Calling All Talented Types

Number 13 is unlucky for some, but such superstitions don’t apply to the Webby Awards. 

Now in its (yep, you guessed it) 13^th year, our very own Nik Roope urges you as Webby Ambassador to enter your wicked and wondrous work for consideration. You might even win and who wouldn’t want a lovely coiled spring nestling in their trophy cabinet? 

It’s easy to enter: simply summon the chutzpah to show off your creativity and inventiveness from the past year and submit your entry. 

The deadline is Friday 19^th December. That’s only a week away, so why on earth are you still reading this? You should be filling out your form already, which can be found right here on the Webby Awards site. 

Best of luck to all you talented people.  

 
Tony vs. Paul vs. Webby from Webby Awards on Vimeo.

Topshop Xmas

Today we wave goodbye to bah humbug and spread a little cheer with the launch of a web Christmas-inspired something for Topshop.

Based on the fairytale from their Once Upon A Time campaign, we created a zoetrope-inspired game to create some online buzz. Play the game by spinning the zoetrope, enter your details and there's some swish gifts up for grabs, including a year's supply of clothes and shoes.

We've referenced themes of transformation, subversion and the redemptive power of good over evil... or something along those lines at any rate.

Have a play and tell us what you think: http://www.topshopchristmasfairytale.com/

Carbon Emissions - They Got On Board!

We asked you to get involved, you did, and they listened.

Thanks to you, WWF's Get on Board campaign has had a major breakthrough. MPs have drafted a much tougher Climate Change Bill that meets the WWF's key demands. The Bill now requires:

•  a reduction of at least 80% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
• UK emissions calculations to include pollution from international flights and shipping.

It's definitely a start. But there's still plenty more to do before the Bill becomes law, so keep a lookout for future updates...

Get the full story »
Download Climate Change: Faster, stronger, sooner (PDF 1.8MB)»

Last.fm and Moo Pop In For Tea

 It's not always easy for everyone to get out and about to as many talks as we'd like, so instead we thought why not try and bring some talks to us. Cheekily we asked a few of our favourite local folk to come in and tell us their stories. And being lovely people they said yes.

Hannah Donovan the creative director of Last.fm was first up a couple of weeks ago. It was really good to hear her opinions on service design and how to go about it. We gave her a bit of grilling, firing all sorts of questions her way. And it was great to hear that we're not the only ones who think there's always room for improvement, and she rammed home the importance of not being afraid of trying things out to see what works. Thanks Hannah. You're a star.

Last week the Moo.com gang swung by. Richard Moross (CEO, founder), Denise Wilton (creative director) and Steph Magdalinski (tech director) took us through their history. It's inspiring and reaffirming to hear that seemingly simple principles like, being nice and listening to your customers does really work.

Thanks to Liam for the illustrations. Next time someone should remember to take some photos.

That Was Playful

On Friday a bunch of Pokers went to a rather splendid event called Playful - http://www.thisisplayful.com/

The event was part of the London Games Design Fringe, but was supposed to be a bit broader and more well, playful, than some of the other events in the program. And playful it certainly was. From learning about Roo's hacking the Xbox guitar through to proceedural development of trees and cities. Matt Brown showed off singing sock monkeys and the other Matt B showed off some nutty controller hacking

It felt like most people left with brains stuffed full of equal quantities of useful and useless information.

Oh, and Poke did the branding and logo and posters and things. In spite of the fact it was all done with a very very tight timescale and as a bit of a favour we think it turned out quite nice.

IMAA Agency of the Year

Last Thursday night Poke were named Creative Agency of the Year at the Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards. A joint venture between Marketing Week and New Media Age.

We are happy about this. Thank you.

Hungry? Then visit The Feed

Today we launched The Feed with Orange. As the name suggests, it's a feed. But what kind of feed? Why not click on this link to find out...

Ever since we started working with Orange we've always been amazed by how much interesting activity goes on inside the company, things that not enough people know about. The feed has been set up to get that good stuff out there. As well as helping to promote Orange's point of view on a bunch of things that they ought to have an opinion about.

It's still early days but content is flowing in. And we're looking forward to evolving it over time based on what works and what doesn't. So have a look, subscribe and leave comments to let us know what you think.