M8th Blog

Logos everywhere! Great news over at the Hangar. We received our edition of Logolounge’s Master Library Volume 2, a compendium of the best logos from an international pool of entries.

Why is this great news you ask? Because our logo for GAEL was selected to be part of this international collection of inspirational brands!

Logolounge is a made up of design professionals and brand enthusiasts, which makes it very special to be included in a Logolounge book. Logos chosen are judged by various designers, so to be recognized by peers in our industry means a lot.

And guess what? We have two more logos going in the next edition! Want to know if one of them is your brand? Stay tuned to find out.

It’s another exciting day at the hangar as we celebrate the launch of a cutting-edge, fully content manageable, B2B website for Sciplay – a leading supplier of responsible gaming solutions worldwide. Sciplay challenged the Mighty 8th team to give their website a fresh new look, while still keeping the essence of their gaming business center-stage. They needed to clearly communicate that Sciplay is a merger made up of two outstanding companies – Scientific Games and Playtech – the power of which makes up the strength of Sciplay’s service offerings and brings quite a bit of credibility to their organization. Additionally, they wanted to be able to have complete control of the website, develop a mobile version of their site and have the capability to offer the site content in various languages.

Our team of designers were able to tackle the challenge of showcasing the collaboration of companies by featuring fun elements such as a slot machine wheel in motion on the homepage and callouts to each of the companies represented. We were also able to streamline large amounts of content, such as their products, by anchoring, or linking, interactive buttons to bite-size amounts of information. This achieved a sleek look, while helping the user find information quickly and easily.

Since they have users needing to access their products, services and contact info on the go we created a mobile version of their site. It’s simplified design and easy to use navigation makes this site accessible and friendly from any mobile device. And with users worldwide, we developed a system in which the site can be translated for multiple languages as needed. So, the site can truly be accessed and read from anyone, anywhere, anytime.

And to top it off, they are able to manage the content of this completely custom site using a powerful WordPress engine. From Product images, copy, callouts and forms to creating a new language translation, Sciplay has all the controls to manage the site in-house – a long-term cost savings (and stress-reliever) to them.

We thoroughly enjoyed working with Sciplay on this exiting project and can’t wait to see how the results pay off!

Visit www.sci-play.com

We recently celebrated Christin’s birthday, and it’s always fun to come up with unique themes for our coworkers’ birthday bashes. Christin has often questioned the small size of Pantone color matching chips, wondering why they don’t make great big versions so that you can really get an idea of the color. Instant birthday theme!

So, for Christin’s birthday we were able to fix that and make her vision a reality with HUGE pantone chips that adorned her area. Her favorite color is lime green so that made the biggest chip.

We even matched a gift basket full of lime green treats.

Later we took Christin out to lunch at her favorite hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant, el Centinela in Braselton. Let’s just say that this hole-in-the-wall restaurant has an often used hole-in-the-bench outhouse.

Nevertheless, everyone survived and we finished out the birthday celebration with a matching lime green pantone-inspired cake.

Christin, we hope your birthday and this theme was a perfect match! Happy Birthday!

Last week, a couple of us from the hanger had the pleasure to attend AIGA’s SEED show. The show was a culmination of print, interactive and branding design produced anywhere in the southeast. It’s always great to see what solutions your peers are coming up with.

I found that the results to be pretty varied (which was a good thing). The winners covered a broad range of styles from the classics, to the D.I.Y.’s.

Having a background in print, I must say I was a bit partial to the tangible pieces in the show. The one that caught my attention the most was the “We Are Next” Brochure for Trinidad & Tobago. Simple and elegant.

Several of these pieces were self-promotions where the idea and execution garnered them entry into the show. Often times I’ve heard people I know in the design field complain about “well, we didn’t have a good budget to do something cool,” or “nobody knows this company so it was hard to get people to take notice.”

When you have a good idea or concept, there are usually ways to circumvent the cost of doing the most expensive printing technique. They say “Content is King” and I agree. Take this Client Gift Package. Illustrated mugs with hand crafted tea bags, all encased in a screen printed box. Simple and effective.

While there are multiple parts to any campaign, at the end of the day it comes down to how they all work together. Are you in need of some TLC for your marketing?

Mighty 8th is not shy when it comes to celebrating birthdays, and today we celebrated Jonathan’s birthday with a trip to Malibu Grand Prix!

Here’s a great before shot of most of the group before we engaged in a mix of indoor/outdoor games and activities.  Take a mental picture of this shot for later comparison purposes.

Everyone put on their special pink paper bracelets to qualify for the various attractions throughout the establishment.

One of the first attractions the group migrated towards was the go karts.  Here the staff can be seen waiting in line semi-patiently for this popular attraction.

Every standard photo request must also be accompanied by the request for a “wacky one!”

While the staff waited, Kevin opted to take a stab at the batting cages.  Speaking of stabbing, Kevin totally appears to be threatening me with the bat in this photo, mass murderer style.

The peanut gallery cheered Kevin on, and Christin even threw Kevin a few signals like a third base coach would.  Scratching her left cheek was his signal to STOP STRIKING OUT.

The birthday boy decided to get in on the batting cage action.  Too bad he forgot to bring an important piece of the puzzle: THE BAT.

Now it was go kart time!  The Malibu Grand Prix staff decided that Tammy needed a “booster seat” version of a go kart since she measures in at a whopping 50-something inches in height.  They built up enough pillows so that she could reach the pedals and see over the hood.

The rest of the staff got ready for the big race!

And then they were off!  Christin clearly had her game face on!

Bradley and Kevin jockeyed for position throughout the race.

No matter what, Bev kept her cool!

Eventually Christin passed the birthday boy, and was very proud of it!

This sure is a competitive bunch!

After go karts, it was time for some mini golf action.  Tammy and Bev don’t seem to be taking it too seriously.  In fact, Bev didn’t even put her purse down!

Meanwhile, Christin gets the award for most coordinated mini golf outfit and accessories.  Shirt, watch, putter, and ball all showed up in lime green!

WAIT!  Her iPhone case is lime green too…

And then it was time for real Indy Racing!  Check out Jonathan in his mini-Indy race car!

Ben took it easy.  Real easy.  Like…three miles an hour easy.

Meanwhile, Kevin wore the obligatory safety goggles because he didn’t have his own sunglasses.  After his race he pruned the hedges around the track and did some weed whacking.

Then Kevin and Bradley did the duo car, and Kevin got some great in-car footage while Bradley laid down some rubber!

These two had some serious fun. They also looked like some serious dorks with those matching helmets.  (insert the CHIPS theme here…)

Remember that fresh photo of everyone when we arrived?  Well, after the Indy races, the group was pooped. Everyone except Jonathan.

Afterwards, we headed to Chick-Fil-A for some vittles, and Jonathan took up the manager’s offer for some fresh ground pepper on his chicken salad.  Mexican restaurants have a big sombrero for birthday folks.  Chick-Fil-A has a pepper mill bigger than the birthday folks themselves.

Meanwhile, Bradley splurged with five different types of sauces for his nuggets.  FIVE.  With that much sauce, does it even taste like chicken anymore?

Once we were back at the office, the celebration continued with M&M themed gifts.  (Jonathan loves M&M’s of all sorts)

We even had a custom M&M cake that had a goatee to match Jonathan’s.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!  Hope the Grand Prix theme helped your birthday be even more grand!