So, what do we do?

John interprets us. (John works at Droga5 so I'm figuring he's pretty good at this stuff)  

Maybelline M:Edition

Wow. Around a year ago we pitched a big idea into a potential new client. It was ambitious, it drew upon all of our cumulative skills and the outcome is the biggest piece of work we've ever undertaken - while the reader (you) might only see a digital magazine delivered to where you are, in a format friendly to where you are, and with a great range of researched, beautifully prepared, relevant words, pictures and film. Well, it's actually a whole lot more than that. From the agencies' and our clients' perspective, this is a platform to take a brand forward boldly into a future of fulltime engagement. It's adaptable, readable, interactive, shareable, regular and expandable. It's M:Edition. Thank you Jo, Stormy, T, Al, Z, Cassie, Nat, Lauren, Cath, Mads, Wil, Jack, Paul, Josh and of course our friends over at Ortolan. (Big moment, take a look).  

  A Bit Liked  Melbourne Startup Weekend - Good luck to all those participating in this weekends efforts, a couple of us were going to join but due to exhaustion. MMmule– A site that allows you to get anything you want from anywhere in the world by rewarding a traveller for delivering it. Source Map – Track where things come from, from the start to end of production process. A Bit Learned If you have become semi popular in YouTube you could go to the Olympics in London for free We're not the only ones thinking Australia could do with a kick in the bum in digital advertising.

We're royally happy in the studio to be celebrating the long weekend, have a good one. A Bit Liked  The Bazaar - A marketplace to buy and sell creative objects. Presented nicely in a the oh-so-hip style of Pinterest. Terrible Twos - Our very own designer Jack Fowler collaborated with SouthSouth West in the Desktop curated exhibition Terrible Twos. We went down to celebrate his achievement on Thursday night at No Vacancy gallery, where all the work was being auctioned off for charity. Well done Jack! Smile - Perfect holiday, by Karim Rejeb - A cute, happy stop-motion video that just works. The new Foursquare - Let's face it the location-based app needed an overhaul, dying numbers and other apps encroaching on their territory. Luckily the guys didn't lie down and take it they've come back bigger and better. There's discovering things about your city, timeline-esque layouts and more. A Bit Learned Sometimes people do have exactly the same train of thought as you... Linked in could well be the 2nd most popular social network in Australia. We really really do want a mini-pig. 32 innovations on their way.        

It's that time of the week again - happy weekend everyone. A Bit Liked Fujitsu Labs Colour Frame app -  An app that monitors the users skin condition over time, enabling them to assess how well that skincare regime they've been adhering to so strictly (uh huh) is really working out, we think this could be extended in some really smart ways. Coke's Stretchy Hand - A bit gimmicky but some nostalgic fun nonetheless. Always interesting to know about when big brands invest money into this kind of thing. 12 Things Inspired by Avengers - We haven't seen the movie yet (speaking of which we will only be watching movies in the most amazing cinema experience in the world from now on) but the blockbuster comic/ film series has inspired all-sorts from awesome nail art to wacky eye make up and cool looking lamps. We love the idea of taking inspiration from something and applying it to your own style. Anytouch - We damn near freaked out when we saw this, turn any object into an interactive experience, just watch! Instagram Camera - A real life Instagram camera, so covetable. This design has been floating around for a bit but now the Italian designer that came up with it has it up on indie-gogo for funding! Contribute so it gets made for real and we can all get one (thanks Dani) A Bit Learned 

• Having lots of money really doesn't make you any nicer.
• Applying every Instagram filter to your photo gets you this.
• Sailor Jerry (the tattooist) was a crazy but creative old codger and Sailor Jerry's (the Rum) tastes quite nice with Appeltiser. Thanks for the party, Sailor Jerry's and Curious Film.
• About some more companies tapping into the Quantified Self Movement we have been fascinated with for the past 6 months and why some people are totally against it.

