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Defining Place
Job type: Exhibition design, graphics, print and promotion
Category: Exhibition
Client: The Lighthouse
Year: 2006

The Lighthouse's overview of new Scottish Architecture is a touring exhibition developed in partnership with NORD Architects. Each project is visualised as a series of films presented on LCD panels built into the exhibition structure.

All screens are synced creating dynamic washes of colour and graphical transitions across the installation.

Designers of seven of the Museum's major interactive installations and lead designers of the Museum's screen graphics system, accomodating bilingual, bsl, subtitling and audio cues: the most accessible in any UK museum.

Design of a touring exhibition in collaboration with NORD architects. The format of the show is based around a group of wooden desks and light boxes that fold up to securely contain their contents prior to moving to a new location. The exhibition toured the UK for a year before heading to Europe. We produced all AV content, catalogue design and all promotional artwork. Winner of The Scottish Design Awards Grand Prix.

160 page exhibition catalogue for the Common-Place exhibition. Uses a protective debossed block board sleeve. Winner Scottish Design Awards for Best Print Design.

Installations for the National Maritime Museum's new building in Cornwall. Created gallery soundscapes and film installation of modern Cornish portraits, ranging from military helicopter pilots to female rowing teams. Also a series of panoramic touchscreens that allow users to unlock information about the views from the Museum's Look-Out tower.

Commissioned by Turner Prize winning artist Simon Starling, Particle Project (Loop), is a large scale film installation commerating the opening of Wiels, the new Centre for Contemporary Art in Brussels. Simon took electron microscope scans of silver particles from film negatives of the Atomium shot by artist Marcel Broodthaers in the 1950s.

We rebuilt the particle as a complex 3-Dimensional object suspended and rotating silently in space. High definition frames were burnt to 35mm film, now looping continuously in the main exhibition space in Wiels.

Series of 5 experimental films presented within a multiscreen object we created for "The Scottish Show", the largest overview of Scottish creatives across graphics, animation, fashion, furniture and product design.

The films visualised some of the more arcane legal rulings the Brits live within. A cast of dozens including sound designers, cabinet makers, leading commercials cameramen and budgie wranglers were all roped in.

How to write the perfect TV comedy. Titles and content graphics for the BBC3 series presented by Dara O'Briain. We drop him into classic comedy scenes and illustrate the golden rules of TV laughs.

Design and packaging for CD releases for a specialist music label linking contemporary British bands with film producers. Artists included Mogwai, Arab Strap and Mylo.

Poster design for the Mesh online animation scheme.

We designed and built the website for Channel 4's interactive animation scheme, now in its seventh year of production. The website operates as a virtual base for the scheme, containing a library of resources. The site is used to gather submissions, feature the successful applicants and then showcase the completed films. The design campaign extends to animated idents for TV screenings, advertising and print. A new model of robot is added to the Mesh family each year.

Identity design for a chain of Sushi restaurants. Specially designed font and logo developed from the tracks of the conveyor belt system used to present food. Applied to signage, menus, plates, fixtures, web and animated window displays.

Animated identity for Setanta Sports. Created the company identity and rolled it out to their sub-channels. Design then transferred to all broadcast graphics, including live football systems with DeltaTre Media in Milan.

Identity for a digital filmmaking scheme. The figure of The Leader has been developed as the schemes identity - evoking an anonymous seventies analogue technician. The schemes identity also revolves around the idea of a corporate bible. Every cult leader needs a beard...

Viral public announcement for MTV World Aids Day.

Channel 4's first foray into user generated content. AltNews was a news activist site that presented specially shot pieces on global protest and encouraged viewers to post up blogs and video clips that were then gathered and included in future TV programmes. Contributers included the artist Banksy. Developed with Wark Clements Interactive.

Bluesky project for Sony looking at next generation media interfaces. We developed this widget that could live discreetly on a desktop but that when triggered pulled the user into the 'Sony Universe' and aggregated all the software available to create a rich media environment - pulling in music, video, chat, editing and production tools.

Part of the global campaign being created by 180 Amsterdam to reposition Sony and the balance between it's hardware and software products.

