develop new concepts. This all brings me to the idea of how are we to innovative rather than incremental advancements, how can we jump ahead? how can we encourage this kind of thinking. realising that some of these ideas might not work?

Across the atlantic the story of Lance Armstrong has finally come to a head this week. In a 1,000 page report he has been accused of prolonged and systematic doping. A system according to United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) that allowed him to achieve a historic seven Tour De France wins, after recovering from cancer. For me this case in particular has affected me due to my belief in his story, and also his foundation LIVESTRONG. I was one of those that bought one of his yellow bands. I was amazed at how someone could come from near death to winning such a competition, not once but SEVEN times.

So how do I feel?
I find it quite hard to weigh up exactly how I feel what has happened. He is a remarkable athlete. Recovered from cancer, then won seven titles in one of the hardest competitions in the world. He has also highlighted the bicycle as a cool form of transportation. He has started a charity that has raised millions for cancer treatment and research. Yet he cheated to do this. He managed to get his pulpit to speak because of this cheating. Does the good out weight the bad?

It also seems we must look at it in context. At the time it appears a lot of road cyclists were also cheating. According to the discovery channel's news. In 2011 The time of the winner of the Alpe d'Huez stage would have achieved 40th position in 2001. Even though the bikes are now lighter and are better engineered. So how do we see these things? how do we see any clarity or truth in what he has done? and for me how do brands such as: NIKE, LIVESTRONG, Discovery and US Postal Service all now react after learning about this truth. They have all invested and supported him in many ways. Through sponsorship, through supporting and advertising to employment. Are their brands now tarnished?

How can we be sure of our heroes of the future? Do we need to look at different ways of highlighting people's achievements? Can we ever be sure of our heroes? Are there ways of looking at the good people did?

There is something about these kind of stories that almost makes you re-programme yourself. Associations and beliefs changed and altered forever make you question parts of yourself, and how you have grown up. The belief you can face adversity and win. You can come back from the brink. It is a story that we all crave. It is perhaps the power of such a story. We wanted to believe in it, it made us feel better and that things were possible. It gave us hope. But the story was wrong and now we need to learn new things to believe in.

Associated articles:
http://news.discovery.com/adventure/tour-de-france-drugs-120629.html

Cardiff Design Festival 2012 is launching this friday, and there look's to be some great events taking place over the two weeks. I am going to try and get to as many things as possible but the things I am really looking forward to are Doodle Noodle, which has been setup by Matt Joyce the illustrator who has helped us out with the illustration this year's of Cardiff Design festival. Doodle Noodle is set to take place on saturday and sunday at Cardiff Design festival HQ at the Royal Arcade.

Also during the festival thinkARK will be hosting a second trade school which has been kindly hosted by indycube in town. They are looking for people to volunteer and teach so if you fancy getting involved have a look at the website http://tradeschool.coop/cardiff/class.

There is also a great series of events which is being run my Carolina surrounding the idea of cinema in odd places The living street mobile project should have some really great events in particular the one at Milgi sounds great.

While this is totally biased the evening I am most looking forward to is the social event that is our annual Naked Wales pub quiz. Which will take place on the 9th October at shot in the dark. It's rare designers actually get a chance to meet up and it's a great event for students meeting up with working designers.

There are also a whole host of other events that are run directly by the festival and it will be interesting to see who the winners are for this years Best of Welsh awards will be, and also get to hear some great people speak.

Hope to see some of you there.

Cardiff Design Festival desktop and mobile homepages

In 2006 we entered the Cardiff Design Festival showcase with some of our own promotional work, back then we had just started Hoffi and the design festival seemed a great way to promote ourselves as aspiring members of the design industry in Wales.

Six years later we're thrilled to still be supporting the festival as a fundamental annual event within the Welsh design industry and a great promoter of design from Wales to the international design community.

This year we've have designed a strong set of printed materials alongside the festival's online offering, to hopefully deliver a richer experience across the ever growing number of ways to access content. One of the key issues that was brought up last year was being able to access content on the go, and from listening to that feedback this year's website is responsive and adjusts the content depending on the device its being viewed on. Simple tweaks, but it should make tracking what's on during the festival a little easier.

For the third year running we've teamed up with illustrator Matt Joyce to develop the visual theme for communicating the festival

We also tweaked the submission process for this years 'Best of Welsh Design Awards', by providing access for those submitting to edit and update submissions up until the closing date. Making the process more forgiving for those taking part and lightening the load for the festival organisers, by removing the need for them to replace photography or update copy etc.

2012 Best of Welsh Design Submissions - Cardiff Design Festival

Now just under a month to go until the start of the festival, we have a few more bits and bobs to finish and prepare our Naked Wales pub quiz, which takes place on the 9th of October at Shot in the Dark, City Road.

Presented by Julian Sykes (Brands Director), Hoffi's brand workshop takes place on Friday 14 September 2012 and is perfect for developing an understanding of branding and how it is integral to your company.

We will discuss examples of what branding is, what it is not and why having a good brand is valuable for your business. Covering what the key ingredients of a good brand are, concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace.

Agenda

When: 9am - 12pm, Friday 14 September 2012

Where: Enterprise House, Cardiff Bay, CF10 5LE

If you would like further information on our seminar, please contact Julian on 029 2048 7941 or e-mail shwmai@hoffi.com to book your place.

Please remember places are limited, so please remember to book early!

It was a number of weeks ago now that I travelled to Brazil with Victoria from Watershed and Pervasive Media Studio and Tim from matter 2 media. We went over to discuss a project I took part in this February called the playable city sprint. We met a lot of people through the workshops and going to events, with the objective to understand and discuss the idea of what a playable city response could be in Brazil. It's an ongoing project and one that I hope to be involved in further. However what I really want to write about isn't directly the project but things around the project that seem to be particularly appropriate.

