Everything Matters is much more than a consumer-facing website. It is the entire comms platform for Panasonic Europe through to 2010. And its the culmination of almost a year’s work which began with the strategy, in conjunction with Vizeum (UK) and Strawberry Frog (NL).

As a website, ‘Everything Matters’ is a content portal. It was created to be a central repository for the various brand stories that Panasonic has to tell, but has not for various reasons. The content can be filtered by the user, and of course the site is fully dynamic and modular.

Awarded the FWA Site of the Day 02.09.2008
Awarded the Interactive Pick of the Day 05.09.2008 by Creativity Online

Both in style and approach, it is a radical departure for Panasonic. There is very little product detail on the site and the soft grey gradients on white was dispensed with for a more tactile, human art direction. Major battles that we fought very hard to win.

The content on the site was conceptualised to be varied in both form and depth – sitting somewhere between a print ad and a website. In other words, some information but with the visceral impact and simplicity of a print ad, aided where possible by interactivity.

It is scheduled to grow massively over the coming 3 years, from world-firsts through to tiny details that make their digital cameras the best in their class. All reinforcing the philosophy that ‘Everything Matters’.

I was the conceptual and creative lead on this project, with a team of 3 designers, 3 flash devs, a 3D animator and a sound designer.

Launch Everything Matters

The phrase “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” was the departure point for the latest t-shirt in the-affair’s quest to clothe the creative men of this world in something that not only looks good, but starts intelligent conversations.

If Machiavelli didn’t actually say it in 1513, he sure did mean it. Instead we had to wait till 1974 and Don Coreleone, who was actually far better at getting to the point than poor Niccolo. So to cut this short, your enemies can always be counted upon to be just that. Unfortunately your friends often cannot.

A single line from William Gibson’s cult-classic Neuromancer speaks volumes in this t-shirt for the-affair.

Created in collaboration with Dave Black, the graphic is a powerful visualisation of Colonel Willis Corto’s tragic tale of betrayal.

In a cold-war future that never happened, ‘Operation Screaming Fist’ would have crippled the Russian defense computers with a sophisicated virus had it run to plan. Instead, Colonel Corto met his fiery doom high above the icy steppes of Siberia.

2007 saw Adidas (global) focus most of their marketing budget on the second version of their ‘Impossible is Nothing brand campaign. de-construct created this destination site to house the inspirational content of Adidas’ stable of world-class athletes including David Beckham and the current men’s 100m World Record holder, Tyson Gay.

Awarded a Gold Clio 2008, Content & Contact.

With deeper user-generated content ruled out by Adidas, we were left with tonnes of video content – courtesy of the ATL agency 180 Amsterdam – but nice films do not a website make. So we set about translating the athelete’s ‘impossible’ stories into a series of interactive games. We also opened the engine up to all users, allowing them to create their own ‘impossible’ games and then embed them in their myspace/blog.

As the Art Director, I was responsible for 3x online shoots in London, Madrid and Los Angeles as well as a team of 8 people including 3x designers, 3x flash developers, 1x sound designer, and the external agency creating the games.

Launch Impossible is Nothing

de-construct was tasked with creating a step-change in the way Panasonic communicates across Europe, by putting digital at the heart of their comms strategy across 2008 and beyond.

Working with Strawberry Frog Amsterdam (ATL) and Vizeum UK (media strategy), our brief was to come up with a platform concept from which every single marketing channel would use as a base – TV, print, digital, PR, POS and retail. The concept had to be true to both Panasonic (in order to sell it internally) as well as the consumer (in order that it is actually relevant and therefore works).

Unfortunately this is an ongoing project and commercial sensitivity means I can not show any work just yet. But stay tuned, its going to be good.

de-construct was engaged by P&G in a 50/50 share research project around the nascent possibilities of interactive outdoor advertising. Unfortunately the project never went into production but these were some concepts illustrating how to use live data feeds to define the creative and drive footfall into the store adjoining the media placement (Boots in this case).

the-affair is a brand that creates beautiful conceptual t-shirts for the intelligent consumer tired of the cute-sy threadless aesthetic. Its the love child of myself and Dangerous Dave Black.

With no physical presence on the high-street, we began with the simple insight that fitting rooms have full length mirrors for a reason. The website was thus created to mimic the actual experience of trying the shirts on.

Awarded the FWA Site of the Day 29.03.2008

To list my responsibilities would simply take too long, but ‘absolutely everything involved in starting and marketing a business’ would be pretty close.

Applying what I do everyday for other people into my own concept/business has been nothing short of exhilarating. Every day I am learning first-hand what we sell to clients on a daily basis – and this is very valuable information.By far the most interesting part is the blog marketing. Obviously as a start-up brand we have nought but our wits and instincts to get our message out there. So how do you get an unknown brand known? And how do you sell t-shirts that aren’t expensive in your home market but are pretty expensive everywhere else? If you’re interested, check our press-to-date here.

Launch the-affair

The Museum of Illustration (MOI) is a concept spearheaded by Quentin Blake, famed for bringing all Roald Dahl’s characters to life. By 2011 they will have a building in London’s newly redeveloped King’s Cross area, but until then, they have a website.

Intentionally austere graphic design allows the diversity of illustrations to come to the fore. The Flash site will use the map paradigm to allow the user to navigate content in a more exploratory way, making use of layouts within layouts within layouts.As the Art Director, I am responsible for the look and feel of the site as well as all video shoots and all creative presentations to client. The MOI continues to be a work in progress. A basic HTML site will be online from November 2, 2007 and the full Flash site will be online in early 2008.Launch the Museum of Illustration

de-construct was asked to pitch the strategy and website for TeamVertu – Vertu’s high-profile sports sponsorship programme, currently centred around the Ferrari Challenge. We pitched an integrated concept where ‘Attention to Detail’ became the overarching message across every facet of their communications – from registration on the website through to the event itself.

