First Look: Comedy Central UK Rebrand

In a follow-up to my earlier post on the rebrand of Paramount Comedy (UK) to Comedy Central, here’s a first look at some new creative before Monday’s launch of the campaign. Karmarama’s joint-venture production arm, Kream, produced a series of nine channel idents which feature the new logo for Comedy Central causing disruption at various locations in the UK, including Tower Bridge and the Gherkin building.

England’s Obama Inauguration Graphics: Sky News HD

For those in the States interested to see what the inauguration on-air graphics looked like in the UK, here are some shots from the Sky News HD broadcast. This is the first Sky News broadcast in HD. It was presented by Jeremy Thompson and Adam Boulton, and ran on Sky Arts HD.

UK Study: Design Business up in 2009

Some good news for a change. The Design Council has published a new study (Jan 2009) revealing 54% of UK businesses are planning to use design to help them survive the economic downturn. It’s National Survey of Firms, reveals that “far from retreating to safety and resorting to cutting costs, increasing number of firms are using design as a powerful tool to help combat the toughest economic condition in decades.”

The study, which is based in the UK, showed that the number of firms who regarded design as integral to their operations doubled in the past three years from 15 to 30%. Although this study covers design within a broad spectrum of specialties, it is upbeat news for designers working in the image & branding verticals.

This confirms our recent observations of a noticeable uptick of direct-to-client business moving to broadcast design shops from traditional ad agency relationships. This is encouraging news for creative boutiques that offer image, brand strategy, vfx and production as a ‘one-roof’, direct-to-client offering.