whitespace - space for thought

Working with NHS Health Scotland and The Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives, Whitespace have created a virtual ‘one-stop-shop’ for people seeking information about Healthy Working Lives’ services.

Whitespace not only generated the content for the site, including top tips and facts, but also developed flash animations of silhouettes that walk on stage and interact with the content whilst keeping the site totally accessible.

Already a pretty healthy organisation, Whitespace have decided to get on board with the Healthy Working Lives Award Programme, aiming for Bronze level accreditation.

One of the questions Healthy Working Lives asked was, ‘do you promote healthy eating?’ and the answer was, ‘probably not’.

It was suggested we could have bowls of fruit and we thought, that’s not such a stupid idea. Now, Whitespacers have the choice to snack on healthy fruit, rather than chocolate bars and crisps.

For overall health, lunchtime exercise is on the menu, and for healthy backs, the company has invested in high-quality chairs.

Find out more about how to create a healthy workplace at: www.healthyworkinglives.com

Of the 300 women who are diagnosed with Cervical Cancer each year in Scotland, 100 lose their lives.

The Healthier Scotland immunisation drive will lead the way in protecting girls from the virus which causes cervical cancer. The injections will guard against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is the primary trigger of the disease.

The NHS Health Scotland website, created and designed by Whitespace, aims to get the message out to young girls and parents that immunisation can save lives.

Working with DCA, Whitespace have developed all print promotion material for Discovery, Scotland's International Film Festival for Children & Young People. The festival showcases films from across the world, suitable for children as young as five, all the way up to us big kids! We commissioned illustrator Leigh Pearson (www.thunderheart.co.uk), and combined this with typography to produce festival guides, posters and programme guides. The project builds on our work with DCA, we are very close to launching the new website for this world-class arts centre.

For more on the festival visit: www.discoveryfilmfestival.org.uk

5 July 2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the NHS.

Working with the Scottish Government, Whitespace have just finished a website celebrating 60 years of progress and leadership in the field of medicine and healthcare in the NHS.

This website takes you on a historic journey showing how the NHS in Scotland has developed over the years. Take a trip through time to see how it has touched the lives of each and every one of us.

Discover the historical and sometimes bizarre NHS and medical facts from the past, for example, ‘burying three-quart jugs of a patient’s urine was once regarded as a cure for kidney disease’. Thank goodness for modern medicine.

Celebrating 60 years of the NHS in Scotland

It takes around 150 puppets to make a Jerzees Colours Original hoody. Cruel? In a word, yes. But the incredible softness will soon make you forget all that.

Whitespace – teaming up once again with Russell Europe, one of Europe's leading suppliers of undecorated apparel (that’s clothes with nothing printed or embroidered on them) – came up with a unique way to get samples of their specially softened cotton jerseys into the hands of their distributors – finger puppets.

Have a look at the cute critters being pursued for their pelts at www.feeloriginal.com.

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 completed all marketing materials for a new 500,000 sq ft development at Newbridge in Edinburgh, on behalf of Paradigm.

The site named AXIS will become one of Scotland's premier business locations served by two new hotels and proposed retail facilities. Whitespace have been involved in all aspects of the project from initial name generation, branding, on-site signage, brochure and website.

Visit www.axis-edinburgh.com

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.