  Welcome to the start of what will become regular weekly updates on all the ideas, launches, products and info that have kept us going in the studio as winter firmly sets in. A Bit Liked Aherk - A goal setting service by which you blackmail yourself with compromising images. You set your goal and deadline - if you don't achieve it Aherk will upload said picture to your facebook - thus humiliating you. Genius. Schemer - 'You're looking diabolical' - so said schemer when we logged in...It's a site built for discovering what happenings are kicking off in your area, but it's got quite a neat little interface and if you really like being active and doing stuff it's useful for making your own  schemer lists. Indcredible Things - A nice blog for discovering unique bits and bobs. We especially like their focus on Incredible Pinterest Boards. House Beautiful's Pinabble Issue - Making it easy to Pin straight from a magazine House Beautiful have created Pinabble content in their issues through an app. Linking the physical to the virtual has become more recognised as one of the most compelling ways to engage people let's see if this one takes off. A Bit Learned

• Chrome has overtaken IE as the world's most used browser - much to our (and we're sure many other digital agencies) delight the first nail in IE's coffin has been hammered in and with any luck this will be the tipping point for Chrome to become standard.
• We're just as smart as all those trend forecasters out there.
• Optical illusions are not dead.
• Life is much easier with Apollo, a dare-we-say-it Basecamp killer.
• Sometimes to create the loudest noise you don't need the loudest branding.

Eyeprecise

Big Thanks to Hugh Peachey, Sarah Hankinson, El Ruby and Nigel - we did this for the launch of Master Precise. It's a totally Flash Free Drawing toool, and we think (?) that it's one of the best ever - no skips, totally tablet friendly, smooth and true - especially with a stylus. What do you think:  play here?

ABLTMNYMBAFW

Latest Campaign for MNY is the 5 day all over everything coverage for MBFWA - this is the New Black. Jo, Lucia and the ladies from the Edit are all in updating daily, hourly and by the minute in facebook, tumblr, instagram ++++++ Check it out here, here and here.  

What makes a good, relevant API?

At Future 15 session. 8 things that make an API great. Vc fund REST Json API billionaires Hackathons OAuth Interactive documentation Invisible mashups

Mashable: the paper

And so it begins

Sxsw officially begins today and so jetlagged like crazy we made our way down to the Austin Convention Centre to register and pick up our badges. On arrival we found a HUGE line snaking its way around the halls of the centre. To put that in some kind of perspective- the convention centre is Texas big, meaning it's about the size of Melbourne itself. As far as I know SXSW don't put a cap on how many badges they sell meaning anyone that wants to come and has the $ can...judging by the size of it, perhaps it's time for a rethink of that.

SXSW

Hauling my geeky self off to Austin, Texas later today for the massive SXSW - expect insights into digital goodness and random amazingness from the Lone Star!

Drawing

Fresh from the West Melbourne team, Sarah Hankinson, Nigel Stanislaus and Ruby Rose for Maybelline. - EyePrecise. It's actually very much like the real thing.

Maybelline Babylips

byJoost part 2

It's always a challenge delivering good things for great people. We've been working hard to develop an online presence for byjoost for the past few months with a view to what might come as much as representing all that has been. it's tricky, but it's working - archives, whats new, online store launching in a few weeks, developing areas of a business and a suite of restaurants all combine into a neat, simple workable thing.   And thats what we're calling it. a thing for Joost, by Abitlikethis.

Maybelline Superstay

The Up and Down of 2011

It's a big person who's willing to embrace failures - and when there's been so much more success its especially so. Thankyou everyone who's been part of Ablt this year - everyone. It's been an amazing period of growth and I'm looking forward to the next phase of consolidation when we can all look at the finger posts passed and be even better. Tcx

MNY AU & NZ CRM

Our best case study is this one. Maybelline. This we live and breathe. Updates hourly, Daily Weekly and monthly, with all channels working together to deliver the brands news, conversation, content and launches to where the audience is, rather than expecting everyone to arrive at a website.  And, clearly social isn't just a facebook page - there's different strokes for different folks and it's changing all the time - making sure the message gets to people where they are, when they are is paramount. We see all of these channels as a big single ongoing CRM project, we manage them everyday, and they work. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaybellineAU https://www.facebook.com/MaybellineNZ  Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/maybellineAU Twitter: http://twitter.com/mnyau Instagram: http://instagrid.me/mnyau/ Tumblr: http://mnyau.tumblr.com/ Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/mnyau/

