Welcome to the Moriarti blog! Here you will find things that inspire us, make us laugh, developements in the design and marketing community and generally comment from us on a pile of stuff. Come in and take a load off.

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Moriarti’s Snowball Tossing Game

This Christmas, the team here at Moriarti have decided we would like to send our Season’s Greetings to you in the form of a festive game.

Just click on the image above and have some fun throwing snowballs at us in our “Snowball Tossing Game”.

Score points by hitting Dave, Mike, Simon and Steve with snowballs, but be careful as you will lose points if you break any windows!

Find out if you’re good enough to make it onto the top ten leader board and please feel free to challenge your friends and colleagues too.

We hope you have a great festive period and happy and healthy 2010!

PS. Oh, and don’t forget to have a look at our new website to see what else we’ve been up to in a busy 2009!

Is Social Media the biggest global shift since the industrial revolution?

Many brands are dipping their toes into Social Media hoping that this will create and grow brand awareness while attracting a new set of customers. There is no denying that times are changing and because of the power of the internet and mobile devices brands can now communicate in real time with their target audience(s).

While social media presents a new opportunity for brand owners the real power in these new mediums lies with the users themselves. More importantly users now have ‘Martini’ based access and control of information - anytime, anyplace and anywhere - and have the ability to vote with their feet in real time and influence a brands status and reputation. Ultimately, the users will decide who will win and who will lose while brands try to figure our how best to optimise social media to provide a trackable and measurable ROI. While everyone is trying to get to grips with this new paradigm there are some interesting facts about social media, which maybe suggest that this might just be the biggest global shift since the industrial revolution.

• By 2010, Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers and 96 percent of them have joined a social network
• Social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the Web
• Number of Years to reach 50 millions users: Radio, 38 years; TV, 13 years; Internet, 4 years; iPod, 3 years. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months; iPhone applications hit 1 billion in nine months
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest, between the United States and Indonesia
• Eighty percent of companies use LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
• Worldwide there are more than 200,000,000 blogs
• Eighty percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences!
• Facebook users translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than two weeks and this cost Facebook £0
• Seventy-eight percent of consumers that use social networks trust peer recommendations
• Only 14 percent of consumers trust advertisements

Many people will be excited by the above facts while others will be scared or bemused. Whatever each of us might feel about Social Media one thing is sure, times are changing rapidly. The pace of change is so fast that some of the above information is already out of date!

We are all astronomers

Do you know what an astronomer does? Today’s astronomer is not the lone observer of past centuries. We Are Astronomers reveals the global collaboration, technology and dedication required to answer the unresolved questions of the Universe.

We Are Astronomers is an exciting new 360° Fulldome digital planetarium show launching 23 May 2009 across the UK. The show is being produced by NSC Creative with input from UK astronomers.

The project is a collaboration between Armagh Planetarium, Centre For Life, INTECH Science Centre & Planetarium, National Space Centre, Our Dynamic Earth, Royal Observatory Greenwich, Spaceport with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

We Are Astronomers is currently playing in the future dome at Our Dynamic Earth Edinburgh. Also more trailers can be found here

A Union for a’ that

‘A Union for a’ that’ is a collaborative education project for Scottish schools marking the 300th anniversary of the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. The project is funded by the Scottish Government Education Department, Tourism, Culture and Sport.

Moriarti were asked to design and produce an e-learning resource and support materials designed to support ‘A Curriculum for Excellence’, Scotland’s new curriculum that provides relevant, inspiring, and engaging education for every child and young person in Scotland.

Working closely with the National Archives of Scotland and The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Moriarti designed and produced an interactive e-learning DVD-Rom that contains a wealth of information to help children of all ages understand the Union of Parliaments. The resources include a digital booklet, downloadable teaching aides, audio and video as well as fun interactive games.

In support to this, Moriarti produced a brand identity as well as a number of support materials including a website, exhibition panels and print materials to support the workshops and other events that were being run by the partnership of Government agencies.

XCalibre Brand Development

XCalibre Communications has been delivering innovative hosting solutions to thousands of customers across the UK and Europe since 1997. Based in Scotland they have a network of UK data centres in central locations and offer a unique range of secure, reliable and cost-effective hosting services.

Moriarti created new, fresh, contemporary company and product brand identities that could be used stand-alone but also had similar attributes that they were easily identified as being from the same company.

Initially focusing on the new cloud computing solution ‘FlexiScale’, Moriarti created a complete range of off-line and on-line marketing materials in approximately 8 weeks from client brief so that FlexiScale could be launched at a major UK trade show. These marketing materials included new product branding and logo, web sites, business stationery, product data sheets, adverts, flyers and exhibition display stand.

McCowans Bonbons Brand Packaging

Another instalment in our re-working of Millar McCowans extensive portfolio of iconic Scottish confectionary brands. This time the challenge was to make McCowans Bonbons work across a range that includes Highland Toffee, Strawberry and Lemon flavours.

These all have their unique identity and it was important to update these but as the same time introduce strong family queues. If you fancy some, you can buy them here.

Millar Mint Packaging

Some more recent brand packaging design for Millar McCowan, this time for Pan Drops, Mint Humbugs and Mint Selection. Millar Pan Drops are iconic in Scotland and have been produced by Millar since 1844.

You can buy some here.

WHAM XTRM Sherbet Dip

Moriarti have just designed the brand packaging for the new Super Sour WHAM XTRM Sherbet Dip with a Blackcurrent Flavour Lollipop.

In stores now!

WHAM!

Moriarti have just designed the packaging for a whole range of brand extensions to the WHAM family of confectionery. Sour multicolour Tinglers, strawberry flavoured Power Pencils, sour strawberry Fizz Sticks and Loopy Laces are among the first of the new products to go into supermarkets in the UK.

More to come soon…