A Higher Ground Christmas

Last night seems to have been the universal 'company Christmas party night' and we at Higher Ground are proud to say that we'd also contributed to the festive fun by going out for a Christmas dinner and exchanging our not-so-Secret Santa presents.

For dinner, we chose the 'World's greatest Belgian restaurant and bar' - say it with me now - Belgooo! The food really was delicious and even the best trained of us had some difficulty finishing all the courses. Definitely a good choice for a staff meal we'd say!

This week, we've also been sending out our Christmas wishes in the form of an HTML email - have a look at the design and tell us what you think! More importantly though, we'd like to extend our warm wishes to you as well and finish today's entry by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us here at Higher Ground.

>>FWD this link

A Rough Guide to staying amused online when you should be working!

Remember all those funny emails you have received in the past? I’m talking about the ones that have been seen by millions of people, that everyone talked about! Well here they are, all in one place, already neatly compiled to forward onto your friends! The surprise, the awkwardness, the comic factor... all making for a pretty sound explanation of why this piece of work is a success! Well here’s the low down, Higher Ground were approached by Rough Guides to create a viral campaign to help with the launch of their new book, and compiled this video for them with some of the biggest and funniest clips from the world wide web guaranteed to make you LOL!

Find another way to dull the pain and >>FWD this link

'Fine line between Dark and Beautiful'

As always, this week we have some very exciting news to share with you. Higher Ground have had the opportunity to work with a fresh new band called 'Meisha'. You can listen to some of their songs on their MySpace page.

When we first met them, this self-proclaimed Alternative/Trip Hop/Electro band, signed by EMI Records (!!), were after a new logo. The brief was: something simple with a lot of impact - something similar to the logos of Morcheeba, Portishead and Massive Attack.

We let our design team loose and the final product is below - what do you think?

We are also going to be working with Meisha on their new music video (again !!) in the coming weeks (watch this space). The star of opportunity twinkles on the horizon....

Secret Santa time at Higher Ground HQ

The idea behind giving secret Santa gifts is good, actually its great - get together with a bunch of work mates, exchange prezzies and celebrate the festive season (rather merrily)! But the reality can be a bit more stressful when it comes to actually purchasing the gift. Our suggestion would be to approach the matter creatively like you would your work. And definitely steer away from buying those boring shortbread biscuit selections or bubble bath confetti sets, because no one wants one of those! Check out these sites for inspiration!

www.magmabooks.com
www.play.com
www.eboy.com
www.iwantoneofthose.com

All of us at HQ are also doing secret Santa so photos of what we've received from each other will be posted in the New Year!

Getty Images Freitag Promotion

It's that time of the week again - time to tell you about how brilliant we are! A few weeks ago, we wrote about a Getty Images promotion we had designed and this week we're back with more. Once again, the promotion required a banner for the main space on the general Home Page and on the Home Page of the Creative section.

This time, Getty Images are offering a free Freitag bag to anyone who spends over £1000 on Royalty-free/Right-managed/Rights-ready images or Rights-ready/Royalty-free footage. So go on, get spending and get yourself a Freitag bag!

Or, just have a look at our designs on the Getty Images HOME PAGE!

London’s back by popular demand!

The LONDON THROUGH A LENS exhibition has returned hosted by Getty Images.

HGC went along to spread some love and participate in Getty’s kind hospitality and welcome the return of this extraordinary compilation of past and present imagery. The result of this collection is ‘a portrait of London. Showing the momentous and the mundane of everyday life.’

It’s the capital like you’ve never seen it before!

Not only did we get to view some amazing photo's, but we also got to celebrate the launch of the Pump Audio's PREMIUM PLAYLIST.

Behind the Scenes

Gather round children!

It's time for another look into the amazing adventure that is the life here at Higher Ground HQ. Remember last week when I mentioned our work for the Buffalo Club? Well, today I'd like to share with you another aspect of our multimedia capabilities - this time in the form of a video.

What we lovingly call the 'Behind the Scenes' video is going onto the new and improved Buffalo Club website (have a look at the site and let us know what you think - new and improved, right?). It tells the story of the below mentioned photo-shoot, so you can see the evening unfold for yourselves! Let us know what you think.

The Behind the Scenes video will also be joined with a much more 'slick' Trailer video shortly (watch this space).....

Say Cheese!

You might remember a while back when we'd introduced The Buffalo Club - the high-rolling, luxurious, members-only poker club. Although their website was originally launched in early September, we have been involved in its redesign since and wanted to share with you some of the exciting projects this has involved!

In order to make the new website as 'slick' as possible, a professional MTV Cribs-style photoshoot was organised - models, enormous houses, fancy cars, the lot! Some of the HGC team members were lucky enough to go along and do some video filming at the event as well! Have a look at some of the photos from the event below and let us know what you think...

So, to summarise: Those who know - play at the Buffalo

The Battle of Canary Wharf

It was 1pm on Saturday 25th October as the troops assembled at the agreed location outside the Paintball Centre in Canary Wharf. Although we had to endure an intricate maze of paths in order to get to the meeting point, our spirits were high and we had our minds set on victory. Ten minutes of briefing and one set of padded vests later, some of us were starting to fear the 3 hours that were to come... Holding our heads high, we entered the battle field, determined to give the 'other lot' a run for their money.

We emerged three hours later - muddy, exhausted and covered in paint but with adrenalin pumping and an amazing time behind us. I must admit we sustained some minor injuries (some cuts and bruises, fractured ribs... you know, that kind of thing) - as they say, you should've seen the other guys!

