Left: Peter, our winner. Top: Our Top Gear-style leaderboard. Bottom: Getting competitive.

For all our friends, colleagues and clients, we organised our first ever Nintendo Wii Winter Olympics at the Royal Institution. Everyone had a great time, with plenty of eating, drinking and virtual speed skating.

With a Wii to be won and places on a Top Gear-style leaderboard at stake, competition was, on the whole, good natured – with a tussle at the top between Laura James from Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Peter Stidwill from the Houses of Parliament Education Service.

When the competition drew to a close Peter just edged it, with a time he’d set on his first go! A huge thank you to everyone who came along and joined in the fun.

You can check out the pictures on our Flickr profile.

We turned part of our Sheffield offices into a working film set to create content for The Rehearsal Room

We’re currently working with Sheffield Theatres to engage non-traditional audiences in theatre productions.

We’re creating The Rehearsal Room to promote plays before, during and after performances. Potential theatre-goers will be able to use this virtual space to find out how plays are produced. The site’s content will be filmed here at The Workshop: we’re currently building a set in our offices. Users will also be able to explore the work of Sheffield Theatres through video, photos and interactive elements and add their own contributions.

The first production to receive this treatment, Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, is showing at the newly-refurbished Crucible Theatre in spring 2010. To get the setting right, we researched the play thoroughly and identified three core ideas that resonate with today’s political intrigues.

We’ve used phrases from the play in a trailer now showing on YouTube. It’s attracting a lot of interest – you may be one of the 3000+ viewers! Next, we’re planning an all-out poster and advertising campaign around the region. Meanwhile, we’ll keep treading the boards.

* With apologies to William Shakespeare.

Our design work had to illustrate the thinking behind both collections, but still work as a single suite of materials.

The Workshop has worked with John Smedley for almost 20 years.

Recently they asked us to design and produce press materials and sales team tools for their Autumn/Winter 2010 menswear and womenswear collections. We began by spending some quality time with their design team to understand the thinking behind each collection.

That time helped us draw on the ethos behind the knitwear: layering. For both collections, we produced a spiral-bound presenter featuring fashion photography of the key pieces and sample fabric swatches.

Each presenter included an accompanying lookbook, which outlined the inspiration behind each collection. We also included the designer’s original sketches to illustrate layering and accessorising techniques. A special lookbook-sized pocket in each presenter’s back cover continued the layering theme.

Throughout the press packs, photography captured the essence and spirit of each collection. The ‘archivist’ theme for the menswear collection was shot on location at Tissington Hall, Derbyshire by Jamie Rowan.

Sarah Cresswell chose to emphasise the silhouette of the womenswear collection by taking studio-based images against a dreamlike London background.

Our interactive games bring the relationship between animals and plants to life

The Royal Institution is dedicated to connecting people with the world of science through research and events. We’ve been working with them for the last five years to support their annual Christmas lectures which have been going since 1825.

The events are filmed every year and broadcast on UK television. To support them, we’ve designed a series of interactive games, which are now live over at the Christmas lectures site. We’re also producing a DVD that will be sent to around 2,500 secondary schools across the UK in the New Year.

The Christmas lectures feature scientific demonstrations designed to bring science to life for children and adults. This year’s series is called ‘The 300 Million Year War’ and will be presented by Professor Sue Hartley, an ecologist who specialises in the study of interactions between plants and animals.

We’ve created 10 interactive games, two for each lecture theme, to teach youngsters aged 11-17 about plants and the amazing ways they have adapted to survive alongside animals:
Plant wars
The animals strike back
Talking trees
Dangerous to delicious
Weapons of the future

Once you’ve had a play of the games, why not tune in to catch the lectures on More 4 every night this week, starting this evening, Monday 21 December at 7pm?

Earlier this year, The Workshop designed and built a giant ‘AidPod’ for the ColaLife campaign. Watch the video above to see how we did it.

The concept behind the campaign was dreamt up by Simon Berry and submitted to Google’s 10^100 project. It’s an absolute corker too.

