Higher Ground Bowling

Last Wednesday night bore witness to another (extremely enjoyable) Higher Ground team night out. Following some rather painful memories of flying paint from our last organised team activity (read more on this in our older posts), we decided to go for a more pain-free option this time.

Fueled by our love of healthy competition, we arrived at All Star Lanes in Brick Lane for an evening of good food, cocktails and bowling. After much careful consideration over an order of 8 cheeseburgers and various deserts, we managed to split the party into two teams (girls and Jay versus boys) and we were ready to hit the lanes. Of course, not before we put a small bet on the game - the loosing team were doomed to make teas and coffees for a whole week, while the winning team were stripped of their tea-making duties for the time being.

It was a close result, but in the end the boys were victorious and the girls (and Jay) must bow down to their bowling inferiority. Enjoy it while it last lads!

Missed Us?

As you may or may not know, over the past few months we've been working on the Short Circuit event in the Roundhouse in Camden Town. The event, which is also the world premier of ditto, deals with the idea of the 'human condition' and brings together an array of designers, photographers, musicians, illustrators (and more) in a showcase of their work.

Our contribution to the event is a 3 minute Flash animation on the theme of 'Creation' from Genesis, which is accompanied by a combination of spoken narrative and music by the seminal electronic music producer, Rolando Rocha.

The project has truly been a Higher Ground team effort and we've enjoyed every step of the way. Our animation will be shown alongside the other contributors' pieces at the Roundhouse in a few weeks and we can't wait to see it on the big screen! So have a look at our teaser video and let us know what you think:

You can also watch the full video live on the night (16th May) via an online feed.

Besides our involvement with the Short Circuit event, we've also worked with ditto to produce their logo, website and business cards. they've been an exciting client to work with and we're pretty proud of all our work with them, but we'd like to know what you think - so let us know!

The (all new) London List

Some of you may remember us mentioning something called 'The London List' at the beginning of the year. Those of you that decided to go ahead and try out some of its suggestions may be happy to know that we've updated the list with a fresh set of things to do. This month's update includes events such as the Bangladeshi New Year in the Barbican Theatre, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition in the Natural History Museum or the Banana Cabaret in The Bedford.

So whether you're into arts, comedy, film, music or theatre you'll definitely try something worth doing in the coming weeks. This time, we've even added a new section with suggestions of bars to try!

Go on then, do something new this week - visit the website or download the PDF for inspiration. If you have other suggestions you would like to see added to the List, please email Maggie.

And the winner is....

Hello fellow design-enthusiasts,

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been in contact with a company called 'Academy' and we're proud to be able to announce that we've managed to win a contract with them for a complete rebranding project and a whole lot of other elements off the back of this too!

Academy started off as a marquee hire company but have since grown and moved towards providing full event planning services too. They can help with functions like weddings, corporate events and product launches and so were looking for a new parent brand (as well as a sub-brand for each of their service areas) to reflect the new direction and ethos of the business.



Off the back of the branding, we will also be providing Academy with our standard set of services including websites, stationery, emails, pay-per-click campaigns and leaflets. But you should keep an eye out for Academy soon as we'll be designing vehicle branding, signage and t-shirts!

We're all really excited here at HQ, but for now why not take a look at Academy's current website and some photographs from a recent event and send through any suggestions you may have for the new brand!

The Tibian Adventure

As we've been updating our blog over the last 9 months, you may have been able to piece together an idea as to the type of projects we take part in and the work we do. So this week, we thought we'd introduce one of our more 'unusual' projects (just to keep you guessing!).

A little while ago, our Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign caught the eye of Alex Pemberton. A taxi driver by day, Alex is currently in the process of self-publishing his first book. The first in a series of fantasy books, 'The Tibian Adventure' is set in the world of Vorboria, where a strange but very real danger lurks over the Tibian civilization.

Alex came to Higher Ground in order to develop an online marketing strategy for the book prior to its publication (possibly later this year). Based on the artwork used within the book and some other fantasy websites Alex likes the look and feel of, we put together www.thetibianadventure.com.



Off the back of the website, we'll also be working with Alex to design adverts for the side of his black cab, taxi receipts and adverts for the back of the taxi seats. Maybe our taxi advertising will make it as far as Mumbai like Creative Review's....

Extra extra!

Those of you that read our blog regularly may be aware that we do quite a bit of work with the prestigious poker club - The Buffalo Club. Well this week, we wanted to write about one of the latest projects we worked on with them.

Besides our ongoing work on the website, we also had the opportunity to design a full-page advertisement to go into the Financial Times. The advertisement was commissioned as a means of spreading the word about the Club's first event. This was to take place on Saturday, 21st March and held a £10,000 stake.

We liaised closely with both The Buffalo Club and the Financial Times on this one, to produce an end result we are pretty proud of. What do you think?



Keep an eye out next time you go down to the shops!

The Final Countdown

Over the last couple of months, we've kept you up to date with the progress of our involvement with the filming of Meisha's very first music video. Well, today we have some big news - we have now officially finished all of the filming! Yes, that's right.... take a moment to digest that....

The last part of the process took place one sunny, but (very) cold Thursday morning on the streets of London - and a bridge. Considering it was rush hour, we managed to get all our equipment set up pretty comfortably on Waterloo bridge and get a good amount of footage with the crowds while dodging cars, buses and especially motorbikes. We spent the second part of the morning on the lovely sun-kissed Southbank, where instead of motorized vehicles, the challenge was not to get hit by bikes.

Having survived these various attacks, we think it is safe to say we have all of the footage we need. Now the real hard work begins - it's time to look through all the footage and start piecing the video together. Well, now that you've stopped holding your breath there's not much more to say besides - watch this space!