Pixel8 recently won an International Hermes Creative Award for our animated Brand Development Journal illustrating the journey we travelled with USA based, global boutique brand Hotel Indigo.  Pixel8 were appointed by IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) to refresh the Hotel Indigo brand ahead of major international expansion.

We created the animation for IHG’s Atlanta based Director of Global Brand Management, Upscale Brands, Ed Thorne. Ed wanted an atmospheric and bohemian internal presentation about Hotel Indigo’s development that was still completely on-brand. Lasting just 90 seconds, the animation begins with the image of a hand scribbling a Hotel Indigo logo in pencil on a napkin; reflecting the humble beginnings of the brand.

The animation then shows Pixel8 flying across the Atlantic to Atlanta, Georgia and embarking on a global journey, stopping off along the way to conduct focus groups, select Pantone references, commission photography and create tone of voice. The animation illustrates just some of the research, analysis and prep work that we carried out for Hotel Indigo.

Pixel8 Art Director, Al Woods explains, “The brand we developed for Hotel Indigo was relaxed and low key, and our on-brand presentation reflects perfectly. It deliberately raises more questions than it answers and doesn’t force a corporate message. Its gritty, quirky and illustrative feel is totally new to its U.S. audience and is key to its success. From top level internal corporate presentations to trade fairs, IHG has used our mixed media, stop frame style animation to great effect; it has really pulled in and held onto audiences’ attention. It also worked well as a catalyst for discussion.”

Feedback from IHG’s Ed Thorne included, “From the choice of music to the edgy graphical style, this clever and characterful animation really sums up the developmental journey that Pixel8 has travelled with the Hotel Indigo brand. It further underlines for me the reasons why I chose a UK-based and globally-looking branding agency to deliver a worldwide brand strategy.”

We strived to create something distinctive and warm to communicate not just the Hotel Indigo brand, but also the personality and technical skill of Pixel8. The International Hermes Creative Award shows that we succeeded!

Watch Pixel8’s Brand Development Journey for Hotel Indigo

For more details about Pixel8’s brand design and development services please call us in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail today.

A brand design refresh, web design and e-commerce website development project is vibrant at Pixel8 in Manchester.

Reviber, part of Zen Lifestyles Group, works with sports scientists, physiotherapists and biomechanical professionals to design health and fitness equipment that utilises vibration exercises originally created to prevent astronauts losing muscle and bone mass in space.

Reviber supplies over 1,500 distributors in 12 countries and sells direct to consumers worldwide. Reviber approached Pixel8 to refresh the brand and to design a new website to wow new customers.

Pixel8’s extensive experience in graphic design, brand development and implementation enabled us to quickly get under the skin of Reviber’s requirements to provide a creative online solution.

Paul Rudge, Managing Director of Reviber said, “After consultations with several design and marketing agencies we have been delighted with our choice of Pixel8 for the branding of our Reviber range of health equipment. Pixel8 took the time to really understand our business, the market sectors we supply and the customer demographic; enabling them to create tailored and very effective branding and web design solutions”.

After the Pixel8 brand design workshop to understand Reviber’s vision, Pixel8 began by designing new logo options, the aim being to create an overarching logo that can be used as an umbrella for new products and sub brands going forward.

When the new logo design and branding were established, the next stage was to design and build the e-commerce website which also offers opportunities to inform and inspire new customers.  The website design utilises the colour palette established in the brand development process, together with a simple template to promote the key products.  Visit the new website now at Reviber.co.uk

The Sunday Telegraph’s opinion described the Reviber Original as “one of the hottest exercise machines of the year.  It will leave you tingling all over as it stimulates muscular activity and circulation”; and The Independent on Sunday gave Reviber 5 out of 5 Stars!

Jamie Watson, joint MD of Pixel8 said, “We’re very excited to work with Reviber and look forward to supporting the brand over the coming years”.

Pixel8, which recently developed new global branding for two of InterContinental Hotels Group brands Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo, offers complete brand design and development solutions, along with web design and CMS driven e-commerce websites.

For more information please contact Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail.