Changing a city through partnerships:
I wrote in a previous blog about if you city was a person what would they shout about to friends to try and impress them? what is it that the other city would go wow. Or you lucky thing. Well maybe lets back track a bit and think if you are a great person (city) then it's unlikely you are going to blurt out on the first few seconds of meeting someone that you are going to say hi I am Cardiff and I have own a red ferrari. But cities might learn about you owning a ferrari in time. So what I am saying is could the real way of getting to know cities is through relationships?

But how does this work? how could we get this in Cardiff? well I dont think the first thing should be look at my event. i think it should be a hello whats you favourite colour (never that good a conversation starters)

Concentration on the next HUGE thing
The main thing that I wanted to explore is an ongoing idea of scalability and replication of models and generally how possibly we are a wee bit obsessed with the next HUGE idea. I wrote in an article on my blog a while ago about scalability. People discuss about companies needing to be the next facebook or Google. But as we were discussing in Brazil. Look at silicon valley. There are huge companies there yes. but also below this there are 1,000's of small companies all creating amazing products/services that are being bought by customers and are contributing to the economy. Choice is the spice of life and small dynamic companies that can react, collaborate and evolve. So instead of huge investments for one company why not the same investment in hundreds of companies?

Would this approach allow for greater unique companies being created? would this multiple approach lead to more connections?

Through our actions we influence others, or at the every least we affect them.

I wanted to think about this in a branding sense, and in particular the idea of branding a destination. Firstly lets think about a place as a person. As with a person a city has a personality both good and bad. It also has interests these might fade over time but there will always be an underlying nature or a core that runs throughout. Just like people a city will change and grow, I once remember reading that someone's personality changes approx every seven years. In time a city changes emphasise from housing, innovation, manufacturing, festivals all of these elements will seem to be more or less important at different times.

So I think for me what is really interesting is can we inspire a city? Can we make it change personality and can this be a genuine thing as opposed to a make over? As we are based in Cardiff I think it best to contextualise it through my experiences of the city. Cardiff is an interesting personality.

In it's modern guise (widely identified by many as being created through John Crichton-Stuart's work) it was a rich city, somewhere for trade and a port at the centre of the industrial revolution. It helped power the world economy through the black coal being pulled out of it's very heart further North in the valleys. Features that have since been formed from this and are now such an integral part of the city. Spaces such as the green spaces of the city and other iconic buildings such as the castle which due to it being in the centre of the city has to be a great personal attribute. But these are physical attributes what are the things underlying the city that make it ebb and flow. What are the things that excite the city and want the city to tell other cities about?

So through various work over the years our work with Cardiff Design Festival has tried to give the city a design interest a place that could potentially grow into a creative centre of excellence. The festival produced by Olwen and Angela with the support of Cardiff Met Uni, has indeed changed my experience of the design scene within Cardiff from one of a closed nature through to one that is opening up day by day. Only time will tell what impact in clients and projects these design companies get but the future has begun.

Secondly over the last two to three years I have been hugely involved in working with thinkARK , where we have produced a number of projects that have all commented on Cardiff in some way. Sometimes positive other times looking at what could be improved. But what I have come to realise recently is actually the work is an attempt to change and inspire the city to bring an ability and skill to it that it may not have had before. With this simple thought I felt that this might extend to all of the small 'events' being created in Cardiff. These are truly the unique parts of Cardiff. The independence, lack of funding and openness is what makes them unique. The small events when added together are huge part of events in Cardiff. Just as the smal businesses of the UK make up the majority of the UK economy so too does the small event.

So is it time to bring these to the fore? Make and give Cardiff it's heart through the genuine local events.

Presented by Julian Sykes (Brands Director), Hoffi's brand workshop is perfect for developing an understanding of branding and how it is integral to your company.

During the morning Julian will discuss examples of what branding is, what it is not and why having a good brand is valuable for your business. Covering what the key ingredients of a good brand are, concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace.

Agenda

When: 9am - 12pm, Thursday 31 May 2012

Where: Enterprise House, Cardiff Bay, CF10 5LE

If you would like further information on our seminar, please contact Julian on 029 2048 7941 or e-mail shwmai@hoffi.com to book your place.

Please remember places are limited, so please remember to book early!

This has been a question for 1,000's of years I guess. The idea of what interests us and what makes us want to know more. If people could crack it then you imagine the education system would benefit hugely. I have mentioned it before on twitter but I love THE BIG BANG THEORY. For those that dont know the show it's an American sitcom that revolves around a group of insanely clever geeks. Recently there was an episode which had one of the main characters investigating the flags of the world. One item struck me in the episode, and it was a fact about the Haiti flag and the Leichenstein flag. Where in the 1936 olympic games they for the first time met and realised they had almost identical flags, with Leichenstein adding a crown to it's flag from that point onwards. A few days later it made me look into this and find out whether it was true. The need to know this was pretty strong and looking through the forums it seemed that there equally inquisitive people who had also been drawn to the question through an American sit-com.

So firstly I have to ask why was this so interesting that it went beyond just watching? Why did it become participation? and then why did I want to know about this particular fact?

I think for me there was an element of, is it really true? and leading on from that, what was the story that led two seemingly separate cultures and communities to create the same thing? For many years this has interested me more and more. How can people create the same thing? this has seen quite alot of publicity with the patent law suits around the world between Apple and other mobile device manufacturers. It brings me to the belief of are ideas anyones? are ideas important? and can they ever be seen as being owned by anyone person or organisation?

This might seem odd but lets take a look at the word implementation a great example is the release of two films that are about the launch. Both are about the old fable of Snow White one being a comedy called Mirror Mirror - The untold adventures of snow white starring Julia Roberts. With the second being Snow White and the Huntsman starring Charlize Theron. So the idea or concept is the same yet the implementation or 'take' of the film couldn't be more different? If we take this argument a bit further in theory should all things be able to be created by a person in isolation? for example there is the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan a Hindu Indian man in isolation who came up with the concept of infinity. A concept that had perplexed scholars for years.

So are ideas really the thing we should hang our hats on in the future? is it really just a different view point? a different story?

