Hoffi announces more FREE seminars for Welsh Businesses

Following the success of our last two seminars, which covered branding and online strategies, we have been working on the arrangements for our third seminar and have a date confirmed. In this seminar you will discover why your brand is the most valuable part of your business, and why a good brand can benefit you.

Taking place on Thursday 14th of April, at Enterprise House, Cardiff Bay *.

We will be there from 8:30am where you will be able to get a coffee and a bit of breakfast, before we start at 9:00am.

The initial seminar will run through some examples of what branding is and what it is not. After a short break we will then continue to look at why having good branding is valuable for your business and what the key ingredients of a good brand is, we will be particularly concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace.

This will take us up to 12pm, when there will be around an hour or so for networking (we will be around afterwards should any of you wish to chat about any particular issues you have.)

We hope you are interested in attending the event and look forward to seeing you all there. Please note places are limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

For your place at the seminar please email elin.williams@hoffi.com quoting reference: brandemail

* Enterprise House is located opposite the train station on Bute St, Cardiff Bay.

The Training Room, Enterprise House,
127 Bute Street, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff CF10 5LE.

Look forward to hearing from you

At the end of this week the Cardiff Design Festival will be once again upon us. This year a two week jam packed event with more things going on than hours in the day. You can pick your highlights on the website and also by downloading the pdf of the poster. So if you fancy going to see what architects are thinking about, or what the latest thinking about eco design is there is something for you.

We normally arrange something during the festival but due to the amount of events and workload getting the design work produced for it. It seems like we missed the boat this time but perhaps next year... For us it seems like it's the first year that the public will be in touch with the festival particularly through the use of the empty shops within Morgan and Royal Arcade which should bring a wider audience. Well hope everyone involved has a fantastic time and the events go without a hitch:

Events to watch out for:

The Launch

ARK in the PARK - games day

Pecha Kucha

WonderCulture Market

E:DN Futures Seminar

Over the last few hours we've been putting the final touches together on an e-mail campaign for National Theatre Wales' first performace: A Good Night Out in the Valleys.

The send button has been pressed and the e-mail sent to their e-mail marketing list, with one date already sold out I'm sure it will not be long before the others follow. A Good Night Out in the Valleys will be performed at venues throught the South Wales Valleys.

You can view the e-flyer on their website:
http://nationaltheatrewales.org/eflyers/01032010/index.htm

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.

Having worked for a number of years on the development of multi-language brand communications, we have recently launched a piece that we are very happy with and wanted to share with you. We have been interested in the 3D images for a long time and have been thinking of a way we can work it into one of our promotional pieces. The piece discusses the story of branding and launches our seminar series. We used the 3D glasses to also divide language up which we feel really challenges the interactivity of the printed medium. What do you think?

3D poster of our cow

The jumbled back side

English in focus

Welsh in focus

If you are interested in getting you hands on one of our posters get in touch by emailing us shwmai@hoffi.com

The launch of Cardiff Design Festival is only a few days away, and we have been notified that we have been shortlisted for three of our projects in this years awards. This year we have been very lucky to work on a number of great projects. All of them have been very challenging and we are delighted that they have been recognised by our peers. You can see the shortlist of this years design pieces on the Cardiff Design Festival Website.

We have been working over the last month or so with beatbox bars on their brand communications for their bar and restaurant 10 feet tall. For me it is pretty much my local, as I live about 2 minutes walk. We are going to do a photo shoot with them in the next few weeks so we should get some images up then. For now here is one of my happy snaps.

Well as promised in our last blog check out the recent work we have produced for QTS Ltd. Also if an avid cricket fan then you may have seen their advertising at Sophia Gardens.

We will be getting this up on the main site in the next few weeks or so but a sneak preview of some of recent work for QTS. 

As previously promised, here are some images of the recent performance production for the Royal College of Music and Drama. We are really happy with the result and are now looking forward to the next issue.

I could not decide which blog to post this on, but in the end, it felt right to put it on our main Hoffi blog, as it is a real celebration for all of us. Since the setting up Hoffi, and indeed before, – both myself and Carwyn have always known Andrew with his lovely girlfriend (at the time) Bekka, now he has finally done the right thing and asked her to marry him and as such we are off to the wedding later on this year. Andrew being Andrew (and with a bit of help from Car) produced this lovely invitation for everyone involved.

It's been a rush to get it done but we have just got our file copies of the second edition of Performance for the Royal College of Music and Drama. I will post some images in the next few days of the finished article.

Towards the end of 2008 we were working closly with Hoffi Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales’ marketing team to research and deliver a brand that would reach out to new audiences for the museum. The result: Cerdd | Music 2009 a themed programme of events & exhibitions in 2009.

From Jakokoyak to The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club, Dan Amor and Lily Green, Amgueddfa Cymru is inspiring some of the country’s best indie bands and upcoming musicians.

Part of the Cerdd | Music 09 programme, Respond will see artists working with curators from our seven museums to produce a musical response to the nation’s collections. Some of Wales’ emerging musical talent are submitting original tracks inspired by various exhibitions, displays and objects.

Visit the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales website for more information.

Following on from our previous posting above is one of the recent pieces we have created for the Royal College to launch it's 60th anniversary celebrations.

Well its February the 10th, which means a big happy birthday to us. Yay! We’ve now been established for three years and it has been a very busy three years indeed.

In that time we have:

Won two bilingual awards, employed our first full time staff member and dedicated time for a handful of work experience students; designed the brand communications for Cardiff Design Festival; National Museum Wales; Welsh Academi and Wales Millennium Centre. Worked with Calon Wen on new product launches and brand strategy; produced websites for International Baccalaureate Organisation, West Wales Eco Centre and Dulas. We have been asked to comment on design by BBC Radio Cymru, S4C and set up a design community called nakedwales.com.

We have also been involved in new start-up companies such as SoBor – fruit smoothies (watch out for these in 2009), design retailer Coterie and also a new eco-design consultancy.

As well as all this work we have also been involved in a number of other ventures from a t-shirt company, through to a international event company.

While we have made mistakes, we feel this has made us stronger. We have also extended our skill base with our ongoing commitment of internal investment within our staff, and our clients who are now benefiting form our brand strategy experience.

We are always eager for the next challenge and look forward to every new project as if it is our first. So, we look forward to hearing from you soon…

For more information on our recent work and projects please visit hoffi.com

Best Wishes
Andrew, Carwyn, Julian and Elin

We are delighted to announce that we have been commissioned to design and produce the National Museum Wales' What's On Guide. The guide is produced each season and provides details of the up and coming events from all the Museums family. We have been working with them recently on their individual event brochures and now hope to carry on the new style into the What's On Guide.

Creative Director of Hoffi,Carwyn Lloyd Jones, Comments "We are really happy to be commissioned to produce the new What's On Guide for the Museum. We have had a great response from the event brochures and so are confident that we can make the What's On guide just as popular. There is also a sneak preview of another piece we have been working on with the Museum which will take place throughout 2009".

The first Guide will be produced early 2009 and distributed through the Museums distribution centre and also Audience Wales.

You may have heard from some of our individual blogs that we have recently been working with National Museum Wales on their marketing collateral for the next two years. The first items produced were the individual brochures for the museums and also an overall flyer for the family of Museums. Launched during this years Eistedfodd the publications have already had a very positive response, both internally within the Museum and externally through feedback from the Tourist Information Centre's around the country.

We will be continuing the work with the Museum over the next few months through a series of events and feedback sessions which will allow us to gauge and quantify the effects of the work produced.