What is Big Spaceship and how did it all get started?
Big Spaceship was founded on the fervent belief that there was an opportunity to do much better work than we were seeing or doing in digital. Thus, we launched Big Spaceship during the post-bubble economy as a place where passionate professionals could explore and conquer the Internet – the ultimate frontier. Today we remain a fast, nimble and independent creative agency for a digital world.

Where do you get your inspiration?
All of us at Big Spaceship feel very lucky to be able to go to work every day at a place we love. We are constantly inspired by the role of technology in innovation and the desire to create valuable communications in the digital community. Our focus on our culture and people has been a constant, and that more than anything else is the reason we have thrived.

Tell us something about your latest project?
In addition to new campaigns for General Electric, Activision and Wrigley, we recently launched The Most Awesomest Thing Ever (literally) – www.mostawesomestthingever.com. The Most Awesomest Thing Ever is a dynamic web experience that gauges what is most awesome right now, based on visitor’s engagement in ongoing battles that pit two random things against each other – which can be anything from Leonardo DaVinci, to Take-out, to When Scotty Beams Things Up… The new interactive experience, created and curated by the agency as an internal creative project, is quickly building momentum as a pop culture phenomenon among consumer and social media audiences.

Where do you want to be with your company in the next five years?
At Big Spaceship, we’ve increasingly come to realize that while most of our work lives in digital spaces, we’re not really a “digital creative agency.” We are a creative agency that works within a digital world – a world where digital and interactive technologies and media have changed how people work, interact and maintain relationships. So as we continue to work with our clients, we will strive to build our creative and strategic approaches around an understanding of digital culture and its ongoing evolution. Our hope is that we eventually reach a point where the distinction between a “digital agency” and a “traditional agency” blurs to become meaningless.

Did you win any awards?
Over the past decade, Big Spaceship has received many accolades for our work, including a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the agency’s work with HBO Voyeur, Cannes Lions, Clios and One Show Interactive Pencils, as well as numerous Webby, Communication Arts, W3 and Pixel Awards. We have also been awarded Favourite Website Awards (FWAs), and we were the first American agency inducted into the FWA Hall of Fame.

Got featured anywhere?
The agency was named one of the “World’s Leading Independent Agencies” in 2009 by thenetworkone and Campaign Magazine, and we were recently named among Creativity’s 2009 Honor Roll. We’ve also been highlighted in The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Fast Company and Advertising Age, among others.

RECENT PROJECTS

The Most Awesomest Thing Ever – Big Spaceship

This quest scours the universe for the Most Awesomest Thing Ever. The endless battle pits two things against one another, you decide which is more awesome (in the case of this battle, stuffing vs. deer).

Healthymagination – General Electric

Healthymagination is a central hub, content platform and suite of digital applications to help empower people to achieve better personal health—in an interface that makes the content meaningful and accessible.

Morsel – General Electric

Morsel is a mobile app that makes healthier decisions a part of everyday life. It offers simple, fun daily tasks that help individuals get healthier one step at a time. Over 100,000 Morsels have been completed since launch, and enhancements are on the way.

Tim Burton Exhibition – MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) launched a major retrospective of Tim Burton’s dark, whimsical artwork, which Big Spaceship reinterpreted within a digital environment. The stairways seen in this image
employed a practice that Tim Burton is known for: stop-motion animation. For this hands-on approach, we created model staircases with foam board and conducted stop-motion tests. The resulting look, enhanced by hand drawn font, cast a mood that spoke to Burton’s dark, whimsical aesthetic and served as a gateway to his carefully crafted world.

Victoria’s Secret All Access – Microsoft/Victoria’s Secret

We partnered with Microsoft and Victoria’s Secret to introduce the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. To engage the audience prior to the live broadcast in December, we launched an online experience to get them as close to the fashion show as possible.

Packland – Lands’ End

This back-to-school diversion—a collaboration between Big Spaceship and Lands’ End—gives kids a fun-filled, imaginative way to design the ultimate fantasy backpack.

The Next Move iPhone Application – UrbanDaddy

The Next Move iPhone app considers whom you’ll be with, what sort of food you’re in the mood for, where you’ll go after dinner and so on. It reacts to an individual’s specific needs. Choices unfold through
interchangeable sentence fragments, revealing information in a personalized manner for those craving on-the-go adventure in the city.

