eatsleepblog

European Coatings Show Final Day Video

How time flies it doesn't seem two minutes since we were in the full flow of the European Coatings Show in Germany, but it is actually now six days since the close of the Show and you still haven't had opportunity to see the final video from the Show. As I knew you'd be eagerly anticipating the arrival of the video from the Friday the 1st April (April Fool's of which I am not ashamed to say was one of the victims) I couldn't keep you waiting any longer. If you've not yet seen the videos I uploaded last week please follow this link to the first few videos from the ECS and therefore giving you the full experience of Dow at the European Coatings Show and much of the work which we produced for them. Here is Day 3 from the European Coatings Show 2011.

 

Well that's it, the last video from the European Coatings Show. It feels like quite a momentous occasion for us as by the end of the Show last week and throughout this week we've had nothing but great feedback on the Show as a whole and what an amazing experience it was to take part in. So it feels really quite special to everyone at eatsleepthink to have been involved in creating this event for Dow, it's just a shame that we didn't get a trip to Germany to experience the atmosphere for ourselves but you can't ask for everything, plus who would have been here to update you with the latest videos if we'd have been in Germany.

I hope you have enjoyed watching all of the videos uploaded from the European Coatings Show and welcome any comments you may have for us.

Matt

European Coatings Show Youtube Videos

Over the last month or so the studio of eatsleepthink design agency has been at its top capacity and as we say it was all hands to the pump for us to produce almost everything in a design aspect of the Dow stand at the European Coatings Show which is being currently held at the moment in Nuremburg, Germany. We were asked to produce graphics that showed how all five of the different Dow team's are all linked together, we produced a Flow design which as the name indicates is a graphic which creates a flow effect and is made from different images from the five different Dow teams, to tie them together and show that together Dow advance. Not only did we produce this artwork but also the Mind Map of Dow which features on one main wall, this led to us also producing the designs and layouts of three of the five individual booths with the posters.

 

This video is for Dow Coating Materials and is a video that invites customers to visit Dow Coating Materials whilst at the European Coatings Show, but with a slight twist of creativity in it whereby the Splashes artwork we created a few months ago is made into an animation, bringing the paint splashes to life, to jog your memory here is a link to the Splashes Campaign artwork.

 

The video above was shot the day before the show started therefore giving a better view of the stand itself compared to when the ECS is in full swing and packed with people wanting to speak with Dow.

The next video is from day 1 of the European Coatings Show where it was already clear that the stand and Dow were making a big impact at ECS. In this video you will see many of the graphics on the walls that we have produced for Dow as I talked about at the top of the page.

 

And finally for the moment we have the video filmed on day two of the Show (Wednesday 30th March). Once again this will allow you to see much of the work that eatsleepthink have produced for the five different teams of Dow to present themselves to their customers.

 

We are now in the final day of the show and all the feedback that has been received has been very positive so therefore we are looking forward to seeing the final day's video. Please check back soon as I shall also be uploading this video in a new blog once it is ready.

We hope that you like the graphics on the stand.

Matt

Is It Mi Book's Website or Yours?

No it's Sheffield Futures' website, it's not eatsleepthink's or mine or indeed yours. Last week we got the go ahead to launch the Mi Book website which is essentially the electronic version of the Mi Book that we produced last year for Sheffield Futures. The Mi Book was launched as a pocket sized document that young people (under 18's) could get there hand's on to help them through any possible problem that they may have in their life (well not every but a large percentage). When we produced the Mi Book itself I did blog about this at the time click on this link to look back at this. Following this it has taken a while but we have now got this up and running online where the site visitor can read the book through an online flipbook or alternatively the whole Mi Book can be downloaded. The design of the website to keep continuity is very similar to the actual printed Mi Book itself, we have grouped together a large number of what we call YOUP's or Mi Book characters, without making it clutted. So that you actually have an idea what I am babbling on about please following this link to http://www.getconnectedsheffield.com/mibook/. Or if you just want a quick look at the site layout etc here is a screen shot of the site which I am proud to say I did myself!

 

So there's a couple a pages of the site, hope you like. If you've actually visited the site you should have hopefully used either the flipbook facility which actually makes it look like you are turning the page over with the curvature of the page, it really is quite cool. If you didn't check this out you really should. Or you may have downloaded it which will enable you to now do whatever you would like with this i.e. print it out yourself.

As always I welcome any comments on our work.