There are many that will disagree hugely with this talking about the first and it being important that to be the first takes determination and should be protected. And I think this is indeed true pioneers really should get more support and should be recognised for this. But I can't think of a single company or product that was genuinely the first in it's field and then became market leader. Google wasn't first, neither was facebook. Apple might have had the first personal computer but Xerox showed them the way with the desktop concept. And they are hardly market leads in terms of computers. iTunes was second to market with SONY not realising what they had, and in a similar way to XEROX back in the day.

So is it really about the perspective and the story that is important. Is it easier to create something once the 'idea' is realised to then improve and adapt it?

Earlier this month, I headed down to Swansea on the train to attend a mobile marketing strategy workshop set-up by Software Alliance Wales, presented by Rob Thomas a social media and mobile expert who heads up the Gloucester based arm of the American WSI marketing franchise.

It was an interesting morning with a mixed audience crossing over between private and public sector; those with no knowledge to those who were quite experienced in producing digital content for mobile devices. Rob hit us with some hard facts from Mashable about mobile users and content deployment, followed by an overview of quite a few tools and techniques that could be used by businesses to market themselves online. Includeing Mobile Websites, Local Search, Location Based Marketing, Mobile Advertising and Apps.

Local search or So|Lo|Mo (Social Location Mobile Marketing) took up quite a chunk of the morning, and Google places taking the limelight given that its soon going to be serving most of our search results on mobile devices. With Google automatically syncing business data from other sources for those not claimed their space on places, I can understand why Rob kept the topic alive for a chunk of the workshop. And I must admit when I returned to the studio, I claimed Hoffi's space, two weeks on I'm still waiting our verification code coming in the post.

However, the workshop felt a little bit like a sales pitch, with lots of data collection for WSi e-marketing and I was surprised that only a little information was given about a businesses online reputation. I understand that its important to be aware of what's possible, but some information could have been given towards managing the process and at least explaining that some of these will not be right for all businesses. Don't get me wrong each business is different and there needs will be different when it comes to choosing the correct tools for convey a brand digitally, which would be difficult to explain in a morning and rightly that's where consultancy fees to people like us and Rob come in. But, even just the slightest statement surrounding this would have placed an understanding that brand communication channels need to be chosen and used carefully.

I did take quite a few things from the workshop; Google Places being the main, but also an understanding of the needs and wants of business in Wales to take on and produce mobile content to either market or provide more flexible services for their customers, slightly swayed as people opted to be in a mobile strategy workshop, but refreshing all the same.

My weekend made me think about how we interact with people less and less while buying products or services. It seems that as new technology comes out the less it makes us need to speak to anyone else, I realised last night that I nearly went the whole weekend without hardly interacting with anyone.

Let's start off filling the car full of petrol, I'm able to use the 'Pay at Pump' feature at most garages. I can drive up, put my card in fill my care up and drive off without having to speak to anyone.

Next stop was the hotel, here I was able to use an app on my phone to pay for my parking outside the hotel and then check in to my room using their self check in service. I had already paid online so didn't have to make any transaction.

So I then needed to get to get into the city centre to have some food before seeing a show. Best way to get in was a bus and being in London I had my Oyster Card. My card was already topped with credit online, so I was able to jump of the bus, swipe my card, and jump off at my destination. I'm now 5 hours into my day and even though I have interacted with a few services I haven't spoken to anyone!

I was now hungry and I had to interact with someone, which was nice, being sat in a restaurant and having someone provide a human service, asking me how I was etc. From all the services I interact with, restaurant service is the one I value the most and can't see this disengaging with people and hope it doesn't, unless of course you love those vending machine restaurants in Japan!

Time for the show, so on the way there I needed to pick up some drinks (no way was I paying venue prices :) ). A quick stop off in tesco, pick up a drink and of course pay at the self checkout. Now i'm a fan of these when you want to get in and out quickly and buying one or two things, not your entire weekly shop! I really do think these have a place in our shops, except where you need to speak to someone for advice. Next stop was the show, I had already purchased the tickets online, printed them out myself and had them in my pocket. All that had to be done was for the door person to scan my ticket. Now i'm not sure if I'll count this as human interaction as the door person wasn't very talkative.

So show over, back to the hotel and of course, bus and underground it is with the oyster card, all the way back to the hotel and to bed!

Next morning, time for breakfast, I had already purchased breakfast online so no transactions were needed. It was all self service, so I filled up on as much as I could and it was time to go. We needed to check out and of course this was done without speaking to anyone, just drop the key card into the slot at reception. Decided to stay around a bit longer and see some Museums that day, so topped up the car parking with the app, jumped back on the bus and underground and visited Saatchi Gallery, V&A museum and the Science Museum without having to speak to a single person

After tiring myself out around all the museums it was time to jump back on the undergaround and bus, head back to the car, jump in and head back to Wales. Of course we had to through the Severn Bridge toll, but this was easily done by throwing the money the coin bin, then we were home!

I suppose you can choose to interact with people or not at certain points, such as petrol stations, tesco and the hotel but I choose not to. Is this a good or bad reflection on their service design? Is good that they have made things so easy for me that I can interact with them as quick as possible or a bad thing that the interaction is so quick they are not leaving me with an experience to remember. Personally I'm a fan of automated things, but only in certain places, but the trend is going that soon these places will also been taken over and we will interact even less with each other, sad times I think.

Yesterday was the first official launch of Coreo Cymru, Creative Dance Producer, Wales in Chapter Cardiff. Coreo Cymru is a new initiative set up to encourage and manage the creation and production of new dance activity, and to support the development of Wales based artists and companies.

Initiated and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, the three year programme is being developed in partnership with Creative Producer, Carole Blade and Chapter, Cardiff and also includes partnerships with Wales based organisations along with international partnerships and co-producers.

Coreo Cymru aims to connect with audiences by offering a mix of inspiring ways to engage with the programme, offering new and accessible ways of presenting dance.

