Keen to find an alternative to the dry old company presentation (we can’t bear to see ourselves in Powerpoint, why would anyone else be interested?!), we set the Nation to work to create The Guide to Creative Nation! See it in all it’s glory here. Playing to our nature as a well traveled creative agency, we believe this provides an entertaining overview of who we are and the scope of what we do.

Please share it with your colleagues and friends- we always reward successful referrals and like to keep it in the family! We also welcome suggestions, critiques and any content which you would like us to consider for the next edition.

In the spirit of getting into action, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Creative Nation Roundtable. These have been happening for some time, so we thought we ought to give them a name and an identity, and let you all know about them! Perhaps you or someone you know could benefit from this sort of activity to kickstart 2013?

he Creative Nation Round Table is a vehicle to enable you to gain practical access to our network of cumulative wisdom, knowledge and skills, outside of a formal piece of work. You tell us what you want to invest the time in, we hand pick the best industry experts, thinkers and/or technicians for the job and facilitate.
Once we have agreed what you want to achieve, we will do the prep to ensure a session most appropriate for your needs. We can then come to you, or find us all some neutral ground somewhere inspiring and appropriate for the ‘work’ we need to do together. All sessions are informal, interactive and designed to address specific strategic, creative  or production challenges or objectives. These may be one off, regular and/or project specific sessions and may include;

• Creating or interpreting a brief - sometimes it helps to have new eyes look at an existing brief or scheme of work to bring some fresh ideas and perspectives in order to get it moving
• Exploring a specific challenge – you have a business, production or creative need and need some support on how best to approach it. We enable you to identify what and who you need
• Adapting to a changing work pace/flow – working within a multi-agency team, adapting to a restructure or working with less internal resource can pile on the pressure. We work alongside you to plug any gaps and bring the energy and resources you need to your projects, pitches and day to day.
• Reviewing, planning and strategizing- giving yourself time/resources/perspective to understand, contextualise and place your work within your industry and the economy as whole can be very valuable. Our talent are on top of the game and know what your competitors are doing and what works. Pick their brains!
• Focus groups- from within our network we can source a variety of people and organisations and facilitate focus groups sessions to provide you with the input you need. We work alongside research companies and can enable you to access up to date research relevant to your needs.

No specific skills are required and people are encouraged to interact as little or as much as they feel comfortable. We do not use role play or techniques that make people feel self-conscious. Each session will include some or all of the following; group discussion, troubleshooting, shared experience, brain storming, creative play, information on and practical use of professional disciplines and advice and direction toward other resources.
We believe our Round Table will provide an excellent route to getting 2013 off to a great start and will be making a limited number of sessions available at a reduced cost through January and February. Please contact us if you have any questions or ideas you would like to share.

In the meantime, we have recently refreshed our website, including a new showreel of our film and motion graphics work, so please pay it a visit.

Wishing you all the best for a successful and happy 2013!

We flexed our party planning skills back in October with the sequel to last year’s inaugural Fox House for Fox One Stop Media. We have been so close to this event for the last two years that it has begun to feel a little like our baby, and we are pleased to report that it performed very well again this year. This year’s event was designed to introduce Da Vinci’s Demons, a co-production by BBC Worldwide and Starz, due for release in 2013. The show’s writer, David S Goyer, cast and crew partied alongside Fox’s guests from advertising and broadcast industries as well as some extra special Creative Nation talent.

Creative Nation designed and facilitated the entire event including;

set design and dressing which transformed an empty studio space and fire escape into a ducal palace and garden with help from our fab Art Director Rosanna Westwood,  sculptures from the ingenious Circus Kinetika, birds provided by Stacey Wilding and a beautiful zoetrope

artist and performer selection and management including  Equador the Wizard with his draw dropping slight of hand and marvellous on the spot compere  skills, DJ Chris Tofu spinning electro swing, a punk brass invasion from Perhaps Contraption, burlesque beauty from the divine Gwendoline Lamour, an enormously creative digital graffiti art studio courtesy of YrWall,candy floss and flirting from the beautiful Candy Queens, the spectacular Hairy PoPins to up-do our guests, makeup touch ups from our friends at Stila and Glorious Brands, and a rousing knees up from The Gentsto send guests home still singing!

sponsor liaison working with the Flower Shop, Peroni Beer and Greedy Goat to make sure their product was enjoyed by guests…

…..and the tidying up of course!

