Splendid are pleased to announce they have been appointed by Speedy Hire Plc to deliver a new multi-channel digital strategy across a number of phases. Speedy is a leading service provider offering equipment for both hire and sale, and associated services, to construction, infrastructure, industrial and related industries and we are very excited to be working with them.

The Splendid team were at the eBay Developers Conference in sunny San Jose last week, talking about our work with eBay, having catch up with our US clients and catching the keynotes about eBays plans for the coming year. Splendid travelled to San Jose California in June to be part of the eBay Developer Conference, highlighting the work Splendid has done for the eBay C.S.A. team Silverlight 4. The Dev Con is an intimate event allowing senior eBay management to connection with the people that work with them as affiliates as well as companies like Splendid that work directly for eBay as suppliers. Of particular interest was the keynote session by Mark Carges, eBay C.T.O. where he outlined the changes implemented in the eBay API of the past 12 months including improved sandboxing as well as plans to extend the API further in the coming year. Advanced analytics was also a hot topic at the event with participants enjoying the discussions around advancements to the API to allow adaptive selling to take place at an even faster rate within the eBay market place.

We have been working with our friends at Unomee and Microsoft on a Windows 7 based multi-touch application for in-flight entertainment (IFE to those in the know) The application allows users to scroll through movie and entertainment choices and add movies to a stash tray for watching later as well as allowing full screen HD viewing. The app was demoed at the recent Hamburg Aircraft Interiors Design & Cabin Systems Show, and was very well recieved.

the 3AM site designed and developed by Splendid for Trinity Mirror Group has been nominated for a prestigious AOP Award for launch of the year. The AOP Digital Publishing Awards celebrate excellence in digital publishing across the trade body's varied membership. An analysis of the four main subject areas showed that publishers/website categories led the way with 29% of all entries, Innovation categories followed closely behind with 27% (innovation, video, launch, research) commercial categories represented 26% (individual, teams, cross media, commercial partnership) of the entries, while Editorial (individual and teams), attracted 18% of all entries.

Based on the success of our work with first direct at the 2008 Grand Designs Live we were asked to repeat the experience. Building on last years stand we developed another Surface application that focused on the eco housing found in the Grand Designs Village. The application was also updated to feature a new attractor screen, new content and the ability to go full screen and flip the view. Splendid also supplied the Microsoft Surface units via our Surface rental business. A full case study will be added shortly.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK, Virgin Media commissioned United Visual Artists (UVA) an absolutely unique and immersive installation spread across four levels at the Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf. The pop-up exhibition only ran for ten days and luckily a few of us from Splendid were able to catch it during our (extended) Friday lunch break. As we initially entered the building, there was an uneasiness of climbing stairs and walking through corridors surrounded in darkness, all helping to enhance the entire experience. We viewed each installation mesmerisedby the ever changing techniques used to display amazingly intricate arrays of coloured light beams, accompanied with a cacophony of dramatic electronic sounds. It left us all amazed, inspired, and unexpectedly, a little exhausted by the level of concentration required.... Very worth seeing.

Microsoft held an event to catch up on MIX2010 announcements and showcase the work of the best UK agencies, and Splendid were part of the show (along with Metia, AKQA, EMC and a few others). We went through our work with first direct, Tag Heuer and eBay and apart from running over a touch (well about 15 minutes...) we went down well. The event was held at the Paramount bar on the 31st floor of Centerpoint, which has to have the best view in London. Amazing!

Our good friend at Microsoft Steve Clayton has been blogging about our Microsoft Surface work with Tag Heuer and JCDecaux at Heathrow T5. We have also got a video of the Surface application in action, it's nearly as good as being there.

It's our annual pilgrimage to the user experience conference in Las Vegas, MIX. We will be there talking about our work on Microsoft Surface, projects using Silverlight 4 and SketchFlow and generally doing what we do best. We are even having our own little drinks event so if you want to come, contact us and we can send an invite.

Congratulation are in order once again... A jolly good effort to the band (Matt, Dom & Chris) and to the management (Anthony, Alex, Sam and Charlotte). The site was voted ahead of other nominated sites YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Green Day's website www.greenday.com "Wining the award was particularly gratifying in light of the strength of the competition. We're really proud of this piece of work, it's a leader in the music industry and a great example of creativity, design and web best practices" Dan Morris A big thanks to the band and the management for giving Splendid the opportunity to work on the latest Muse website, and to the Splendid team for their dedication and hard work. http://Muse.mu http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8534134.stm http://www.nme.com/news/muse/49918

The BBC held an event yesterday for the top 30 agencies on their preferred supplier list, and Splendid were invited along. It was formatted like a speed dating event and was a refreshing approach to understanding how to engage with the BBC. We also saw a sneak preview of the new design for bbc.co.uk but that's a secret...

