Peek a boo!!

We’re in a pretty good spot at Indigo – our office is a stones throw from Oxford Street and it’s fabulous shopping darhhling, plus our office is snuggled between some great pop up galleries.

Inspiration doesn’t always involve being at your desk, so I wanted to share a little gem of an exhibit that I went to yesterday at lunch. It’s called ‘the observer’ at the Haunch of Venison on Eastcastle Street. My favourite piece is from Patricia Piccinini (shown above) and without getting my little pinky out – it’s stunning in the flesh. Make your office chair spin and go see it now!

Weekends aren’t for working

So let us tell you where its all happening… Dorset baby!
Well it was last weekend for our work getaway - even the sun stepped out of hiding to show some love for the beautiful durdle door.

Food festivals, Clifftop walks, Lulworth Cove, quaint villages and of course a Don Draper measurement of booze made it a terrific weekend. Even after scrambling up a cliff we’re still on point with our superb posing…

A horrific week at work!

As fam trips go, I think I landed the big one. ‘Can one of your team dash off to Corsica and check out our beach resort in San Lucianu?’ our Mark Warner client asked. ‘Me! Me! Me!’, I couldn’t help exclaiming. So here I am doing my mystery shopper impersonation and blending into the background.

It was a really hard week of work. With beautiful weather and an array of watersports, the office was quickly forgotten, although they said they loved the postcard. The work just kept getting tougher; in the water the windsurfing board showed me who was boss as I tumbled backwards into the waves. On the other hand, as I remember it, getting up on stage and taking part in the ‘open mic night’ was a real triumph!

Overall a fantastic week, Mark Warner holidays are thoroughly recommended!

I have been chosen...

Designers can be big kids at the best of time (ouch!) but this work adventure takes the biscuit. Thanks to Disneyland® Paris one lucky art director got the chance to experience the Magical Moments Festival on the slim promise of it helping with future creative briefs. The chosen one zipped out on EuroStar and enjoyed three days of hair-raising thrills and spills of Disney Studios® Park and more fun at every corner in Disneyland® Paris. "Mickey Mouse was a childhood hero", our doodler gushes, "there were familiar faces waiting at every turn!" So no excuses when the next communications brief lands on the desk then, we want a happy ending!

Who upset the maître d’?

Our natural curiosity was aroused by this social poser. We’re pretty quick to get on the same wavelength of any consumer, but this one has us beaten. Whose moccasins might we find under this table to walk the fabled mile in? Reserving a table for one, set with just four wine glasses and a single seat facing the wall is a pretty sad Saturday night!

There’s nowt so queer as folk.

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Our Year 10 Work Experience student Charlie blogs...

Summer. A time of sun and laughter. Temperatures of 30c,
day-dreaming about refreshing ice creams, football down the park and dips in the swimming pool. This is Summer, but the picture above was my view for two weeks.

But now, courtesy of Indigo, I'm red hot at Adobe Creative Suite CS4 and the time spent with them has been invaluable to my education. It’s helping to guide me towards an enjoyable career in design, thanks Indigo.

Chicken or egg?

We love Sketch Block! It's our favourite chunky font that perfectly combines a touch of informality with an confident air of reliability. It took us months to find this reluctant star and encourage it to headline on our website. But the other day, whilst cooling off with a passionate frappé, there it was on the High Street. Now we’ve discovered not only is it cool on the street but it has also shot to fame on some Johnnie’s website and been seen piled high in a warehouse full of car phones. Cheers!

Winds of change

It was a case of up, up and away for a member of our design team whilst celebrating the launch of our new look website. He was blown away (quite literally) and was last seen seen heading towards St Paul's.

Well me hearties – that was 2009!

Having charted the turbulent seas of a stormy year, some of our swashbucklin’ shipmates couldn’t resist the chance to indulge in International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shiver me timbers landlubbers, we heartily apologise if our telephone answering technique went out of the porthole and all you heard was a “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum”, but just occasionally it’s good to let your pigtails down.

In the year past we extended a warm welcome aboard to new friends at Siblu and Newmarket. Here’s to more exciting voyages with them and a treasure chest of discoveries in 2010.

Only one thing left to do – get shipwrecked at the Christmas party!

15 minutes of fame

Well Andy Warhol was right, everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame. Even if you are made of clay! These little guys will certainly remember their bleary-eyed first steps into the limelight, as they were hoisted up into the heavens and successfully placed onto the 4th plinth at the weekend.

Only by now, sadly, they will have been burnt to a crisp in a very hot kiln and hopefully immortalised and available on Ebay - so keep your eyes peeled for the duo that put Indigo firmly on the Trafalgar Square map!