Working with Carole over the past few months, we developed the name, brand identity, brochures, leaflets, banners, video sting and holding page (finished website to follow in a few months). As part of the branding process we came up with the concept for the imagery and set up a photoshoot. The idea behind the imagery was to show an emerging form ready to grow and develop, similar to the brand. We are really looking forward to developing the brand in new and exciting ways as the programme of shows comes to life. The brand will respond and develop to each of the individual shows within the programme over the next 3 years.

Below are some behind the scene shots of the photoshoot, it was done with a paddling pool, gantry system, lots of bath milk, luke warm water and very understanding model (Chloe Loftus) and a photographer with vertigo issues (Jorge Lizalde)

Morph was the small scale test!

Over the last few months we have been working with Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales to develop their digital brand experience. Utilising the open source content management system Drupal, we worked with Cynnal Cymru to produce a core set of tools that will allow their online brand to grow overtime, yet remain open and allow for flexibility should they require to change in the future.

Its still very early days in the development and positioning of Cynnal Cymru's online content, but we have good ground to grow from... www.cynnalcymru.com

Last year we spoke about implementing things to do outside of the studio to help with new ideas and generally just getting out there to be influenced by different things. So this year we have been screen printing, attended multiplatform courses, organised a design pub quiz, tried to make lunch, LUNCH (as opposed to being in front of a screen) and finally we learnt to float!!!!! (no seriously) We have tried to go to as many things as possible. It's a big change to make, but we are getting there with, and hope that 2012 we can do even more.

So if there is something to be learnt from this. It's the old "you have to speculate to accumulate" but this is NOT in money terms but in experience, knowledge and social terms. So here's to more events and unplanned trips.

Earlier this year we helped Eco Design Centre develop an understanding of how they can share their data, convey confident communications about who they are and what they do as an organisation. Concluding with a number of 30 second ads made by the Eco Design Centre team, which was great because it really got the whole team thinking about who they are and what they do as an organisation.

Following on from the strategy project we have been working with the team over the last month or so to design and develop a new website that will allow them flexibility to explain their services, relationships with private, public and educational sectors and give them the tools to publish all that rich data online.

You can visit the website and find out more about Eco Design Centre at www.ecodesigncentre.org

We've worked closely with National Theatre Wales since their first year launched in November 2009, developing their destination website and working with their digital channels. More recently, over the last couple of months we have extend our work into their online community.

Originally developed and maintained by Native HQ, the National Theatre Wales community has been produced using Ning, a social network platform. We were asked to develop the style and format of the tools provided by Ning in order to enhance the user's experience of online community. Working with established platforms, such as Ning will always bring constraints, conflict and issues surrounding compatibility following technical workarounds that are needed to develop the online tools to fit in with the community and National Theatre Wales' brand experience. It was important that these technical challenges did not take precedence over the brief, the user's experience was the main issue in hand.

With National Theatre Wales and Native HQ, we identified core areas and functions within the community, which were already in existence through the tools provided by Ning, but not easily identified by the users. Working with National Theatre Wales brand guidelines, we developed a series of graphical elements and colour distinctions where these Ning tools were broken down and became instinctive navigational elements for users.

The redeveloped community was pushed live early Monday morning, followed by some minor teething problems and will be officially announced to National Theatre Wales community in the coming days.

You can view and join in with the National Theatre Wales community at http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/ or take a look at National Theatre Wales' forthcoming performances at http://nationaltheatrewales.org/

In preparation for our forthcoming screen printing marathon we popped over to Printhaus on Tuesday afternoon for our induction.

A few weeks ago Elin was working on the research phase of a branding project, an element of that research surrounded minimal, clinical and colourful website design. Being Hoffi's resident geek and having worked in interactive design for well over the last decade I've built up quite a repository of directories and sites which I visit to stay up-to-date and generally get excited by the latest trends and technology. I thought it would be a nice idea to publish some links here, not only for us, but also for our friends and customers to see what's current in digital brand communication.

Screenfluent

Site Inspire

Styleboost

Minimal Sites

One Page Love

Web Creme

The Best Design

Unmatched Style

Dirty Mouse

Beautifully

Cool Homepages

So after my first piece about the Cardiff Design Festival and some of the more business/design related events I thought I would write a bit about the smaller events that centred around designers socialising and generally getting to know each other. It's an odd paradox while most designers spend their entire day developing to things to communicate and make lives easier we sometimes aren't the most social of people. So I think the social events are really at the core of Cardiff Design Festival. Without designers on board then the festival is never going to be what it could. So the events that I went to were (for obvious reasons) the NakedWales pub quiz, and the Design Wars out the back of Milgi.

I think both offered something totally different. The quiz was a great chance for people to catch up or meet, have a few drinks, and answer (or maybe not) some quiz questions. The great thing is that we have done three of these quiz's over the years and each time it has got busier and busier until this year when we ran out of chairs. So while I can't say what it was like as I had to read the questions out I think people had a good time? Let us know what people thought.

The Design Wars started last year and I think from hearing about it from other people it was a highlight. So this year I had to pop in and see what it was all about. I think the idea is great and it pulled in a variety of of students, practicing designers and just people interested in what was going on. I think the thing it made me think was that the Design festival did start to bring together recently graduated designers together. Almost the length of the festival has allowed them to grow up with the festival and now as people who are practicing they are now supporting it.

The first two weeks of October have gone by and with it, so has Cardiff Design Festival 2011. I managed to miss most of last years festival as I was busy working on a project. So this year I was determined to go to as many events as possible. Firstly I think from the year break it has really shown me that the festival feels a lot more solid and a great two weeks of events. I think there are levels of events now, within the festival. Events for designers and business, to social events for designers, right through to events that were put on by designers that attracted a public audience. Definitely from the 2009 event there seems to be a big progression. So I am going to give you a quick over view of some of the events I attended and give you an idea of what I thought.

I think I might go in reverse order. So the last event I attended was Design Wales' Service Design seminars at the Pierhead building. speakers were Ben Reason from Live|Work and Nick March from Sidekick Studio's. Both companies practice service design at different levels. Live|Work are a huge established service design company working with large clients from all over the world. Where as sidekick studio's are, (as the name implies) a much smaller studio working on smaller digital service design projects.

