For the last month, a brave few of the DNA men have been undertaking the growing of a tashe for ‘Movember’ – in aid of The Prostate Cancer Charity. We’re now on the home straight (or curly) on the final day of Movember 2010. It’s nearly time for us to sit back, relax and ease ourselves back into life with a shiny face. We’ve been donating our faces to a good cause – please show your support in these last hours and donate just a little something.

How can you help?
To support the men of DNA and make a donation, click this link https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/team_id/120862 and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account. Quick and simple – every penny counts.

>>> View our team: The FanTACHEtic Men of DNA, and our individual pages <<<

Have a look at our MoGallery!

The Prostate Cancer Charity will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

DNA have successfully completed a project for one of the UK’s leading book publishers, Hodder & Stoughton. Based in London, the publishers awarded the prestigious contract to DNA, briefing them to design and build an updatable website, with features, blogs and news about authors and their forthcoming books for their new imprint ‘Two Roads’, which publishes themed titles focused on animals, emotion and life-stage decisions.

Still a relative newbie to DNA, Digital Project Manager Mathew Riley found winning the major contract when in competition with some of the best London agencies is very satisfying – “The most rewarding part of the project was delivering a site that matches the tone and functionality requested by the client”.

The Two Roads imprint is run by Lisa Highton, who edited the mega successful Marley and Me film tie in, among other titles. Lisa commented: “DNA was incredibly helpful and patient setting up the Two Roads site. We really appreciated the problem solving and after sales service but first and foremost a great site.”

See www.tworoadsbooks.com

Things are changing here at DNA. We’ve recently taken on some great new hires which have helped to restructure and refocus our business, so we’ve given ourselves a makeover with a refreshed brand identity! It was an exciting process (we took a few snaps along the way, see below), and we’re really pleased with the outcome. Our new business cards arrived today which was very exciting, although we love them so much it’s going to be hard to hand them over! Watch this space for our shiny new website, coming soon…

See a snippet of our design and selection process here

This Movember, the month formerly known as November the men of DNA have decided to donate their faces to raising awareness about prostate cancer. Our donation is our commitment in the growth of a moustache for the entire month of Movember, which we know will generate conversation, controversy and laughter.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. One man dies every hour from the disease in the UK. We’re asking you to support our efforts by making a donation to The Prostate Cancer Charity.

How can you help?
To support the men of DNA and make a donation, click this link https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/team_id/120862 and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account. Quick and simple – every penny counts.

>>> View our team: The FanTACHEtic Men of DNA, and our individual pages <<<

The Prostate Cancer Charity will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please visit http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs

Find out more about what Movember stands for here: http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/about-us/
See the beneficiary Partners, http://www.prostate-cancer.org.uk/ and http://everyman-campaign.org/

Thank you in advance for helping us to support men’s health. We will keep the blog and our Mo Pages regularly updated!

Straplines can be tricky to nail and can mean far more to a consumer than was intended by the brand. Take my lunch for instance, the packet shows a photo of a lovely sausage roll stuffed with sausage meat, mature chedder cheese, spring onions and pickle with the strapline “Real honest food”. Unfortunately when bitten into, the reality was far from ‘honest’ and the image on the pack far from ‘real’. Was this real Cornish irony or simply a matter of a product with less content than it’s branding budget!?

A pint awaits whoever comes up with the best new strapline for this well-loved snack brand, and there’s a packet of Ginsters ploughmans rolls for the worst!

(Opinion: Simon Farow – Head of Digital)

I have finally got round to editing over 1.5 hours of footage taken by my nephew (Murray Dorrans age 14), while we were all on Safari in Tanzania. Don’t worry I have condensed it down to around 4.5 minutes and have worked the footage around Disney’s, The Lion King (Original Broadway Cast Recording) ‘Circle of Life’ soundtrack. The footage was imported onto a Mac and edited using the pre-installed Apple iMovie software. It’s the first time I have ever used this software, but without reading any manuals or consulting help files, I managed to put it together myself. The Apple iMovie software was an absolute joy to use and incredibly intuitive. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy it! It features some imagery that I did not manage to capture using my Canon DSLR.

Article by Paul Mabin – Managing Director

This June, after 10 years of being together our Jon (also known as Jon-Boy/JB and JP) and his then fiancé Natasha finally tied the nuptial knot in the beautiful secluded surrounds of Dartington Hall in Totnes.

With Jon a designer and his wife Natasha a florist, there was plenty of hands-on preparation in the run up to the big day, with Jon designing and hand-making the invites, menus, seating plans, table favours, guestbook and so on and Nat creating an unprecedented amount of floral arrangements to decorate Dartington Hall, the pressure was on to get every little detail just right.

Thankfully, their hard work paid off and the memorable day went off with just the one ‘hitch’. The weather was perfect for the outdoor ceremony in the private gardens where they also had cream teas in an authentic 60-piece Victorian tea set, Jon’s speech went down well and the DNA team shared in their celebrations – busting some killer moves to the live music in the medieval Great Hall until the early hours.

Jon and Nat’s honeymoon on the idyllic paradise island of Veligandu in the Maldives proved just what they needed, giving them both a well deserved rest amid their new found addiction to reef snorkeling. The DNA team wish them the best for their future together.

SEE MORE PICTURES HERE.

Matt had shock of his life when he was stung with a whopping £150 parking fine this morning – here is the CCTV footage in the office… caught red handed!

It was inevitable… Simon finally bullied Paul into investing in an iPad for the DNA web team. The official line is that the iPad is now an established platform and therefore all web work and apps need to be developed for and tested on the iPad. The truth… Si and Rob just wanted to spend the day playing with a new toy, giggling in the corner at the most expensive version of etch-a-sketch ever conceived.

We are pleased to welcome two new members to the DNA team; Mathew Riley has arrived as Digital Project Manager and Tim Cowell has joined as Business Development Manager…

Mathew is a former account director at London based Lateral Net Limited where he spent 10 years working in strategic account management. He has worked with clients in many sectors including publishing, charity and not-for-profit, fashion, music, film and entertainment, FMCG, government and health. Mathew has relocated to the South West and will be responsible for overseeing all things web and multi media.

Tim has joined us as Business Development Manager having previously been sales & marketing director at independent office products dealer; Axworthys Group. During his 15 years with Axworthys, Tim helped grow sales from under £1m to over £6.5m per annum; he also won two BOSS (British Office Supplies & Services) awards for marketing excellence.

We’re very excited these two high calibre professionals have joined us and we look forward to reporting on their progress.

As many of you know, I am a mad keen amateur photographer and have a passion for wildlife and the outdoors. So, what better holiday could I possibly take than going on safari in Africa. Using the power of the Interweb, I researched numerous tour companies to get the best Safari experience that I could. I eventually came across a bespoke safari specialist called ‘Go2Tanzania’. All I gave them was a proposed budget (which I had to increase) and a list of animals that I wanted to see. They then worked their magic and came back with an itinerary to match my criteria.

Anyway, the result, was one of the most amazing experiences of my life – 9 day safari in Tanzania and 5 days on the paradise island of Zanzibar. I traveled with my wife Donna and my sister and her family and we were all lucky enough to see some amazing sights including; 5 leopards (1 up close including a leopard/gazelle chase), numerous lions (including cubs who were no older than 2 weeks and a lion kill a gazelle), several herds of elephants (including an elephant charge), hippos (in and out of the water), herds of water buffalo (including young calves), giraffes (even sitting down and drinking) and 3 cheetahs (one close to our vehicle), plus numerous other animals and birds (too many to list).

I also bought a balloon flight for my wife as a Christmas present and having waited 8 months, we finally got the opportunity to enjoy it together across the plains of the Serengeti, including Champagne and a full English breakfast (not in the balloon). Below is a sample of the 1,200 images that I took. Hope you like them.

Article by Paul Mabin – Managing Director / Creative Director.

Some of the DNA Advertising team pushed aside their mice and picked up their joypads as they headed down to Extended Play, Plymouth’s first Games event discussing the future of the games industry and the positive impact it can have on the region’s emerging and talented producers, artists and developers. From console to phone, web to multiplatform, the games industry has become a dominant force in the media and design world. With the southwest traditionally being a fertile breeding ground for game developer talent, Extended Play looks to highlight the slowly emerging games industry in the region and uncover what opportunities exist for studios.

The British Council’s young interactive entrepreneur of the year, 26 year old 
Paul Croft of MediaTonic, took to the stage for his keynote, centering his talk around the ‘origin point of success’, about his experiences in becoming such a recognised player in the industry and the future of brand game design and scope for ‘advergames’.

Traditionally smaller developers take most of the risks without pressure from clients and company overheads, riding the curve and making their mark at just the right time. This window for exploitation however, is extremely narrow. As the technology and route to market become more conventional and a trend begins to form, it’s only a matter of time before well-known development houses grab the monopoly, running with the idea and doing it bigger and better. This is even more apparent today, with a 6 monthly transition in fads, making iPhone apps ‘so last season’ and with Farmville being the biggest game in the world, it’s now all about social gaming and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Although it may still seem fresh, within the industry the App bubble has pretty much burst. There is still money to be made, but with over-saturation of Apps it’s already no longer the method of choice… On the flipside, with over 61.6million active users of Farmville on Facebook, it affirms the potential of social online gaming as the next big advertising and brand building medium… In another 6 months it’ll no doubt be another story.