RUSSELL&GEORGE – RYAN RUSSELL

Part three completes the trilogy. RyanRussell.com.au is now online. This being the third project to be serviced from the core platform that is Russell&George serving up delights for Byron George & Russell&George and their adventures in architecture. Well done people.  

in case you were wondering

We've gone to the pub. Too hot. No aircon. Fans just don't cut through the humidity

By Joost

Stage 1 live. We're working through a project for our friends at byJoost and (were proud to say) the first incantation is live. Of course there's always more to come, and in the spirit of sustainability we'll use what we've done to bring new content, ideas and words from a project we support in spades. Thanks T, Al, Wil, Stormy, Ayu & Z.

banner+aid for East Africa and Oxfam

Yo. This shit is real. We've been quietly updating banner+aid to support the big issues around the globe, the latest for us is this big problem over there in East Africa. It's crazy, these insane numbers of folk who could do with anything. Oxfam is doing a good thing and we'd like to support them in what their doing to help. While Hans is real, the banner above is merely an example of a banner -and any banner in any format can take it's place. Advertisers, clients, media folk get in, use this. tcx

Feeling like a statement needs making

Via fffound.com via blog.howdesign.com/

Account Director / Creative Director

Has this been done?



By Rhys.

Russell&George – Byron George

Part two of the three now online. Byron George launched to much fanfare - the site uses a really smart little shared build of WordPress to deliver content to both this site and to the shared Russell&George showcase site. The content is shared as defined by the guys, the formatting is specific to each architects style (and whim) so, whilst in R&G there's a collective approach to formatting - each architect is defined with either a black or white theme, take a look it's pretty neat.  

We won something.

Friday night saw the annual MADC show and whilst there wasn't any food on offer (reportedly), there was a silver in Best Community Service/Charity Digital for BannerAid. This is Rhys and Warren picking it up looking all happy, and scared at the same time. We've got a post about it here: This was the submission vid, that tells more than I can write - it's got moving pictures etc..  

Maybelline EyeStudio

Maybelline FitMe

GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES

Whoever said good things come in twos was lying like a rug. From left to right, please give a warm n' fuzzy welcome to... Jo, our new Head of Content for Maybelline New York. Creative story teller and former features director at Cleo Mag, Jo recently returned to balmy Melbourne after writing & styling her way around Sydney the last few years. Jack, our man in the middle/Junior Designer/groover will be part of the team for the next 12 months from Swinburne's IP program. And to the right we have Zia. Our new Senior Digi Producer from the UK. She has an amazing collection of one-sies. We love her. Our master plan is working... (evil laugh).

Russell&George: a project for the ages

This finally went live. That makes us pretty happy. A labour of love, one of 3 parts now up and running. 2 to go: a dedicated Ryan Russell, and a dedicated Byron George property coming when they get here. See the full site here.    

Via RG/A, Glue and bannerblog

The latest arrival post the chairs, machines of work, Hans' coffee shop and Teresa, Al, and Rhys is Hamish McD as partner and fulltime CD fresh out of the uk digi-scene. Hello geezer.   Bam! This is getting interesting. (And yes we still need folk - see below there a few posts back).

A thousand or five

We did this. Yes, we're responsible (in a big part) for this. And we love it. We did it for Right Angle with Karl and Craig. Thanks to our team Stormboy, Eski, Alex, Benji, Wil, Nat, Dani, Katya, Simone, Rob, Ben, Ben, Hamish & Katie. With a special ones to Nadia, Rachel, Barrie, Chris and Frunch. I'd expect that, not unlike a doting mum welcoming back their now mid- teens daughter complete with ink and holes from exchange over in iceland/germany/scotland there's a few oh dears, and ums. And, we'd also expect that over a short period of time the new/faster/better cataloguing, sorting, finding, editing and other fun features will settle and the whole experience of the thousands will remain the park where all the cool kids come to play. Like, no-one ever grows up?  