So what did I think?
For me the work Live|Work showed and how Ben described the way they felt design was going was bang on. But I don't think it gave me much insight into them as a company. I think for people just getting into this arena then I could see it being really interesting, but it didn't really hold the attention. Second up was Nick. Who discussed the transition sidekick studio's are going through right now. Instead of just doing client based work. They are now developing projects internally and then trying to sell them. The projects he discussed such as Buddy and the Amazings were really interesting and it will be interesting to see if they do manage to get this going long term. I think Designers have for a long time made off shoot businesses. It is nothing new. Elmwood for example have for many years had their own tea brand and more recently launched a boutique beer. Traditionally designers have often sold one off designs within the shop section of their websites.

What I felt was slightly different about Nick's viewpoint were the requirements of the project in the first place. A mini value set, or mini brief if you like. This helped them decide on whether the project should go forward. In a nutshell all the projects had to be "digital products that make money, change lives and put a smile on people's faces" with the aim to "make our society better". So for me with general interest in this subject it was interesting to see this type of model within a commercial company. Granted they do get a lot of their initial start up funds from research pots and other funding schemes, but long term it left me questioning is this the way we should look at developing projects and companies for the future?

This thought brings me nicely to another event I helped out in at the Old Library. EDC had for a few months now been talking to Llamau – a Welsh based charity that do great work with young people. For many years they have worked with them to develop social enterprises. So we worked them to try and develop their projects in a one day design workshop. Working through the business generation workshop diagram, we developed a number of small exercises that allowed people to explore their initial business ideas and hopefully get them to think about their potential customers, and also who would be needed to make the business a success. I guess looking back on both these two events. Design has a real opportunity to make a difference within lives for good and also generally across society in general. I think regardless of the client. We should be looking to advise about how to make things 'better'.

I will write another post about other events soon.

So how about a little feminine touch!?...Everybody loves a bit of floral!!

Well this year Wales has taken the bold step of charging for plastic bags. You can get more information about this from Cynnal Cymru's website. The idea is obviously to reduce plastic waste and get into bringing your own bags to the shops. So we thought it was a great idea to give you the chance to get some really cool canvas bags designed but our own fair hands.

This is my design which is still in progress. I am wrestling with the idea of whether I should also have 'I DON'T LIKE EGGS' written large on it. More bag designs form the rest of Hoffi to come very soon.

Which one do people prefer???

Once again there are some great events happening during this years Cardiff Design Festival, among them is the Naked Wales Pub Quiz! It was great fun last time, so bring yourself and anyone else you can think of for a 'chin-wag' and a drink or two!! We will be taking over Gwdihw, which is located in Cardiff City Centre just off Churchill Way.

To confirm (RSVP) your place at this event, please email elin@hoffi.com

Gwdihw Cafe Bar | 10 October @ 7pm
£1 per person to participate with a cash prize!!!!

Thinking about your customers? Why not book a place at our next brand development workshop and seminar...

Presented by Julian Sykes, Hoffi's brand workshop is perfect for developing an understanding of branding and how it is integral to your company.

During the morning Julian will discuss examples of what branding is, what it is not and why having a good brand is valuable for your business. Covering what the key ingredients of a good brand are, concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace.

Agenda

8.30 - 9.00  Networking and refreshments.
9.00 - 9.30  Understanding brands how they evolve within the marketplace.
9.30 - 10.00 Workshop: Develop a rich understanding of your customer and how they interact with your brand.
10.00 - 10.30  Networking and refreshments.
10.30 - 11.00  The Future: How brands are changing within the market place.
11.00 - 11.30 How trends affect your brand.
11.30 - 12.00 Networking and questions.

Our next seminar will take place on the 12th of September, book a place today tickets are £40 and can be purchased online at brandworkshop.eventbrite.com, so why not book online today!

If you would like further information before you book, please contact Hoffi's brand director Julian on 029 2048 7941 or e-mail shwmai@hoffi.com

In preparation for the playARK - games festival and talks , I have been thinking about getting some new trainers. I have for years now had Converse and Puma and have never really seen myself buying NIKE, but after playing around with NIKEiD I have a number of choices (in ARK colours of course), to decide I have pasted them all together for people to vote let me know your thoughts.

Once again we were lucky to be asked to work on the Cardiff Design Festival's website, which promotes the festival's events and manages submissions to the 'Best of Welsh Design Awards'. This year we entered three projects including our work for The Proper Welsh Milk Company, Customising, Culture and Harley-Davidson exhibition, and The Grove - a luxury boutique hotel based in Narberth Pembrokeshire. Hoffi have also been nominated along with COIN, Cynnal Cymru and BWA by The Energy Saving Trust, for our work on the Nyth Nest, making Wales cosy brand.

In 2010 we enabled a star rating system for all submissions to the 'Best of Welsh Design Awards', and this year is back, but this time with a running chart to give it a real top of the pops feel. So... If you like our work, please take a moment to vote on Hoffi's submissions.

So it's the end of day one of experimenting with writing a story on twitter, here is mine and @allie_arklab progress up to now...

@allie_arklab
once upon a time there was a sneaky boy called @julian_Hoffi...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
he had long flowing blonde locks and arms like tree trunks...

@allie_arklab
and legs like chicken nuggets...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
while his legs slowed him down, he made up for it with grace and posture like a swan...

@allie_arklab
the ladies would swoon and dream of the time when he would whisk them away and ride off into the sunset whilst the men...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
would fear him like like tiger that hadn't eaten for days, his pungent sexual aroma would make them...

@allie_arklab
One day a stranger arrived at the village, who had arms like tree trunks and strong legs like an ox...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
@julian_hoffi feared this man, he couldn't let this man take his place as the village seed giver, something had to be done...

@allie_arklab
So one day @julian_Hoffi decided to confront this mysterious stranger and challenge him to a duel...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
he needed weapons though, he decided on a trident, a bottle of acid and a nail gun...