The idea is to send aid to developing countries in specially shaped AidPods that slot nicely into crates of Coca Cola (whose distribution network happens to be more wide-reaching than any aid or health organisation).

Transported inside each AidPod will be health and hygiene products, including rehydration salts, vitamin tablets and condoms.

Our giant AidPod was built to promote the ColaLife campaign. We put the AidPod together on a not-for-profit basis and already it’s been on display at Nesta and on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of the One & Other project.

Now the AidPod is heading to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts (RSA), where it will be on display over Christmas and into January.

For more information about the campaign, you can visit the ColaLife website or get updates from the ColaLife team via Twitter.

Morrisons' Talent guide forms part of our consultancy work with their HR department

We’ve worked with Morrisons for more than three years now. In that time The Workshop has created internal marketing campaigns, promotional materials and digital products. We’ve provided design, copywriting and technical services – the whole caboodle!

This autumn, we’ve been providing communications consultancy, helping the company’s directors and company communications team reach out and speak to employees across the UK.

Making the most of Talent

Morrisons’ Talent guide outlines the company’s vision for developing employees’ skills and helping them to build a career in the organisation. The idea is that with talent and determination, staff can work their way up ‘from shop floor to top floor’.

Tiina Carr, one of our directors, is working alongside Morrisons’ Director of Human Resources to look at the philosophy behind their values, leadership, talent and performance. The result will be a set of guides that lie at the heart of Morrisons’ new HR philosophy and can be used by the company’s top 1000 senior managers.

The Talent guide ties in with the new Morrisons Academy, which develops staff and helps them to gain a nationally recognised qualification for carrying out their day-to-day work. It’s an enterprising initiative that’s caught the eye of Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, amongst others.

The Workshop on TV

Norman Pickavance, Morrisons’ Director of HR, also appeared on a special edition of ITV’s Tonight programme, ‘Make me an apprentice’, a couple of weeks ago to talk about Morrisons and their work on The Academy. It was great to see some of the communications we’d designed for The Academy scheme being beamed into households across the UK!

‘Make me an apprentice’ also featured Norman talking about Morrisons’ commitment to the government’s Backing Young Britain campaign, which encourages businesses to support young people into employment by offering work experience, apprenticeships and other opportunities. We were pleased twice over as The Workshop also developed the Backing Young Britain website just a couple of months ago.

The Transport font used on the report's wraparound features on all British road signs

Last night, Colin, one of our directors and Andrew, our design communications manager, travelled to Leeds for the annual Cream Awards, which are about recognising and rewarding design excellence in Yorkshire.

We’d entered the annual report that we created for Sheffield charity, Roundabout, into two categories: ‘Publications and Annual Reports’ and ‘Craft’ – we came up trumps in both!

Best in show

The Workshop collected the top prize in each category and received some high praise from the judging panel. Then, just as they were settling down for the rest of the evening, Andrew was called to the stage a final time as the report collected a third gong, the crème de la crème of the evening’s awards, the Grand Prix!

It was a great night for The Workshop and we’re extra pleased that the awards came for our work with Roundabout, a charity we’ve supported for several years.

It’s been a tough year for the industry and even at last night’s awards, there was an element of stripping back and getting back to basics. The truth is, it’s creativity that really matters, not big budgets and indulgence, so it feels kind of fitting that an annual report created on a not-for-profit basis proved such a winner.

You can find out more about our good news over at The Drum’s website, where you’ll also find a full breakdown of the evening’s various winners and commendations.

The report's photography shows the more vulnerable side of the young people supported by Roundabout

About Roundabout

As well as running a hostel, Roundabout provides a life skills programme for young homeless people between the ages of 16 and 25, which teaches them cooking, budgeting, self-esteem building and healthy living.

Founded in 1977, Roundabout helps 120 people a day and more than 1,200 youngsters every year.