On paper…

Vogue living, jul-aug p.112 x

MAYBE SHE’S BORN WITH IT

On Tuesday afternoon the team here at ABLT received the awesomely incredible news that we scooped Maybelline New York’s digital advertising account following a competitive pitch against three of Melbourne’s bigger digi shops. To say there were a few tenderloins in the studio Wednesday morning is a bit of an understatement! Such exciting times ahead! (Full press release available here)

Melbourne’s CBD gets a hip new neighbour

And the good news keeps rolling in... ABLT has been engaged to design a new site and CMS build for an exciting new project by Vic Urban and MEFL. Due for completion in July, 'The Nicholson' is a new style of urban village situated in East Coburg. All you greenies watch this space as it's set to break new ground rules in environmental and sustainability principles.

soho’s new kid on the block

Since opening their doors in Autumn 2010, Tilley & Charmichael have fast become Soho's go-to hairdressing salon for the British celeb. They needed a sexy and playful new site & logo and we were more than happy to oblige. Cheers to Will in the studio for pushing this one through. Pass the shabbly, oh sweetie darling!

Who’s in?

We need seats for bottoms, always have. We're about to order some nice new chairs to replace the motley lot we've acquired over the past 2 very busy years. As a result of this we need bottoms - or even better, peoples. We need Smart suits, Producers, Creatives, Designers and Dev's of all levels. Not for all the time necessarily, but at least for some and maybe more. Send us an email , hit us up on the fbook, tweet tc @tobiec or if you're oldskool call 8644 2663 Who's in?  

byo marshmallows

Tobes has done a stellar job installing our new wood fire. The studio smells like redgum and is super toasty. Reminds me of winter at nan's house in country NSW, but without that mothball smell (bless). Everyone's invited over for a cup of cocoa!

nom nom nom

Quick one: We've just launched this for Sam at Savour&Grace. It's about food and we love food. Design by LangdonLorraine, built by us.  

IAB runner up

Banner+Aid's done quite well. We've just found out this morning that it collected 2nd place in IAB's Creative Showcase awards behind Droga's Cascade - Brewed by Feel.  Good on us I say - especially to the time Rhys and Stormboy put in to getting it up and running - and Russ Tucker and the guys at Tequila for their enthusiasm and ideas. Funny what an idea can do, rather than a big budget. This is a free project - one for others.  

iiNet is No.2!

From the start of 2011, iiNet has been recognised as the nations number 2 supplier of fast broadband. To celebrate this we delivered a holistic approach to the web presence, the online banner campaign and the social properties. We designed and built a qualifying site with social specialness; like being able to view your own 2nds, the Second Opinion generator & rating great (2nd) cover songs. The banners included video of Finn and had some No.2 factoids. The site has hundreds of likes & we are super-pumped and very proud to be part of iiNet's biggest campaign to date. Bravo and thanks iiNet.

Country Road: The Movie

After careful negotiation with the Chinese Consulate we're proud to announce youtube/countryroad is live - playing the latest in beautiful product films, behind the scenes insights and historical archives. Thanks T.

DIGITAL KARMA

Over the past 24 hours we’ve come up with one hellava sweet, uber simple and cost free way for the online community to get behind the Red Cross and help them support those affected by the Japanese Quake and Pacific Tsunami. Banner+Aid is a not-for-profit messaging tool that enables flash banners to be labeled with a special corner that expands to reveal messages for charity. It's a perfect way for worthy causes to piggyback on paid for media without cost and a way for business and media buying companies to show support for people in need! Check it out below and help spread the word guys. banneraid.net (click here for the full press release)

patro macro

GoodfishBadfish

Our friends Beth and Oli asked us to design & build a site so they could raise awareness about sustainable seafood. Making the right choice for you're menu is easy with the seafood converter: It shows you whether you choice is a good fish or a bad fish. The site has proven pretty popular and they've got over 170 likes & a nice write-up in Melbourne's Broadsheet already. Good Site for a great cause.

INTRODUCING…

here kitty kitty

Tobes & Fu and their adoring fan base at Cute Boys with Cats. Meow.

