Archive for the ‘Bonfire news’ Category

Celebrating 10 years of creativity

Friday, November 5th, 2010

Bonfire 10th Birthday CardWhen Jason and Steve were just 10 Jason had been ‘made’ to have his first kiss and Steve was making pea-guns out of pegs, elastic bands and wood.

Today Bonfire are celebrating their 10th anniversary. And if a week is a long time in politics, 10 years in creativity is something worth celebrating.

So here at Bonfire, we rifled through our cupboards, found and dusted off our trumpet and were just about to take a deep breath when we had an even better idea. To help celebrate we have created 10/10; a series of 10 perfect lessons from 10 years of Bonfire.

10/10 includes 10 very real lessons from our experiences that have been given a light-hearted context, amongst a few other things we felt you should know.

You can download a copy of 10/10 by clicking here or call us on 01525 841079 and we will post a copy out to you.

In the meantime we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped Bonfire achieve what it has over the past 10 years; friends, family, clients and suppliers you all know who you are.

We are looking forward to the next 10 years and beyond.

Cheers.
Team Bonfire.

P.S. The picture is from a card the team produced for the directors.

Fuji Medical Tickled Pink with Charity Donation

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Fuji Charity ChequeAs a leading innovator in the digital mammography revolution, it was crucial for Fujifilm to continue to demonstrate its innovative products and world-beating technology at Symposium Mammographicum. The Fuji Medical team briefed Bonfire Creative Intelligence to create a branded direct mail invite that would help raise awareness of their attendance at the event.

In addition to designing, printing and mailing a personalised invite to Fuji’s key prospects, the direct mail piece was overlaid with a two-pronged sales promotion campaign to drive footfall. Bonfire recommended a charitable donation be made to a relevant foundation for every person who completed a registration form at the Fuji Medical stand throughout the duration of the event. In addition to this, every registrant was given a Fuji Medical gift at the show. The portable, insulated mug and mini clip-on hand sanitizers, produced by Bonfire Creative Intelligence, proved very popular with radiographers. The branded gifts had been sourced specifically with medical staff in mind, who are often on the go and highly safety conscious.

Gemma Umney, Senior Account Manager of Bonfire Creative Intelligence, said,  ‘Despite the media reporting a wave of ‘charity fatigue’ we felt strongly that the activity needed to fundamentally support our client’s commitment to women’s health. Being able to reward visitors with a free gift and raise money for such a valuable cause has helped this campaign deliver at every level.’

In addition to an incredibly successful event, Robin Breslin, Fuji Medical Commercial Manager, was delighted to present a cheque to the value of £1,000 to Jonathan Prince, Trustee of The Pink Ribbon Foundation. Cara McMillan, Marketing Assistant at Fuji Medical, added, ‘The campaign helped tick a number of boxes for Fuji Medical, from driving traffic to the stand to raising a significant sum of money for our chosen charity.’

Bonfire Creative Intelligence WOWs Education Sector

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

The Clipper Stad AmsterdamBranding and design agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence have helped Randstad Education unveil a prestigious and topical report highlighting the challenges facing school leaders.

Having received over 600 headteacher responses to Randstad Education’s World of Work (WOW) survey about the ‘10 Burning Issues Keeping Education Leaders Awake at Night’, Bonfire were tasked with designing a report that would outline the key findings. The report contains valuable sector research that schools would not be able to obtain independently. The brief was threefold, to communicate the information in a user-friendly format, to engage and inspire the reader and to remain sensitive to Randstad Education’s brand.

Gemma Umney, senior account manager of Bonfire Creative Intelligence, said, ‘The survey findings and Randstad Education’s brand guidelines very much shaped the over-arching style of the report. However, Bonfire really differentiate the piece from the wealth of academic reports in the market by creating more unique and sector specific mechanisms to communicate the results. These have been well received by teachers and journalists alike.’

The report was officially unveiled to invited guests aboard Randstad’s tall ship, The Clipper Stad Amsterdam, in London’s Docklands. Speakers included former Education Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Lord Baker of Dorking C.H. and Heath Monk, chief executive of Future Leaders, whose mission is to help develop the next generation of leaders for challenging schools.

You can download a PDF of the report here.

The Design Museum honours Bonfire designer in new book

Monday, October 4th, 2010

SpudAF_BookOne of our budding designers has had his work acknowledged in a new book entitled ‘How to Design a Typeface’ by the Design Museum, published by Conran Octopus.

Andrew Foster says ‘It’s a real honour to be included in the book and exciting to see my work alongside big names in the design industry, such as Neville Brody and Jonathan Barnbrook. It feels good to know that all those hours spent cutting potatoes was worthwhile!’

Jason Pearce, Creative Director, adds ‘It is a great achievement for any designer to have their work included in a book and we are all very proud of him. Andrew is a gifted designer and we are glad to have him as part of our creative team.’

The book was published on the 4th October 2010 is available online through Amazon and other good bookshops.

mister_loopyAndrew Foster has designed two fonts to date Mister Loopy (which has had an amazing 78,000+ downloads since its release in January 2009), and Spud AF. You can check out Andrews font creations using the two links below.

