whitespace - space for thought

Do our children suffer from our hangovers? Do we all drink too much? Is it about the price, availability and promotion of alcohol? What do you think?

Working on behalf of The Scottish Government, Whitespace have been building on the success of the alcohol website www.infoscotland.com/alcohol and have developed a new site to collect people's views and thoughts on alcohol, whatever they might be. www.alcoholdebate.com gives users the ability to post comments, take part in the online poll and view vox pops of people on the street.

Get involved and leave your comments!

Working for The Scottish Government on the prescription charges campaign, we have designed a very simple web page, online advertising and a giant animated advert for the Transvision screen at Waverley Station, so get down there with your popcorn and watch it on widescreen.

And just in case you have not heard. From April 1, the cost of prescriptions in Scotland fell from £6.85 to £5.00. Further annual reductions are planned to remove prescription charges altogether by 2011.

Whitespace have seen the launch in April of the website for Vancouver-based environmental consulting company Teranis, after creating their new brand identity and communication plan.

The site combines the technical complexity of the industry with the aesthetics of the environment and uses on-site video footage and flash animation to bring to life the serious issues of environmental welfare and the procedures undertaken to clean up the damage.

Have a look at www.teranis.ca

For those of you that have never visited Whitespace HQ, this is your chance to have a sneak peek around the office and place your vote! This Ain’t No Disco (it’s where we work) invites Agencies from across the world to show off their inner sanctums and like Pandora’s Box, once you look inside, nothing will ever be the same again (or so they say).

www.aintnodisco.com/2008/04/05/whitespace

We have just finished a new gateway page for Bank of Scotland. This page is designed to channel the user to the correct arm of the Bank, be it Personal, Private, Business or Corporate. The page features rollover content for each of the areas, allowing you to get an overview of the products and services before making your selection. It also allows the marketing teams flexibility in terms of updating key information and new promotions in each individual area.

According to Google, 82% of site visitors use site search to find the information they need, so the new gateway includes a group wide search facility. This is the first time the Bank of Scotland has implemented a search facility that looks for products and services across all business areas of the organisation.

www.bankofscotland.co.uk

(Simon decided he wanted to work in Japan for a year, so we let him)

Average day

6:00am Wake up with intense bleary-eyed confusion and briefly try to figure out what country I'm in. It takes sufficiently long that I figure I must still be jet-lagged. After six months.

7:00am Wake up again. Fall out of the futon onto the floor – it's not a big drop, thankfully. Breakfast is last-night's leftover rice with green tea poured over it if I'm feeling particularly native, croissant and black coffee if I'm not.

8:00am The subway. Every stereotype is true, it turns out. The sardine can-like train cars, the men with white gloves squeezing more and more people onto an already over-crowded train, the bored commuters who've seen this a thousand times before. What you don't get from the photos of the Tokyo subway, though, is exactly how it feels to be so close to all these strangers. The Japanese have a similar stand-offish, distanced demeanour to the British in every circumstance except the subways. Best advice is to just concentrate on the overhead adverts playing on the on-train TVs and not think too hard about whether you're bracing yourself against a warm seat or an overweight salaryman.

A testament to how safe Tokyo is, though, is the fact that you never once worry about the wallet in your back pocket or leaving your bag open. It's a bit of an overstatement to say that there's no crime but when the central Lost and Found depot has a desk that deals solely with the ¥5,000 (£20) and ¥10,000 (£40) notes that are handed in every day, you know you're relatively secure.

9:00am Still on the subway.

9:30am The hardest thing to remember about living in Japan is – prepare for a surprising revelation – it's Japan. Now, this may seem blatantly obvious to anyone reading this but when you're sitting in Starbucks drinking a latte while the overly sweet smells waft in from Lush every time someone opens the door, watching cars drive past outside (on the left side of the road, no less), it's easy to forget. Then a buddhist monk walks past and you're brought back to reality.

10:00am Start work in the office. It's exactly the same as any other office anywhere else in the world except the vending machines carry nothing but green tea. Really, that's the only difference. Working at GMT+9 is turning out to be really handy. If we receive a set of amends in the Edinburgh office at 5.30pm, we don't need to stay late to get them finished, they just get sent over here and they're done by 9am.

12:00 noon Lunch for everyone except me. The standard lunch hour in Japan is 12:00-13:00. Or, more precisely, 12:00-12:10 and then everyone gets back to work quickly. I'm working slightly different hours so that the end of my day overlaps with the beginning of the day in the Edinburgh office so I don't break until 14:00.

2:00pm Lunch of onigiri (balls of rice stuffed with various things and wrapped in sheets of seaweed) and miso (fermented soy beans) soup. Very tasty.

