Bloodhound – Blood, sweat and speed

Located within the state-of-the-art S&B Automotive Academy in Bedminster, Bristol, the Bloodhound Education Centre is an innovative learning environment, designed to engage, educate and inspire young people into a career in science, technology, engineering and maths. The Bloodhound SSC project team, preparing for its 1,000mph world land record attempt in South Africa in 2013, is based at the adjacent site, so it made perfect sense to transform the existing ‘big shed’ into a hands-on learning experience to showcase the technology behind the car.

The official opening of the Education Centre last week was the culmination of more than a year’s work, involving lots of collaboration, site visits to gain an understanding of the space, steering group team meetings and of course, lots of design creativity. We first became involved through EPSRC, who are funding the research behind the fluid dynamics for the Bloodhound SSC and with whom we had worked previously. They recommended us to the Bloodhound team, who asked us to come up with some ideas for using the area as well as the branding, graphic, signage and overall theme.

The challenge was to create a contemporary, engaging space that communicates the fun aspects of science, technology and engineering to children of 7-13 years and to provide a deeper learning aspect for 14-17 year olds to encourage them to study the subjects further. We brainstormed a number of exhibition concepts and content for the space and information required, and created a floorplan, demonstrating different ways to represent the most exciting aspects of the project and submitted them to the Bloodhound team.

Once a concept had been agreed, Bloodhound got to work implementing our ideas. These included light boxes and information display panels featuring the car graphics as well as interactive computer games featuring subjects that children can easily relate to such as horses and tanks, to show the basic premise of engineering. We also suggested a laptop storage unit designed to look like an engine, timeline wall graphics for the corridor, a fluid dynamics wall, and worktables where children can build models of cars as well as a 15m track to race them.

Halfway through the project Bloodhound also asked us to design the theme and graphics for a classroom within the education centre specifically for older children who have a greater understanding of engineering. We used the natural light from the windows to create several lighboxes to show the car’s structure from different angles. We also designed the wall graphics and text explaining the project mission, and a chart comparing the speeds of the world’s fastest machines and animals with the speed of the SSC, all of which featured the Bloodhound colours of orange and navy.

Glenn Wood, our senior account manager on the project, was at the official opening of the education centre and said: "Seeing the fruition of a year’s hard work was very satisfying. The children were clearly enjoying the interactive activities, so Bloodhound is well on its way in its quest to challenge and inspire young people whilst pushing the boundaries of science. It really is great to have been involved in such a fantastic project and we wish Bloodhound the best of luck wit hits world landspeed record attempt in 2013."

The dogs...

Clip&Ping has been a fantastic project and we first got involved purely on a branding aspect, not expecting the project to snowball in quite the way it did. We had previously worked with the MD of Clip&Ping, Rob Steele, when he was consulting for Alpheus (see earlier blog on this).  Rob was looking for a London based consultancy and approached us, having seen our work and thought that we had our fingers on the pulse of the latest design trends and sound digital experience. We like to think so too!

Rob liked our work, ethos and professional approach so much that after the Alpheus project he asked us to help develop the brand awareness for his new clipping service, including our thoughts on the name. We were not convinced the original name was fit for purpose. We wanted to find a professional, easily remembered, yet quirky moniker, where its simplicity is its strength and meaning would highlight the ease of using the service. Ultimately, we wanted a name that does what it says on the tin – and Clip&Ping was born.

As well as the name, we created the corresponding logo, featuring a modern and bold monogram from the Clip&Ping initials that represent the sharing and discussion of the information provided. We opted for a simple colour palette of black and pink – black for the words ‘Clip’ and ‘Ping’ and pink for the ampersand and monogrammed logo – along with an open, friendly typeface to represent the approachable, fun brand identity.

Our talented design team also came up with a brand mascot, or rather mascots, creating two canine characters, one black and one white, to add personality, as well as instant recognisability, to the brand name. These characters can be used in a variety of ways to communicate what Clip&Ping offers its target audience, acting as ‘sniffer’ dogs, seeking out information and delivering it to their ‘owner’

All in all, we were very pleased with how it turned out and so was Rob, who says: “I had a great working relationship with TTP right from the start, and I felt that they had a thorough understanding of what we wanted. The collaborative and creative process delivered a fantastic brand identity that I feel really represents the aspirations, personality and offering of Clip&Ping.”