Terminator Salvation Multiplayer Game – Sony Pictures

Pitting players as Resistance Fighters (humans) or Machines, teams of five on five fight to bring down the opposition. Depending on whose side you’re on, the annihilation or salvation of mankind is in your
hands.

The Institute for Human Continuity – Sony Pictures

We presented to Sony a strategic multimedia campaign that integrated certain elements and characters from the film ’2012′ into the larger issue of 2012. At the center of this effort was our formation of the
Institute for Human Continuity (IHC). Founded by powerful business and former government officials, the Institute’s mission is to ensure survival of the human race beyond the year 2012.

Pretty Loaded – Big Spaceship

Pretty Loaded is an archive of preloaders that preload other preloaders. Created and curated by Big Spaceship, this infinite loader captures a vanishing art form.

CONTACT DETAILS
www.bigspaceship.com
On Twitter – @BigSpaceship
On Facebook – www.facebook.com/bigspaceship

What is Un.titled and how did it all started?
Un.titled is a creative agency, formed almost eleven years. We have 21 staff with a core of 9 creatives that work across a broad range of fields: graphic design, web design, motion graphics, photography and film. We also house our own technology team of 5 that builds our websites, develop apps and manage our CMS platform and hosting services. We often have graduates in the studio for work experience.

Where do you get your inspiration?
Inspiration comes from so many sources, everything we touch, taste, feel and see – music, food, movies, experiences, photography, nature, the internet, fashion and of course, other people’s work.

What tools do you use?
The right tools for the job at hand – Anything and everything… Pencil, paper, markers, scanner, Nikon D3, the full adobe creative suite: AE, flash, photoshop, indesign etc… final cut pro, maya… it all depends on what is required to get a solution to the brief. As we’re a full service agency the list is varied and endless.

Tell us something about the GAGA project?
We’ve been working with the Galvanizers Association since our company began and they asked us to become involved in their annual awards – Initially we completed a brochure for the winners/entrants for the 2008 event. They then commissioned us to develop an identity and logo for the awards for 2009, this was something they had never had before. The key was to appeal to the architects and engineers who would be entering, reflecting the way the awards were design orientated. The GAGA symbol came from interlocking the acronym for the “Galvanizers Association Galvanizing Awards”. We were also responsible for all the marketing collateral and the awards ceremony flash presenter.

Where do you want to be with your company in the next five years?
Doing the same as we have for the last 10 years – we’ve been really lucky to work on some really cool projects for some great clients, so continuing that is our main aim. We’re very comfortable at the size we are and wouldn’t want to get any bigger.

Did you win any awards?
We’ve won a few awards including an FWA for our Ben Sherman site, recently a SHOUT award for our NTU prospectus, which was also a finalist in this year’s Design Week Awards. There are others, but to be honest we don’t often find the time to enter awards, we’re always too busy doing the work.

Any cool upcoming projects?
Yes, but it’s a bit like fight club… we’re not allowed to talk about it

What is 1MD and how did it all started?
1MD is a Web agency essentially focused on eMarketing. We are 4 core members with a strong background on Web technologies and Web design. We try to combine these two aspects (technologies and design) to provide great experiences to users. We are only 4 months old (we started on April 1st 2009). Before that, we all worked in Emakina, the biggest (in size) Web agency in Belgium.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
From belgian beers. Seriously, we are very interested in new technologies and trends (HTML 5, mobile Web, Google Wave, augmented reality, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and try to imagine how we can use them in a pure marketing world.
But generally, inspiration comes from the real life. Life situations give us ideas (hopefully, we don’t execute all weird ideas we have…)

What tools do you use?
Tools that great software editors like Adobe provide to us (it’s ironic). Nothing original here : Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Flash, TextMate (for pure dev), Xcode (for iPhone dev), 3D and sound sofwares, etc. (on Mac OS X of course)

Tell us something about your latest project “Prototype”?
Certainly the project we are the most proud about (so far). Prototype is a video game in which the main character (Alex Mercer) has the power to steal your identity. So we imagine a scary trailer in which you can see your photos and your personal informations mixed with game cinematics. We created that thanks to Facebook Connect technology. People at Facebook SF congratulates us for that (we are very proud about that fact) and the website has been seen all around the world and reviewed on a lot of big blogs!

Where do you want to be with your company in the next five years?
Our idea is not to become big. We want to continue providing good work and great experiences, even if we grow a little bit. But honestly, we don’t know exactly where we will be in 6 months so 5 years is very very far away for us.