Team Building

I'm sure everyone has been to a so-called 'team building event' at some point in your lives. You know the type of thing - the whole company unites in some superficial activity or another in an attempt to 'solidify' interpersonal relationships (usually through small talk)...

At Higher Ground, we have our own idea of team building and so we are going paintballing this Saturday. What could solidify interpersonal relationships within the company better than a day of shooting paint balls at each other and presumably a whole lot of pain?

Watch this space for pictures of the team on our amazing adventure! Or of those of us that survive anyway.........

Getty Images promotion banner for October/November

Don't you just love it when you get free stuff? Here at Higher Ground HQ we have recently finished the new October/November banner for the Getty Images UK site. Getty Images are using our banner both for the main banner spot on the UK Home Page AND for the same spot on the Creative section's Home Page.

For the promotion, there is a choice between two gifts when you spend £200 or more on Royalty-free and Royalty-managed images. The choice of gift is either a Moleskine sketchbook or a Tengu singing robot. Follow the link below and check out the cool demo of the Tengu singing robot. Guaranteed entertainment.

By the way, have I mentioned that our banner is going on the Getty Images HOME PAGE?

www.gettyimages.co.uk

New Addition to the Team

Things have been rather hectic here at HQ lately and we had decided it was time to get some help from the outside world. So, after a thorough search of the market, we have found our new team member. Elizabeth is in charge of all the important bits that sometimes make the rest of us bounce off the walls. She is settling well into the 'Higher Ground ways' and there's no way back from there!

To read more about Elizabeth (or the rest of the team), please visit our team biography page.

60-minute Makeover

We have been thinking of making the office a little bit more 'designy' and creative for a while. But between suggestions of painting the walls orange and having photos of all of us on a night out, we just couldn't figure out the direction we should be heading. It's one thing designing a logo or website but interior design seems to be a whole new ball game.

Recently, the team had decided that the white boards, maps and Banksy pictures just don't cut it anymore! So, the long awaited office facelift is now under way. As the first step, we've let the designers loose on one of the walls. Have a look at the images below and let us know what you think!

Icing On The Cake

It’s always a bit strange to see a piece of your work implemented in another medium. You know the type of thing I mean – your poster design as an animated banner, a character sketch as a full-size mascot… or, as in our case, a logo as the icing on a birthday cake.


We’d recently designed the below logo for the 10th birthday of an investment management consultancy firm and imagine our surprise when it was used not only for invitations and name tags as we expected, but also on the cake! Have a look at the original and ‘sugary’ logo and let us know what you think.

Could this mark the beginning of Higher Ground Baking…?

London Calling for a copywriter

Higher Ground Creative are looking for new enthusiastic copywritters!
Check out our website to see what we are all about

www.highergroundcreative.co.uk

If you like what you see then please get in touch.

Guardian (Media) Banner

Hello again Higher Ground fans!

It's been a while since our last post - so we thought it's about time we sent out an update to all of you eager readers. Things have been hectic here at the HQ - plenty of cool things going on (unsurprisingly). To give you an example - as part of our online advertising campaign, we'll have a spot on Guardian Media for an online banner in the near future - look out for this and tell all your friends! Go on, you know you want to.....

... We'll even throw in a virtual high five to whoever spots it first!

Portfolio Update

Hi Everyone

We have just recently updated sections of our portfolio including websites, html emails, banners and multimedia, please have click on the links to have a look.

Please let us know what you think.  

Thanks

Space Snaps

If you’re a sucker for retro gaming then the new toy we made for Getty Images is for you. In Space Snaps, instead of space invaders or tumbling boulders, you must defend the precious lower territory of the screen from an onslaught of stock photography. Not a very common enemy in the gaming world but a formidable one none the less. Get your arcade on and bust up a high score, 80’s style.

Two Smoking Buffalos

Fancy yourself a card player? Well if you want to play with some high rollers, soon you’ll be able to at The Buffalo Club. Due for launch in early September, this members-only site features exclusive voice-overs by none other than Nick Moran. Nick played that lucky card-shark Ed in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels who went up against the infamous Harry the Hatchet. Ten years after the film (!) he has returned to the felt green table to deal out some raspy, well-‘ard geezer lines for the Buffalo punters. Proper. Sorted.

Online Campaign

There was a time when online advertising amounted to nothing more than the poorly designed spam and pop-ups that plagued our measly 56K browsing. Thankfully times have changed, and now it’s all about Flash banners, search engine optimisation and other exciting buzz words. So, in the interest of practicing what we preach, Higher Ground has recently embarked on our own online advertising campaign and we will be pimping our wears with Google AdWords, Guradian (Media) and the like. You can also expect to see a few HTML emails appearing in your inbox.

Hooray for Moodboard!

We’ve just noticed our new Flash banner for Moodboard is appearing on Computer Arts and GDUSA

What do you think folks?

Moodboard are also offering commission if someone you recommend signs up with them. How nice of them.

Higher Ground

Bigger, Bigger, Bigger!

Every so often a song comes out that says what is on everyones mind. In this case it is the mind of the frustrated graphic designer, dealing with possibly the most common client request. Brilliant.







Listen here.

Boris vs. Edd

This is Edd, our tech wiz. He is currently moonlighting as the new mayor of London.

Gather 'round children

Welcome eager readers, to the Higher Ground blog.

We've recently embarked on our own rebranding process, part of which involved starting this humble little blog. It may not look like much now but soon it will be crammed full of witty banter and amusing observations from the Higher Ground crew. Is crew the right word? How about posse...no. What is the plural for designers? Here are a few of my suggestions:

A batch of designers
A palette of designers
A gallery of designers
An obsession of designers
A homage of designers

Let the games begin...