Ho-oh-no! The m360 Tricksy Pixie
In December the m360 office was taken over by Christmas Pixies – they may look like elves, walk like elves, act like elves, but they’re definitely pixies…
They were such a hit that we sent them on secondment to all of our clients, so that they could wreak havoc help out elsewhere and the response has been fantastic, with clients sharing their antics with us via email and social media. A huge thank you to everyone for getting into the festive spirit!
To all our clients and suppliers, we’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the whole team at m360.
Another conversion for the m360 team
Between the Rugby World Cup and our work with leading kit manufacturer Canterbury CC, it feels like we’re going rugby mad at m360 – and we’ve added to that with a project a little closer to home…
Nottingham RFU may not be a stone’s throw from m360 HQ but it’s not much further than an ambitious conversion, and we were delighted to help them get ready for the new season by refitting both main stands with new advertising hoardings for our client Peter James Homes.
From mesh banners to dibond graphics, everything was successfully installed ahead of their opening night demolition of Yorkshire Carnegie and we’re keeping an eye on results as their season progresses – come on you green and whites!
Ngineered for success!
As part of the successful N-gineered for Efficiency campaign, CF Fertilisers has commissioned m360 to create an awareness campaign for their soil testing services – The N-Min® Service.
The campaign requires creative input across a wide variety of media, encompassing brand identity, video production, bespoke animation and various social media and digital applications – all produced and managed by our in-house team.
With the campaign rolling out throughout 2020, the team at m360 are hard at work ensuring it’s N-gineered for success!
Mega-brand; megabus
This month we completed another brand guidelines project for our clients Stagecoach – this time for their intercity coach travel company, megabus.
The project required us to critique their existing collateral and evolve it to align with their new mission statement – ‘making travel simple’.
The comprehensive 70-page document is a vital, go-to guide for both the megabus design team and their external stakeholders, outlining the key aspects of their brand to ensure consistency in application.
The eight-week project has been a pleasure to undertake and we are really looking forward to seeing the rollout of the new megabus brand over the following months.
Grabbing the opportunity
Showcase Cinemas are one of our oldest clients and we’re always thrilled to work with them. This time we were asked to promote their amazing XPlus auditoriums – a big step-up from standard screenings with 360º sound, wall-to-wall screens and ultra HD.
From an open brief we presented three different ideas. The client was most taken with our ‘grabbing hand’ concept – showing hands reaching through the cinema screen and literally grabbing or engaging with customers. A metaphor for the vivid experience that XPlus provides, the finished creative is both fun and dramatic.
The campaign has been expanded to represent different movie genres and customers, and is currently promoting XPlus through billboards, posters and digital marketing.
New home for Mycotoxin Management
Our work for Alltech is incredibly varied – from ad campaign concepts to exhibition signage and packaging design to print management, we’re never sure what the next email will bring.
When the team asked us if we could handle the design and build of their knowledge-based site for the Mycotoxin Management Platform, we jumped at the opportunity to help them with their latest web project, building on the success of our web build for Alltech E-CO2.
One of the key aspects of the brief was to create a smooth, easy to use CMS, so we suggested a WordPress development as the best way forward. The English-language site is now live with other language variants to follow in the near future.
The science of success
Cawood Scientific is the UK’s largest independent provider of analytical testing and sampling services for the land-based industries. As such they present with a complex brand portfolio; themselves the umbrella brand to six specialist divisions.
It was our job to clarify their service offering with a family of linked visual identities. We adopted a hexagonal device and a colour suite that both differentiated and unified the sub-brands. This was combined with rich photography.
The resulting creative is clear and optimistic; the complexity of the business not a burden on the customer. The subject matter may be formal but the project was a joy for our studio because it embodies graphic design’s raison d’être – communication that is beautiful because of its simplicity.
20,000th job’s a good ‘un
When is an A4 ring binder a cause for celebration? When it marks a studio’s 20,000th design job. We can’t quite believe it ourselves; TWENTY THOUSAND JOBS! It feels like the millennium but with less WKD Blue.
Today’s creative world is a very different place to when m360 launched in 1991. Nobody dares dig job no.1 out of the attic because of the m360 ghost, but we can pretty much guarantee it didn’t involve hashtags.
