August 18th, 2010
Our natural curiosity and love of problem-solving are a big part of what makes us branding experts. We believe that to be able to build a relevant and engaging brand identity there needs to be a solid foundation of knowledge, which is why we make sure we understand our clients, their objectives, their competitors and their commercial environment. We believe that truly effective creative solutions can only be delivered with that level of understanding.
Last week our branding for Engensa, an ambitious young company who are specialists in solar installation, was name-checked on page 3 of Design Week. [Volume 25/ Number 32/ 12th August 2010] Have a read about why they chose to work with us.
The fact is, we like getting to know our clients. Knowing what makes them tick and what they want to achieve makes what we do even more rewarding, and ensures that what we deliver is genuinely effective.
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August 12th, 2010
5 people. An inventive team name. Some really tricky questions, and a £100 bar tab at stake.
Monday night was that time again – for 400 to enter our local pub quiz, renowned for its competitive atmosphere and excellent quizmaster. We love a chance to flex our intellectual muscles (whilst having a drink or two and a pub dinner, naturally) so armed with our useless individual knowledge of Miss Marple, 90s Britpop and Pantone colours, we rocked up to the Hat & Tun.
We sailed through round one, coming right near the top of the leaderboard (thanks in part to Del’s superb knowledge of downhill cross-country skiing terminology and Abbie’s recognition of a very random fish) and were feeling confident at half time.
My penchant for cryptic clues helped us get all three name-that-football team questions correct, and Paul excelled himself by knowing that the Argentinian grasslands were, in fact, called the Pampas. Gary contributed by suggesting that the Aussie colloquialism for a long-sleeved wetsuit was a ‘Onesey.’ (It wasn’t.)
Despite being hopeful for a top three ranking, we just missed out (Abbie was most disappointed at the lack of pickled egg prizes) and ended up with a total score of 39, placing us joint fourth. We were foxed by a photograph of Bill Pullman and let down by a lack of knowledge of heavyweight boxers.
Ah well, there’s always next time, we’ve got our sights firmly set on the generous bar tab. (And some pickled bar snacks for Abbie.)
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Tags: quiz
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August 9th, 2010
Hello, Caroline here – as the resident 400 blogger, I thought I’d share some cultural experiences from my weekend with you. On Saturday I braved the west end hordes of tourists (made even more maddening with the addition of spiky brollies in the torrential rain) to visit Haunch of Venison gallery. I’d seen this article on taxidermy artist Polly Morgan a few weeks ago and been dying to visit since then. Psychopomps is only a small show but it’s beautiful, disturbing and humourous in equal measure – quite an achievement for a bunch of stuffed birds.
I then paid a visit to the Photographer’s Gallery to see The Family and the Land by renowned artist Sally Mann. I’d always admired her work in books and found her subjects fascinating, but the pieces in real life are stunning – large silver gelatin prints varying between ghostly American landscapes, and other-worldly and unsettling portraits of her children. Highly recommended, plus you get to visit one of the best art bookshops in the world. (It’s also one of the hottest, so I wouldn’t go at noon.)
Not content with this dose of culture on Saturday, on Sunday I attended a screening of short films and music videos by the talented chaps at Curve Films at the lovely little Rosemary Branch theatre and pub in Islington. I laughed a lot, was moved considerably and was gripped by little snapshots of humanity for a few hours. You’d be amazed how interesting a mini documentary on people who fix up old boats in a field in Nottinghamshire can be. Check out their website, they’re very good at all sorts.
Right, after all that highbrow stimulation, I’m off to read Heat magazine and watch some reality tv.
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Tags: Culture, Curve Films, Haunch of Venison, Photographers Gallery, Polly Morgan, Rosemary Branch Theatre, Sally Mann
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August 6th, 2010
We’ve had a busy old month in the studio (hence being slightly quieter than usual on the blog front), working on an even wider range of projects than we normally do.
To give you a flavour of what’s currently tickling our fancy here at 400, here’s a selection of the projects our designers are currently hard at work on (don’t worry, they are fed plenty of tea and cake):
- A selection of communication materials for an international private bank’s asset management division
- A new brand application style for an international data protection solution firm
- The application of new branding for a trailblazing solar energy company
- Working with renowned photographer David Hares; art-directing and retouching the shoot of a photographic library for one of the City’s leading law chambers
- The exciting finishing touches to the branding of a land investment company
- Continuing developing the guidelines for a brand we designed for a pioneering social housing and enterprise scheme
- Annual customer forum invitations for a global market-leading provider of financial market data
We love working across lots of different projects and sectors, it helps us bring a fresh eye to every job – plus it keeps us on our toes. If you’d like to set us a design challenge, let us know!