6:00pm Working day starts in Edinburgh. We have team meetings weekly and I appear as a disembodied head and shoulders via the power of video conferencing. One day, I'm going to have to set up lights so I appear as a silhouette and start off with "Good morning, Angels."

6.30pm Start the commute back home. Even though I'm working slightly different hours to the average Tokyo salaryman, it's still rush hour. As far as I can tell, the morning rush runs 6am-12 noon and the evening rush is 12 noon-12 midnight. Then the trains stop for the night.

9.00pm Dinner (sushi) while watching TV. If you've ever seen Clive James or Chris Tarrant showing clips of insane Japanese TV programmes, you'll already be familiar with about 90% of the TV schedule. The rest is adverts for those same shows.

11:30pm Crawl into bed knowing I'll be waking up with the same continental confusion tomorrow morning.

5 handy tips for living in Japan

1: Buy a furoshiki (carrying cloth) and learn how to use it.
2: Don't blow your nose in public. No, really. Don't.
3: Buy a Pasmo pre-paid train card as soon as you arrive – it saves a lot of confusion over ticket fares. Also, they have a nice website
4: If you hear a bike bell ringing behind you, jump quickly out of the way.
5: If in doubt, smile and bow.

It goes without saying we love our partners, friends, family, adorable pets and, of course, our work – but what else in life do we love here at Whitespace? To celebrate our inclusion in the Top 100 design agencies outside London (to be featured in the forthcoming edition of The Drum) and Valentine's Day today, we decided to put together a list of our Top 100 favourite things. And boy was it tough.

• 100 Cuckoo clocks


• 99 Amelie (the film, the girl, the soundtrack)


• 98 Skegness


• 97 Mario


• 96 Watching someone open a present


• 95 Singing really loud


• 94 New York


• 93 Looking at old photo albums


• 92 Peter Kaye


• 91 Breasts


• 90 Bad puns


• 89 Wildlife documentaries


• 88 Listening to football phone-in shows on the radio


• 87 CSI (but not Miami)


• 86 Finding things in skips


• 85 Really powerful and noisy engines


• 84 Feeling nauseous due to a date


• 83 Throwing scrunched up pieces of paper and getting them in the bin


• 82 My Grandma's kneidelach


• 81 The lengthening of days towards summer


• 80 Sushi


• 79 Being the last person that people sit beside on the bus


• 78 Perfectly formed XHTML


• 77 Snow


• 76 Champagne


• 75 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' reruns on Dave


• 74 Pixar Movies


• 73 Surfing eBay in bed with the electric blanket on


• 72 Haggis, Neeps 'n' Tatties


• 71 Learning cool facts about history


• 70 Mum’s homemade lasagne


• 69 Being a geek


• 68 Kissing with tongues


• 67 Being a wedding guest


• 66 Making meaningless bets worth 50p


• 65 Ginger haired people


• 64 Squishing putty rubbers into squidgy shapes


• 63 Edinburgh at festival time


• 62 Soor plooms


• 61 The smell of petrol


• 60 The A-Team


• 59 Marmite


• 58 Playing table football


• 57 Getting my haircut


• 56 Drinking freshly ground Monsoon Malabar coffee


• 55 Trying to reach 1000 bounces on a pogo stick


• 54 Spike Milligan


• 53 Camper vans


• 52 The west coast of Scotland


• 51 Driving on empty roads


• 50 Kung Fu fighting


• 49 Hiding and making people jump


• 48 LOL Cats


• 47 The magic and wonder of our unknown future


• 46 Getting mail


• 45 The piano solo at the end of Underground by Ben Folds Five


• 44 High Fives


• 43 Garden sheds and workshops full of tools


• 42 Dipping Hob Nobs again and again


• 41 Being surrounded by lots of books


• 40 HP Sauce


• 39 Hot baths in candlelight


• 38 Laughing at stupid jokes


• 37 Taking photos


• 36 Four-day weeks


• 35 Trees & forests


• 34 Being on the top of a mountain


• 33 QI & Stephen Fry


• 32 Monty Python


• 31 Fresh tracks in virgin powder


• 30 Massages


• 29 Wearing kilts (and looking at men wearing kilts)