The concept of Clip&Ping came about from a need to have a service that enabled websites to stay current and feature refreshable content for SEO rankings, as well as an ethos of helping people share information and knowledge. And the premise of how it works is pretty simple.

It aims to keep its clients’ websites relevant, current and fresh by providing them with relevant articles, comment and social media - acquired under license from over 50,000 publishers, blogs and websites - to populate and refresh their websites daily. The added ability to automatically tweet the Clip&Ping content to twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn means that companies can also promote their business and services across social media platforms. All of this helps to increase readership, site ‘stickiness’ and improve search engine rankings.

“Many SMEs simply don’t have the capacity to employ someone in-house to regularly update and refresh web content and social media activity, which are essential to keep websites near the top of search engines,” explains Rob. “So, we developed this service for our clients, providing focused, relevant, timely and filtered content. Our increasing network of publishers means we have access to millions of individual articles daily, on every conceivable topic.”

So, having heard all about the wonderful things that Clip&Ping can do, we decided to test it for ourselves. We’ve provided Rob with our relevant keywords and are currently bedding the system into our web feed. We’ll have an update as to how we’re getting on testing out the service, including any SEO stats, for next month’s e-newsletter, so keep an eye out for this.

And if you want to speak to the man himself about this service and how it could improve your SEO then why not ping him an email

And now for some culture

Maryann Maguire, Cultural and Political Advisor at InterCultures first got in touch with us back in March this year, asking us to brainstorm a number of logo options for the new company brand identity and website. We created several creative routes for her to mull over.

InterCultures was established to assist private sector companies in understanding and engaging with political institutions and local populations in post-conflict environments; especially to address the need to better map the cultural, political and development environments in emerging markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The company works for a small number of select clients, acting on their specific requirements, with community engagement, partnership and sustainable development as core operational values. They also work with public service clients, including various police forces, to help them better understand culturally diverse communities and how to communicate with them given sensitive issues such as religion or customs.

So, whilst on her work travels around the world over the last few months (including that well known tourist spot, Libya), Maryann asked a number of people for their thoughts on which logo option she should choose. A decision finally made, the minute she touched back down onto home soil, Maryann called us and it was all systems go.

Our challenge was then to finalise the logo and create a holding page that could help her start to convey the open, engaging and professional ethos of the company.

The logo comprises an informal circle, representing the world and people, and consists of four different coloured ribbons – red, orange, green and yellow – which also represent the four key messages of InterCultures: Map, Understand, Enable and Communicate.

“It was hard to find a team of designers who were creative and imaginative and who got the concept behind InterCultures", says Maryann. "The tothepoint team were not only enthusiastic, their initial work captured the spirit of what we do, which is about better understanding, bridging differences and finding better ways to communicate”.

Mark Stevens, our designer and man of the moment, says: “Given InterCultures’ wide remit and approach of utilising community partnerships and sustainable development, it was essential that we conveyed this ethos within the logo design. This holistic approach is reflected in the circular shape and bright colours of the logo, which convey the positivity of the company as well as representing its four key concepts.”

We’ll be helping Maryann develop the brand identity, including the website and stationery, so watch this space for an update on both our and her progress.

Some more Worcester sauce

When complete St Martin’s Quarter, in the heart of the industrial centre of Worcester, will be a thriving retail, restaurant and leisure destination. Produced by the scheme’s principal architects, Mountford Pigott, the video is a walk through of the development, and consists of a series of stills of the existing city centre blending seamlessly with mocked up stills of how it will look once finished, highlighting the possible new shops and restaurants.



The mocked up stills also bring our branding to life through the proposed signage, and help viewers identify the location and different aspects of the new development. We are working with our contractors on the wayfinding and hope to get all the signage installed on site as soon as possible – and we’ll obviously keep you updated in our enews.

The scheme is built on an old industrial site and as such has conservation status, meaning the design and all new brickwork had to remain sympathetic to the traditional character. The combination of this heritage with the contemporary feel that the development brings which, as those of you who have read our previous blog on this project will know, was an important element when creating the branding.