@allie_arklab
so at dawn on one wet and windy day @julian_hoffi met with the mysterious stranger on the heath...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
armed with his trident and umbrella, @julian_hoffi charged forward, his little legs had never run so hard...

@allie_arklab
he ran so fast that his little chicken nugget legs fell off...

@Carwyn_Hoffi
lying there, legless, @julian_hoffi, pleaded with the stranger and offered to trade his chicken nugget lets for...

@allie_arklab
a ride on...

Follow us on twitter to see where this goes...

Yesterday me and Andrew took a day out of the office to go to The Royal Welsh Show, the biggest agricultural show in Europe. Officially we were up there to see some of our existing and new clients, but we also took the opportunity to sit in some big tractors and pet some goats. After being distracted by some big boy toys we managed to catch up with Calon Wen, who had a great stand, selling their newly packaged milk, cheeses and new milkshakes, they also served us a great coffee as Calon Wen milk makes great coffee!

Also up in the show were Menter a Busnes with one of their projects, Energy Saving Trust with their Ynni'r Fro project, West Wales Eco Centre, for who we designed and developed the Climate Change Wales website. We also managed to catch up with some possible new clients as well, so all in all, a good day out.

More and more recently we have been asked what we do. Sure we have designed websites and brochures over the years. But fundamentally we have been a branding company at first this has been produced through the visual aspects of branding such as the mark, and other communications such as stationery, flyers, powerpoint templates etc. More recently however we have been developing projects that also get into the strategy of our clients and what they do and more importantly why they do it.

As we have all heard the big challenge of today is to create authentic stories that are of your brand. Describing what and how you do it are still important but it seems to be the story and narrative that really gets people emotionally involved in a brand and it's experience. The above short video a quick snapshot of a recent project we have worked on with EDC. What has been interesting with the ongoing project is the huge amount of stories people have when it comes to Ecodesign, yet it is still on initial approach seen as a bit of a grey area. You can see more of EDC's thoughts on their blog EDCshare.

With the goal of opening up the organisation as much as possible we think the blog is a good start. And it is this that has made us realise that 'making' and 'doing' can be done in many different ways. We feel the next decade or so will be our role to challenge preconceptions of our clients and hope to bring insight. Curating to create brand narratives.

Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.

Such a beautiful film about a hugely interesting concept. It reminds me alot of other Royal College projects that I have seen. They are what I call parasite type designs. They use resources that are being already used or produced to deliver other experiences. I think I remember from a good few years back a project that was a bug which fed off the heat from a lampshade being on. The bug was a mini radio that held enough power to play music when the lampshade was on and also the shape of the shade helped direct the sound.

So the show is up and you are thinking about the summer, maybe some of you are thinking about going travelling. Others are thinking about looking for a job and some just a bit of work experience / internship. So for the ones out there looking for a place in a creative studio what do you need to do to get some experience?

Firstly let's say there are around 30 odd students in your uni class, there are probably about 5-6 courses each with students who might consider themselves capable or getting a design job, then say there are around 100 or so uni's who do creative courses. That is already about 18,000 people. Then you have people who havn't got a job yet from last year and others generally looking for a career change. So that is a lot of people.

So here are a few things to be thinking about:

1. Firstly think about how many emails we get asking for placements. It is great if you therefore address it to someone rather than Sir/Madam.
2. If you want a job or placement a good idea is to write specifically about the company that you want to work for. Do not write a generic letter BCCing a whole load of other agencies together.
3. Check your email before you send it. You have taken around 19-20 years getting to this stage, is an extra five minutes making sure there are no typo's too much??
4. Portfolio's it's nice to see pdf's. These are fine but not ones that are over 10mb's. If you don't know how to create proper pdf's it might be a good idea to learn as you will be using them alot when in work.
5. Finally show a bit of passion and you really need to be looking at digital as well and non-digital work.

Hope this helps...!

Since December 2010 we have been working with Neil and Zoe; owners of The Grove, a luxury boutique hotel based in Narberth Pembrokshire.

They approached us to develop the Grove brand and enhance its positioning as a luxury hotel and restaurant based in Wales. The superb 16th century building had been restored to the finest specifications and is now a true indulgence, a great venue and already with several high profile hotel, food and wine awards.

We approached the brand through a series of refinements; making subtle changes to the typography, colour and treatment used throughout all of the Grove's brand communications. Over the last few weeks we have been putting the finishing touches to the Grove website, which launched on the 11th of June. Like the refinements made to the brand identity, the website was approached in a similar way; working through the previous content with a copywriter to achieve a consistent tone of voice, tweaking the interface to ensure that the design is centred to the user and functional across browsers and screen resolutions.

Visit the Grove's website www.thegrove-narberth.co.uk

I came across the video above while visiting our neighbours blog (seewhatyoumean). The video is a really interesting visualisation by Vodafone as to how mobile phones have developed not only in shape/aesthetics but also in terms of content and how they have moved from a businessmans brick to ubiquitous objects which people can't do without.

Well we have been working on this for a year or so now. After years working on the brand communications for Calon Wen, we have developed a new series of packaging for Milk and soon to be Butter, (there might even be a few more things as well). The project has been interesting for us mainly due to the project being a genuine brand development project. It is quite rare to get these as normally they are a total re-brand or it's a start-up with no visual language.

So to develop a brand and it's message while not alienating the already existing market. So what about Calon Wen? what were they changing? With the recent recession 'Organic' products have suffered. Perceived luxury products are always going to have a hard time in a shrinking economy, in particular products that are seen as everyday (like milk). So we had to develop Calon Wen beyond being organic and provided a richer story that was based on people. The labels themselves are a small micro-representation of this. The previous labels were highly successful however 'ORGANIC' was over powering in comparison to the brand name. Also the fun playful element of the cows was limited to being in a traditional stamp design above the name. So the cow's have been integrated into a scene that allows for a richer and more engaging label. Finally the roundel that we have developed for the other products such as Cheese has been incorporated into the label.