Matt

A few changes at eatsleepthink

During the prolonged period of inactivity here before my blog about computer design in 1984 yesterday, there have been quite a number of changes in this Sheffield based design agency. After coming back from the Christmas and New Year holidays it seems like we have grown so much as a business. Due to the work that we were getting through Mike (Managing Creative Director) felt it was time to bring in another member of the eatsleepthink team, in the form of Brad. This now brings me onto the very sad note that the Three Musketeers are now officially at an end. On a more positive note it has been noted that we can reform as the Fantastic Four which is even better as now we all have our own supernatural powers. Another change during this time is that is that I have now fully completed my apprenticeship which means that thankfully Mike felt I had become a part of the team at eatsleepthink and that I was worthy of becoming a fully fledged employee, which of course I am extremely happy about and hopefully you are too as your wouldn't have had my blog to fill your days with a bit of humor and information at the same time. Due to these changes it was also felt that the titles of Mike and Gary needed to change. Therefore if I ever now refer to our Managing Creative Director this is Mike and Art Director is now Gary's new title whilst Brad is a Creative Artworker. 

I will shortly have some new pieces for you to view as we have been creating some lovely pieces of work recently and it is a while since I last did a post about some eatsleepthink work.

Matt

Rolf Harris Demonstrates Graphic Design in 1984

Trawling around the BBC news website last week Gary (Art Director) found this astonishing and quite unbelievable video of computer design on a Commodore 64 in 1984. This video of Rolf Harris Demonstrating Graphic design on a computer in 1984 is certainly a massive eye opener for in particular Gary and Brad who are two of the younger Graphic Designer's for eatsleepthink. They have not really experienced software and computers so deprecated and unsophisticated as this. This is the link to the video on youtube, once you've seen this I'm sure you will know what I mean. The host on this program seems absolutely amazed at the character drawing that Rolf Harris is able to create here, but for everyone in this design agency in Sheffield we can't quite believe looking at this how much computer graphic design has progressed in a quarter of a century. Although I must point out that I do love the 

I will be happy to hear what you think of this.

Matt

We're Back!

After a very nice and relaxing two week break from the studio we returned bright and early on Tuesday morning just before 9 o'clock. Finding ourselves taking a few hours to get back into the swing of things after lots of turkey, stuffing, chocolate, crisps and alcoholic based beverages. I may not be speaking for all of us there but I certainly am for myself! I did plan on writing on here sooner than this but unfortunately other things take priority for myself in eatsleepthink design studio. It has taken me till now to work through the back log of quotes, work in progress sheet updating and invoicing. As for Gary and Mike it has been more of a steady re-introduction with a quiet stream of new work and proofing stages returning to the studio. However is this just the calm before the storm? This is very much possible as we are hoping to get a number of pieces of new work in from a few clients at the start of next week, as well as continuing feedback on the design work we have been working on this week.

Hopefully I will shortly have some new topics of work to write about shortly, so please check in shortly again for more eatsleepthink topics.

Matt

eatsleepthink Wish You A Very Merry Christmas

The time has come for eatsleepthink design agency in Sheffield to send out its electronic Christmas Card to all clients and associates. This probably relates and reflects in some ways my blog a couple of months ago about what I called the Electronic Take Over in fact more so than that it definitively demonstrates the whole point I was making. A few years ago this would be leaving the design studio as a number of printed cards being picked up by a courier to be delivered to different addresses across the country.

Anyway back to the card. Eatsleepthink have always produced a Christmas card with a association or link to one of our clients. Over recent years this has been with Get Connected, however this year we felt that the direction should change and through Volunteering England being so proactive in promoting the importance of Volunteering this year and a big society. We are happy to be able to produce this 2010 Christmas Card in conjunction with Volunteering England. There is a Christmas Message with the card which talks a little bit about Volunteering and how something which is so simple can make a massive difference to more than just the person you are directly helping. This may not quite make sense at the moment but once you have read through the Christmas Message you will understand.

Here is an image which links through to the Christmas card we have produced, with a little help from two of Mike's sons to draw and design the animated people in the card.

We hope you like our Christmas card design as you will have seen there are two parts to the card firstly there is the flash animation part which has people dancing around who have gifted themselves as presents (Volunteering). Also as I mentioned above there is a separate section to the card which contains a heartfelt message from Mike.

See you all in the new year, thanks to everyone who has been reading my blogs over the last 9 months since I joined eatsleepthink. I hope you are looking forward to what 2011 brings.

Matt

It's Almost Here

It is Monday 20th December and there is therefore only 5 days until Christmas, after the big build up with office parties, meals and shopping etc we are now getting down to the business end of Christmas where we are winding down our computer's or in our case Mac's to gradually ease into the holidays. Only joking this is the design studio of eatsleepthink based in Halfway, Sheffield after all! 

