Following the Roses Design Award nominations that we mentioned on the blog last week, we are please to share the news that we have received four nominations in the Fresh Design Awards.

The Democracy project which was recognised by the Roses Design Awards has been shortlisted in the categories Brand Identity and Typography, the Pinhole poster which has also been recognised by the Roses Design Awards has been shortlisted in the poster category of the Fresh Awards and the campaign we created for the Natural History Museum Ice Rink has been shortlisted in the illustration category.

The awards will be announced in Manchester next month.

We are really pleased to have our work recognised by the Roses Design Awards who have nominated two of our pieces of work Democracy (pictured above) and Pinhole for their 2010 awards.

We will be attending the award ceremony in Manchester in October to discover if we will be taking home silverware from these prestigious awards.

The City of York certainly had something new to shout about as we made our way from the station into the City yesterday afternoon, passing by the lamppost banners and posters highlighting the new attraction in town. After lots of anticipation the re-furbished Yorkshire Museum has re-opened its doors.

Being ‘greeted’ by the Mars statue as we walked through the entrance to the Museum was great; a familiar sight from the marketing literature we had produced for the museum. The transformation was instantly recognisable – the space was light and airy with sights and sounds enticing you in every direction.

We started our visit with the audio visual spectacular we had heard so much about. A journey back in time through the sights and sounds of York, taking place in the old cinema which is part of the museum. It was hard to believe that such an amazing space had been there all the time in the museum, but closed off to the public. This ornate auditorium will make a great addition to the museum experience.

Leaving the auditorium, we made our way through the different galleries starting with a visit to Roman York. The highlight for me was the large floor mosaic, which was found in York and has been lovingly re-laid within the museum. They even encourage you to walk on it; a sure sign that the museum experience is changing. If you like you can even adorn the roman costumes, including sandals to enhance your experience – they do come in adult sizes!

Walking into the Medieval York Gallery set amongst the ruins of a medieval abbey, we were instantly attracted to the treasure on display. Spectacular pieces of Viking and Medieval gold and silver, well presented against a purple backdrop which makes the displays jump out at you. Again great to see pieces which we used in our marketing, such as the Middleham Jewel in reality; such a beautiful gold pendant with a sapphire and intricate engravings to both sides.

Heading back upstairs we entered the Extinct Gallery; a fun, family-orientated gallery where you can walk in the footprints of dinosaurs, see which dinosaur weighs the same as you and see if you are as tall as a Moa (a flightless bird from New Zealand) - as they were 2m tall I stood no chance! Again the displays were really bright and interactive, with extra information sheets on hand if you wanted to find out more.

Overall it was a great experience and is amazing to see the transformation into a modern, bright and spacious museum; well done York Museums Trust for making the vision a reality.

Sumo worked with York Museums Trust to promote the relaunch of the Yorkshire Museum, as part of our ongoing role as their creative agency.

Day one of the Arts Marketing Association Conference in Leeds, which this year has the theme of pulling power and focuses on how we can creating marketing which goes viral and takes on a life of its own, rather then the more traditional push marketing (i.e. advertising).

The first keynote was Mark Earls, the author of the book Herd: How to change mass behaviour by harnessing our true nature. In his presentation Mark discussed the social nature of human beings and how ideas can spread through our society.

Amazon.com was one example which Mark gave in his talk. Everyone familiar with Amazone will know that the website uses terms like ‘customers who bought this item also bought’ and ‘frequently bought together’. these selling techniques appeal to our herd instinct.

Another example is found in a hotel bathroom, in recent years signs have appeared which suggest that to save the environment you should ‘hang up your towels’ so that the cleaning staff don’t replace them with new towels. Mark said that the last line on these signs ‘most people do this’ again appeals to our herd instinct and we as human beings accept that this is the most acceptable behaviour and adopt it.

Mark said that as marketeers we must create opportunities for people to spread the word and make things worth spreading.

That led perfectly on to Nicky Webb from Artichoke speaking about her companies work, and particularly the One and Only project which they produced with Anthony Gormley on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Interestingly Nicky spoke about how they like to use the element of surprise to promote their work, choosing not to promote an event in advance and instead relying on people stumbling upon something special and then virally spreading the word about this.

This technique has worked brilliantly for events such as The Sultan’s Elephant which saw over 1 million people scramble to catch a glimpse of the magnificent performance piece.

With the One and Only project, Artichoke needed to reach out to people across the UK and they did this through the web. The tools which they used didn’t interest me as much as the questions that they asked themselves in producing the piece.

‘Ask yourself what motivates people to get involved and how you can get people talking about it’ Nicky said.

In the afternoon Shelley Bernstein from the Brooklyn Museum gave an impressive keynote presentation about how their organisation operates in the digital space. This wasn’t so much about marketing, but about an organisation which see’s itself at the centre of it’s community and which uses social media tools to connect with this community.

Shelley spoke about how Brooklyn Museum asks visitors to leave comments on computers in their galleries and then feeds these directly on to their website uncensored, which seemed to get a really positive reaction from the audience in Leeds.

Shelley finished by discussing the museums recent work with FourSquare, a platform which hasn’t really taken off in the UK to the same extent that it has in the States, and this encouraged me to look again at the possibilities of FourSquare.

Following the keynote, Shelley took questions about her work and I asked her if Brooklyn Museum ever fail when it comes to using technology, and in line with the openness of the organisation, Shelley told me that I could read about when things goes wrong on the Brooklyn Museum blog.

A great first day at the AMA conference.

Following the success of our Democracy exhibition, which formed part of Design Event (the North East design festival) last year, we are pleased to announce that Sumo will be producing an exciting new exhibition called Exquisite Corpse for Design Event North East 2010.

The exhibition which will run at the Newcastle Arts Centre for two weeks will present a contemporary take on the surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse, in which an image is formed by a series of participants.