The Pixel8 team enjoyed a glittering night out at the respected Marketing Society Northern Awards 2011 this week.

Sitting amongst the best marketeers in the North and indeed the UK, we were thrilled to be nominated for such a prestigious award in the Leisure and Tourism category for our brand design refresh for Hotel Indigo, the IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) boutique brand.

Up against stiff competition we were proud to be nominated as finalists!

We’d like to congratulate all the winners, especially Karen Gee, Managing Director at Journeys of Distinction, Kuoni who was awarded Marketing Personality of the Year. Also congratulations to the winners of our category, Liverpool Biennial for their ‘Touched’ campaign.

We had a great time at the Awards and enjoyed being involved in acknowledging truly outstanding branding and marketing achievements. Great for marketing and great for the Northwest!

Following our award winning success refreshing the Hotel Indigo brand for IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) the world’s largest hotel group; Pixel8 were tasked with the overall refresh of the Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts brand, which currently has 388 hotels open in 60 countries.

As part of this campaign Pixel8 are supplying all Crowne Plaza Hotels worldwide with new on-brand images for every piece of in house branding collateral. To assist the project we organised and managed a two week photo shoot at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Manchester city centre; conveniently located just around the corner from our studios!

Pixel8 executed a global photo shoot in one location. We took over 20,000 photographs using amongst others, 15 models, 3 make-up artists, 2 Middle-East advisors (one of whom advises the United Nations), a food stylist, 2 art directors and 4 photography assistants.

The end result of the photoshoot will be a Pixel8 hosted and managed collateral builder. The images will be used in pre-design and on-brand templated artwork with pre-defined fields that can be accessed online and fully edited by the user to create on-brand and print ready high resolution PDF artwork. Crowne Plaza employees will be able to access the templates and create on-brand artwork from anywhere in the world in multiple languages; all were translated by Pixel8.

As Crowne Plaza Hotels are located across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the United Arab Emirates, Pixel8 needed to provide imagery that is relevant and appealing to each region. So, we employed models of appropriate ethnicity and created photographs that are sensitive to indigenous customs around the world, recognizing religious differences and using appropriate dress. We employed specialist stylists and advisors to ensure respectful and accurate representation throughout the campaign.

The two week photo shoot drew to a close with a day filming offsite to provide all the leisure imagery such as swimming pools, gyms and golf courses. Cue lots of excuses for the Pixel8 team to speed around the course in the golf buggies!

Hot on the heels of receiving 4 Hermes Creative Awards, Pixel8 are proud to announce that we have been nominated for a Marketing Society Northern Award in the Leisure & Tourism category.

We have been shortlisted for our Hotel Indigo brand design refresh for IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group).

Examples of the work included over 100 complete and editable collateral artwork files, in U.S. and metric formats to speed up implementation across all the hotels globally. It enables quicker decision making between managed and franchised hotels by eradicating the basic creative approval process.

We developed, designed and printed bound copies of the brand guidelines, which embody the new brand personality. Online these are split into separate digital sections for quick download from IHG’s central resource library.

Pixel8 also designed advertisements and supporting collateral for the ‘Locals Know Best’ contest in the USA featuring Natasha Bedingfield. The competition was open to inspire locals to sell their neighborhoods by outlining what makes them great. The winners attended an exclusive VIP event and performance by Natasha Bedingfield at Hotel Indigo New York City, and were featured in a Hotel Indigo advertisement in People® Magazine.

Pixel8 manages worldwide Social Media operations for Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts and Hotel Indigo. As all Hotel Indigo hotels in the Americas are pet friendly, we initiated and managed Facebook and Twitter campaigns to donate funds to U.S. pet charity Adopt-a-Pet.com. Results from the campaign included a $10,000 donation to Adopt-a-Pet.com, hundreds of positive comments for the brand and over 4,000 Facebook fans.

To be shortlisted for a Marketing Society Northern Award has made us very happy indeed. The awards were launched to recognise and reward excellence, and we are thrilled to have our hard work and achievements recognised.

The awards dinner will be held on 29 June at The Point, Lancashire County Cricket Club.

Fingers crossed!