Lee Rogers: A director

Top Aussie director Lee Roger's site has gone live. We love this site - its a great showcase of Lee's world-class work. The site uses Vimeo videos as the basis of the work with information panels describing the work & other bits & pieces of info. It's iPad friendly too.  

Pringles Facebook App

The Pringles Island promotion allows you to set sail with 9 mates to Pringles Island to party with The Aston Shuffle, Juggernaut DJs, Ajax and Bang Gang Deejays. We built the flash app to sit in facebook & it gained a whopping 1,300 submissions. With our friends at Right Angle the promotion was indelibly a success.

Plumen

Nik. here are some shots of your beautiful bulb insitu in West Melbourne. Love Tobie.

Nerd Out

k. So We've been doing a few Joomla builds of late (ubabub, Magnetic, Impact Digital - check 'em out) and as diligent as we are, we like to add a touch of the niceness to the CMS as a finish. Sure, i'm not talking full styling (thats extra) but there's a neat little trick that I fucked myself over so much trying to setup and then had to re-discover once we'd get a request to add a feature to said CMS. I think it only exists in about 2 places in the whole world, so this would make it 3 (50% better): To add an icon into the Joomla CMS default Control Panel edit this file: siteURL.com\administrator\modules\mod_quickicon\mod_quickicon.php The code to edit  the reference and label and call is: $link = 'index2.php?option=com_media'; quickiconButton( $link, 'mediamanager.png', 'Media Manager' ); You can add as many as you like as well... Make sure your replacement icons are here (any size you like 60x60 is pretty close to standard): siteURL/administrator/templates/khepri/images/header/manusers.png And a picture of how it looks: (Thank me later, I know I will)

New Year. New people needed.

Producer, Project Manager, Activator, Do-er. Designer, Animator, Make-er. Coder, CSS-er, Solve-er. Creative, Technologist, Writer, Art Director, think-er. Part time, Contract, Soon-er. email us here.

More. cards.

(ronzo)

(lieu)

Xmas cards

Finally. And for xmas. A little gift from the lovely people at Studio On Fire. They're beautiful, thick and red lovingly letter pressed. If anyone would like one (only), email us at talk@abitlikethis.com and we'll snail them across - or even better drop by and we give you one for free. Here's some extreme closeups (note the red edge - seriously, we got the edges printed. Like amazing... :)

Cheers

With everything going on and a small team of busy beavers we've not really had time to do a card/email/email/call/party for the holidays. Instead, here's a pic of a snowflake. In Sydney. In Summer. For real. Russ popped to visit on Saturday and was talki=ng us through it - a bubble foam filled with helium and fed through a cookie cutter then sliced off and set free. The stunt was for RaboDirect, run by Russ @ Tequila in Circular Quay. Bubbles by http://www.flogos.com.au/ (floating logos geddit?) Happy holidays.

We’ve arrived in the West

After nearly 4 weeks we're finally in our new studio. With huge efforts by Tobie in painting, installing kitchens & what-not and help from friends on weekends and after dark we've made it; we're here. Obviously, with these things there's a bit to organise to feel fully at home, but it's unanimous - the feel here is nothing short of amazing. The space, the aura (if I can say that) & personality of the place has to be experienced. Come by some time - we're looking forward to some visitors.

Painting. One day. All done.

Lex Stobie served

Lex's furniture design is simply stunning. Some of the most beautiful wood furniture ever. We built the simple, elegant site in WordPress & the simple transitions make it a pleasure to peruse. We designed & created the site a little while back & it's recently been featured on Industrial Design Served. Nice.

New digs, new beginnings

umbro chants

We built this iphone app with UK outfit Anomoly for Umbro. Join the chorus of your favourite team by recording your message. Then play it back to hear the chant. Simple, clever & fun.

fbStatus – Our first Jquery plugin

Just completed our first Jquery plugin. Often we need to display a clients facebook status on a project and while there's a great Jquery plugin for Twitter that does this called Tweet there isn't anything for Facebook. Inspired by the code written by Pretty Klicks we wrote a simple little plugin called fbStatus. Plans in the next revision will be to more of the features found it Tweet. Get your hand's on it at the Jquery repository, see it running here or fork it on Github.