An international collection of designers have signed up to take part in the exhibition, you can find out more on the Exquisite Corpse website.

The brand workshops, the brainstorms, the concepts, the designs, the phone calls and emails, the planning, the programming and the print had all led to this moment as we stepped off the train ready for the launch of the Milton Keynes International Festival; IF.

It was exciting to see our brand decorating the train station, creating a real buzz about the festival and we couldn’t help but smile as we were approached by a festival volunteer offering us one of the programmes which we had designed as a guide to the festival, which was taking over the City for the next ten days.

Leaving the station we were amazed by the huge installation which met us. Mirazozo by Architects of Air is a beautiful inflatable sculpture which invites its audience to take a walk inside the numerous domes and tunnels, and experience a sensory world of sound, light and colour. Inspired by Islamic architecture, Gothic cathedrals and modern architecture, Mirazozo is the latest sculpture by Architects of Air and is making its UK premiere at the IF Festival. An amazing vision as you leave the station, and an immediate sign that there is something extraordinary happening in Milton Keynes.

The festival started with speeches from Monica Ferguson, Festival Director, Sally Abbott from the Arts Council and Debbie Brock; The Mayor of Milton Keynes who were all clearly delighted and proud to have the festival taking place in their City and seeing the months and months of preparation coming to fruition. Once the speeches were over it was time for the cultural tour to begin.

Our first stop on the festival tour was another UK premiere, this time of The Magical Menagerie produced by Artichoke and created by the extraordinary artist Francois Delaroziere and his company La Machine. Famous for his previous work; The Sultan’s Elephant in 2006 and the giant spider La Princesse which took over Liverpool in 2008, we weren’t disappointed by his latest creation. The Magical Menagerie is a huge, square carousel filled with magical, mechanical creatures that can be operated by the riders.

As we approached the carousel we were in wonder at the different animals and soon a group of arts professionals were reliving their childhood as we all scrambled to choose our creatures and get set for the experience to begin. We chose a huge mechanical bison and took our seats ready to operate the head and tail and the carousel started to move. Everywhere we looked we were in wonder at the different creatures, the amazing details and the mechanics involved in getting each sculptured creature to move in a different way. A truly unique installation, which was definitely a highlight of our visit to the IF Festival.

The next stop on our cultural journey was an empty supermarket store in the heart of Milton Keynes; it doesn’t sound very cultural, but once inside we were all set to experience the work of the artist in residence Janek Schaefer. Another UK premiere, Asleep at the Wheel is a thought-provoking and immersive sound installation from multiple car radios that contemplates our future.

We were met by the artist himself, and Janek shared with us his brief for the project, his vision and how the installation took shape. Clearly very enthusiastic about his art and the festival we were invited to walk to the back of the disused store which had been transformed into a motorway, with three lanes of cars waiting for their passengers.

Through the darkness lit up by hazard lights we chose our first car and took our positions as back seat passengers. With the front windscreen cleverly transformed into a rain swept scene and the constant clicking of the hazard lights, we listened to the media sound-bites through the car stereo providing us with information on a sustainable life and ways to improve societies future. We immediate felt transformed into this motorway landscape on a rainy night, and each car with its individual smell (not sure if this was part of the installation or just coincidence!) had a different message to tell its audience.

The final cultural experience on our tour was to take place in the Spiegeltent, an amazing mirrored tent which was to create a beautiful backdrop to the performance of The Table by Karbido. Having knowledge of the artists through our work on the festival, we waited in anticipation for the four men to take their place at the unusual table which the audience had circled.

Soon four men dressed in black appeared from behind us and took their seats around the table, and a mind-blowing musical journey around the world began. It was quickly apparent that this was no ordinary table, with ultra-sensitive microphones and various instruments within it; one leg becoming a flute and guitar fretboards along the edges. We were blown away by the musical performance which took place just arms length away from us using such an everyday object in a unique way. Clearly talented musicians, they will be a huge hit at this years IF festival.

And sadly that was the end of our festival tour, but we left the Spiegeltent making our way back to our hotel in constant chatter about the installations and performances we had enjoyed. It was definitely a thought provoking experience, great to see our brand and marketing in situ, fantastic to see the festival come to life, and a shame we couldn’t stay for the ten extraordinary days that Milton Keynes is about to witness!

BALTIC (the contemporary art gallery in Gateshead) seems to have really hit it’s stride in the past year, and the summer programme is incredibly strong.

The Tomas Saraceno piece shown in the blurry picture above (your not really meant to take pictures, blurry or otherwise) is an installation built in collaboration with a spider. It’s really breathtaking.

However, my favorite exhibit was a piece by Cornelia Parker, which features sixty silver-plated instruments from a brass band that have been squashed and suspended in midair.

The final part of the current programme is by American composer, writer and artist John Cage, these pieces really needed more time then I had (while showing two young children around) and I’ll be returning soon to give this work them consideration it deserves.

I’ll be raving about the current BALTIC show to all my friends, and I recommend our blog reader take time to visit to.

You can get more information about BATIC and the summer exhibition programme here.

We’ve just returned from Milton Keynes where we attended the VIP launch event  for the IF: Milton Keynes International Festival. A 10 day festival of extraordinary events, from art installations to dance, performance art to musical extravaganza’s, the IF festival promises something for everyone.

I just came across an advert for the Milton Keynes International Festival which starts next week in The Guardian Guide.

Sumo worked with the IF Festival team develop the brand and marketing campaign for this new international festival, and we are looking forward to heading down to Milton Keynes next week for the opening party.

The picture above was taken this weekend at Gibside, one of the National Trust properties that Sumo help to promote. Gibside is the kind of place that gives the National Trust such a great reputation and the perfect place for a summer picnic.