Finally, the virtual tour takes the viewer past the main anchor store, Asda, and through to the focal point of the development, a sculpture made from the stonework from one of the city’s last remaining industrial kilns.

Read more about the video here on their official press release

note: this is a follow up story to this original post

Living Light, living green

We were approached by CBRE’s Architecture and Design division to come up with an innovative concept for their new headquarters in Henrietta Place, London. As part of the brief, we included an interpretation of their early stage brand phrase, ‘living green.’ This phrase became a trigger for one of our concepts, which was to make the building as a whole feel like a sensory experience with the integration of innovative lighting, sculptural and audio visual applications, as though the building itself was alive (living green).

On the ground floor, one of the principal innovative lighting features was the installation of an art-based structure (utilising Philips iColour tiles technology), which allowed abstract, large format video to be displayed within a sculptural lighting installation. These were housed in the reception area and became a real talking point with visitors due to their abstract, almost hypnotic quality and were one of the first of their kind to be installed anywhere in the UK. You can see a short video of them in action here:



This is also now featured on the Philips Lighting Youtube channel.

From a textural/sculptural aspect we created a wave graphic that was applied to interior windows and interpreted around the wall surfaces. We used large format three dimensional tiles that reinforced the ‘living’ concept as well as adding an element of boutique style and sophistication. The tiles were carried through the ground floor break out area, working in tandem with LED floor lighting. This enabled the whole wall to change colour so that CBRE could change the mood of the area from a cool business environment to one suited to client entertainment, when the area took on a more exclusive bar-like quality.

We also proposed installing a large format LED display for the lower ground floor CBar area (4metres x 2.5 metres). The flexibility of this technology would enable CBRE to either create the effect of an abstract moving wall of light or again change the mood to display cinema sized film or video for entertaining staff or clients. In the interim, CBRE has installed a projector, housed in the ceiling, which acts in the same way but without the luminosity and visual impact of the LED mesh.

Throughout the six month project we were also involved in a consultancy and project management role, advising on other aspects of the interior, from signage and wayfinding to colour coding and imagery.

The finished building provides a stylish, innovative and modern corporate headquarters that not only reflects the gravitas that one would expect from one of the world’s largest global real estate organisations, but the inventiveness, energy and dynamism of the CBRE brand and its employees.

update: Estates Gazette has a video feature on the new space, watch it here: http://bcove.me/8cdgst25

(click on any of the images above or below to view full size)

Engineering a graphic solution for EPSRC

We have just finished work on a challenging data visualisation project for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) website. The brief was to communicate where EPSRC - the UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and physical sciences – allocates funding to its many research disciplines.

So how to communicate this in an innovative, aesthetic and accessible way? Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Believe us, it wasn’t!

EPSRC divides its research portfolio into a number of different challenge themes: Healthcare Technologies, Global Uncertainties, Digital Economy, Manufacturing the Future, Energy and Living with Environmental change and capability themes: – Engineering, ICT (Information and Communications Technologies), Physical Sciences and Mathematical Sciences. Our task was to visually represent these so that they are clear and easy to understand.

So far, so straightforward. However, given the nature of EPSRC, there is huge overlap within the different themes and within each central theme there are numerous individual research areas that interconnect with each other. Take Physical Sciences for instance. There are 28 research areas within the theme, (yes, we counted them), all of which connect with one or more of the other 27. Therefore, we needed to design something that showed clearly the overall research portfolio, the challenge and capability themes, and their related research areas whilst also representing them as individual entities.

An essential part of the project was to show the current funding for every research area and represent their relative funding over the next year.

There were a lot of numbers involved so we needed to find a way of simply representing these figures. After brainstorming a number of creative concepts, we opted for graphic maps. Our first task was to create a main overview map to show the challenge and capability themes.. Each of these then had its own graphic map, featuring circles representing each specific research area and interconnecting lines to link related areas together. The circle size represents the level of funding received up until April 2011, with the colour indicating whether the relative value of funding over the coming year is expected to grow, reduce, maintain or if it is still under review.

