Back Catalogue
Mazda
As Mazda’s lead global digital agency, Syzygy constantly evolve a global platform that allows markets to adapt to suit their needs.
Each incremental change improves the user experience and provides continual learning - on which, a successful 15 year relationship between agency and client is built.
It’s a platform with an 80/20 balance of consistency to flexibility and it’s fascinating to work on new releases for markets like Japan, whose ‘normal’, in terms of UX and design is wildly different to ours.
Assumptions are regularly 'A/B' tested to learn exactly what works for differing audiences across different devices.
It's a powerful, intelligent system that works really hard to simplify each consumer's journey to purchase.
Jura Whisky
A couple of years back, I directed a fairly involved 360 Virtual Reality project. Comparatively, it’s one of the smaller projects I’ve worked on but it gave a great opportunity, both personally and as an agency, to break into new areas and use traditional skills in very different ways.
VR is still an exciting space for brands and agencies to explore. Like any medium though, the content has to be engaging.
On the back of a 5 day shoot on a remote Scottish island and a further couple of months of post production, we were able to transport viewers to a truly magical place.
Jura Whisky - 360 Intro Video (on desktop, drag video to look around).
Burberry
An elegant YouTube takeover to get people talking about Burberry's new sunglasses range. An innovative use of their channel allowed users to control their own visual story through the range underpinned by the great British weather.
Virgin Media
What better way to get the broadband speed message to gamers on Social than a powered-up twist on the Nokia classic where they eat... their mates! The very essence of a successful game - simple and addictive.
World Wildlife Fund
A favourite project of mine was a pioneering use of ‘tech for good’ - an ideal project both in terms of opportunity and creative output.
Conceiving and creating an innovative piece that drove global awareness and influenced behavioural change for the benefit of the planet was extremely rewarding.
Geo-location and dynamic online rendering gave users a bespoke journey of consciousness around the world, telling stories of issues that related to their everyday activity. A world view of live ‘pledge’ activity became an engaging piece of generative art.
SAP - Bank of One
SAP's software powers much of the Financial Services industry but they needed to shift brand perception by demonstrating that their offering is as flexible as the products that consumers will soon be demanding.
I led the pitch team and conducted numerous client interviews with stakeholders from around the globe. The understanding gathered from this research is what ultimately brought us success.
My role was then to plan and direct a series of beautiful online adverts that tell the story of different artists - showing that the future of banking needs to be personalised to every individual's needs. Here's one of them...
Swatch / MTV Playground
A progressive three year project to create and manage a vibrant, growing online community gave numerous opportunities to create content that drove interactions in refreshing ways.
Logistically very complex, creatively very flexible. Aimed at an artistic audience and packed full of music, fashion and art.
A project that proved an innovative outlet for both the brands and my team, resulting in extremely rich, consumable content that drove huge audience growth and loyalty.
Carlsberg - Venue Consultancy Tool
A transformational application that continues to shape the way that the brand interacts with trade customers, while offering them intelligent, data-driven, findings on which to base their own business decisions. The success of this piece was based on gathering a huge amount of insight.
Having led the pitch-winning team, I adopted a position within Strategy and UX while we set out to learn more about our new client’s business and their customers, and to help our client unlearn previous assumptions and old habits.
It’s so satisfying to re-invent a process that’s been unchanged for decades and to obsess about a functional design ahead of making it beautiful.
Clash Magazine
A complete overhaul for one of the most respected voices in music.
Bringing an outdated online experience in line with the gorgeous magazine.
bakingmad.com
A successful pitch to redesign the UK's most popular dedicated baking site.
Our thorough understanding of the consumer and the brands involved won through.
SCONUL
It's not all cars, booze and music. The creation of a new platform for The Society of College, National and University Libraries was no mean feat. In fact, it was an enormous UX and content migration challenge.
Christian Aid
To bring Christian Aid's global charity work closer to home, we devised 'Poverty Twin'. First, users were paired with an individual of the same age and gender from one of the countries where the charity are active, and given some facts about how their lives differ.
Users could then explore a personalised animated info-graphic experience that showed many differences between other countries and their own. These were downloadable and shareable and ultimately the journey prompted them to sign a petition lobbying G8 nations for change.
FA Footylikes
Social's often about starting the conversation. We used to focus on 'sticky content' to keep users on a site for longer. Now we want them to have quick, engaging experiences that are easy to share.
For the Football Association, we made a tool that analysed each user's face and dynamically returned a selection of England footballers, past and present, that they most look like. Simple. With amazing results.
Foldbooth
I always encourage my teams to work on fun, innovative projects in the background. One of many was a cute face-folding app. An original idea that gave us an opportunity to create and test an interesting UI, along with a nice illustration style.
More importantly, it allows a community of users to create, invent and smile.
Other forays into the unknown have somehow led to situations as unpredictable as the team singing live in front of an audience of 1000, and a radio interview to 2 million listeners. You just never know where experimentation will lead.
Embarrassing videos available on request.
Augmented Reality
I've been working with Augmented Reality experiences for many years across a variety of devices. From innovative ways to drive footfall to store, to education and engagement. This simple app that we built for Homebase and The Chelsea Flower Show is clearly the precursor to Pokémon Go ;)
Coke NFC
What started out as an idea for an internal conference led to an innovative solution for other brand clients and their experiences. Despite most of us using NFC every day, many of us still find it magical when there's a creative layer added.
Travis Perkins App
A nice opportunity to add some relevant tools and utilities to what would otherwise be a straight-forward catalogue of products with a store locator.
In addition to builder-friendly tools like the Brick Calculator, we tapped into the phone's gyroscope to create a useful little Spirit Level.
South Africa Tourism
Experiential often overlooks Digital as a way to further engage consumers. For SAT, we created a giant touchscreen vending machine and also offered a simple way to capture and share activity through social channels.
Display & DOOH
Over the years, I've produced countless short animated spots of every conceivable format - from tiny banners online to screens many times the size of a bus. Always looking for ways to grab the viewers' attention.
e-commerce - Cushe
I’ve been involved in e-commerce since 2007 - my first major experience was for Cushe, a new brand of footwear. I’d helped shape the brand since their inception and strategically repositioned their online presence each season, honing it for their audience as the brand quickly evolved and grew (all while skeuomorphic web design was still fashionable).
We then introduced a most innovative online shopping experience, which was successful in taking the brand to the next level. Ultimately leading to acquisition and incorporation into a suite of brands for a global footwear giant.
It was the most enjoyable and rewarding relationship between agency and brand.
Experience in this area has come in various shapes and sizes since - from small personalised gifts to luxury cruises. Devices, methods, and popular design styles have all changed, but the goal hasn’t.