• 28 Travelling the world


• 27 People who smile


• 26 Discovering an amazing song months before everyone else does


• 25 Drinking water when really thirsty


• 24 Chocolate


• 23 Long lies


• 22 Flying above the clouds


• 21 Homer Simpson


• 20 Apple


• 19 Dancing silly


• 18 Reflex catching of objects


• 17 Bedroom sports


• 16 Sunrise


• 15 Fish and Chips


• 14 Not knowing (or caring) what day it is when on holiday


• 13 Laughing so much that you cry


• 12 Alfresco dining


• 11 Swimming in the sea


• 10 Riding my bike through MASSIVE puddles


• 9 Garden peas fresh from the pod


• 8 Log fires


• 7 Pints of iced cider on a warm afternoon


• 6 Doing things that I have never done before


• 5 A nice cup of tea


• 4 Toast and butter


• 3 The cold side of a pillow


• 2 Popping bubble wrap


• 1 Sunshine

Just over a year ago we asked, by way of celebrating our 10th birthday, friends, colleagues, clients, neighbours, in fact anybody who could put thoughts to paper, to supply a piece of art that represented something of their life and for every entry we would donate £2 to the Sick Kids.

Well, what can we say? It was a great success!

To all those that used their creative talents and provided a 10 x 10 for our Gallery, a big thank you – we love you! To those that didn’t – we forgive you!

Don, our Managing Director, is seen presenting Maureen Harrison, Director of the Sick Kids Friends Foundation, with a cheque for £500.

OK, so technically Burns Night has passed, but at Whitespace HQ we think the celebrations of Scotland should be year long, not just limited to the odd big night here and there. If you want to know a bit more about the great bard, have a look at this project, developed in partnership with the Leith Agency for The Scottish Government.

www.scotland.org/burns-night/interactive

We would also recommend a wee dram of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society's finest, www.smws.com, at the same time as promoting responsible drinking www.infoscotland.com/alcohol.

For all of those who don't know about this campaign, where have you been? And did you not get our Christmas card?

This year the Caring Christmas Trees campaign run by Bethany Christian Trust raised over £40,000 for the winter care shelter. This shelter helps homeless and vulnerable people who are desperately in need of care during the winter months. Whitespace are proud to be part of this project, you can register for next year at: www.caringchristmastrees.com.

As we are fast approaching eleven years old, it seems about time we gathered up all the entries received, reached into the Whitespace coffers and handed over the big cheque to The Sick Kids. However, before we do that, you have one last chance to enter online at www.whitespacers.com/weare10. For each submission (and those taken so far), we will now be giving £2 to The Sick Kids, hurry up, join in!

This year we took the Christmas party to the home of golf, sand yachting and Vegas style hotels. St Andrews was lucky enough to see the Whitespace team descend for a weekend of eating, drinking and dancing as well as an assortment of quad biking, spa treatments and some game with white balls and sticks. A big thank you to Carol and Danni for organising the weekend, I think it was smiles all round (apart from on the bus back)

*no beds were broken in the making of this year's Christmas party.

As part of the Scottish Government’s National Programme for Mental Health and Wellbeing a social networking BEBO page has been developed to promote positive mental health to young people.

After discussion with a young person’s mental health group, Whitespace were appointed by the National Programme to develop an animated character that young people can relate to and, in May 2006, funky 15-year-old Positive Pete was born.

To introduce Pete and his dog Patch, Whitespace developed a series of short films focused on promoting positive mental health using different everyday scenarios. The “Sleeping in” film looks at how listening to music can make you feel good. “The Date” film looks at the romantic dilemmas that can arise during teenage years and allows Pete’s friends on Bebo to vote for “The Date” that Pete should take Annie his new girlfriend on! Part II of The Date is coming very soon…

Digital Director at Whitespace Russell Stout said: “It was great to work with an organised group of young people like this and give them the tools to help get a positive mental wellbeing message out to their peers.”

Following client recommendation, Whitespace has been appointed without tender to handle all branding, marketing and online activity for leading UK training company Leaps and Bounds. Leaps and Bounds currently develop accelerated learning programs, targeting opportunities within large blue chip clients such as O2 and Scottish and Southern Energy to improve customer service and induction techniques. They are an ambitious and progressive company and they have a really strong business offer, which is not currently reflected in their marketing material.

Creative Director Iain Valentine said: “The Leaps and Bounds team are true examples of people living their brand, the enthusiasm and energy they emit is astounding”

Caroline Esterson Chair at Leaps and Bounds said “we were thrilled to be introduced to Whitespace. Through their stimulating questioning, they instinctively found our essence and have represented this visually and through language in our website and beyond. After years of searching they were the first company to do this and we look forward to continuing our dynamic work together.”

The website can be viewed at www.leaps-bounds.co.uk.

Harley Haddow the Consulting Engineers firm with offices throughout the UK has just launched a new identity and marketing materials designed by Whitespace. Whitespace were awarded the project following a written tender process against two other Scottish agencies, and were originally placed on the tender list following the 2006 success in the Drum Scottish Design Awards, which one of the key Harley Haddow partners attended. The project has included all branding, signage, marketing materials and website and was launched publicly on Friday 14th September.