Having already delivered successful and Platinum Award Winning Facebook and Twitter campaigns for the IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) Hotel Indigo brand; Pixel8 were invited to provide global Social Media marketing for IHG’s Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts brand.

Crowne Plaza currently has 388 hotels open in 60 countries and 123 new hotels are in the pipeline.

Within just four working days the Pixel8 Social Media team launched the Crowne Plaza global Facebook with 43 elements including:

A custom-application microsite listing all hotels that works within a single page on Facebook.

All Crowne Plaza campaigns including PGA TOUR and BMW Motorsport sponsorships.

Hotel photo albums, worldwide special offers, latest news and two charity donation campaigns.

“Room Nights for the Brave” is the Crowne Plaza campaign supporting “Birdies for the Brave”, a PGA TOUR supported military outreach initiative assisting U.S. Armed Forces and their families. Crowne Plaza is donating one room night to Birdies for the Brave for every Eagle made at 8 PGA TOUR golf tournaments between 19th May and 3rd July, 2011.

Room Nights for the Brave launched on Facebook and Twitter at the moment play began at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, on 19^th May. An “Eagle Counter” on Crowne Plaza Facebook displays the number of free room nights accrued to date. By close of play at Colonial, 231 free room nights had been accrued!

Pixel8 launched a second campaign to further support Crowne Plaza donations to Birdies for the Brave. The Crowne Plaza Facebook “Likes” campaign will donate up to $20,000 to the charity, one dollar for every “Like” on Crowne Plaza global Facebook until 3rd July, 2011. In week one of this campaign, over 1,000 people “Liked” Crowne Plaza’s Facebook and many positive comments were posted about the brand.

Please join Crowne Plaza in supporting the great work provided by the dedicated people at Birdies for the Brave, just visit Crowne Plaza Facebook and click the “Like” button.

Pixel8 are very pleased to win Platinum in the Social Media category at the Hermes Creative Awards for our Hotel Indigo Facebook & Twitter campaigns. We’re also proud of the Facebook and Twitter campaigns we delivered in record time for Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts.

Charles Yap, Director of Global Brand Communications at IHG described Pixel8’s achievements as “Epic work!”

One advantage of having the same agency provide both brand design and social media, is that the agency is already up to speed and on-brand before social media marketing begins. Advantages which IHG enjoys working with Pixel8 include our ability to provide immediate expertise across both traditional and new media platforms, staff that work out-of-office hours to accommodate Eastern Standard Time and quick turnarounds on custom campaign graphics.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. In the UK please call 0845 230 1336 – From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489 or contact us by e-mail today.

Crowne Plaza, PGA TOUR and BMW are trademarks of their respective owners.

The world’s largest hotel group has once again selected the Pixel8 Design Agency in Manchester to provide corporate branding and design services.

In 2010, Pixel8 refreshed the Hotel Indigo brand for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), beating a pitch list which included three US branding giants.

Pixel8 is now carrying out a brand refresh for Crowne Plaza, the world’s fourth largest upscale hotel brand. The contract win has led to Pixel8 taking on five new members of staff at its northern quarter offices.

Pixel8 will once again report to Ed Thorne, Director Global Brand Management, Upscale Brands based at IHG in Atlanta. On selecting Pixel8 for a second time, Ed said, “Pixel8 did a fantastic job and really helped to define and create consistency across the Hotel Indigo brand. Having proved they can really push the boundaries, they were the obvious choice for our next major refresh.”

Pixel8 Director Jamie Watson said, “Once again our corporate branding and graphic design services have been picked ahead of our international competitors. This is great news for Manchester and of course for Pixel8.  Our relationship with IHG continues to go from strength to strength.”

Nigel Daws, Pixel8’s Creative Director added, “Making brands work is at the heart of what we do.  We’ve been able to demonstrate that we can develop an effective and consistent brand and create meaningful marketing collateral that works.”

Originally branded as Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, the first US hotel opened in Rockville, Maryland, in 1983. Today, there are over 400 Crowne Plaza hotels in 52 countries. In July 2009, Crowne Plaza was recognised by US magazine Lodging Hospitality as one of the industry’s top growing brands.

