“Screen WM is the leading agency for film, television and digital media in the West Midlands”

Back in April we won a tender to redesign and redevelop the Screen WM website.We won the pitch based on our design skills and the simplicity of our CMS technology.

The site features clearer information structure as well as a comprehensive events calendar and video channel. The site also features numerous blogs and news sections to communicate all that is happening in the region. All this is powered by our in-house developed CMS — Wrapper. The result is a super fast site which is customised to the client.

Future updates will allow event submissions, possible video submissions and more. Watch this space.

Our shop is now open for business. We’ll be adding some more stuff in there over the next few weeks… for now you can buy our ‘Zine & bag. Woot!

So last Friday we had the 1st grand TAK! Pool Tournament. After several months of claims of wannabee champions we decided to have a showdown. A trophy was purchased and the games began. Follow the link to find out who the winner was…

It’s been a while since we made any updates to the Portfolio section on the site. So today we’re happy to add 3 major website projects; The Deaf Cultural Centre, Visit Birmingham and Marketing Birmingham. Don’t worry we’ve not sold out — in fact the next project to go up is quite the opposite. Variety is the spice…

This Saturday (28th June) myself and Chris Keenan will be performing at the 7 Inch Cinema 5th Birthday Shindig. For any Birmingham based cats who have not been to a 7 Inch event before this is a great chance to see what they're all about. Expect fine music, obscure short films and tons of inspiration.

If you're coming down to especially peep me & Chris doing a Super 8 ambient soundtrack then try to come early; we're on around 7.30 / 8ish. (I'll be posting the set up on here next week.)

• XHTML
  
• CSS
  
• PHP
  
• mySQL
• JavaScript
  

The ideal candidate will be a perfectionist with a keen eye for detail and an appreciation of graphic design. You should also be deeply interested in the future of the web and crave to learn new things. Knowledge of jQuery and Code Igniter would be useful but not essential.

A distinct lack of Pool skills are required (so we can skank all your twenty pence pieces)

If you are interested contact us and introduce yourself. Outline salary expectations and previous experience. Successful applicants will be contacted and asked to send in CVs.

** And please, no agencies! **

We've just finished work on phase 1 of Visual an online art gallery for business. You can read more about the project in our portfolio. Alternatively, visit Visual and see some of the great artwork for sale.

Yipeeeeee!! 

We're in and back up and running (yay!) — just waiting on a few more things like desks, cupboards, lunch table & a  7ft pool table.

Our new details are…

• TAK!
  Studio 204, The Custard Factory
  Birmingham
  B94AA

We have a new telephone number also, +44 (0) 121 288 25 28

Service might be a little slow over the next few days as we are currently moving studios. Normal service will resume next week.

Ohhhhh nice! We’ve been picked as one of Netdiver’s Best Of The Year for 2007. Great!

Netdiver have always been big supporters of all things TAK! and we’re honored to be in their list along with all the other fantastic sites.

Thanks! 

From the Midlands with Love: not a Bond movie remade into a bleak drama by Shane Meadows, but a showcase of the finest graphic art and illustration coming out of the West Midlands.

• Media Content Lab (part of Birmingham City University) felt that too much of the design world’s attention is focused on a handful of London companies, so decided to do something about it. We put together a postcard book featuring the artwork of graphic designers, illustrators, web designers and character designers based in the West Midlands.
  
  The best computer artists from across the region were invited to submit their work before a final selection of the top designs were chosen to go into the book.
  
  "We felt that too many of the big publishing companies and advertising agencies were ignoring the Midlands", said Media Content Lab’s Suzanne Neal. "So we decided to put something together that would show them there is real talent here!"
  
  The postcard book is due to be sent to over 100 of the country’s top PR, marketing and advertising agencies as well as publishing companies and reputable agents at the end of January '08.

We have a postcard in the pack (hence this news post) image below. The project is a nice idea and hope it raises awareness of the talent within the region.

If you want a free pack of postcards please send an A5 stamped addressed envelope to:

• TAK!
  From Midlands With Love
  118 Custard Factory
  Birmingham
  B9 4AA

So we're in the process of making the Poky beaver into a figure for Opened Hand to give away as a promotional item. Here's the re-modelled 3D renderings ready for production. Looking real nice.

Thumbs up - let the production commence!

We are going to sell these, so tell you what — how much do you think we should charge?... They are about A3 in size - are wide enough to hold 12” vinyl, are made from high quality cotton and feature a single colour print with side label.

Leave a price in the comments tab below. We'll price the bags at the average cost of all posts…

;) 

The Ikon Gallery have just opened a new show by artist Ryan Gander. For those not in the know, we worked with Ikon to redesign their website. One of the features we put in place was the ability to create media galleries. The point of these was to highlight each exhibition through high resolution images, audio and video. The goal was to archive the event, create interest around the show and offer a the next best alternative to actually visiting the gallery.

Throughout design & development we were always unsure how the Ikon would use this feature. We hoped they would take the opportunity to commission short documentaries and play back any audio or video work generated around the show.

To our delight we watched Ryan Gander’s ten minute documentary and realised that they are using the tools better than we could have imagined. What a great video and fantastic example of how a traditional gallery can use the online space to widen and excite their audience. Check the part about half way in where the uniform for the exhibition invigilators is revealed — white Adidas tracksuits! Genius!

Incidentally, the documentary was created by Chris Keenan aka Prime Objective.