Iain Valentine, Creative Director at whitespace said “The skill and effort which engineers contribute to projects is often overshadowed by what the architect's exterior looks like – the Harley Haddow brand identity, based on the two H’s reflects both the solid core and the crafted exterior”

Chris Mclaren, Partner at Harley Haddow said “working with Whitespace provided the right combination of professionalism and creative flair. They undertook a thorough review of what we do, who we are and who we work with and used this information to assist us with defining the way forward and providing a brand that will allow our business goals to be achieved.

The website can be viewed at: www.harleyhaddow.com

Following a competitive tender involving six Scottish based design agencies, Whitespace has won the account to handle all on and offline marketing material for Scotland’s biggest and most popular arts centre, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA). DCA opened in 1999 and has gained a world-class reputation for its programme of contemporary visual art and education as well as its printmaking studio, cinemas and Café/Bar.

Jan McTaggart, Head of Communications at DCA said “As a centre for contemporary visual culture it’s essential that we work with designers who can work collaboratively with us and offer us elegant solutions. So we’re delighted to be working with Whitespace.”

Whitespace Creative Director Iain Valentine said: “we are really happy to be working with DCA, the potential to engage creatively with a much wider audience both on and offline is huge”

Whitespace have already redeveloped the DCA logo and print and are about to start work on replacing the DCA website at www.dca.org.uk

Adding to the continued growth of the company, with new wins in recent weeks such as Zoom Airlines, Jenners Property, St Andrews University and Dundee Contemporary Arts, Whitespace are further strengthening their team with three new appointments.

Matt Weaver, previously with Republic and prior to that, Pure Design, joins as Senior Designer bringing 15 years of industry experience to an already established design team.

Andy Hamilton joins from 999 Design Group as Account Manager to bolster the Account Management team and last, but not least, Kelly Martin joins as Digital Artworker from Family.

Don Galloway, Managing Director, said “We have been looking for the right people to join our design and account management teams for nearly a year now - which has proved more difficult than we thought. These appointments come at an ideal time and we are pleased to have these talented individuals join us”.

This brings the total number of staff to 25, for the Edinburgh based independent creative agency founded in 1997.

Building on a long-term relationship with Russell Europe, Whitespace is set to launch a campaign focused on a new Vintage clothing range within the Jerzees Colours brand. Jerzees Colours is already established in the market as a funky, fashionable range and the Vintage garments will only further this. Targeting decorators and distributors and their customers, primarily across Northern and Southern Europe, the campaign will run in five languages and cover, branding, advertising, print, packaging, sample garments, promotional items and a flash website.

Kirsty Anderson, marketing manager at Jerzees Colours said “Vintage fabric is new to our industry, which created a two-pronged challenge. It was important for us to create a campaign which built a buzz in our industry, but equally we wanted to educate our customers; to help them understand what Vintage is all about, and what decoration techniques best suit the garments.”

“Initial market feedback to the campaign has been very positive – we’re very pleased with the finished products.”

Whitespace Creative Director Iain Valentine said: “This is an important range for Jerzees Colours and the creative across all media, is both market leading and a lot of fun!”

The website can be viewed at www.jerzeescolours.com/vintage.

Whitespace is set to propel itself into the design/fashion retail environment with the naming, branding and design of all marketing materials for a new retail company in Edinburgh, Moleta Munro. Launched in early May, Moleta Munro offer an exclusive range of designer homeware, furniture and soft furnishings. The new company is the brain child of husband and wife team Justin Baddon and Juliet Moleta, who have swapped life in the big smoke for a dual existence between Skye and Edinburgh.

Iain Valentine, Creative Director said, “Juliet and Justin have great taste and a really graphic style – I am sure the design community will be amongst some of their first customers”.

The website can be viewed at www.moletamunro.com

Whitespace have recently completed the website for Belhaven Pubs.

The site features complete listings of pubs available to lease and manage, and a subscribe system which allows people to automatically receive very specific information based on their search criteria via email.

The website can be viewed at: www.belhavenpubs.co.uk

Whitespace has just completed all campaign material for the launch of Indiana Gregg’s new album Woman at Work. Working closely with Indy herself and distinguished music producer Ian Morrow (Wet,Wet,Wet and Seal). Whitespace were asked to design the album and single artwork, flash website, bespoke myspace page and advertising, including tube posters and online rich media banners. The website features a timeline in flash which documents the artist’s life and inspiration stateside.

Whitespace Creative Director, Iain Valentine said: “this project combines our creative and technical skills perfectly, adding to our music industry credentials”

The website can be viewed at www.indianagregg.com.