You can view and download Mister Loopy for free here.

You can view and purchase Spud AF from here.

Protecting your ideas just got a heck of a lot easier

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

creative_barcode-525x282This month saw the launch of a new service for the industry called Creative Barcode, and what a simple and excellent idea it is. It’s so simple you’ll wonder ‘why hasn’t anyone come up with this before’. We think this is so fantastic we had to write about it – a simple affordable service for creatives, designers, inventors, scientists, engineers, artists, design-led thinkers and originators alike.

So here is the low-down; ideas, patents and trademarks are only worth something if you have the money to protect them. Protecting your ideas and the generation of IP is a very complex and expensive process. It’s a minefield of classifications, wording, semantics, views and opinions – which often comes down to one person’s word against another.

Creative Barcode acknowledges this and provides a much easier and affordable model of protection by way of a contract.

Once your account has been set up concepts, designs, ideas, proposals and tenders watermarked with a unique identifier can be sent through the system to the intended recipient. The recipient then receives a link to a download of the file from the Creative Barcode website where they agree to terms and conditions prior to download. This sets up a binding contract between sender and recipient.

And why is this so great? It means that the recipient cannot act on the content supplied without coming back to discuss it with the originator first as outlined in the terms. The trick here is that a breach of contract is both easier and cheaper to prove than the theft of IP/ideas. Once a breach has been identified, any damages arising from the breach can then be considered.

Creative Barcode provides proof of contract by keeping a record of all those you give access to and who download the files. If files are shared offline it acts as a deterrent by having a clearly branded mark and unique trackable number embedded/printed on the file.

This is a fantastic service and has so many applications, but most importantly it is an affordable answer to a long-standing issue for both creative individuals and companies alike in the protection of the circulation of their ideas.

It doesn’t solve everything but it is a great start. Registration costs £195 creating your account and your first 5 barcodes, and additional barcodes can be bought for around £9 each. Find out more about by visiting the Creative Barcode website.

We think that this one of the most significant industry developments in a long time, especially given the growth in open innovation and ideas sharing forums and platforms. If you think this is a great idea and believe in upholding the value of creativity then please also sign-up to the Trust Charter on the Creative Barcode website by clicking here. You won’t be alone, with names like Rodney Fitch already leading the way.

Bonfire CI are shortlisted in the Marketing Design Awards 2010

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Marketing Design Awards 2010

Marketing Design Awards 2010

The highly successful ‘Countdown to Rebrand’ campaign that Bonfire Creative Intelligence developed for Randstad Education has been shortlisted for the prestigious Marketing Design Awards.

The campaign is a finalist in the ‘Rebrand’ category of the annual awards, which are run by leading industry magazine Marketing, and winners will be announced during a gala ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House on 2nd November.

Bonfire CI designed an integrated campaign to raise awareness of Select Education being renamed Randstad Education in January 2010. Randstad, the world’s second largest staffing services group, had acquired Select Education and was entering UK education recruitment for the first time.

A rebrand strategy was developed to raise awareness among existing and prospective clients, and internal and external stakeholders, in the period leading up to the official switchover. The aim was not just to inform the target audience of the change but to reinforce key brand values, and this was achieved through a range of media.

The strategy was to deliver the campaign across five monthly phases, following a ‘five-four-three-two-one’ pattern, primarily through direct mail and press ads in key industry titles such as The Times Educational Supplement (TES). In addition, a parallel PR campaign saw the launch of a schools competition to increase engagement with primary and secondary schools, and an internal awareness programme focused on keeping staff informed and engaged.

The first creative, based around the simple tagline ‘5 months to go before Select Education becomes Randstad Education’ listed ‘5 reasons to count on our teachers’ and a visual that mixed in the answers with popular trivia and quiz questions linked by the number five. This continued with ‘4 reasons to count on us’, ‘3 services in one name’ and so on, building up to a ‘blast-off’ launch in January.

The content highlighted key advantages of the Randstad Education service, such as comprehensive background checking, value for money and quality guarantees. The contemporary design, vibrant colours and witty copywriting were a slight departure from Randstad’s fairly formal brand tradition, and was intended to introduce Randstad Education as approachable and exciting.

Bonfire CI Director Stephen Judge said: “We’re absolutely delighted that our campaign for Randstad Education has been recognised in this way. It’s a great example of an agency and client working closely together to create something memorable, exciting and, above all, effective. As a result, what could have been a standard corporate rebrand became a lively, high-impact, multi-channel engagement initiative that really resonated with its target audience.”

Helping school children SMILE

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

smile grabTaMHS (Targeting Mental Health in Schools, a collaboration between Central Bedfordshire Council and Family Matters Institute) have just launched an innovative pilot service called ‘Smile’. Its objective is to raise awareness of mental health issues in schools and engage teachers, parents and young people with the goal of reducing the time taken to identify and support young people suffering from, or affected by, these issues.

TaMHS approached branding agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence to help develop the core brand tools for the pilot. Stephen Judge, Bonfire Director commented, “Our approach to the project and stakeholder research process was underpinned and validated by previous insight gained whilst working on communications projects for Connexions.”