Dramatic crime reconstructions using the 2.5D technique we've been refining over the last few years. Period locations, actors and art direction gives the historical sequences a contemporary twist. All footage shot as high def stills and then built into 3D compositions. Winner RTS Award for Graphics.

Six part international series for Discovery. Averaging fifty graphic inserts per programme, created to visualise the forensic trail and gathering of clues that led to the capture of some of the World's most notorious serial killers. CGI visualisations explained the painstaking process of assessing evidence. Grim but fascinating viewing.

How do you visualise a state of mind? Whitespace is a virtual campus run by Abertay University. Series of commercials for TV and cinema that mix 2D and 3D animation with specially created generative graphics. Jonathan Price delivered the voiceovers, Benji Merrison the abstract soundscapes.

Our homage to The Panic Room – this time reminding people not to set their homes on fire. Design, direction, typography and visual effects. 5 room sets, film, motion control rig and mini pyrotechnics to play with.

Graphics for Channel 4's Banned season - a history of British censorship. Titles and animated inserts illustrating just what upset the moral majority over the last 30 years.

Simple idea: reunite the director, actors and crew from some great British films; let them chat; film it; screen the film. Simple titles and graphics: get out and about with a 16mm bolex and shoot! Included The Long Good Friday, Quadraphenia, If, My Beautiful Laundrette and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

6 part series about the impact of design on everyday life. Bespoke titles were created for each programme using stereo lithography models. Each one was modelled in 3D then created as a physical object using rapid prototyping technology which 'draws' each layer with lasers in a molten bath - revealing the finished object. Then shot on a 16mm rostrum bed.

Four part series demystifying the design process. Visualised by an information-style graphic. Our contribution to the Isographic movement.

Abstract animated inserts for a documentary about numerology and how it rules our lives. Apparently.

Briefed to "capture the Edinburgh Festival in 20 seconds", we set out with stills and DV cameras to shoot what we could see. Comedians, dancers, boozers and drama students handing out flyers - even a juggler on a unicycle makes an appearance. All the pleasures / horrors of Edinburgh made real.

Landmark BBC 3 event that encouraged the British Public to write a novel, get published, become famous. TV needed titles and graphic identity and animated inserts for a 6 part series that explained how you become a successful novelist. Several short stories were then written by a roll call of British novelists - but only the first half of each. The public had to finish the stories and submit their manuscripts. 60,000 books produced. They sold out within 4 days of release.

Five years at the helm designing the BBC's flagship film review series.

Network trails for ITV's 80s revival. Idea was to gather old pop stars and launch them on the unsuspecting British public, singing contemporary songs. Bombed in the UK, went massive in the States.

Successor to the Perrier Awards when owners Nestle got tired of people demonstrating against them at the Edinburgh Festival. New titles for the annual awards festival.

Film titles for David MacKenzie's dark digital road movie. Music by David Byrne.

Six part BBC medical drama series. To create different titles each week we made an application that produced self-generative graphics to mimic cell growth. The specially designed 'mutated' font was then generated out of these clusters. Posted in Flame.

Lo-fi, lo-cost titles for a series on new British promos directors. Our old studio makes a guest appearance.

Legendary TV series that brought the new wave of 90s promos directors to the British public's attention. Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, Mike Mills were all profiled here first. While the trend was for MTV-style, cutty music programmes, we wanted the titles to build from a single take. 16mm shoot, track, grips and dolly, cast of eleven, an empty gallery space, and we got it.

16mm film shoot with music specially commissioned from Massive Attack and Madonna arranger Craig Armstrong.

Interview series with Hollywood greats, presented by Mark Cousins. Key scenes from their films are broken down and discussed. We ran programme footage out into film strips and animated away.

Titles for the BBC's take on The X-Files. Paranormal activity visualised by cramming members of the studio into a back room and shooting them on hand held cameras. Spooky!

Provocatively titled expose, commissioned by Channel 4, showing BBC staff misbehaving. In a snowstorm of drugs and hookers we reconstructed Jonny Walker with some fake sheiks, Angus Deayton in a threesome and Frank Bough in a dungeon.

