the essential rich media for 2012…

product promotion videos are becoming a necessity for any business.

See below some of our most recent videos…

360 degree rotating images…

are set to become the standard way of displaying all products on the internet. and why not?

Customers increasingly expect a better online experience. Product images need answer all of the customers questions if they are to make a sale. 360 product photography allows the customer to interact with the product – they feel in control – this is a large factor in the increased conversions resulting from have 360 degree photos on your website. They invite a customer to explore the product, turn and examine it.

To find out more or to have our team shoot you a free sample,
please call Steve Allen on 01782 525530 ext 205

Hoping for a relaxing break to recharge the batteries he found that three weeks in the South Atlantic could throw up more inspiration than any number of design books, blogs or museums. Cruising around South America had it all. Just like the trip to London in October it was a reminder to keep your eyes open and take in what is around you. There was so much more creative on show than you could imagine, with Buenos Aires the real highlight.

The streets were abundant with creativity. The Argentine Tango could be found on every street corner. Paintings and murals, graffiti that would be frowned upon back home, jet washed and forgotten about, was here for all to appreciate. These gave each district its own distinct personality. La Boca in its blue and yellow and its passion for football, Caminto has its delightful, playful rainbow of homes steeped in tradition and the shopping district has its own graphic style of street art. Characters you’d be happy to have sitting in your vinyl toy collection.

An example of the 'street art' in the shopping district of Buenos Aires.

Moving on from Buenos Aires and on to Uruguay it was evident the creativity was not confined to the Argentine capital. Plastic mermaids (created to demonstrate the time plastic takes to erode) adorned the Punta Del Este Coast along with a giant ‘hand in the sand’, perfect photo opportunities for the tourists. Being South America, with its unrivaled love of football, the Museo Del Football was an obvious tourist destination. Along side the obligatory trophy much of the exhibition was centered around the art of football, posters from all of the major tournaments. It was a football loving, designer’s dream.

Mermaids at Punta Del Este

Artwork from the Museo Del Futbol in Montevideo

Of course design wasn’t the only thing on the menu. Unrivaled scenery, canoeing around Tierra Del Fuego and a full circle of Cape Horn helped to make this a real holiday to remember. The opportunity to witness a volcanic eruption, penguins in the wild and whale watching all added to the renewed energy and enthusiasm for the year ahead. It just goes to prove inspiration comes easiest when you’re not actually searching for it. When all you want to do is shut off, keeping your eyes open might be all that you need.

 

A premium product sold in the Bauhaus DIY chain in Germany.
We had to differentiate Lenz from the competitors.

A premium brand producing kitchen and bathroom taps alongside a comprehensive range of bathroom accessories, Lenz has a reputation for quality products. We at CIC were entrusted with the exciting challenge of bringing the brand’s printed literature and point-of-sale up to a high standard befitting of the products offered on sale. Producing a top quality outcome required both our design and CGI teams working in harmony.

Stunning CGI roomsets and crisp product images coupled with strong confident design produced a pair of brochures, one for kitchen taps and one for bathroom taps, that showcased the range of products perfectly. The same approach was given to nine individual ‘z-card’ style leaflets to support each of the accessory ranges, only this time the design would be dominated by black with a bold accent colour to visually set them apart from each other.

For the POS, the brief for these was a simple one; they had to show the products off in their best light, whilst also making it easy to buy. For the brassware stands we opted for a stand alone unit with a stepped display allowing customers to both see and touch all of the products on display. This was backed up with abstract lifestyle images an easy to understand POS system. Bathroom accessories were displayed on smoked glass doors, behind which the packaged products were neatly hidden away. A second option was also submitted where a limited range of product was displayed to the sides of neatly merchandised colour coded packaging.

 

A world renowned name in hair and personal care, Carmen extended their range this year with the True Colours range of co-ordinated products.

This was an interesting project given the fact that at briefing stage we had no confirmed brand, colours or range.

We were tasked with creating packaging designs that would work across a range of colours for a leading brand, that was it. Having pre-production samples of a mini hair dryer and hair straighteners we set to work. The designs had to have a premium feel yet work equally well on the shelves of your local supermarket. They also had to be giftable, yet attractive to the impulse buyer, whilst at the same time possessing their own personality. No small ask!

This was accomplished through a combination of vivid colour palette, youthful photography and high production values. Each of the finished cartons feature embossing, spot varnish and with the sign off ‘show your true colours’ the personality of both the product and consumer really shine through.

 

The new name for the Bathroom Collection.

Amazing what a re-vamp can do! The new cover and layout is exactly what we need. It is much easier to sell from and more user friendly!! The hard work has paid off!”Hayley Atkins – Sales Development Manager

 

From identity to launch and everything in between. Here we truly delivered the full package.

A respected brand, steeped in a tradition and heritage of creating affordable, quality kitchens, RAM came to us looking for a face lift. This new look was to imbue everything RAM kitchens stood for, style with value, heritage through innovation. An identity was created through a juxtaposition of a traditional font and contemporary icon. This stylised RAM was then rolled out across a complete suite of marketing, website and app and launched to great success January 2012.

The success of this launch was largely down to the innovation on which RAM prides itself. Not only through the app and website with their interactive kitchen planner but through the bold step to create all of their product images through CGI. This not only allowed us to create the planner with ease but allowed the client to have product images whilst components were still in the production stage.

 

An internal campaign to highlight company core values

Without a shadow of a doubt, hands down, in all my years of working in marketing, the best campaign ever. And I’ve worked with the best?! McCanns, BHD, JWT…and so on for nearly 20 years. I lurve it!”Catherine Seville-Clare – Strategic Project Manager – Commercial

Completely unaware of what we had been doing with Rob’s videos from China, one of our CGI team – Steve Leworthy, based in Cardiff – emailed these over the Christmas break, with the message “look what I made!”. These stunning moving images use total CGI, with a touch of Photoshop retouching – some of the products don’t even exist!

Cinemagraphs have been the start of something of a craze that our clients can’t get enough of in their email marketing. And rightly so – with click-throughs up by as much as 20% there is no reason not to!

Off the back of Steve’s creations, we were commissioned by Screwfix for a set of 6 to coincide with their new catalogue launch emails. Watch this space for more of the same…

welcome to the CIC advent calendar…

Partly to promote our new website but more because we wanted to, this year we decided that rather than send out branded Christmas cards to our clients we would create an illustrative advent calendar for the world to see. The stats were considerably better than expected – with consistently higher (often more than double) visitors recorded throughout the month!

Each day through December we revealed a new festive image that illustrated a ‘CIC’ acronym. Do let us know what you think in the comments, and of course look out for next years!

 01 Chocolate in Calendars

02 Cashiers improve checkouts

03 Clothing’s inevitably comical

04 Crikey it’s cold

05 Christmas involves cooking

06 Cliff infiltrates charts

07 Cocktails invite chaos

08 Crackers include crowns

09 Camels in convoy

10 Charades is challenging

11 Cutting into cake

12 Check it carefully

13 Cheeky Irish coffee

14 Christmas inspired crafts

15 Choirs in chorus

16 Cheeky impatient children

17 Collecting identical cards

18 Carolers in costume

19 Cranberry is crucial

20 Children in concert

21 Chocolate increases chubbiness

22 Candles in churches

23 Climbing into chimneys

24 Celebrate it’s Christmas