A great time was had by all (except those we had to turn away!) and, yet again, we have been told ‘it didn’t feel like a ‘corporate’ party, it was creative, exciting and we had an amazing time!’  See more pictures here.

If you would like to avoid the soggy mince pies, cheap wine, and only a photo-booth for entertainment kind of party (and because you deserve some of our extra special party magic) get in touch, we have some GREAT ideas for Christmas parties!

In the meantime, please enjoy the new mix on our media player on our website! This mix has been generously donated by the talented Mr Bird. We are believers in thinking warm thoughts when it is cold and damp outside, and this mix is guaranteed to transport you to the sunnier climes within which it was created!

WOW, what a Summer that was! What with the Jubilee, Olympics, Paralympics, the London 2012 festival,street parties,music festivals etc etc, our feet have barely touched the ground! Here is a whistle stop tour of some of our recent work and exploits, so you know that we have had good reason to have been somewhat remiss on the blogging front!

WORK- Gatorade Sports and Science Institute films.

We had the honour of working with a host of Team GB Olympic stars this summer, including Victoria Pendleton, Tim Brabants and David Brailsford at the Gatorade Sports and Science Institute.  On behalf of Wireworks Digital we created a number of videos which explain the science behind optimum performance and which are hosted on the Gatorade website.  It was fascinating to explore how much work goes on under the skin, and behind the scenes, before the starting gun is even fired!

PLAY- London 2012.

Unfortunately, we did not get tickets to the Velodrome, but we did get to attend the Olympics, enjoying both the beach volleyball at Horse Guard’s Parade and athletics at the Olympic Park. You’ve heard it all before but really, the atmosphere was truly special and we feel SO proud of how joyously London hosted the games!

WORK- Monsieur, you are really spoiling us!

After what seemed like a slow start to the year for pitching/ad agency activity, we are delighted that things seem to have picked up for our clients and we have been working with our agencies to create pitch films for clients from J&J to Ferrero Rocher. We always enjoy contributing to the pitch process and hope we can show you some of this work soon.

PLAY-Global Feast 2012

During the London 2012 Olympics, Global Feast offered a journey through the best of world food, enwrapped by Worldscape – the tallest table in the world, created using the contours of the Earth, designed by atmos. Over 20 successive evenings during the London Olympics, 80 guests gathered at the Old Town Hall in Stratford to travel through the cultures and cuisines of the entire world, tasting a different specialty each night. We had the pleasure of tasting New Zealand- and it was delicious!

WORK-Next Photography

Working alongside recruitment website design agency 4MAT, we  worked with the Next team to create photography for their new retail careers site. The shoot was across multiple locations from retail stores to Next headquarters. We used a mixture of models and actual Next staff to create a portfolio of pictures representing ‘a day in the life’ at Next.

PLAY- Festival Number 6

We had the pleasure of supporting various members of our network of talent at the inaugural Festival No 6. Set in the magical surroundings of Portmeirion Village, North Wales, we have decided this was our ‘favourite festival EVER’ because it ticked all the boxes! The location (the setting of the iconic 1960′s series ‘The Prisoner) was both inspiring and beautiful and we felt privileged to ‘live’ their for 3 days. The programming was equally inspiring, with music, art, theatre and literature seamlessly integrated throughout. We urge you to check it out for 2013- see you there!

WORK- amBX product film

The videos we shot and edited for the interactive lighting company AMBX through Wireworks have gone live;

www.ambx.com

It’s a great product which transforms environments with light. We’re always glad when a  client is happy! “This is good! We think it’s the best treatment of amBX in gaming ever done on video. Happy!”

There’s plenty more where that came from! Keep your eyes peeled for more postings and our new show reel, which is currently in production.

Until the next time, wrap up warm and embrace the colours of the season!

Love Everyone at Creative Nation.