We have been working with our friends at Project Genie and Microsoft on a great initiative to get schools acting on the environment. PROJECT GENIE is the first programme in the World to put children in charge. It educates and empowers them to produce rapid, meaningful and sustained reductions in energy use- saving money for school and home, whilst also saving the Planet. Project Genie is an independent, non-religious not-for-profit organisation. It was founded by Hugh Montgomery- a medical professor, and award-winning children's author, who presented the televised Royal Institution Christmas lectures in 2007. It has since been developed by independent scientists, authors, artists, designers, technologists and teachers. It was great to be involved with the team if only for a small section of the project. Splendid were responsible for the development of the site and we used Microsoft Windows Azure to host the site.

Splendid will be at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the largest show of it's kind in the world. Its used by manufactures to launch new products and we will be there with a large retailer showcasing a new digital product that has been keeping us busy, we will also be catching up with our multi-touch partners and checking the latest massive multi-touch screens. If you want to meet the team at CES please contact us and we will set a time up.

uch design and development partner. After a competitive pitch we were chosen on our experience of designing and developing multi-touch applications for leading brands such as first direct, leading retailers, Lloyds, Mindshare and a leading UK based motor sport brand. "We chose Splendid to be one of our partners for a number of reasons. Their skill and credibility, proven approach, attention to design and detail, but above all else their people, which continues to be held in the highest regard by their customers and partners such as Microsoft. The innovation they bring to the existing solutions BT Engage IT deliver, through products such as Microsoft Surface and Multi-Touch technology, means we can continue to drive even more business value from IT." Adam Collins, Capability Development Manager, BT Engage IT BT Engage IT provides businesses with access to one of the most comprehensive IT services portfolios in the market. Additionally, as part of the BT Group, we are able to offer a truly integrated suite of IT services to assist in the advice, design, deployment and support of IT requirements to meet clients' business needs. " working with BT engage IT makes sense for Splendid on a number of levels, we share the same desire for excellence in what we do and at the heart of what we both do is effective use of IT infrastructure. Our interest in IT comes from using this platform to create compelling user experiences that drive business value, BT Engage IT solutions backed up with their scale, reach and 24 hour support allow us to continue to innovate in a difficult marketplace" Paul Bishop, Managing Director, Splendid

The Splendid team went to see our fave band Muse the other week, and as usual it was quite a show!

You probably haven't heard of ISU so a little explanation, ISU is Microsoft's largest global internal training event and is attended by about 900 senior Microsoft folks. Splendid were asked to provide a showcase and presentation on user experience design and highlight our work with leading brands using Microsoft technology such as Surface, Silverlight, WPF, .Net Framework, SketchFlow and Windows 7. To find out more why not give us a call.

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is the definitive event focused on the technical strategy of the Microsoft developer platform and Splendid will be attending as Microsoft Strategic Surface Partners. So if you want to meet up and find out about our award winning user centered design work, our Surface and Windows 7 multi-touch give us a shout. We would love to meet you.

For the second year running Splendid has been ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2009 rankings, which recognizes the 500 fastest-growing technology companies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) based on percentage revenue growth over a five year period. This regognises are continued growth and expansion of our technical offering to include a dedicated multi-touch team and new CTO, Brennon Williams.

Last week Microsoft launched Windows 7, the much anticipated replacement to Vista. What we like about Windows 7 (along with the usual energy saving and environmental improvements) is the multi-touch capabilities. Out of the box Windows 7 is multi-touch capable, it all depends on the device you are using. This feature is called Windows Touch. We have been using Windows 7 multi-touch laptops and screens in the office for a while now and have a number of large projects underway that take advantage of this great new feature. This all builds on our work as Microsoft Strategic Surface partners and our work with Surface over the last 2 years with clients such as first direct, Mindshare, Microsoft and leading retailers and brands (that we can't mention as yet...). To talk to our experience multi-touch team, arrange a demo of Windows 7 multi-touch capabilities or view our Surface work please get in touch.

We have been working with one of the worlds coolest brands Agent Provocateur to create a new online user experience over the last 6 months and the site is now live... a full case study will be added soon but we couldn't resist adding a sneak preview for our Splendid friends. Enjoy!