It looks like we'll be working right up to the wire which for eatsleepthink is lunchtime on Tuesday 21st December but we wouldn't have it any other way. Once we reach this time tomorrow we will be packing up once everything is complete and going off home to enjoy a well deserved two weeks off. However lets hope we don't get too lazy over this period as we will need to be ready to get straight back into the swing of things on Tuesday 4th January 2011. There may be a little excess body weight on our return but let me assure you that this will not effect the speed of our response.

So from everyone at eatsleepthink we would like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year for 2011.

Matt

i-Pad Brushes App

After updating some of our software and hardware in the studio last month and purchasing an i-Pad Mike has been arriving at work almost every day like a little school kid. He came into the studio the other day showing us this app called brushes and what he had managed to produce within the space of about an hour of what he called doodling at home the evening before. Now if this is simply doodling I'd love to see what it would have looked like had more time been allowed. Here is the first stage of the illustration.

This is like the i-Pad brushes equivalent of lightly sketching your illustration onto a piece of paper using a pencil. Following this the lines were deepened and further detail produced to give the illustration more depth, here is the next stage of the illustration.

As you can see the illustration now features more detail and deeper outlines of the character. Following this the app then enables you to place shading and much finer detail onto the illustration making it look much more realistic and three dimensional. Here is the product of the next stage of development that Mike went through.

You can definitely see the finite detail which Mike has produced with the help of the app. Now all that was left to do was place colour into the illustration and we have a very professional illustration/drawing that has been produced 100% without the use of a pen, pencil or paper. This of course also has the added advantage of being environmentally friendly in terms of paper usage, although of course more electricity is used so many complex calculations would have to be gone through to actually see whether this increased or reduced Mikes carbon footprint, however I won't bore you by attempting to do this now. Here is the first coloured version of the illustration which doesn't feature the lines as above.

It may look a little weird at the moment but this is because the lines are not on top of the colouring. This is actually the last stage of the production whereby the app places the lines of the illustration on top of the colour to create the final product. Here is the finished product below.

It is quite amazing really to think that all this has been simply done on an app for the i-Pad, especially when previously this would have required many drafts of drawings on paper before scanning in to be placed into illustrator and add definition and colouring to the drawing. Of course there is the one clear advantage of this which is when making a mistake the whole process doesn't have to start again you can simply undo your mistake and carry on.

This is why the i-Pad was such a sound investment for the company, not only can it be used for such creative and enjoyable purposes as this but also the i-Pad can be used for much more formal purposes such as when we are pitching to a possible client we can display our portfolio of work on the i-Pad as well producing sketches of what we can produce whilst in the meeting.

Ironically whilst I was thinking about this topic for the blog yesterday I went on the BBC website and noticed this topic about an artist who has been solely producing work on the i-Pad. Whilst at a show in Paris called Fleurs Fraiches, David Hockney had revealed pieces of work he had produced on the i-Pad by placing displaying the artwork on a number of technological canvases. If you would like to read more about this story please follow this link to the BBC story.

Thanks

Matt

European Excellence Awards 2010

This is currently a very exciting time for everyone involved with eatsleepthink, as I am sure you will have gathered from the title we have been entered into the European Excellence Awards 2010. For those of you who have not heard of this award please follow this link to the European Excellence Awards 2010 to get an idea of the importance and scale of these awards. We have been put forward for this award thanks to the advertising campaign for Dow Coating Materials we have produced in conjunction with Gibbs and Soell Public Relations. If you wish to actually see our name on the shortlist you will need to click on shortlist from the homepage and then scroll down to section 36 of the list. It is very fulfilling to see our name mentioned alongside so many massive international design agencies, not because we don't have the talent, drive or passion to produce work that is recognised in this way but simply because we are a relatively small agency based in Sheffield, an old industrial city in England. It certainly feels like a David versus Goliath sort of situation, especially when we see who we are competing against in our category such as 180 Amsterdam with their client Deutsche Post DHL and Leo Burnett Romania with their client OMV Petrom. If you would like to view the advertising campaign we and Gibbs and Soell produced for Dow Coating Materials please follow this link to We've created a Splash, this is the blog I posted about a month ago about the campaign featuring the artwork of all the adverts. This has resulted in Mike having a very nice trip to Praque, Czech Republic on the 9th December.

Here is the logo for the European Excellence Awards 2010 and I must say it is a really catching logo design. For an award such as this it is really important that the logo is top class especially as awards will be going to people who themselves have created top class designs and advertising campaigns. We have been getting even more excited at eatsleepthink if that was possible, after looking at the trophies that the winners receive. The trophies are a 3D version of the logo and are very eye catching, should we win this along with Gibbs and Soell and of course Dow Coating Materials this would be up there as one of eatsleepthink's biggest ever achievements. 

Thanks for reading.

Matt