We’re back… after an eye-opening trip to Libya!

Something I didn’t think I would be saying a month ago. Not that we wouldn’t make it home, just that Libya wasn’t even on my radar of places to work in at all, never mind this year.

We recently won a pitch to brand a major Libyan company and came to Tripoli to visit the company, soak up the culture and research research research… I can’t divulge too much information just yet as we are currently working through the project but all will be revealed soon enough.

What I can tell you about is our time there and the culture. Libya is a place that really didn’t come to mind when talking about anywhere I would like to visit or work in and to have been there is a little surreal. You can’t just visit Libya, you need an invitation, visa and $1000 US dollars on arrival, oh… and you need to have your passport translated to arabic, which is kinda cool when someone asks for your passport to see where you’ve been. We arrived on a Friday which is the first day of the weekend here and we were taken straight to the beach to join a company day out (a male company day out as men and women socialise separately). Saturday is classed as the weekend too but we headed into the office to kick things off with a 6 hour project meeting!

Life there is fairly slow and relaxed except when driving! The Libyan people we met are awesome; really friendly, polite and welcoming. They seem to have a balanced respect for each other no matter what you’re social status is, which I like. Some things do move very quickly here though, like meetings; we were called out to quite a few meetings with no notice at all and on occasion, got there only for it to be cancelled or delayed. This is accepted of course. We’re told it’s normal, this happens, it’s Libya!

We were based in Tripoli, a short walk from the office and it was mostly work work work, so we didn’t have too much time to explore but we did venture out towards the end of our trip to battle the heat, cameras ready. Check our flickr feed for pics.

Here’s a summary of our time in Tripoli: Sand everywhere / friendly folk / insanely hot / air conditioning / the sun burns your eyes / work work work – then brief / no alcohol / no girls / driving is mental / good beaches / the butchers sell camels’ heads and balls / grilled chicken / green tea / good coffee / roman ruins / traffic / missed flights / wild dogs at night / hooka pipes.

More to come soon…

Cheers

Berlin is the nuts…!

A cool city with cool people. As mentioned in our previous post we were there for a week working alongside NoChintz on an exhibition stand to launch a new fashion range for global sports brand Canterbury of New Zealand at Bread & Butter Berlin – 07/09 July 2010.

I’m not going to dwell on this post, just to say that if you have the chance to visit Berlin in the summer, do it. It’s an amazing city, good people, fun, clean and loads to see and do. Here’s a run down of our week, check our flickr feed for pics…

Berlin Bread & Butter / Steins / efficient transport / 37° degrees / fake city beach bars / Bratwurst / Spain v Germany semi final at the BBB stadium / Lacoste brand party / client meetings / researching retail around Mitte / 14oz / No 74 / hidden beer gardens / VIP coach / BRIGHT Tradeshow / Nike skate demo / Skate museum memorabilia / pop up fashion shops on the U Bahn / Turkish dinner / Atrak at the Cookie club / Brand research at BBB / stand breakdown at BBB / italian breakfast with virgin Mary’s / sight-seeing / home…!

Bread & Butter is a leading international specialist trade fair for Street and Urbanwear providing a marketing and communications platform for brands, labels and designers; it’s immense!

It’s held twice a year, summer and winter and is a hive of activity for selected brands and exhibitors who are give free reign to present their brand with complete versatility. It’s gone from a 50 exhibitor event with 5000 visitors in Summer 2001 to a 892 exhibitor event with 89,000 visitors in the Summer of 2008.

This year’s event was held at the now disused Tempelhoff Airport in Berlin, which was once among the top 20 largest buildings on earth and formerly had the world’s smallest duty free shop! Tempelhoff Airport is an amazing location and an awe-inspiring structure retaining its original features and signage and utilises the old check-in lounge as the entrance to the event with the aircraft hangers housing all exhibitor stands. What’s equally impressive is the BBB set up and organisation… with the event being so large they even have a bus service to take you from one side to the other!

We were lucky enough to be there whilst working alongside NoChintz on an exhibition stand to launch a new fashion range for global sports brand Canterbury of New Zealand. So after our work on the stand set up was done, we had chance to explore and soak up all there was to offer at the show. Brands galore, from Diesel to Pointer and Tommy Hilfiger to Stetson… an amazing place for influence, research and ideas, it’s great to see how brands are thinking and expressing themselves. Needless to say that we took plenty of photos and fill our heads with as much information and ideas as we could for future projects. Check out our flickr feed for pics.

If you’re working in retail / experiential design, fashion / retail branding or exhibition stand design I would highly recommend attending. I have to say though that this is a buyers trade show so a lot of the stands are off limits but even still there is so much so see it’s well worth it.

Maybe see you there next year…

We recently had the pleasure of working a full week in Berlin working alongside NoChintz to launch a new fashion range for global sports brand Canterbury of New Zealand at Bread & Butter Berlin – 07/09 July 2010.

NoChintz were introduced to Canterbury by Creative Agency Mill Co and commissioned to design an exhibition stand to showcase and launch the new Canterbury of New Zealand clothing range in an innovative setting. A setting that draws on the heritage of the iconic rugby brand and gives a nod to vintage rugby culture.

The resulting exhibition stand takes influence from and echoes design of old school Rugby Clubhouses complete with a bar, snooker table, vintage black and white photography and items of rugby memorabilia. There is also a Victorian style locker room with classic bench seating, butchers ceramic tiles and team tactics chalk board.

NoChintz commissioned Eskimo Creative to work on the branding and identity of the stand pulling through the heritage of the Canterbury brand, the sport of Rugby and New Zealand as a country into various visible elements needed to dress the stand.

Canterbury was established in 1904 so vintage, worn, distressed and heritage were the keywords of the project. We produced vintage rugby photography, printed and framed in reclaimed picture frames, team tactics chalk board (designed on site), aluminium brand logos, acrylic brand elements, vinyl elements and a mass of distressed and vintage treated logos stenciled and spray painted onto travel trunks and retro chairs that all came together to complete the brand offering.

We had an awesome time working on the the stand and it was a fantastic opportunity to spend time in Berlin soaking up the culture and exploring Bread & Butter. More importantly the Canterbury team were very impressed receiving amazing feedback daily through out the show and a great response to their new fashion range.

Good times!

Bread & Butter website

Friday morning + fake wool beard + camera and some of Manchester’s finest – Natalie Gray, Matt Booth, John Owens, Andy Myers and myself… fun project targeting designers and creatives by design student Oyunga, check her site at www.ongidesign.co.uk

nice.