Minerva II

We like type. So, on our travels when we happened across a small tribute to master typographer, engraver and painter, Reynolds Stone (1909-1979), we couldn’t resist a quick snap.

2009 marks the centenary of his birth, so it’s the perfect time to show a little appreciation of a man who spent some time in his formative years working with Eric Gill (another of our heroes, Gill Sans et al). Stone’s work is more widespread than you might think; he engraved the coat of arms seen on a British passport, created the lettering for masthead of The Economist and designed the font Minerva. Bravo.

Minerva I

Perched on the clifftops our intrepid reporter snapped this not so gleaming vessel moored up in a sheltered bay. Are these the first spy shots of another addition to All Leisure’s growing fleet of cruise ships we ask ourselves?

No, we reasoned, more likely a dreadful case of ‘passing off’. If you call your tanker ‘Minerva’ the crew are less likely to mutiny when asked to spend weeks moored in the Channel waiting for the oil price to rise before unloading the precious cargo. They’ll be expecting small ship cruising, country house style!

Hidden agenda

Agencies are famous for launches, pulling strings and flying kites. At Indigo we are no exception but in our case they are just as likely to be found on a wet and windy cliff top as they are in our working week.

The management said the trip was all for the greater good and murmured ‘teamwork’, ‘bonding’ and ‘engagement’. No one really cared; we simply flew kites for a couple of hours until our arms dropped off. And then we went for a drink.

Message in a Bottle

It’s always refreshing to squeeze the last drop from any campaign, reaching the target audience wherever they are hiding. So, we are pleased to announce that Indigo has developed a new technique to find the older traveller residing in the West Country - recycle newspaper advertising at the local village fete!

Much to Annick’s surprise, up popped a half page Discovery Cruise Sale ad on the bottle table in the depths of Dorset. At 15p our intrepid reporter just had to see if the wrapping concealed a bottle of wine, or water. And the answer...well, on a cruise what would you expect to see plenty of?

An Eye for a View

Compelling photography can do wonders for a destination. And, as an agency that has a good number of longstanding travel clients, you would think that our staff would have an eye for good shot by now. The rolling hills of the historic county of the West Riding of Yorkshire spread out before you and a dramatic spring sky, what better ingredients could you ask for?

Our nameless team member, who had the chance to capture it all, clearly likes to tell it as it is. Too timid to face the chill wind from the north, our intrepid traveller managed to enhance the view with a car bonnet, a concrete bollard and rusty picnic table. Perhaps it’s no wonder that this piece of Yorkshire was given to Lancashire in 1974!

Snow Joke

There’s no business like snow business! After a week or two of snowy weather, here’s our best action shot. Those who made it through the blizzards and public transport nightmares were driven on by the thought of a mouth-watering giant cheeseburger (with thanks to our friends at St. Germain). It’s amazing what an incentive to get to work will do.

Eat your heart out Boris.

It’s All Over Now Baby Blue!

This could be the end of a beautiful relationship...as here’s one unnamed client atop her favourite gelding. Yes, we know that we promised not to put this picture on our Blog, but it’s the perfect reminder that if we can get the same smile in a meeting, we know that the creative work has hit the spot.

Anyway to get the best results, sometimes we have to break the rules. And to our un-named client, if you see this pic and call us, we’ll donate £100 to your favourite charity and a packet of Polos to the feathered beauty.

London Calling

It was more the Race of Her Life than a Race for Life. When you enter your first 5km race, raise a few hundred pounds for charity, come effortlessly past the post in just 34 mins and spookily get the race number 2012 – you can’t help but think that a gold medal in four year’s time is a distinct possibility. We guess there’s even a sporting chance that the BOC will adopt the stylish pink and black polka dot number as the official equivalent to go-faster stripes.

It all sounded too good to be true. We’ve just had a word with Lord Coe and the Olympic qualifying time for the Women’s 5k is a mere 15.09, anything less and you’re history. Way to go Katherine!

Ice Cold in Alex

Why, oh why, would you plan your own not-so-dynamically packaged holiday in Egypt when several of your clients offer smoothly run holidays to the same country? Well, if you want to enjoy the delights of a sweltering NINE hour train ride and two hours by bus, it’s the best way to do it.

In fact the plot hasn’t changed in 50 years. Here’s Jamie, as Sir John Mills, coming to the end of an epic journey through the scorching sands, having stayed just one step ahead of the German tourists while dreaming of a freezing lager at his favourite Egyptian hotel bar. Cheers!

Bar takings are down

Annick is on holiday!