Wall of Skulls in the Origins: In Search of Early Wales exhibition © National Museum Wales

We've been working with National Museum Wales for over 18 months now, and as we're just about to launch the next edition of their What's On publication, its great news when we discover that their archaeology department are celebrating!

Its exhibition Origins: in search of Early Wales has reached a staggering 250,000 visitors, just over two years since it opened. The Gallery follows the story of the first humans 230,000 years ago, to the end of the Middle Ages and showcases the rich archaeological collections and their stories.

“The exhibition has captivated many visitors and has been received very positively," said Richard Brewer, Keeper of Archaeology & Numismatics, Amgueddfa Cymru. "We hope in our future ambitious plans to present even more of the collections and tell more stories of Wales’ enthralling past.”

Entry to National Museum Wales and the exhibition is free, thanks to the support of the Welsh Assembly Government. A number of objects featured in Origins are included on the BBC’s A History of the World initiative – for more information go to the A History of the World website.

Elin is working hard putting our latest promotional piece for Hoffi together, she usually smiles, but not today.

If anyone would like a copy of our latest 3D promotional piece, please drop us an email shwmai@hoffi.com

Today i realised i had used about 300gb up of my hard drive through photography, so while sorting out the photographs I came across allot of Hoffi photographs. After looking at a few and laughing at myself i decided to put together a chronological history of Hoffi through the Photographs, ill start with the earliest i have!:



24/04/2008
Aw bless!



07/06/2008
In June we decided to revamp the office. Someone suggested pulling down the ceiling, yeah good idea...oh and have a look at Julians safety goggles!



18/06/2008
Mid ripping the ceiling down the electrician popper by and gave us some new lights!



19/06/2008
How much bloody cable was in that one room! NASA must of rented it before us!



21/06/2008
That home made bomb I had been playing with went off by accident.



04/07/2008
We asked Andrew to pose for his bio picture, this is the pose he decided on, hmm



04/07/2008
I'm not really sure what me and Julian are laughing at but I imagine we had just downloaded Andrew's bio picture!



06/08/2008
We 'popped' to the Eisteddfod in Cardiff, 5 ours later, we were still there! Here is Andrew sporting our Silibili Brand on his chest.



30/01/2009
The day we took new photographs for our website bio's, this one did not make it! The real ones can be seen on Hoffi's website



10/02/2009
Hoffi is 3 years old!



29/05/2009
A trip to the Eisteddfod!



29/05/2009
And this is where we ended up after the Eisteddfod! I burnt my nose that day.



26/06/2009
No, they are not playing spot the ball, this was a photo for a tender, can you guess what for?



10/10/2009
Andrew planning out where the light switches should go on some display board we were designing for Wyeverne Electrical



17/11/2009
A little workshop for the branding and food packaging for a new client



12/01/2009
A workshop for the re-branding of Menter a Busnes

I'm sure there are more photographs around, hopefully i can track them down and update this.

I can't revel what job Julian was working on as it's still to go into production, but this sums his day up. I think this was taken after he had been sitting there for about 5 hours cutting and gluing mock ups for our client to take to a focus group.

I'm not sure if this is technically a Piqué, but, today i was trying to photograph a pull up banner we have produced for Rubicon Dance in Cardiff. Seeing the banner inspired Julian to pull a move...

The final one now onto some other details.

One missing but nearly there...

We are four.

Well we have been four for the last six days. Must be busy if we can't even celebrate our birthday!!! Our last year has been very challenging and something we are glad to have experienced. As with everyone the main focus has been the recession and seeing how we can work through it. It is the companies first recession and something that has made us more aware of our key attributes and skills. We have managed to concentrate on this and hopefully become a sharper company.

So the year that was, went a bit like this;

Despite the challenges we have managed to work on some very good projects and also some self initiated ventures. Once again worked with Cardiff Design Festival, producing their website, and a few other bits and pieces. We were also commissioned to work on the National Theatre Wales website, which got alot of attention through the use of the Drupal platform. We have also worked with some our ongoing clients on some great projects. Having helped Calon Wen launch three new cheeses, which have already got into the major supermarkets.

With self initiated work Julian has launched ARK a social design co-operative based in Cardiff, and Andrew has been working hard on the evolution of NakedWales into Creative Wales. We hope 2010 carries on in the same vein and hope to see you all out there.

The Hoffi Team

Andrew, Carwyn, Elin and Julian

As many of you know Hoffi setup a website some years ago called Naked Wales. The website aimed to be a hub for people in the creative industry to write articles, share examples of things they love. Post job opportunities and place their own directory listings. Over the years NakedWales published it's own magazine and also arranged a number of events centered around bringing people in the industry together. While never earning any money from it. We enjoyed the conversations and people we met through the whole process. There was one issue however regarding the site, and while it seems to not be a huge thing it is when you are trying to get in contact with the right people. The main issue with it was the name. With ever increasing complex spam filters. Our email's never got through to many of our potential sponsors or people who had signed up to be kept informed.

After many months of work we (more Andrew @Andrew_Hoffi), has been working on a new venture which hopefully means we will get our emails to everyone, and we may (fingers crossed) be able to get a bit of funding to launch a sustainable (if it can ever be) range of events. Which will grow a strong community to improve awareness of the creative industries. I am sure Andrew will write a bit more on this later but for now please see what you think. The new site is found here