Graphic design these days is slicker and smarter. It’s easier because of clever software and the incredible source of inspiration that is internet. It’s harder because the world has ramped up its pace and expectations, and there’s a crowd of millions ready to call out iffy ideas and unoriginality.
So we learn, we adapt, we grab the zeitgeist and twist it. What will job #30,000 look like? We can’t wait to find out.
A fresh venture for Peter James Homes
Hunters Wood is a delightful development of 14 family homes in an elegant, semi-rural setting. It’s the fifth development we have worked on for Peter James Homes, and memorable for both its exclusive appeal and breadth of advertising platforms.
The identity joins a family of sub-brands that vary in colour, icon design and photography, whilst sharing a roundel device and typefaces. The brand choices for Hunters Wood reflect the traditionally-styled properties and their uniquely verdant surroundings (yes, we want to move in).
Marketing efforts include a brochure, digital marketing and a variety of POS advertising for the launch event at William H Brown. They have been a great success; over 100 people attended the launch event and 150 potential buyers registered interest within the first fortnight.
The Frontier of smarter farming
Here’s a project our web developers could really get their teeth into.
Frontier is the UK’s leading crop production and grain marketing business. They approached us to help build their Proficiency Testing (PT) Portal, a complex web tool which collates test results from their network of 200+ UK labs.
Frontier’s labs monitor the quality of food chain crops, including wheat, barley, oilseed rape and oats. Their collected data is processed to create reports for official compliance inspections, ensuring farmers meet strict government criteria. The technology is also able to detect faults and misuse of their specialist testing machines.
To bring this to fruition was a challenging, fascinating job for our digital team, and it’s a privilege to work on a project with real-world benefits.
AfterCut Health Check making the cut!
We have just launched a new digital interactive questionnaire for CF Fertilisers.
Our brief was to design and develop an online platform to promote CF Fertilisers’ AfterCut product range. The questions were carefully designed to help farmers improve their grassland quality and yield, and helping to recognise the important decision making process when it comes to the best fertiliser choices to meet their objectives.
To support the launch we created of a series of targeted print and digital comms which directed farmers to the micro website.
Within only a few weeks of the launch the results have been impressive – you can visit the AfterCut Silage Health Check here:
New beginnings
That rare pleasure in seeking a new home – discovery, imagination, the possibility of a dream come true. Our website for Peter James Homes is all about the warm fuzzies, being both evocative and effortlessly informative.
Our client is a relative youngster in the industry and we’ve been there since the beginning. Their vision seems paradoxical at first glance – modern homes with classic touches; idyllic, semi-rural settings for a savvy, youthful market. It works because it’s unified by classic understatement, and this has been our mantra for brand creative.
The new website combines sleek, spare graphics, panoramic imagery and plenty of breathing space. Font choices are a microcosm of the wider vision – gentle headlines use rippled serifs, practical info goes sans. With this we appeal to both the heart and head – a good intention for marketing in general!
Railway upgrades in Ambergate
Having worked with East Midlands Trains for over 12 years we know that station works and closures have to be handled quickly, professionally and with a degree of sensitivity, especially given the effect it can have on commuters just trying to go about their day. It can produce any number of challenges, so it’s particularly satisfying to look back at a job well done, as with the recent Ambergate Junction relocation works.
From awareness of the disruption, to customer wayfinding for the alternative services and, finally, removal so that the station can return to normal once works are complete, it’s the kind of project that requires meticulous planning if everything is to go smoothly.
Thankfully that’s the kind of service we offer at m360, and it helps when your client is on the same page too! Hopefully the brief disruption will be worth it for all those passengers enjoying a shorter commute.
Magento 1 to WordPress
With Magento disappointingly ending all support for their Magento 1.x ecommerce system in June 2020, now is the perfect time to consider your options and plan for the future. It may seem an obvious choice to simply migrate to Magento 2.0, but is there a better alternative out there?
Although Magento 2.0 may be the correct decision for some larger retailers, if it isn’t quite right for your needs then this is a great opportunity to move to WooCommerce.
Built on top of WordPress, the most widely used CMS, WooCommerce is the perfect system if you want more control of your store at a fraction of the cost. It’s easy to use and a great alternative platform, particularly for smaller, less complex stores, or stores with a frequently changing product range.
If you feel like your business would benefit from moving to WooCommerce, or even if you would just like us to assess the suitability of migration, drop us a line and we’ll be happy to help.