The story of family farms being for us a hugely important in who Calon Wen are and what they are about. This was kind of lost within the sides of the Calon Wen story and label so we wanted to bring this to the front. Above you can see the new label and below the older version. It would be great to hear peoples thoughts on the labels and thinking behind it. You can also visit the Calon Wen facebook page to see a lot more of the work we have been doing.

I came across a really interesting article the other day which spoke about the Google's failure (so far) to setup some kind of social platform. Obviously it's not like they have not tried. Systems such as buzz and wave were all dips into the arena, but as the article discusses it is the fact that they are trying to do something that has been done before.

What it has brought for me to think about is two things:

- Does a scatter gun approach to development work?
- Will Google be 2nd in a few years to facebook?

ARTICLE
http://memeburn.com/2011/05/why-cant-google-win-at-social/

Prototyping made simple from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

As some of you may know myself and allie and the rest of thinkARK are going to be holding a games festival which will take place at the start of October and will take place during the 2011 Cardiff Design Festival. The festival will cover a conference and also some playing of games both on and offline (and everything in between). In the lead up to the festival we will be testing games to see how things work etc. Two weekends ago we did our first games testing day. We didn't have very long to put the game together but we were pretty sure how it was going to play and how people would react. One word... WRONG!!!

Things that had seemed insignificant became big issues, and things that had not really been planned were a great success. So to this point and think about our own practice and brand strategy. There is a huge amount of information to be learnt to trying things out first. We would call it prototyping and there is a great video above from Designers Front and thinkpublic who describe the strengths of prototyping. The thing therefore that we do is to apply a design process to the project that standardises how a project is produced yet allows for the the unique brand to steer the outcome.

Just downloaded the new Photosynth App from Microsoft for the the Iphone today and had a quick go, here are the results:

It's a bit messy (picture and office) but if you took your time i'm sure you could get good results

On the 22nd of June we'll be joining Design Wales at a business breakfast held by the Caerphilly Business Forum. The event will be an opportunity for businesses to learn about the programme of service design support that's available from Design Wales.

Hoffi have been invited to talk about how we work with business using service design tools and design thinking to develop strategies that grow brands; adding value to your business through design.

To book your place please visit the following link and register here http://servicedesignwales.eventbrite.com/

This morning I went on a magical mystery tour of a ride around Cardiff. Every now and again I catch a bus from Canton to the Bay. It is one of those routes that goes everywhere and pretty much circles the city. This morning the driver accidentally took a wrong turn. I think this is only the second time in my memory when this has happened to me but it did get me thinking about service and services breaking down. It is probably best to describe it through three different perspectives.

PERSPECTIVE ONE - the bus driver
He regularly drives through Canton on the number 17 bus route that arrives opposite central station. He is used the route in fact the route has become routine. He is on autopilot. This week after many months on the 17 route he is doing 2 this is a different route going to the Bay but is does share a section of the road that is the same as the number 17. So routine kicks in and before he knows it he has passed the turning he should have taken.

He instantly panics and tries to correct by turning around with no roundabouts nearby and it being rush hour he is unsuccessful and aborts his attempt. The traffic has been manic all morning and he already is a bit late so he decides to try and get back on track but unfortunately he is going to miss a few stops out of the regular route. He is now late and frustrated probably under pressure to be on time and is now rushing to catch up.

Could this have been helped?
Local knowledge is a great thing it helped the driver out to re-find his route, however the familiarity probably also caused the issue. Would it be best to give drivers totally different routes from their last?

PERSPECTIVE TWO - the passenger
For me as a passenger this novelty has given me many things. A quick bit to talk about in the morning in the studio. The novelty has allowed for a different feel to getting to work. A different perspective almost.

Could this have been utilised?
Broadly thinking could routes be random? would this create newness to getting to work? would we be better off?

PERSPECTIVE THREE - the potential passenger
This is the most interesting for me in the scenario. They have no idea what has gon on. There is no empathy of the issue and as far as they are concerned another bus has not turned up.

Could this have been helped?
Would it have been possible to bring the story to this passenger. Give them the understanding of the issues and what has happened?

I think ultimately what I saw today made me think about services are as strong as the people who deliver them. We are all human and make mistakes. But I think it is the way organisations open up to these mistakes that will be the making of future great services.

On Monday I popped along on to the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries to listen to talks from David Ajasa-Adekunle of Innovation Imperative and Kate Bergel from Pixar Animation Studios.

It was interesting to hear David's aspirations for the use of animation to explain the lifestyle that surround a building, and how buildings are developed as brands in their own right. It made me think of the Back to the Future movies and how Marty, the main character played by Michael J Fox desired to live on the exclusive and modern Hilldale estate. I guess there's something to say about destination branding and how its applied to buildings, or groups of buildings to convey a more attractive proposition.

Here's one of the example animations that David played on Monday...

Kate's talk was probably a little beyond my expertise, in terms of pixel dynamics and algorithms to provide enhanced animation effects. Kate explained that these where all key factors in producing content for the entertainment games industry, because they made a huge reduction in production times. These new developments in Pixar have been made possible through collaboration between departments such as Research (Kate's home within Pixar) and external partners Disney.

One of the key subjects of her talk described a multi-touch interface that Pixar has developed called Eden. The interface was produced to cut the time it takes to set-dress three-dimensional scenes, Kate explained that it has already been successful, having been used on a small number of Pixar productions and added benefits of reducing the effects of RSI through natural hand movements. Here's a quick video of Eden being used:

Sport has traditionally played a big role in business, it provides a great icebreaker for conversations on the phone, in person and now over the internet. Its quite prevalent at this point in time with the Six Nations taking place and with rugby a patriotic driving force of Welsh culture, it was fitting that we adapted the brand of Welsh dairy farming co-operative Calon Wen to support the Welsh team in 2011. To find out more about Calon Wen, why not become a fan on their Facebook page.