Villainous

Something is brewing...

delicious dotti

We were asked by Dotti to create some banners for their upcoming campaign. The result are these cute flash banners that show the brand values of being young, fashionable and energetic.  

Congrats Max

We had a chat & a glass of wine with Max Robinson on Monday. Max is a statesman & stalwart of the Australian Graphic Design industry & has recently been inducted into the AGDA Hall of Fame. He also happens to be a really lovely guy and an inspiring man. You would have seen at least one piece of his work, he designed the 10 dollar note. Generally his style is bold, geometric, colourful & confident. It reminds me a bit of Paul Rand. This style seems to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance. American Express are doing a bit of it here in oz & OPSM seem to be giving a hat tip to Rand & Milton Glaser in their recent rebrand. I'm happy to see some of this simplicity & clarity return. After hi-cal glossy gradients & layered, sickly sweet nothingness, it's nice to get some substance. I digress. It was greet to meet Max & we wish him a super-sized congratulations on his recent honour.

Ronzo: Crunchy

Impact Digital give a pixel

We've just completed the design & build of the new Impact Digital printers site for our friends at LangdonLorraine. They care about the environment and are carbon neutral, which is good news for your next print run & the planet. Impact have the tagline "we give a pixel" & if you have look through the site you'll see that we do to. It's simple, clean and pixel perfect.  

Our friend Nik: Plumen

Plumen = Amazing. From the makers inventors of (the) Hulger

We miss you Teresa

Ubabub

When the lovely crew at Magnetic Design asked us to build their Ubabub site we were rapt. A pretty sophisticated site with a clever Joomla back-end. We made the gorgeous site & customised the publishing side of things to make it uber easy to maintain. Yay!

WHAT’S THAT SENATOR?

The Conroy Filter is another little self-initial project by the team here at the studio. We built it for Senator Conroy, it scans Twitter and replaces all the rude words (you know which ones) with words like 'kittens', 'strudel' and 'bubbles'. It's like the normal twitter, but squeaky clean. (Possum it up your Babychino!)

Hecho en Mexico

We've just pushed a little job live today, it's a baby one -  a little contra jobby. Mandy at Amor y Locura has exclusive access to these amazing classic Bogart-with-cigar-Margarita-in-hand range of super comfy chairs available online here at her new buy from the page because big cartel didn't work website. It's amazing what the offer of free supercool furniture will do for people. Hugh takes some photos, Tobie mixes up a quick layout,  Benji rolls out a WP template, Alex ties up a quick calcuation in Javascript and Roberto's your Tío.

We’re claiming it as a win for abitlikethis

Friday night at the MADC awards saw us claim the first cast in steel with a shimmy of bronze "award" for us here at a bit like this for everysecond.betfair.com in the best website category -  Yay yay fkn yay. I say "claim" as technically the award was for M&C Saatchi, however I can assure all folk that indeed the awards protagonists were in fact Tobie C for Creative Direction and Conceptual Dev consulting at M&C, Design and refinement AJ Lawang with Greg Fiske (in house at M&C) and two ABLT-esque gentlemen Rhys Sullivan (with a bit of Jemi) for the programming. And here it is: Therefore and with good reason we're claiming it a bit, which makes us all a bit happy. Full list of the nights recipients here: http://www.madc.com.au/public_site/img/art/2010-MADC-Awards-results.pdf

Yay – Live work

Banner ads can be beautiful. We've been working through some ads for Country Road and it's Trenery brand - they're live here today (28th August) with our ladyfriends at ortolan: Nice job jemi.

via Mr Smith

Ryan sent this - he's at moreofthesame.com

nextdoor and sprouts

Now that we've done this: for our Northcote sisters at Next Door Diner we get some free meals, like green eggs and ham (pork cheek, soft egg, green sauce and toast) Simple yet effective,  very satisfying and a wonderfully good place to eat.

i like stamps.