Last Friday, a few of us from splendid were lucky enough to go down to Brighton to attend dconstruct 09, a user experience conference that attracts experts in the field from all corners fo the globe. This year Splendid was privileged enough to Sponsor and be asked to go down to demonstrate Microsoft Surface. Against the backdrop of a sunny day in one of England's nicest seaside towns, the day was extremely successful.
With August de los Reyes (Principal Director of User Experience for Microsoft Surface) as one of the Keynotes there was a lot of interest surrounding the surface. The two tables created a quite a storm, at times feeling overwhelmed with the barage of questions and requests about the tables. By the end of the afternoon the dConstruct attendees were more than impressed with Microsoft's latest offering.
The main attraction however was naturally the talented and vibrant speakers that the team at clear left was able to assemble yet again.
Personal highlights was Adam Greenfields discussion on network urbanism, his idea of ubiqutouse computing and the ability to turn common convention around and repurpouse it. Instead of seeing everyday things as an object, looking at them as a holders of information and working out ways to access and use that information, being able to turn ourselves from consumer to constituent. A very exciting thought.
Robin Hunecki and August talking about finding the juicy parts in everything from game design to product design, ultimatly enhancing experience, also Russel Davies talking about materialising data on the web into the physical world the day was extremely entertaining and informative.
I strongly recommend you look up and research all of the speakers that presented.
Adam Greenfield
Brian Fling
Russell Davies
Mike Migurski
Ben Cerveny
Nathan Shedroff
Chris Noessel
Robin Hunicke
August de los Reyes

It seems they work...it's not a Splendid project but one of our designers has created this great entry for the E4 sting Competition. We love it and think you should vote on it!

We have been helping Hermione Way with a redesign of her blog, we have know her for a while now so we though getting involved in her blog would be fun. So we are now sponsors. Its also a great source of news and opinion. Check it out

Splendid has produced award winning digital work for Muse since 2003 and it's our pleasure to announce the launch of their brand new site at muse.mu. We've worked hard to optimise the new site to create a truly immersive experience. Added features include Google integration to allow user to find out about up and coming gigs and a past tour archive including a fan gallery. Once signed up you can also link up with other fans, view their profiles, see their location and find out what gigs they've been to. We've also integrated with the muse MuseWiki and Forum so users can contribute to the discography and tour journal. Working closely with the band's management Splendid have designed a site to showcase Muse's work and surface content related to users' requests. The site provide a rich multimedia experience in a beautiful visual wrapper and also provides a deeper functional experience whereby users can shop using a persistent basket, relate with peers through the site and browse though archive content as well as current news and upcoming gig information. Muse are one of our longest standing clients and we take pride in having consistently provided them a web presence which is head and shoulders above the competition.

After 6 months hard graft the new 3AM website is live, its the place to go for all the your celebrity news, gossip and general merriment. A full case study will be added soon but we could help giving you a sneak peak. We also like the quote from Richard Wallace, the Daily Mirror's editor, "3am.co.uk is innovative, clever, funny and brilliantly designed. "We believe it will grow to become a must-bookmark for highly engaged audiences wanting the very best in celebrity news and comment. And we believe the commercial opportunities in having such an audience are very exciting." Cant argue with that!

We are rather excited to announce we have been appointed as Surface Strategic Partners, this is the top level of partnership and reflects our ongoing commitment and innovation in the world of gesture based interfaces. So to talk Surface, Windows 7, Interactive Walls or look at the projects we are doing for major banks, retailers and brands then get in content.

We are excited to announce our sponsorship of the 2009 dConstruct event in Brighton, we enjoyed the 2008 event so much we thought we would get more involved. We are also providing Microsoft Surface units and multi-touch applications for the event. dConstruct is the affordable one-day web conference, combined with two days of masterclass workshops. dConstruct 2009 brings together the industry's leading thinkers to explore the challenges of designing for tomorrow. Mail us if you fancy meeting at the event.

Splendid have developed a Surface application for the UK's leading trade fashion event at Earls Court in London. The application will highlight some of the many fashion brands on show and give visitors a chance to interact with content.

Aston Martin has been crowned coolest brand in the world for the third year running, beating Apples iPhone into second place. Thousands of brands were shortlisted to 1,100 and then voted on by 2,500 people so a great achievement and recognition of a truly great brand.

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) provides a forum to learn about the latest Microsoft products, programs, strategies, and cutting-edge technologies. More than any other Microsoft event, it prepares Microsoft partners to take advantage of new business opportunities, new business development strategies, and innovative solutions. Splendid have been asked to present in a session with other creative agencies and to talk about our user centered design process and how technical agencies can take advantage of our skills to create better digital products, our new CTO Brennon Williams is there and taking charge!