Effectively communicating to high-end luxury users is a big challenge, especially online devoid of the usual materials used to convey exclusivity. Our proposal thus revolved around a fullscreen immersive video experience of the Ferrari Challenge Finale in Monza, delivered with ‘Attention to Detail’. Many small video vignettes allow the user to engage with the content they are most interested in – the racing enthusiast can focus on the car and the pit whilst the aspirational networker can focus on the hospitality truck and the interviews. Hotspots in the video would deliver the ‘Attention to Detail’ message by allowing the user to get closer to their chosen subject.

The strategy was modular by necessity – beginning small in 2007 with only the Ferrari Challenge whilst giving flexibility to scale through 2008 as new events were added. Throughout 2008, we proposed ever-tighter integration between the website and the event – such as an online auction, RFID invites and an exclusive on-track ringtone generator that would allow users to create their own unique Ferrari ’signature’.

Unfortunately the project, and the ambitious shoot (2x crews, 4x days, 2x countries) was never realised. However, the final image above gives an indication into how we proposed to shoot the first film.

Boredom Is Your Fault isn’t just another blog – its a lens through which you see the world. Think of it as a personal ethos, a manifesto for living if you will.

Begun in January 2006, its an uncompromising filter of the best creativity that our little globe has to offer – be it art, design, advertising, music or fashion. In other words, its an archive of all the coolest stuff I come across over the countless hours I spend scouring the web. Its the space where I can say what I think about other people’s work whilst shameless promoting my own.

The logo was intentionally created to mimic the magnets you get as a child to play with on the fridge. And in many ways that is part of the manifesto – to look at the world as with the eyes of a child. To constantly be in awe of everything around you.

It was the first wordpress theme I designed and coded. It was always my intention to release it into the wild, but my coding leaves a lot to be desired ;-p. Many thanks to Chris Blackburn for his help in this department.

Launch boredom is your fault

‘Your Own Personal Jesus’ is a project that explores the idea that religion has been replaced with global consumer capitalism and its associated vices. Taking an iconic image of Jesus as the ground, I developed a system in Flash which replaces the pixels with any symbol desired. The example above is a composite running top-to-bottom as follows: Alcohol; Death #1; Tobacco; Cocaine; Caffeine; Wealth #1; Ecstasy; Death #2; Wealth #2.

Launching in time for Christmas 2007, Your Own Personal Jesus will open this project up for anyone to upload any symbol of their choice, then publish the result as part of their blog, allowing them to quickly and easily make a comment on religion today. The results will be exhibited in London sometime during Summer 2008.

Launch Your Own Personal Jesus

Our first project, though we did not know it at the pitch, would be to create a physical installation around someone else’s concept of a ‘Motormix’. Leveraging Toyota’s F1 content, and working with Seattle-based sound designer Darrin Weiner, we created this audio/visual experience on an extremely short timeline and with the added hindrance of a non-english speaking installation team in Paris.

This wall was the second collaboration between myself, Dangerous Dave and Wen. We began a few days before halloween with 20 litres of black paint and the previous mural. I recorded the whole process and compressed it into these 90 sec. Its much nicer to watch that way.

The core concept was that in a convertible, all your senses become more stimulated. – the scent of a BBQ becomes massive, the sound of a radio becomes all-consuming. Taking visual cues from the campaign TV spot, we created a completely immersive world where you can literally “rediscover your senses”.

With no set navigation, the challenge was to communicate product points in a way that did not impede the experience of driving around the world. Sound was used to deliver this product messaging as well as generally aiding immersion. With the roof down the sounds come alive and the graphical objects get larger. With the roof up however, sound is dulled and the graphical objects shrink.

We also wanted to give the user complete customisation of their experience – the ability to choose the car colour, the upholstery and the wheels. Rather than do this in the traditional 360 / photo gallery way, we decided to integrate this functionality directly into the core interaction.

Launch Rediscover Your Senses

Volkswagen UK partnered with 4 illustrators across Europe to create a series of de-cals for the New Beetle. Apart from a microsite, it was decided that VW actually needed a new brand to best communicate the concept behind the project. After many proposals, ‘Art’ was (unfortunately) chosen. From this point it was a small, logical step to use the gallery metaphor for the microsite.

Launch Beetle Art

Concept and art direction of TribalDDB London’s Summer 2006 showreel. After Effects by Isaac Bell.

Concept and art direction for TribalDDB’s motion identity, to be used as a bumper for all motion graphics produced by the company. After Effects by Isaac Bell.

This was a speculative project at TribalDDB for TUI (Thompson), the aim of which was two-fold: a). to show the breadth of TUI’s global coverage and b). to simplify their overly-complex search system. The concept was to replace the bewildering array of dropdown menus with a map and 3 key questions: how much? when? and how long can you handle in a plane?

Each question had a slider, which would affect the map in realtime, thus very quickly creating your perfect holiday. This visually intuitive system of searching connected emotionally with the user, allowing them to search by global location and even desired temperature. Users would also be able to leave their feedback on local restaurants/bars/clubs/hotels.

By completely re-defining the way people search, we created a tool that was both engaging and extremely powerful. However due to inertia from the TUI’s in-house web development team, the project never went ahead. This was extremely unfortunate because this could have truly set them apart from their competition.

Cast your mind back to the old days, when 2.0 was something you’d find on the side of a box of software. Remember, before Flickr? When having your photos online was anything but easy?

Launch pre-Flickr

‘Progress’ explores ideas of waste and disposal within contemporary society, and was commissioned by the Noise Festival for air on Channel [V] Australia throughout October 2003.