Did you win any awards?
Actually, one. It was a FWA for The Prototype Experience. But contrary to some ad agencies, awards are not our reason to live… (users and customers first!)

Any cool upcoming projects?
Yes but still secret. Follow us on Twitter to be informed of our new projects –> http://twitter.com/1MD

What is Farb and how did it all started?
FARB is an illustrative design studio from Maastricht, The Netherlands. Our name comes from the German word “Farbe”, meaning “colour”. With FARB we wanted to add our own bit of colour to this world, as it is an essential part of everthing! We started about 3 years ago, almost immediately after we finished the course Communication- and Multimedia Design in The Netherlands. We decided to start our own studio because we wanted do things our own way.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everyday life, the work of others, music, movies, colours… pretty much anything can be an inspiration to us. We usually start by defining the feel of what we’re trying to visualize. From that perspective we’ll start to look for shapes, styles, elements, colours and everything else that can be of use. Sometimes you nail it right away, some other times it takes a lot of experimenting.

What tools do you use?
Pencil, paper, illustrator, photoshop, flash, wacom, the internets. We don’t work offline a lot although we start almost every piece of work with a rough sketch on paper.

Where do you want to be with your company in the next five years?
We’d like to continue what we’re doing now, but maybe on a slightly larger scale. We’d like to work for a lot more different brands and agencies to strengthen our personal portfolios/resumés. Maybe our focus will lay more on creative-/art-/strategic direction in stead of mainly the creation-part. 

Did you win any awards?
Nope. Not yet.

Any cool upcoming projects?
Right now: A european brand-site for a big clothing empire and an exclusive Exposif-wallpaper for Maxalot.

Check them out at: http://www.farb.nl/

What is Lastplak and how did it all started?
We started out as a sticker plaque in 2000  with only four guys and ended up as a 11 man strong collective with skills in graffiti, stencil art, screen printing, canvas painting, giving workshops, illustation and graphic design, organising party’s and generally having fun in everything we do. Members in order of joining are: the founder and inventor of the name Lastplak; Boortorrie, our own personal Wolverine; ACAB, mr. Tomek, from birds to larvae to ghosts; Oles, international tit monster; OE (quit painting and moved to Berlin), flying pink heads; OX-Alien, mr. black and white and sometimes red; Yen, heavy metal man; BA, paint addict and bike crazy; Pinwin, funk master Grrt, always in eehhh…; Sake, contacts superhero’s; May-B and last but not least, our graff legend: Ces53.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
That is different for each member, we inspire each other, watch movies, visit museums and art shows, read cartoons, travel, party, meet new people and have an open mind to all types of visual communication.

What tools do you use?
We use everything that leaves a mark on a surface, but our favourite tools are spraypaint, posca’s and the always delicious Lascaux acrylic paint. The strangest thing we made was an ice carving for a graduation project, we had to use screw drivers and chissels to carve our work in different couloured layers of ice.

Tell us something about the handmade OX-Alien dolls
Ox-Alien: After painting a lot of ox-aliens on walls, canvas and stickers my girlfriend decided to give the ox-alien more life. She managed to get hold of an old sewing machine of her grandmother, and after many evenings of drawing and try outs it finally worked out. Even though the ox alien looks very evil, as a lovely pink plush he’s very adorable!

Where have you been and where do you still wanna go?
We have been in so  many places, but the ones we remember best are Vienna, Los Angeles, St. Petersburg, Damascus and Corfu. In Holland we always try to paint in as many cities possible, of of wich is our annual trip to Maastricht. Our list of wishes is also different for each member, but high on the list are still Tokyo and anywhere in Australia. Besides geographical locations we would love to paint a big jumbo jet plane, the inside of a swimming pool and many more group canvasses.

Because most of you got a graffiti background, don’t you got any problems with authority while painting for Lastplak?
We don’t have problems with them, but sometimes have troubles with us. We always try to stay cool and sort things out the Lastplak way: a big smile and a good story. So far we have never been arrested or fined, even though sometimes it came very close!

Any cool upcoming events?
We hope to attend some of the festivals this summer and do bit of live painting there. For the rest we hope to have a few shows in Holland and abroad and in august we’ll be on Oprah to tell girls how to live with a Lastplakker!

More info about Lastplak on http://www.lastplak.nl