Last weekend saw a thrilling weekend of Rugby in this years Six Nations. A historic win Italy over France, Scotland losing narrowly to England, and in Cardiff, Wales beating Ireland through a controversial try. During game day, Cardiff transforms into a busy, cosmopolitan city full of colour and noise. For many it is a perfect opportunity to try and sell or advertise their business or brand. So who better to advertise during a game day than Under Armour – shirt manufacturer for Wales national team. On the thursday before the game Under Armour brought in a cargo crate to expand the experience of Under Armour to the people of Cardiff.

The area around the crate had been setup with loads of physical training challenges – from running and jumping competitions to skipping with huge ropes. The area was always really busy and there seemed to be a real buzz with music being pumped out all day. In all it was a well thought out event – pulling on key brand values of Under Armour and a great way to give someone a brand experience that went beyond a traditional billboard advert or flyer. Indeed while there were jerseys available to be viewed (and I think bought). It was much more about giving the customer an experience and a memory of Under Amour as being "Engineered to Perform".

So after a very loud evening of revelry (Wales did win after all), I woke up and went to get some breakfast. As I walked past the area where the Cargo Crate had once occupied I came across the below rubbish and mess. Sand bags that had weighted down banners and wood that had stopped the crate touching the new paving stones had all been left behind. So for me it left me with a sad memory of the event. One that I had thought was really cool and enjoyable. On a more interesting level I wonder how this translates to the brand of Under Armour and how deep do things go. While the whole company began through the pursuit to develop a superior t-shirt, it seems the question should be – at any cost??

It also seems to sum up a use and discard approach to the experience and a deep lack of understanding that for a sponsor of a National Jersey you dont's leave rubbish in their capital – or anywhere for that matter. For me there was a real breakdown in the Under Armour experience and the service that had been so high has now crashed.

Collaboration was repeated again again at Intersection, but is seeming contrast to this was the idea of competition. The networked world has been used more and more to describe the development of how we can begin to collaborate together both socially and in business. In Nick Jankel's talk he spoke of how recent studies have brought new light into us as a species with initial reports indicating that we have inbuilt tendencies to collaborate and we are not the compete at all costs as was previously thought. There is another element however that is competition. Competition has been at the heart of how we have developed, indeed our previous blog about games would indicate competition maybe here to stay for a very long time. I think we are competitive as people and we like to expand our knowledge or skills. Within society competitions are seen to be a great way to force innovation through.

So does competition and collaboration go together?
Initially it seems like the answer is no, but I think it depends on your perspective, and what your ultimate goal is for the area you are inhabiting. If you have a traditional hierarchical view of the world then it is unlikely that competition and collaboration are going to work for you. However if you have a broader view of success i.e. you would like to develop better forms of transport and through you working on the project you share your findings that are then developed by other groups to an end goal of better transport then that is a success.

EXAMPLE 1
Recent examples of this would be the Ansari X Prize. The prize was offered by the X PRIZE Foundation who offered $10,000,000 dollars for the first non-government organisation to launch a re-usable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. The prize was won back in 2004 by Burt Rutan. However as well as the competition winner receiving the prize there was also over $100,000,000 dollars of investment in new technologies, that took place during the competition.

EXAMPLE 2
An ongoing competition/project is Local Motors (you can how it works on the video above). People compete with each other to design new cars. The designs are then voted on and a small production run of the winning cars are built. The competition works on many levels, the system allows for cars to go from drawing board to production around 500% faster than standard production timescales. Due to people having to be involved in the build of the car, purchasers are 80% less likely to default on payment for the car.

This is the most important thing you can ever do if you want to get anywhere in solving a problem. Questions are where it all starts. If you have a bad question you will invariably get a bad reply. In today's culture the question and how it is delivered is also even more complex. We must look at how and where the question is asked.

A few examples for you:

THE BAD - The old time travel story
Imagine a group of people from the middle ages have been transported to 2011. You want to ask them about their thoughts on the 21st century, and how it compares to their lives back in the middle ages. You decide to ask them through an online questionnaire as it is cheap and simple to implement. Only problem is the people dont know how to access the internet or use a computer, so you don't get any responses and are no further in your understanding of their opinions.

THE GOOD - So lets imagine another scenario which is based on open IDEO's learnings
You have a plan to develop an online community that works together to create responses to some of the issues in the world through design and creative responses. You start to think about how best to get to these people. You think the best way would be to go to them and so ask them on a online community that already exists (facebook), you ask them a few questions about your plans and see what kind of issues these people are interested in. You get great feedback and learn some important information to then go ahead and setup your own venture.

Finally one more thing - Framing
A good question can always be improved by adding a bit of context to it. If it is online then add some further information to frame the question. So stopping people take the question off in directions you do not want to investigate. Also the context or story immediately pulls you into the question and brings better responses.

Note
A big thanks to Tom Hulme, IDEO for his talk at Intersection 2011 who spoke about open IDEO and the learnings they have had through the project.

FINISHED

Not everything that went on however some nice highlights. What did everyone else think. Did I miss anything?

NOT QUITE READY

Nearly three month into 2011, lets see if you have been involved in any of the trends/things that were going to be highlighted in 2011. No1 has already had huge coverage with the recent making of a playable stradivarius through 3D printing.

Doesn't time fly when you are having fun... Only last month we celebrated our fifth birthday, which was a fantastic milestone, and is for any business. To celebrate we did a number of things, including the launch of our lovely new website along with dispatching a number of packages to our friends and customers. Hopefully some of you planted the gift inside the package and are now experiencing growth and fruition ready for today's St. David's Day celebrations.

We would love to see photographs please send them to shwmai@hoffi.com or tweet them @brandhoffi

Julian Sykes - I built my first Tank at age 6 from Ignite Cardiff on Vimeo.

We have just been sent the video of my recent Ignite talk in Cardiff a few weeks ago. It's the first Ignite I have done and I have to say it is so much harder than Pecha Kucha. Having 5 seconds less for each slide makes a huge difference. Hope you enjoy it even though I babbled a bit.

Thanks to www.crimzn.co.uk for the video and www.ignitecardiff.wordpress.com for letting me talk about play and games. There are also some other great talks that you can see on ignites vimeo account www.vimeo.com/user6011980