Numiko, an award winning Leeds based digital creative agency

This year we’re proud to be the main sponsors of the annual Sh! Awards, which puts the spotlight on the creative talent coming out of Yorkshire’s best universities in advertising, web design, graphic design, illustration and more.

Why are we sponsoring Sh!? Well, we’ve been involved with Sh! for years, either through judging or sponsorship.  Not only is it a great opportunity for us to see students’ work,  it gives them a chance to get in front of some of Yorkshire’s top agencies, with the chance of winning a  six month paid placement.  The event also raises money for the Meningitis Research Foundation in honour of Stuart Hocknell – a brilliant young designer who died from meningitis in 2002.

Students who are interested in entering can find further details here Sh! Awards website

The closing date for entries is Friday 20 April, 2012 and the event will be held on Thursday 24 May, 2012.  Good luck!

We’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with Shetland Arts on a great project, supported by LOCOG and Creative Scotland.  Named Hansel of Film, meaning ‘gift of film’, the project centres around a relay of film screenings from Shetland to Southampton and back again.  It also promotes the idea of joining in, and of fun and celebration – ideas that are intrinsic to the London 2012 Festival.

Shetland Arts commissioned us to design and build a content manageable website to act as the main hub for the project, allowing people to upload their films, apply to become ‘runners’ (volunteers who will transport the films between venues) and follow the relay as it travels to each of the venues up and down the country.

The ‘Hansel of Film’ relay starts in Shetland just as the Olympic Torch arrives on 10 June, 2012.  To visit the site, go to http://hansel2012.org/

Hansel of Film: Shetland to Southampton and back again

We’ve been working with Fresh One to create the online presence for C4’s Street Summer.

Street Summer is an exciting season of programming that explores the influences that have shaped contemporary urban culture.  A showcase for talented Brits, this truly multiplatform commission explores street culture and its presence in many people’s lives; from dance, urban sport and street art, to graffiti, rap/spoken word and hip hop.

Fresh One and Numiko joined together on the Rap Beatbox Choir project – a YouTube app which encourages members of the public to audition for a spot in the world’s biggest virtual Rap Beatbox Choir, with the final edited video being shown on Channel 4 in October.  Fresh One created the branding and were responsible for the video production, and Numiko designed and built the season homepage on channel4.com and the YouTube app.

If you want to be involved go to http://youtube.com/streetsummer for more info.  Auditions close at the end of this month!

Numiko have been instrumental in developing the freshly launched Your Paintings website for the BBC which coincides with the broadcasting of ‘Hidden Paintings” – the umbrella title to 11 separate programmes to be broadcast on BBC One across England at 6pm on Sunday 26 June.

Previously hidden away, 200,000 paintings that document our rich history will be accessible on the web, for everyone to enjoy, for free.  The first phase  has gone live today starting with a whopping 63,000 paintings to see, and it will eventually build up to the 200,000.

It’s a really valuable project for anyone with an interest in art, from professional art historians, through to people who want to see Turner’s  famous Yorkshire skies for themselves.

To discover them for yourself, visit www.bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings

I’ve come across a few really nice blogs and suchlike this week, and have found myself with a rare free five minutes in which to blog about them! So here goes:

First is a fashion photographer who makes use of that most old-school of internet technologies, animated GIFs. Most people out there will associate animated GIFs with the internet of old; a wasteland of bulletin boards and content portals illuminated only by the light from a million flaming, spinning skull GIFs. But I digress – these GIFs are beautiful.

There’s plenty of plain old fashion photography on there (not that it isn’t also lovely) but the really cool stuff is the ones like this. I’m not even really sure how she (I’m assuming Jamie is a she, for some reason…) does it – clever masking and comping of video or something, but the effect is lovely.

It’s subtle, and I think it adds a really interesting dimension to the images. It kind-of brings them to life, but it’s a strange, slightly creepy life. Like robots wearing nice clothes. A bit like most fashion, I suppose, but there you go.

Next is the clever application of prime numbers to textured web page backgrounds. This is a little bit more geeky, but bear with me. The human eye has an amazing ability to spot patterns, which is great when you’re stalking the savannah looking out for tigers but really annoying when you’re trying to create a realistic-looking textured background image for your web page.

The most common technique to create textured background images is to create a tile – that is, a small image that can repeat seamlessly. The problem is that the smaller you tile (and thus the more efficient your page load) the more obvious the repeating becomes, making your lovely realistic wooden background look more like crappy laminate flooring from Poundland.

Through a sneaky combination of multiple background images and the power of prime numbers, Alex creates randomish, organic-looking backgrounds that are easy on the page-load while fooling your eyes. Ha! Take that, eyes. It’s a semi-old technique, apparently, but this is the first I’d heard of it and it’s a well-written article.

Hope you found these as interesting as I did!

I read an article recently which said “what constitutes a good designer depends on the person judging”. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that this translates to “there are no objective standards in design” – if what’s good can only be judged by individuals according to their own standards then what’s good for me might be bad for you. While this is true to an extent, I do think that there are standards by which you can objectively judge design.

I don’t like conceptual art; stuff like Tracey Emin’s bed and Martin Creed’s empty room leaves me cold.  I can kind of see the point… It can be kind of clever, in a half-hearted way – earning a slightly raised eyebrow of amusement, or acknowledgement that something expresses a mildly interesting concept, but I can never really summon up any enthusiasm, or feel that these ill-defined concepts are things that deserve to be put into words, and galleries, and stared at and bought and sold for millions.

I’ve just been reading about the Stuckists on good old Wikipedia, and while they’re still another bunch of flamboyant artists I find myself agreeing with the main thrust of their views.

Their manifesto “places great importance on the value of painting as a medium, as well as the use of it for communication and the expression of emotion and experience – as opposed to what they see as the superficial novelty, nihilism and irony of conceptual art and postmodernism.”

Obviously, as a digital media agency our business is more to do with videos, games and the web than it is with paintings, but I think the main thrust of the thought is still relevant to us.  As a company we pride ourselves on making experiences, rather than things – not just something you use, or play, but something you engage with and feel some emotion towards.  So far, so buzzwordy, but within that thought are some important, relevant ideas.

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