Walked into a wonderful surprise yesterday evening - a little boxed up package with 4 first class stamps, containing: So much fun - already i stamped with LIKE: - myself for self assurance (no.. on the 'hand') - annelise's notepad (she has good ideas) - amanda's letter so when she opened it it wouldn't be a bill or something - John's desk just because he's a good guy - & Fu And with dislike: - the ugly suspension notice from  t e l s t r a (k&*&nts) - The grapefruit I tried to east for breakfast. Even thinking about going back to snailmail for invoicing just so I can add that hand crafted personal touch to each bill. Because I LIKE billing. via: NATION [uk]

Portfolio coming very very soon

Just a heads up is all.

Stormboy

We're working through a large project for one of our bigger clients out of UK - it's quite a complicated private app & Stormboy's been building it from the ground up... Here's what he sent about today as to an update on work completed so far.

172 classes 1,395 methods 15,664 lines of code

Red Bull Music Academy

Futureme.Org five years later

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on Friday, September 30, 2005, and sent via FutureMe.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dear FutureMe, How you doin? you just had lunch with sedonia - in brick lane and will be having dinner with charlotte and her father karl this evening at St johns bread and wine. London is treating you well, it's a little wet outside but generally pretty good . You are 31 and short of cash - but i guess it's always like that right? Hope this finds you well, Tobie. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - like hearing from your past? please consider a donation of $1/year: http://futureme.org/donations/ (amazon or paypal accepted) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Today & what we like

This: http://www.whitevinyldesign.com/solarbeat/

Bring it on – part 2

So what is it we do, now/today, @Abitlikethis? All the things we wanted to be doing which is lots, and lots of different things. Things like all the standard stuff and things yet to be. Digital things mostly. Things like big content driven websites, learning portals, small visual folio sites, Banners & specialized never before seen tools to make your own, E-Marketing bits, games, thinking and playing. Social things, things which engage and connect. The things that you wanna get up in the morning for as a provider and consumer. At our core we are a creative agency who understand how it all works & who to work with to get it done. We've removed the expensive parts like account management to leave the decision making to the real decision makers - so all of us can work directly with the thinkers and do-ers to cut out any translation errors. Here it is in pictures, as a previous post: http://www.abitlikethis.com/?p=189 And fortunately, we know the best of them about. Overall the next 12 months will see us here at Abitlikethis providing the latest digital planning and strategies to clients who are looking to embrace that rampat & fickle digital audience, and delivering cutting edge ideas and exectutions within to that audience be it through online, mobile, iTV, Gaming or outdoor and other. Why not come with us?

Bring it on.

After the first year of wayfinding, things are falling happily into place here at the Blackfactory for all of us at Abitlikethis. With over 30 pieces of work produced - both big and small, and for both local and global clients, by a team of 10+ lovely and talented individuals we can look back and say “as bad as '09 was, there were some good bits poking through”. What were the highlights then? Well there was some lovely little folio sites for old friends, some big builds for new friends (if you can call a film studio, a financial institute, orthodontists or a University a friend - and yep, we do), a never before seen “bannerator” plus plus plus. We won’t dwell on lowlights, needless to say to make an omelette eggs get broken, sometimes. Bring on 10 - the year of the tiger, and that just suits me fine.

We love PR

... and we love wordpress too Sammy's Vintage posters site: http://welovewp.com/ haha!

A logo perhaps… #1

I was a little bored up until 5 or so weeks ago, and trying to design your own logo (just looking at options) is, well, hard. So I threw it out to my hardworking and super busy peers - "If anyones got 10 mins to spare and felt like throwing down an "a bit like this"  onto a sheet or AI file, I'd be most gracious" and here's some of what came back via Ryan @ moreofthesame.com And next week, JB & Mike

project Launch: Vintage Posters Only

Hey hey, we've just finished a project for the poster king - Sam Johnston, of  Vintage Posters Only in Armadale, down here in Melbourne town. It's a twist on the traditional blog backend, Benji (working has magic all over the place) turned out another masterpiece. If you like your wall art, take a look there's sooooo many posters it's crazy, and with special scrolling features it's a piece of cake to use.

