January 1st, 2010
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Blink and you’ll miss it, but this is the little ident I produced for STV’s (Scottish Television) hogmanay show ‘The Scots That Rocked.’ The interesting thing about this one is that this was not the original sequence or title that I was commissioned to produce.
Producer/director Dani Carlaw was making a documentary about how Scottish people seem to excel on talent shows such as the X Factor, what with Susan Boyle having recently cracked the American market. The programme was to be called ‘The Scots Factor’ and the opening titles were to parody the glitzy, light-entertainment look of the X Factor, using the cross of the saltire in place of the X.
So the original titles looked like this:
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However, I had no sooner finished this sequence just before Christmas when I was told that it was unlikely to be used – ITV, which licences STV for central and northern Scotland, was threatening STV with legal action over the show.
I didn’t see the problem myself – it wasn’t a talent show, it was a documentary and it’s in the nature of parody to mimic the look of the thing being parodied. But STV and ITV have ongoing legal wrangles and this just seemed to make everyone nervous. Poor Dani had a very hard time keeping the legal department happy.
But what do I care. I liked the original sequence too so I include it here for your delectation and delight. Unless Simon Cowell gets litigious.
Categories: Television Graphics |
Tags: Scottish Television, X factor, stv | No Comments
December 19th, 2009
Fred Goodwin in the Royal Bank of Scotland classic, ‘It’s A Wonderful Recession.’
“He Received The Greatest Christmas Gift Of All.”
Sponsored by RBS.
I don’t know what made me think of this. It just came into my head. Merry Christmas.
Categories: Miscellaneous Graphic Design |
Tags: Fred Goodwin, RBS, custom christmas cards | No Comments
October 26th, 2009
Having a great website is one thing but unless you’re getting a reasonably high ranking in Google and the other search engines, it might not do you much good. You can pay Google for a sponsored listing, but who really wants to pay Google? That’s where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in.
I’m a search engine marketing consultant based in Edinburgh, Scotland. SEO is the art of increasing your website’s visibility by raising its ranking in the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Here’s a case study:
Around this time last year I was approached by Ampersand, the Edinburgh based stable of advocates, to tackle their SEO. They had a very attractive website that did everything they needed and everyone was very proud of. There was only one problem – it was very hard to find in the search engines.
I ripped through the Ampersand site applying a wide range of ‘white hat’ SEO techniques and put a number of measures in place that would, given time, boost their rankings considerably. After a month we were beginning to see a marked improvement – I kept a log of the progress being made on individual search terms. Later I was delighted to be able to tell them they had a page one ranking for virtually all the terms they were interested in.
Anyone who says they can guarantee a top position ranking is not really telling the truth. There are too many factors that are taken into account in Google’s massively complex number crunching. Also I wouldn’t believe anyone who says they can fix this for you overnight. It’s a slow process, but as long as you’re not a fly by nighter and are in business for the right reasons, it’s a job that’s well worth doing.
My number one tip for anyone looking to boost their website ranking would be – have a website with interesting and unique content. And if you’re interested in taking the next step and finding an SEO consultant in Scotland, give me a call.
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation |
Tags: Edinburgh, SEO, SEO consultant, Search Engine Optimisation, google, search engine marketing consultant, search engines, yahoo | 1 Comment
September 1st, 2009
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This is a compilation of 3d graphics that I created for the insurance giant Aegon. The individual clips were spread throughout a dvd which detailed the company’s employee pension scheme and explained its finer points.
I tried to make the images as engaging as possible whilst remaining close to their branding and getting their sober message across clearly.
The pig may have been a step too far in the other direction. Although they had a piggy bank just like this one in their printed materials, I don’t think they used it in the dvd.
Categories: Business Graphics |
Tags: aegon, dvd, insurance | No Comments
August 28th, 2009
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After we created the original
Battlefield documentary series and then
Battlefield Vietnam in the 90’s, producer Dave Flitton was asked to give the Battlefield treatment to the Korean War. The result was this 2-hour documentary which sadly doesn’t seem to have been as widely seen as its predecessors. I say ‘sadly’ because I remember it being really good. It also seems to have been renamed a couple of times – I’ve seen it advertised as ‘Battlezone Korea’ and others.
Like the previous series, this was entirely made up of archive footage and graphics, so for the title sequence I created this montage of treated shots and animated text, and built it around the theme music.
As my postcard for its premiere shows, it went out on PBS on August 1st 2001.
Categories: Television Graphics |
Tags: Battlefield, korean war | No Comments
July 20th, 2009
This is a screengrab from SimVenture, the award-winning business simulation game which teaches business skills to budding entrepreneurs. I was asked to create the 3d environment for the game’s interface where each of the main items in the room links to a particular area of the player’s hypothetical business.
My first attempts were described by the client as ‘not messy enough,’ so I tried to make it look more like a home-based start-up, complete with clutter.
It’s a static environment at the moment, but as it was designed in 3d, the next stage of the game would build in an animated interface.
For a free demo visit Simventure’s business game website.
Categories: 3d Animation |
Tags: 3d design, computer games | No Comments
May 2nd, 2009
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This ambient piece was projected onto a large wall space and ran on a loop throughout Visit Scotland’s Expo Fusion event. It’s purpose was two-fold. First it would welcome guests – who were from all corners of the globe and hence the multilingual ‘welcome’ – and second it would act as directional signage, indicating what was to be found on the floors above and below.
The unusual brief, described to me as ‘a bit like the old pingpong computer game,’ also called for the inclusion of the sponsor, Glasgow: Scotland With Style. This had me foxed until we put them on the ball itself.
Categories: 3d Event Planning |
Tags: 3d Event Planning, Scotland, Visit Scotland, glasgow, scotland with style | No Comments
March 23rd, 2009
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Scotland At The Movies was a one-off documentary made by STV and broadcast at peak time on March 22nd 2009. The programme focused on four Scottish films: Gregory’s Girl, Whisky Galore!, Heavenly Pursuits, and Comfort and Joy, and featured interviews with Bill Forsyth, Claire Grogan, Tom Conti and Bill Paterson.
I used the pop-up technique for this title sequence, taking all the promo stills I was given and cutting them up to form an animated collage.
Categories: Television Graphics |
Tags: Scotland, Television Graphics, scotland at the movies, stv | No Comments
March 9th, 2009
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This is an excerpt from LA Media’s excellent corporate presentation for the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. At one point in the script there was a need to show the centre’s close proximity to all Edinburgh’s main landmarks and most thriving tourist spots, so I was asked to create this whirlwind tour of the city. In terms of geography, it’s actually reasonably accurate!
To close the presentation I created the fairly simple but effective animation of the EICC logo with it’s square-set forms and letters.
Categories: 3d Animation, Business Graphics |
Tags: 3d design, Business Graphics, EICC, Edinburgh, Scotland | No Comments
March 4th, 2009
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This presentation piece for Visit Scotland uses three different animation techniques for the three individual areas I was asked to cover: the fluttering ident, the landscape text, and the names that form into words. (These are the names of Visit Scotland employees.)
Each section was created with 3d animation and each brought it’s own challenges. But I have to admit there was something quite satisfying about making that text run along the top of the bridges.
Categories: Business Graphics |
Tags: Business Graphics, Scotland, Visit Scotland | No Comments