Images of young people from a distance contrast with more personal close-ups

About the winning project

The 2008-9 Roundabout annual report incorporates a unique photographic collection of some of the young people who use Roundabout’s hostel.

Each of the volunteers was photographed twice by Sheffield’s Nigel Barker at different city centre roundabouts – one image shot from a distance, with a second, close-up image showing a more vulnerable side of their personalities.

A smaller booklet containing the Sheffield charity’s report data and information is stitched to the outside of the pictorial anthology, incorporating the words ‘Round’ on the back cover and ‘About’ on the front.

The typeface used is Transport – the principal font used on British road signs. By adopting the same principles as road signage design, the key information is presented clearly and can be absorbed quickly.

The overall design has connotations with both the word ’roundabout’ and the work carried out by the charity, on many different levels.

The smaller wraparound element is partly intended to show how Roundabout supports and protects young people like those depicted in the larger brochure within. But the fact that the outer booklet is smaller shows that the problem of young homeless people in Sheffield is currently bigger than the resources available to the charity.

Left: Nick Clegg and Mark. Right: Gordon Brown with Morrisons staff.

The Workshop has been rubbing shoulders with some of the UK’s highest and mightiest this past couple of weeks.

Last Thursday, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, popped in to our Sheffield office to take a sneaky peek at the marvellous interactive whiteboard resources that we created for the Houses of Parliament website. Mark, one of our directors, showed him the ropes and shared the limelight (see image above) as part of a story for the Sheffield Star.

Nick also had some very nice things to say about us:

“The Workshop is a real hidden jewel in the creative industry of Sheffield. My visit here has been a real eye-opener, finding a company that is doing such cutting-edge educational work. It’s a company everyone in Sheffield should be proud of.”

Then on the very same day Tiina, Richard and Katie were in Bradford for the launch of Morrisons Academy, a new scheme to help Morrisons’ staff gain nationally recognised qualifications as part of what they do every day.

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was also there to help get things underway. Having provided a range of consultancy, design and copywriting services for the HR Department and Morrisons Academy project, it was fair smashing to see the PM handling our goods, so to speak!

Of course, in the interests of impartiality, we’re more than happy to rub shoulders with David Cameron too, should he be interested.

Left: Lucy gives the camera a wave. Middle: Applause for Maynard Flip Flap. Right: Post-ride entertainment.

The Workshop’s annual bike ride took place last month. A fantastic mix of staff, clients and friends completed the 11-mile cycle around Howden and Ladybower reservoirs, with more than 50 people taking part.

And didn’t we have a smashing time? The weather was kind and Maynard Flip Flap, our post-ride entertainment, kept us going after a rather tasty picnic.

Of course, apart from all the fun and games, our aim was to raise money for charity. Well here’s the good news. Together, we raised a wonderful £1,005 for Roundabout, the Sheffield charity that helps young, vulnerable people gain important life skills and get back on their feet again.

So a huge thank you goes out to everyone who took part in the bike ride, plus all of those very kind donators who contributed on the day or online. You all helped make the event a great success. Thanks – we appreciate it!

There are plenty of pictures from the bike ride over on our Flickr account, so head over and take a look.

GOLDRush has its own spangly presenter to lead users through the quiz

We’ve spent the last few weeks working on this year’s Get Online Day (GOLD) for UK online centres.

Our task was to create an online interactive quiz to help non-internet users get a grip of the basics. We needed to show them the benefits of being online and how it can positively affect their lives.

Enter GOLDRush – the quiz that shows you how to have a great time online.

Based in a glitzy (and not unintentionally cheesy) television studio, you’re welcomed on set by a friendly video presenter who will guide you through the rest of the quiz.

There are three main tasks, each designed to show you how to get online and start doing something useful:

• search for information about genealogy (one of the most popular internet search terms)
• use internet maps
• create secure passwords to stay safe.

GOLDRush went live on Friday 9 October ready for the start of the GOLD campaign, which runs from Monday 19 to Saturday 31 October.

Head on over and check it out – click Start to get to our bit.