IHG is the world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms with over 4,500 hotels, more than 650,000 guest rooms in over 100 countries and territories worldwide. IHG Brands include InterContinental Hotels, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

IHG also operates the world’s largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club Rewards, with over 52 million members worldwide.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit www.Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489, in the UK call 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

Pixel8 in Manchester have recently refreshed the design of the Expert Patients Programme website and provided initial SEO services to help expand the websites’ reach.

The web design refresh also included an upgrade of the platform together with a refocus on the core Expert Patients Programme proposition.  The website content can now be fully managed by the client and the platform enables future developments such as forums and e-commerce functionality.

Expert Patients Programme Community Interest Company (EPP CIC) provides free self management courses aimed at helping people who are living with a long term health problem to manage their condition better on a daily basis. The courses offer the confidence, skills and knowledge to manage chronic health conditions such as Arthritis, Asthma, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Heart Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

Most Expert Patients courses are delivered by trained tutors who have personal experience of living with a long-term health problem themselves. EPP CIC also runs specialised courses for young people with health conditions, courses for carers and for health care professionals.

John Reed, IT Manager at EPP CIC said, “Fundamental to the website refresh was both clarity in the proposition whilst providing a platform that enables us to develop new services, and to reach a larger audience in the immediate future.”

For more information please visit the Expert Patients Programme website or call Freephone 0800 988 5550

With the latest appointment of Project Manager Emma Walsh, Pixel8, which recently moved into larger offices in the Northern Quarter, have effectively doubled their internal resources over the past twelve months.

With a background in software project management, Emma has been brought in from a major software company to coordinate longer term software-based solutions for the fast growing Manchester agency.

Pixel8 Director Jamie Watson said, “With software solutions becoming an increasingly more significant part of our client offer, we have appointed a software professional to look after the day-to-day management of this side of our business.”

Pixel8’s continuing growth comes on the back of a number of client wins together with increased responsibilities to support existing customers in the UK and internationally.  Another new addition to the customer support team at the end of March, joining from the BBC, finalises Pixel8’s development of its new team to further support customer needs.

Calendar industry leader Danilo, which supplies over 10,000 retailers globally, asked Pixel8 in Manchester to create a new brand, and to develop a new eCommerce website that would allow consumers to personalise officially licensed calendars and greetings cards online.

Pixel8’s brand design team developed the Personalise.com brand then worked with their in-house web design and web development teams to create an eCommerce website that would:

A)     Appeal to a wide consumer audience as the website offers calendars and cards ranging from Manchester United and Hello Kitty to Wallace and Gromit and Hollyoaks.

B)      Allow people to order personalised official calendars and greetings cards easily.

Pixel8 developed bespoke backend software for the website that produces print ready artwork after personalisation. Using a simple four step process, consumers can now get their favourite celebrities from the worlds of music, football, TV and film personalised on calendars and greetings cards which are despatched within 24 hours.

The website allows people to put their name, or a loved one’s name on a Manchester United shirt held up by Sir Alex Ferguson or on the billboard outside Old Trafford. Hollyoaks fans could find Gemma Merna (plays Carmen McQueen) asking them to be her valentine in February or Ashley Taylor-Dawson (plays Darren Osbourne) requesting a meeting under the mistletoe in December.

Jamie Watson, joint managing director of Pixel8 said, “Danilo saw there was an opening in the market for personalised, officially licensed calendars and greetings cards, so we have set them up to fill the niche.

“Pixel8 has produced numerous award winning licensed calendar designs for Danilo over the last decade and was well placed to help them diversify with this exciting new brand. The bespoke software we created for Personalise.com has several other applications, including the creation of uniform marketing collateral for multi-site franchises. This is an avenue which Pixel8 is keen to explore.

Danilo produced its first design, an Elvis calendar, 32 years ago, and is now licensed to produce the official calendars for top brands including major football clubs, Top Gear, Cliff Richard, Glee, Toy Story 3 and Hollyoaks.

For more information please visit www.Personalise.com or call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail