Dot. at the Bournemouth Air Festival 2009

Its that time of year again and Dot. are off to the Bournemouth Air Festival for four days of aeriel fun and frolics....

Check out http://bournemouthair.blogspot.com to keep up to date with the comings and goings of the event, with a full itinerary and constant news over the weekend.

"The More Bus Bournemouth Air Festival is shaping up to be bigger and better than 2008. With more aircraft, more on the ground attractions and more awesome ‘Night Air’ evening entertainment it promises to be a must-see 4-days of breath-taking aviation action!Watch out for an incredible line-up of civilian aircraft including: the world’s only formation wing walking team - Team Guinot, Yakovlevs Aerobatic Team, The Blades Aerobatic Display Team, The Matadors, Spitfire, Mustang, Sally-B, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, Eurofighter Typhoon and three displays by the Red Arrows."

Rest assured, normal service will be resumed next week with the publication of our feature advert in Bournemouth's Homes magazine.
Dot produced images to follow..........

The life cycle of a dot. logo!

As many of you now know, we not only have an architectural department, we also have a graphics side to dot, that has seen a really exciting growth. Websites, branding, logos, marketing literature are all encompassed under the dot. graphics banner. We thought it would be nice to show the design process behind one of our recent logos, showing you how the creative bods think and work!

So this logo was for Dwiko Arie Photography. A contemporary and very exciting photographer based in London. Dwiko offers a really exciting service, working on a variety of projects, from Music concerts to weddings, and we were approached to design a brand logo that would take that into account. We got to work on brainstorming over a few cups of tea and some biscuits to see where best to take this brand.

We loved the name, we looked at a variety of cool ways to incorporate the idea of photography into the logo, colours, shapes, even an actual camera, but we kept getting pulled back to this unusual but really funky name, could we incorporate the two? We focused on the initials - D and A and worked on a variety of ways to have two letters work as an individual logo.

After muchos sketching we got to work on the computer, we use a variety of Illustrator and photoshop to turn our scrawls into something more presentable.

This part is really where we see how the client want to push their brand, and after a few discussions we all agreed on keeping it very simple with the close text and the linked letters o and a. This was great for a brand, but we needed a logo, something less obvious than pure text, so we went back to the calera inspiration and took some from the most important part of the device, the lens.

We used the linked o and a taken from the text to create a separate entity, but by amending slightly, we could create a d and a which mirrors the look of a camera lens.

Back to the computer to vector the whole thing and get back to client for colour specs and final comments then.

So here is the final product, we went for a variety of greys and whites on the dwiko text, to offer flexibility on chosen background - needless to say the dot team are very happy with the final product, and a big thanks goes out to Dwiko arie and there open approach to some of our silly ideas. See their work at www.dwikoarie.com

Design, Design, Design!

Wow wow wee wah! Well we have been busy boys!

Architecture first, our recent scheme for 14 flats a stones through from the new Boscombe reef has been submitted. The client gave us a fairly open brief in regards to design, but they wanted the flats to be spacious - aiming at a market that is on the way up, this lovely block of flats will be perfect for first time buyers (especially surfers) or people who are looking for a summer retreat in a more financially acceptable area of Boscombe! Designed alongside the knowledge from Planning Precision, this scheme is pays tribute to our design past, but uses contemporary materials to give it a sense of today! Client pleased, we're pleased - lets hope the council are the same! Fingers crossed.This scheme comes on the back of a wave of approvals and instructions, two recent residential extensions in Bournemouth and Wimborne were both approved - happy days!

New instructions include a block of 5 townhouses in Salisbury, our brief was simple, 'Make them look like they have always been there' Our cottage style design was well researched, with a mix of stock brick,render, knapped flint and slate, the scheme really works. A real bug bear of ours is poorly designed pastiche, something that is becoming all to common in today's market - we are pleased to say that these houses are accurately worked, and shows we aren't all about the contemporary finish! Our first architectural venture into Salisbury, lets hope its a fruitful one!

Oh, oh, oh - we almost forgot! Our newest and most prestigious client on the architectural side to date - Murco! Brought to us via Planning Precision, Murco are a world renowned company, and a good indication that things are moving in the right direction for Dot. So far we have worked up schemes all over the country for Murco, as far a field as Stockton on Tees! Here's to more in the future.

Okay, enough of the architectural stuff, what next, oh - graphics!

So, http://www.churchfields-farm.co.uk/ has won an award! A bronze website award, for its funky graphics and the way its been built (courtesy of www.jellyphish.co.uk)

We have had more illustration instructions from BBC Focus Magazine - must be doing something right, so look out for us in their awesome science magazine. On the graphics side, we have also been asked to draw up a logo design for the superbly talented Dwiko Arie Photography. Please, please please check out his website and blog at http://www.dwikoarie.com - he is BRILLIANT! Lets hope our logo can complement his beautiful work - touch wood! Look out for our blog post soon on how the logo went from sketch to final design - once we have completed it!

News at ten style...and finally! We have found our 'Sega Rally Power lap time' challange has become very popular! Come into our office, have a blast, and see how you fair against our clients, friends, and fellow office dwellers! So far Mr Whitney tops the list, with some excellent times from The White Balance, JellyPhish and Brighter Productions - the competition is well and truly underway!

Right, we have bored you enough, please keep coming back for more! Don't forget, Bournemouth Air show is in the next few weeks, which going to be off the hook, along with the world record attempt of Roar on the Shore - a stupid amount of fireworks, in an insanely short period of time!

Ta Ta x