Today will mark the first ever performance from National Theatre Wales that will be streamed free over the web, whist being performed in front of an audience in Haverfordwest, Cardiff and Connah's Quay over the coming weeks.

Over the past 6 weeks we have been working closely with Native HQ's Tom Beardshaw and Kinura to develop an online stage and booking system for National Theatre Wales' eighteenth show 'The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning'.

For the series of streamed events we developed an online booking system mimicking that of a real box office to provide virtual tickets or reminders for the events, along with what was labeled as an 'online stage'. We pulled together technology from Kinura and content produced by Tom, so that online theatre goers are not only able to spectate, but join in through chat, twitter and lots of extras that will send you through Bradley's life online pushed to the user during the play.

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning is the perfect choice for National Theatre Wales to premier online streaming, due to the 24 year olds relationship with the online world.

Bradley Manning is a United States Army soldier who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks. He was charged over the following months with a number of offenses, including communicating national defence information to an unauthorised source, and aiding the enemy. Source: Wikipedia

You can see the show free several times over the coming weeks, if you would like to find out more information or to book your free ticket for the live stream, please visit http://nationaltheatrewales.org/bradleymanning/ and don't forget to share the link!

Those who have spoken to me recently will know that I've started keeping chickens, so what else could my bag illustration be but an exploded diagram of the first Chicken coop that I built earlier this year. If only I had this when I first built the ark.

Over the last few months we have been putting together a new website ready for today's public announcement of Wales' top 50 fastest growing companies. The Fastgrowth 50 recognises and awards those companies that show exceptional growth sustained over a period of time and after thirteen years of identifying the fastest growing firms in Wales, the unique initiative is firmly established as the list of business success that entrepreneurs across Wales aspire to.

Organiser Professor Dylan Jones Evans explains: "Every year, it is a constant remainder of the vast entrepreneurial potential that exists within the Welsh business sector, with growth performance by businesses that is as good as any to be found across the regions of the UK."

Hoffi's role was to inject life into the online presence of the Fastgrowth 50. Working closely with Dylan we developed a prominent chart based focus to the site, which showcases this years winners and features Avonwen Landry as Wales' number one fastest growing company for 2011. Additional features such as news publishing and profile management will come on board (for those on the list) over the coming weeks, allowing this year's fifty to take ownership of their listings, whilst being able to use the website for promotion throughout the year.

This years event was supported by Capita Law, Santander, Media Wales, Logicalis, Venture Wales, University of Wales, Sinclair Group and University of Wales, Newport.

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

Following the success of our last two seminars, which covered branding and online strategies, we have been working on the arrangements for our third seminar taking place Thursday 14th of April, at Enterprise House, Cardiff Bay. In this seminar you will discover why your brand is the most valuable part of your business, and why a good brand can benefit you.

We will be there from 8:30am where you will be able to get a coffee and a little breakfast, before we start at 9:00am. The seminar will run through some examples of what branding is and what it is not. Looking at why having good branding is valuable for your business and what the key ingredients of a good brand is. We will be particularly concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace. This will take us up to 12pm, when there will be around an hour or so for networking (We will be around afterwards should any of you wish to chat about any particular issues you have.)

Places are limited, so book early to avoid disappointment. For your place at the seminar please email elin.williams@hoffi.com quoting reference: brandemail

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

Its in Design Week, so I guess that makes it official: for the last few months we've been enrolled on the Design Wales service design programme. Its been a great experience lead by Design Wales' Paul Thurston, who has spent a time at our studio talking and running some quick workshop activities about the principles of service design, and how to apply the design knowledge we have to services. For us its an opportunity to reflect and develop on the existing services we provide in the areas that convey brand, by providing a more rounded service to our clients in order for them to give a true brand experience to their customers.