With two of our biggest design for print projects heading to the printers last week, the studio was on high alert as we colour-proofed and triple-checked our way through the 7 languages of the the first 3 annual Princess Yachts International brochures, and the retail and contract brochures for British Ceramic Tile – each weighing in at 100 pages. Luckily we had a helping hand (or paw) in the shape of Sarah’s canine partner in crime, Pixie. No stranger to the DNA Advertising studio, Pixie cut our colour-proofing time considerably with her keen eye and attention to detail. It was only after we discovered that dogs are actually colour blind…
Whoops!

Earlier in the year, Paul, Simon, Matt, Rob and Jon headed down to a Design In Devon meet to see D&AD president Simon ‘Sanky’ Sankarayya discuss ‘The changing landscape of digital design’. Whilst departing his knowledge of interactive design, social media trends and their benefits to clients and audiences, he used this inspiring video as an example of ‘hacking’ technology and breaking the boundaries of interactivity within non-commercial, self initiated projects. It has to be shared – the amazing EyeWriter, ‘a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus & custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes’.

You may have read in an earlier blog post that we said goodbye to our web programmer, Chris Keeley a few months ago. He’s gone to further his career in software development. So now it’s time to introduce his replacement, Rob Barfield.

Rob joined us recently from local firm Integralvision where he and Simon Farrow, our Web Development Manager, were colleagues for four years. Rob’s background is in computer technology and he’s been interested in what goes on ‘under the hood’ since his schooldays. This led him to study Internet Technology & Networks at university before launching into a career in web programming.

So what skills does he bring to DNA? As well as being a nice guy (so he fits in really well here…), Rob’s proven ability to create bespoke websites will help us to offer even more complex web solutions than before. Content Management Systems, e-Commerce and payment gateways, integration with Google applications… all these skills and more come neatly packaged in our new colleague!

Rob says: “I’ll build whatever the customer needs, whether it’s a back end system or any other kind of interaction with the web”. Having built more than 80 websites, Rob has the ideal skill set to help us up our game in the fast-moving world of web solutions.

Rob also has the distinction of being the only member of DNA’s staff to live within walking distance of the office. Welcome aboard, Rob!

After returning from my Stag-do in Berlin it’s not the delights of curry würst that I’d like to share with you, nor is it the historic sights of the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Halocaust Memorial, Berlin Cathedral or the remains of the Berlin Wall. It’s the seven-seater spiderlike CoBi7 conference bike. One person is the designated driver (with steering wheel) while everyone holds on to a central circular bar facing each other and harness the raw pedal-power of seven! Now generally, the idea is to take a short spin around a tourist-filled square, but we decided that we’d rather ride than walk back to our hotel… I’d never seen this septcycle before and from the reactions from the general public as we cycled down the main road (Unter den Liden) and through back streets on our way home, neither had they!

You can see our ridiculous cycle route here.

(Jon Price – Designer)

A little while back DNA designers Jon and Deb were asked to take part in Plymouth University’s first official Industrial Liaison – a review of the work and structure of the graphic design course run at the University. Throughout the day they worked in pairs with fellow design practitioners invited from across the UK, interviewing 3rd year students and assessing the work on the Design; Graphic Communication with Typography Degree. After giving portfolio and presentation advice to the eager students, the panel members passed their feedback to the tutors to help shape the future of the Degree course and keep its content relevant. Feedback is that the students found it undoubtedly rewarding and DNA have found it very refreshing to see some more up-and-coming talent. Provide those chocolate eclairs and mini cheese pasties again and we’ll see you next year! (Images courtesy of UoP).

Read More >>

Thank you to everyone who donated to our ‘Go Yellow’ fund raising campaign in aid of Rowcroft Hospice – it’s been a fantastic success!

With your help, DNA raised £876, that’s 125% of our £700 target! As promised, when we reached each donation target, we underwent a forfeit – the last of which was a Banana Skinny-Dip in the sea! You can see that video as well as Jim’s deadly Banana Yellow Smoothie task and Paul’s ‘Banana & Custard’ Gunging below as well as on our DNA Advertising YouTube Channel! Our donation page is still open if you would like to contribute, again a big thank you to all who already have. Until next year…

As you all know, we’ve been ‘Going Yellow’ to raise money for Rowcroft Hospice. Reaching our 2nd donation target of £400 meant that our Creative Director Paul (Jim was back in London – blast!), had to undertake TASK 2: ‘Banana & Custard’ -The Yellow Gunge forfeit! Turn up your speakers and enjoy! Thank you for donating, we’re still taking donations… http://www.justgiving.co.uk/dnagoyellow.

You can find out more on our dedicated GO YELLOW page.

Check our dedicated ‘Go Yellow‘ blog page to find out what we’ll be getting up to in order to raise money for Rowcroft Hospice…
Make sure you vote and DONATE to make it happen!!!! Please Donate here for a good cause: http://www.justgiving.co.uk/dnagoyellow