Before the Smile identity was created, Bonfire developed and delivered a series of workshops with three middle/lower school clusters (Biggleswade, Houghton Regis and Ampthill) in partnership with an educational creative facilitator. This process enabled Bonfire to filter imagery, names, words and themes that were accessible to both age groups and provide a basis for the brand development. Once the workshops were complete a clear leader for the name of the scheme had emerged – ‘Smile’ – a message that was clearly understood and to which students responded very positively.

A set of culturally neutral characters were developed, alongside the name, supported by age group specific language styles. The overall solution ensures pupils can develop a trusting relationship with the Smile brand at an early stage and continue this throughout their middle school years.

A set of brand guidelines were also developed so the management running the project could successfully implement the brand using skilled service providers throughout the pilot period.

Olympus TV Ad, created by Bonfire CI, launches this week

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

The latest Olympus TV campaign – created by agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence, part of Envibra Group – is launching this week to promote the Olympus VN-5500PC DNS digital voice recorder. The 30-second ‘Read My Lips’ advert is aimed at students and will feature in-between popular TV shows across five TV channels between 23rd August and 3rd October 2010.

The voice recorder comes with Dragon Naturally Speaking transcription software that effortlessly converts recorded speech to text. Instead of sitting at a PC for hours, the recorder allows users to dictate their documents where and when they like, downloading them to a PC later for conversion at the rate of 160 words per minute, with 99 percent accuracy.

Bonfire MD, Stephen Judge comments: “The creative features an exaggerated life situation where converting voice recordings direct to text can save students vital time. The commercial involves ‘Tommy’ being blinded by the light of his love interest in a slow motion, ‘American teen flick’ style and falling into a storeroom – classic storytelling with pace-change humour.

“We required a very specific treatment, and execution was critical, so we worked with multi-award winning directorial team Bert & Bertie, production company Gate Films and the ad was shot by director of photography Ed Wild (Severance, Shifty). All post was done at 422 in Manchester where we cut on Avid and colour graded on Smoke. We are very lucky to have worked with such a fantastic team.

“The equipment was just as important and the ad was shot on the Sony F35 Cinealta camera using 35mm Zeiss prime lenses and Angenieux Optimo zooms. This allowed us to shoot at full bandwidth 4:4:4 HD, which was key to give the narrative-driven advert a slick cinematic look.”

Read my lipsThe script includes the line ‘Read my lips’ which appears on the heroine’s t-shirt, the report cover, etched into the desk in the press ads and is also an integral part of the on-and-off-line media strategy. This was a tactical point-of-reference that supported the voiceover ‘Why type when you can talk’; both lines relating directly to the functionality of the hardware/software combo.

Comments Mark Thackara, national marketing manager for consumer products at Olympus: “The Olympus VN-5500PC DNS is a superb product and it needed a different approach to ‘your standard ad’. We feel that the TV advert combined with social media sites and YouTube interaction will result in an engaging campaign that will create awareness of both this ingenious product and the Olympus brand.”

The advert, along with spoof ads, behind the scenes footage and photos, can be viewed on YouTube and Facebook.

Olympus is encouraging fans to create their own spoof ads and upload them to YouTube for some great freebies and giveaways.

Pushing the boundaries for Renesas IOD2010

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Further to the successful creative outcomes of NEC’s Industrial Open Day’s in 2006 and 2008 Bonfire have once again been appointed to support NEC, now Renesas, with this their third prestigious future technology exhibition showcase. Bonfire has been asked to push the creative boundaries for IOD2010 to be held for the second time in Barcelona in October of this year.

We have developed an overarching brand, concept and visual theme for the show, all exhibition graphics and imagery, have advised on stand construction and lighting, have sourced modelmakers and advised on the latest experiential display technologies and are just entering the last phase of design development. Following this there will be the design and production on 2 video animations to be used throughout the event on a centrally positioned video wall.

An ecological life cycle underpins the ubiquitous nature of the future Renesas’ technology, and the exhibition will highlight the diverse application of their products, from everyday life to medical care, from factory control to robotics.

The exhibition collateral has a sharp contemporary design, fusing technology with nature and we can’t wait to show you the photographs from exhibition itself.

Eagle IPA launched and signage unveiled!

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Eagle_Rugby_AThe rebranded Eagle IPA was unveiled this month at Wells and Young’s brewery in Bedford. The tag line of “Born and Brewed in Bedford” was developed to declare its pride as Bedford’s local brew.

As well as trade kits, which included t-shirts, bar runners, drip mats, bar towels, promotional posters, pump clips, free-standing tent cards and newly branded glassware, high impact creative was developed for the signage at the Bedford Blues Rugby Club stadium. This builds on the historic relationship between Charles Wells, Wells & Young’s and Bedford Rugby Club. The feedback from the signage has been extremely high and we are pleased and proud to have been able to deliver such a great outcome for on organisation very close to our hearts.

Eagle_Rugby_CBonfire worked with Wells & Young’s to develop a visual style that related to the target audience, and one that we hope will reinforce a sense of pride in both the brand and the community to which it belongs. Another prominent presence to support the launch was at The Bedford River Festival 2010, helping support the launch and community engagement.