To make matters more complicated, we also had to ensure all the maps were accessible for visually impaired audiences – again, a core part of the brief. So we had to be creative whilst constrained by the limited choices in the visually impaired palette. We used yellow, pink, green and blue to represent funding status, along with white text on darker backgrounds and black text on the lighter colours.

Altogether, we created nine maps, all connected to the head diagram. It was our aim to create something that combined aesthetics with functionality and we are very proud of our efforts. And EPSRC felt that the resulting graphics helped to communicate the complexities of their portfolio.


(click the diagrams below to view full size)

we're hiring!

This is just a quick post to say that despite all the gloom and doom and economic woe, we seem to be as busy as ever as the moment, therefore we're looking for someone new to join our team.

We're looking for a Mid to Senior level designer. Our ideal candidate will have at least 6 years plus experience, be passionate about design and have a hands on approach. So, if you have spent some time in one of the big corporate branding consultancies, or you have been instrumental in the growth of a small consultancy that is no longer challenging your ambitions, this could be the job for you.

We're looking for a great all-rounder, capable of everything from from pitch presentations to creating artwork – from excellent knowledge of print processes to the complexities of website design.

For a bit more info on the requirements, visit our website here:
http://www.tothepoint.co.uk/contact/opportunity.html

to the powerpoint

Sometimes it's the simplest solutions that get the best results. Case in point, we've just completed a project for The Technology Partnership (who spookily also refer to themselves as TTP - no relation!).

As a bit of background, TTP is a technology and product development company. They work in partnership with their clients to bring new products to market, creating new business from advances in technology – developing and commercialising diverse technologies and products across a broad range of sectors.

So how to communicate this in an interesting, dynamic and innovative way? The original plan was to create an interactive corporate presentation featuring an animated company overview and multiple case-studies. To make matters more complicated they wanted to be able to edit and add to these case-studies at any time. Hmmm.

Lots of different technical solutions were considered but for time, cost and practicality we ended up producing the whole thing in PowerPoint. Now, at the mere mention of Powerpoint, most designers groan in disappointment. It's well known that PowerPoint often produces tedious, poorly designed presentations with nothing going for them apart from the fact that they can be edited with ease and usually have some sort of clip-art or tacky sound-effects attached.

However, with judicial use of embedded video and plenty of interactive links to take the user around the presentation, it's amazing what can be produced. In order to personalise the company and 'keep it real' (as the kids say) they commissioned us to undertake both a team photoshoot at their own offices and a separate product shoot at a photography studio. This gave us striking images to work with that kept the whole presentation both impactful and consistent.

The full video animation was split into five different sections - each can be viewed independently within the main PowerPoint presentation using a simple menu. You can see all five sections together in the full piece here.

 

Worcester source

We have recently completed the name generation and branding for a new shopping destination in the heart of Worcester. The development called St Martin’s Quarter is a joint venture between Carillion and Richardsons Capital LLP, and is our first project for them. The scheme will be offering the city, new, large floorplate, food and retail units that previously have not been catered for in the small traditional shops on the High Street.

The chosen identity, designed by our senior designer Nikki Saunders, is based around a rare, local variety of pear (known as the Worcester Black Pear). Sourced from its appearance on the city’s coat of arms, it perfectly combines the city’s tradition and heritage with the freshness and modernity that the scheme will bring to the city. The colour palette of charcoal grey and lime green underpins this and will help the scheme transform a previously run down area of the city into a thriving destination.

It was important to us and the client that the brand not only has the flexibility of translating across the immediate deliverables such as signage, leasing brochures and hoardings but to more abstract interpretations, with potential for the brand to be used for public art and commissioned sculptures. We liked the idea that the brand would translate into a three-dimensional experience that the public would interact with and that becomes a talking point for the community. Shown below are our initial ideas for a metal Pear Tree structure occupying centre stage on the pedestrianised public space and large commissioned metal gates at the entrance of the scheme that comprise of pattern repeats of the logo.

