Cities of Hope 2016

Over the last few days, Manchester’s Northern Quarter has played host to a number of the world’s most renowned street artists for the first Cities of Hope street art convention. The aim is to raise awareness of a variety of social issues, chosen by the artists themselves. Each artist and issue is being linked to a local organisation that fights to help the lives of those affected by the issues, at a grass roots level.

It’s been incredibly exciting, and inspiring, seeing these artists at work, as the Northern Quarter has essentially become a sprawling art gallery. The fact that each and every piece addresses a social issue close to the artists’ hearts makes them all the more striking.

You can find out more about the Cities of Hope project here.

Back to being the Co-op

For the past ten months or so I’ve been working as part of the newly created in-house Digital team at the Co-operative Group. There’s a lot of exciting work happening in the digital space but more generally there’s also been a major rebranding project happening, and it’s been interesting to see the work being done both in-house and by branding agency North.

The centre piece of the rebrand is the return of the classic “Co-op” logotype from 1968, to signify an intent to return the company to its core ethical values, and a renewed focus on Co-op membership.

Today was the day of the Co-operative Group’s AGM 2016, and the rebrand was finally announced to attendees, and shortly thereafter to the wider public. It’s been pretty exciting seeing the reactions to the news on Twitter, and the coverage in the media. Plus it means I can finally show my family some of the things I’ve been working on these past few months now that I don’t have to worry about breaching the non-disclosure agreement!

Lorry

 

INKS

INKS by State of Play Games

INKS is the brand new iOS game from State of Play, the team behind (amongst other things) the award-winning Lumino City.

INKS is essentially a pinball game (ask your parents) but with the novel twist of using your balls (oo-er Missus) to burst blocks of colour, thus creating works of art across the tables. In gameplay terms, the aim of each level is to burst all of the colour blocks. When all blocks have been burst the level is complete, however the way different colour bursts can be created on the same tables means the urge to replay levels can be pretty strong. It’s without doubt the prettiest game I’ve played in quite a while; even the progress screen is pure eye candy.

screenshots from INKS iOS game

INKS is available for the ridiculously reasonable sum of £1.49 for iOS devices now.