What we do #2: Who does it, sort of

I'll begin by crediting Andy, Pat and Martin o'er at Workclub for the "approach" - because i know they'd appreciate that, our is a little more angular perhaps... The chart above is a view to what we can do and do do here from hq at the Blackfactory. It includes the other guys in the studio outside of us at a bit like this, and i just think it's lovely that all tehse wonderfully talented folk are about and available. I left out project managers, and producers because that a part of everything we do and is sometimes/mostly/all-the-time covered by those in the chart - we add it to estimates in case you'd need a breakdown anyhow. So if you think you might need any of that, then we're right here. Lovely. oh, and if you're into segmenting and simplifying here's a key (colour = type):

What's news?

All sorts of things really & listed in order: 1. Big project going live in a few weeks for "that" client, although unless you're into insurance &/or finance you might not ever get to, oh well. 2. Lost of smaller Hugh-like projects rolling out. Many thanks to Benji (he'son the right there >>) 3. There's a couple of juicy projects coming out of the UK as well, so thats very very exciting... ...and if with a bit of luck 4. we may well be looking at more bums on seats in here at the Blackfactory. So if anyone is interested in working on fun and super interesting projects like none other you've ever seen before then email me (tobie@abitlikethis.com) and we'll see what we can do about most of that promise. tc

Hugh Peachey Photography: Live

We've just launched a new site for Hugh Peachey Photography. Hugh does good work - so it's very exciting. It's modest yet functional, it's about the photography after all, built on the wordpress framework. Many thanks to Benji for the build and smart use of Java-tech to keep it all looking swanky, and to Hugh for keeping it simple and clear. Lovely - now we celebrate.

The BlackFactory

It's where we're based. It's Hugh Peachey's studio, lovingly built from the ruins of an old wine factory on Beavers Road in Northcote here in Melbourne. And now it has a logo. And a life over here too.

Acoustic Thursday

Lee's travelling today so I'm indulging myself in a little acoustic-ish pleasure, hoping it might keep me warm in a heartfelt kind of way. So far it's the slow ones, lonely music I guess. And working to something a little more substantial. And so the rest of the day is Blues, Blues Blues - many of which I can't find on last FM They sound super amazing on my new Grado's

Studio – beta mk II

We're slowly setting up. Got a new shelf and cabinet - it's a bit like having a new bedroom to move into after your sister went to uni. Here's some close-ups:

Tobie got a new chair

Those white replica Herman Miller Eames Molded Plastic Chairs are super, but they make your ass sore after about an hour. I've upgraded to another Eames "replica" - the Padded Management Chair - and I have to say it's pretty good: I did go and cost out the original, fair play and all that: but the price was the big factor - high side of $3000 AU, the replica (with an additional gas lift and in good quality italian leather) a mere $640 AU including delivery. You can get them from life interiors.

Ford engagement: Mondeo "rain"

A favorite piece from my stint at Wunderman, and the funnily enough - the first. We launched 3 engagement pieces (again to service the wisdom of our media agency...). There's another of the series here: Ford Engagement: Mondeo "light"

BP Ultimate: Film Banner #1

Film based banner (part of series) promoting BP's Ultimate Fuel brand. Built in conjunction with boffswana down in South Melbourne. Unfortunately with a lot of these (my [tc]) Australian work of last year in particular projects is that there's a culture of buy the media, then come up with an idea, then make it. I'm not complaining so much as being straight up about the approach to digital "advertising" here, certainly how it was approached by the agencies I've worked with since I shifted back to Melbourne. I should tell you about the "other" idea's we presented and let you judge yourself, but I'm not supposed to... ..I could if you wanted to come over Northcote way for a nice latte - yes, IN the studio. We've got a big areed, old skool La Cimbali which just happens to be red as well. Some others in the series: The original conceptual approach. Film Banner #2 We'd started out with "Performance" as the key communication - shown here as a split screen sequence, then petrol prices went way up, and well the key comm changed to "Economy" -so the split didn't really make sense any longer. Either way we'd allocated budget and had to manage so we did. sigh. Film Banner #3 Expandable portion of engagement piece #1:Wheel Expandable portion of engagement piece #2:Footy