The scheme will occupy what was previously an old industrial site which is of historic value and now a conservation area. A few of the existing buildings will be retained and restored such as the Old Infirmary, Counting House and New Filling Shed, and these will sit alongside the new development which is due to open next year.

update 1: view local press (and plenty of comment!) here

update 2: a nice write up in Design Week (may require subscription to view) here

there is a follow up to this story here

Working with Wokingham

Our latest recruit, Jim Demeza, is certainly hitting the ground running. Hot on the heals of his work with Actis for their AIM 2011 conference, his first project win was launched this week. Working closely with the design team here, he steered us to victory on the the tender to create a new identity for Wokingham Council’s new independent local authority trading company, Optalis. As a local authority trading company (LATC), and only the second independent LATC to be formed in the UK, Optalis will be able to operate competitively in the adult social care market, providing it’s customers with more choice and greater control in their support services and spend. It will also allow those who are not eligible to receive help from the Council, to buy services privately. The final design was created with the assistance of the Sensory Needs team to reflect a bright, friendly and modern organisation. The design can be viewed on our 05/11 news page here.

Designer Mark Stevens, who worked on the branding said:

"Transferring existing adult social care services into an LATC offers those in need of care, a greater choice over their support arrangements, allowing their needs to be met in a more individualised way. Working closely with the Optalis team, we used colour to communicate the importance of these 'new choices for living' and backed it up with a succinct tagline, to create a warm, approachable marque for an auspicious new scheme."

Design Week took an interest in what we had done too, so if you are a subscriber you can view the article here.

We are currently in the process of working on the brand guidelines, and a range of templates, to help them save money on both their internal and external marketing, whilst also ensuring they retain brand consistency across all collateral.

Here's the official Optalis Press Release:

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OPTALIS TAKES OVER THE REINS OF WBC’S ADULT SOCIAL CARE PROVIDED SERVICES

Vulnerable adults with a disability, and older people who need care and support, will have more choice from today (June 6) as Wokingham Borough Council launches Optalis; its new adult social care company.

Optalis, which is wholly council-owned, has today taken control of all the borough council’s adult social care provided services. This includes day centres, employment services, home care, residential care and supported housing services, as well as brokerage and support and sensory needs services.

The council was prompted to set up a separate company by a combination of its policy decision to become an increasingly commissioning authority and the national policy of Putting People First, which allows adults who are entitled to personal budgets to choose who provides their social care, rather than being told by social services. This has meant people have more choice and control about how they spend their budget. Whilst this is extremely positive for the borough’s residents it has meant that the councils’ long-established care services couldn’t be guaranteed to be able to survive.

Moving to a separate company allows those services to better manage their costs and to better respond to personalised care needs, ensuring they will continue to be attractive to personal budget holders. It will reduce operating costs and overheads, and grant new flexibilities and freedoms that are not possible as part of a council set up. As Optalis is now operating competitively in the social care market, it will be available to those who previously may have wanted to buy Council’s services, but were not able to because of legal restrictions on the council selling its services. The launch of Optalis will therefore offer more choice than in the current market. This way our existing and future clients will get the best of both worlds – having the choice of a proven high quality service and also one that has freedom from public sector requirements.

Stuart Rowbotham, strategic director commissioning, said: “Doing nothing and remaining as we were was simply not an option. In order for our services to flourish and to continue to provide our excellent services to the public, we needed to be able to trade and contend with both established and emerging market competitors. Transferring our in-house adult social care services into a new company is our best option for doing this. We have invested £250,000 to set up this exciting new company which the council will recoup over time.

“We expect Optalis will be able to grow and develop new and improved services, including those that are currently missing from the social care market and are in demand. This will, in turn, offer more support options and activities that until now vulnerable adults haven’t been able to access.”

Cllr Julian McGhee-Sumner, executive member for health and wellbeing, said: “Our key priority is to sustain and improve the services we already provide and to give continuity and high quality support to the people who already use our services as well as those who may do so in future. Transferring our services gives us the best chance of achieving this.“

Mike Walsh, managing director at Optalis, said: “We have been working hard to ensure the transition period is smooth and those customers already receiving a social care service should not notice much difference day-to-day other than the change of organisation name and image. Most importantly, people should continue receiving support from staff that they know and are happy with because the council staff delivering the service have been transferred to Optalis. Those vulnerable adults who receive a service from us will experience greater choice and control over their support arrangements; and the risk of disruptions to their service or a loss of service altogether will be far lower. It’s an exciting time to launch Optalis.

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