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Tags: art-direction, branding, communications, design, marketing materials, photography
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July 16th, 2010
We’ve said before that there’s rarely a dull moment here in the 400 studio, and today it was a frenzy of activity as we art directed a photo-shoot of household appliances for our green energy client.
We thought sourcing the perfect objects for the shoot was tricky (“We’re after a nice-looking kettle that will appeal to this target audience, with an aesthetically-pleasing switch that can be easily re-touched…”), but eliminating unwanted reflections on the chrome appliances was even trickier. Looking forward to a few days of re-touching next week… keep an eye out for the results on our site soon.
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Tags: art-direction, green energy, photoshoot, retouching, target audience
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July 14th, 2010
By nature, we’re pretty inquisitive. This is what makes us good at our job – we want to find out what makes our clients tick, how their businesses operate, how their sector works. We use this knowledge to inform the creative work that we do, to ensure relevant and hard-working design.
We’re currently rebranding a green energy client so we’ve been doing research in this area to understand the past, present and future of renewable energy sources in the UK.
While we were being nosey, we came across this article on importing solar energy which we thought contained some mind-boggling statistics. Apparently it would take just 0.3% of the sunlight that falls on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts to meet all of Europe’s energy needs, an area only the size of Wales.
Nine EU governments are formalising plans to link their clean energy projects around the North Sea within the next decade, to provide cleaner and more sustainable power supplies. The future’s bright – the future’s, um, green.
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Tags: desert, green energy, renewable energy, research, solar
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July 8th, 2010
We’re fortunate to have a varied client base at 400, which throws us challenges and flexes our creative guns. Here’s a little taste of some of projects we’re working on this week:
• Developing a brand style and art-directing photography to create a unique image bank for a legal chambers
• Finalising the brand identity and initial applications for a green energy client
• Art-inspired event invitations, graphics and interactive displays for a world-leading construction company’s party at Tate Modern
• Designing bid document templates for a globally-renowned security company
• First creative on the branding for a land investment firm
• Refreshing marketing material for a London-based housing association
Never a dull moment in the 400 studio.
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Tags: art directing, brand application, branding, displays, events, image bank, marketing material, tate modern
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July 5th, 2010
Something truly shocking has cast a dark shadow over the studio. Almost a full ginger cake, left over from Friday, has disappeared. It’s not in the cupboard, the fridge, we even checked the microwave. The only logical conclusion is that it was taken or thrown away (in both cases the finger of blame is hovering in the direction of our normally reliable and trustworthy cleaners).
We’re very tolerant people here at 400 but NOT when it comes to food, specifically cake. Abbie was understandably inconsolable, only Paul’s back-up brownies saved us from a Michael Douglas in Falling Down moment.
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Tags: cake, emergency brownies, theft
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June 29th, 2010
Working as we do on such a wide variety of projects, for such diverse clients, from so many different sectors, means that some unusual challenges are inevitably thrown our way. Thankfully that’s what we thrive on, and without them our jobs would be a lot less fun, and rewarding.
So when we found ourselves art directing a photoshoot involving sports equipment and security scanners (like the ones you see at airports), we were in our element. Our client, a world-leading security solutions company, is bidding for a prestigious and valuable sporting event security contract and we were tasked with designing their 300 page bid document.
We felt that x-raying sports equipment would be a perfect way to tie together the ethos of bid organizing committee with that of our client – the resulting imagery would elevate their bid above the competition and make the highly technical, text-heavy document much more accessible.
X-raying fencing headguards and running spikes… it’s all in a day’s work.
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Tags: bid document, photoshoot, security, sports, variety
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June 25th, 2010
We were very pleased in the studio last week, as we got quoted in a Design Week feature on how green energy companies are branding themselves in an increasingly competitive environment.
We’re on the verge of launching a brand for a green energy client so we were happy to give our opinion to DW on what we’d found during our research – that there seemed to be a lack of compelling consumer brands in this sector, and a reliance on predictable ‘green’ motifs. We like to think that we’re bucking that trend by creating a brand that is truly reflective of the client’s ethos and positioning.
Watch out on our news pages on the 400 website for the big unveil… coming soon.
Design Week, Volume 25, Number 24, 17th June 2010. Page 9, “Flagging Up The Cause.”
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Tags: branding, Design Week, green energy
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Our natural curiosity and love of problem-solving are a big part of what makes us branding experts. We believe that to be able to build a relevant and engaging brand identity there needs to be a solid foundation of knowledge, which is why we make sure we understand our clients, their objectives, their competitors and their commercial environment. We believe that truly effective creative solutions can only be delivered with that level of understanding.