Documentary series about living in unusual architectural homes. We created a giant perspex model of an idealised home to symbolise modern living. Fibre optics thread through the structure, illuminating rooms before emerging at the far end to create the programme title. Model made by our friends at NORD Architects.

Documentary commissioned by Channel 4 exploring one night in the life of the hormonally charged Under 18's club night of Glasgow's Sub Club. Bafta New Talent commendation for Best Documentary.

Used classic clips from Bunuel and early experimental filmmakers to illustrate this BBC series. Winner Scottish Design Awards for Animation.

Promos for Tennents-sponsored Irish Music Festival. First stab at the old '2.5D' technique.

High concept six part series from the BBC - take a specific week's Radio Times and TV Times and dive deep into a nostalgia overload. We built four sets, each a room representing the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s, then got to work pulling the magazines apart and animating the classic ads within.

Weekly chatshow presented by Newnight anchor Kirsty Wark. Kirsty was too busy to be filmed, so we shot a nice clock from the Museum of Modern Art.

Three part documentary series about contemporary British culture, covering filmmakers, artists and publishers including Nick Love and Rankin. We built the set in a grimy molasses warehouse in Port Glasgow and strapped a bank of flourescent lights to it to spell out the programme's theme and title. All animation done in-camera thanks to a little guy frantically switching the lamps off and on.

First in the Whitespace series of ads. The virtual campus of Abertay's cross-media course is visualised using generative graphics, 2D and 3D animation. Susannah York provides the mysterious, alluring voice.

Third year designing the titles, stings and print publicity for the annual World Cinema Awards. A global overview of filmmaking is depicted by a grid of film stills - simple really.

onedotzero commissioned this film for their original Channel 4 TV series. We featured alongside Tomato, Fuel, Andy Martin and Spin. We set up a sex confessions phoneline and animated the anonymous calls. Screened at countless digital festivals and on Sony Japan.

Timeslice before the Matrix! We spotted photographer Tim MacMillan's timeslice system on Tomorrow's World and dragged him and his rig to a Glasgow roof-top to film the making of a spoof Kung Fu movie. Became the titles for this BBC guide to making it in the film industry.

Animated titles and chapter headings for Channel 4's anniversary documentary about the Queen.

Titles and content graphics take the style of a football fan's scrapbook coming to life. Team photos, ticket stubs and press cuttings are used to create a specific book for each episode's featured club. Intercut with modern interviews, archive film and clips from the games themselves. Second series completed.

Feature length release of the BBC series presenting the incredible film footage held in the Scottish Screeen Archive. Over 70 years of footage was assembled with contemporary interviews exploring themes such as childhood, education, birth, marriage and death. We created the animated titles, chapter headings, print publicity and a series of dramatic timelapse sequences that contrasted images of contemporary Scotland with the collection.

T in the Park is now one of the UK's largest music festivals with live coverage spread across BBC 2 and BBC 3 and a months worth of highlights packages after the event. The BBC felt that TV graphics for British festivals over the last few years have grown too polite and gentle - emphasising the back to nature or family feel to many events.

For T in the Park they wanted a return to the mud, sweat and tears of the live Rock event. We proposed a new wave, low tech graphics mash up, thing. Fusing specially shot film footage of Biffy Clyro playing live at Glasgow's Barrowlands Ballroom with hand made stencils that were liberally used to decorate the set and back stage areas at T in the Park - and pretty much any untouched surface.

Three animated short films, featuring "Mr Orange" a new character we have developed, exploring the wonders of next generation mobile technologies. All the critical experiences of Modern Life covered - getting to the match, avoiding the office and looking for lurve!

Movie Connections is a new BBC series that explores the stories behind some of UK cinema’s recent highlights. A sister strand to the BBC’s hugely successful Comedy Connections, the eight episodes include the evolution of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Billy Elliot.

The Comedy team asked us to come up with a new identity for the series, that is then used throughout the programmes to knit together interviews, archive and film clips to reveal graphically the relationships between the filmmakers. The designs feature translucent filmstrips floating in a 3D space caught in flickering projector beams, connecting one film to the next. Like being sat in a constructivist cinema.