we think

For weeks now, a green and leafy presence has lurked around Together Towers.

Our Christmas Sprout Face Challenge has seen us inundated with vegetable creations – some hilarious, some horrifying but all of them showing the true spirit of the sprout.

And now the time has come to announce the winners of the Sprout of Britain Awards (and the recipients of some truly exciting sprouty-prizes)…

The grand prize for the People’s Sprout goes to…

Eddie ‘The Sprout’ Edwards by James Stratton at Nottingham Trent University – for inspiring the people through the sporting prowess of a fearless (though ever-so-slightly mouldy) little green hero.

 If sprouts had arms and hands they would, sir, no doubt salute you.

A rather nifty organic Sprout watch is on its way to James as well the pride of being hailed by his fellow man as a genuine artist of the sprout.

But while James is the official Together King of the Sprouts, we’ve also got some other smaller sprout prizes to hand to those who have championed our tiny green friends in a number of imaginative ways…

The Sprout of Rock Award goes to…

Spinal Sprout by Greta Bisetto-Donelan D’Este at Turner Broadcasting – for turning the spirit of the sprout all the way up to 11.

The Celebrity Sproutalike Award goes to…

Brussel Brand by Emma Harrhy at Monarch Education Furniture – for the best and most unruly hairifying of a sprout.

The Jedi Sprout Award goes to…

R2D2 Sprout by Sponge New Business – In the words of Yoda (another tiny green hero) ‘forceful’ Star Wars inspired sprout created they have.

The Death of a Sprout Award goes to…

Sprout Suicides by Gary Bagnall and Haydn Marshall at Beachcomber – for sending those fiendish sprouts to an imaginative (and gruesome) doom. (Take a look at the horror in all its animated glory).

The Old School Sprout award goes to…

Just William Sprout by Roisin Kirby at Nottingham Trent University – for a frankly ingenious piece of vegetable engineering to create a school boy cap from sprout leaf.

The Emotional Sprout Award goes to…

‘Writing a Worried Email Sprout’ by Chloe Roberts – for poignantly capturing the existential angst of the modern working sprout (and making it look like a tiny green octopus).

The Entirely Random use of a Sprout Award goes to…

Brussel in a Mussel in a Tussle by Martin Rockley – for the best arbitrary incorporation of shellfish (with extra marks for creating a rather splendid cardboard sword).

The Sprout Grooming award goes to…

Aristo Sprout by Matt Guest at Chatsworth – for the dedication it takes to carefully give a tiny green vegetable a very precise haircut.

The Comedy Sprout award goes to…

Sir Brussels of Sprout by Ishbel Macleod – for the best ‘wah wah waaaah’ old-school comedy gag.

Congratulations to all the winners. You should feel very, very proud (although having made such a triumphant start to 2012 you may struggle to recapture such dizzying success for the rest of the year. Sorry about that).

Come along and take a look at the gallery of all the winners and bask in their green glow of greatness.

Also, we want to give a huge thanks to everyone who got involved in the Christmas Sprout Face challenge – either as creators or supporters. It’s been a right old giggle for us here at Together towers and hopefully you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have.

Eyes peeled for more interactive banter as the year goes on. Until then… Peace Sprout.

The movie poster quiz is quite possibly the most popular post i’ve ever made…. so in the keeping with the movie theme.. it only makes it right and proper that there should be a trilogy…

Not as good as the first one, but better than the second…

Illustrators and designers on the interweb are finding new and interesting ways to stretch their creative muscles by re-imagining classic film posters – Taking direction less from conventional movie posters but more from classic penguin book covers with the emphases on the less obvious.. here’s a few of me favourites…

And now a little competition..what are these 6 films first one to answer all six by 4.30 will get a special prize

We got so many responses to our request for people to come and help us with some market research, the Together phone was sizzling by the end of the day.

We’ve now got all the places filled but thank you very much for anyone who volunteered.

The next time we’re doing some research we’ll be posting it up on our blog, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for any future opportunities to share your thoughts.

Thanks again for your enthusiasm, we love you guys more than Polo mints and Drumstick lollies.

This article on the CR Blog has created a bit of ‘passion’ from the design community and it got me thinking about 99design.com and the concerns I have.

99design.com is an American website where a business can brief, let’s say, a logo to a so-called ‘design community’ in which the winner of the logo will then be paid from as little as £185 – it goes under a very trendy term called ‘crowd sourcing’ – sounds fine!

But this is not a collective intelligence solving a design challenge – it’s a competition in which you set your talent against other designers and so-called designers.

How can something like this work? Where’s the in-depth communication from client to designer about the company, the brand, or the direction and aspirations etc? What’s the legal small print? Will the designer own their designs? Are there consequences if they plagiarise? If they don’t win what is actually the point?

I mean, it’s not Blue Peter you don’t even get a bloody badge! – just some criticism from a business who don’t want a relationship with their designers but are instead looking to solve their design problems quick and dirty.

The argument for such a website is that it’s a place where an aspiring designer with no formal training can acquire the skills to work in a competitive creative environment.

But one can argue that part of acquiring those skills is doing the leg work – making opportunities, making mistakes and making chances to get their foot through the proverbial door and ultimately being responsible for their work.

One of the problems is that novice designers on sites like 99design.com are not aware of the legality of typefaces and stock devices and are quite happy to rip off other work with almost no consequence to themselves.

But probably the most terrifying thing about so-called ‘crowd sourcing’ design sites is that all the power is in the business or ‘contest-holders’ hands.

There are hardly any safeguards for designers and surely working in such a one sided environment can not be healthy for the industry? And what if clients start specifically asking agencies to adhere to budgets they receive from a crowd sourcing website and those costs start to become standard. Then no one wins, the standard drops with price – and you literally get what you pay for…

In my humble (and thoroughly indignant) opinion, a load of old tat.

Which design has been created by a designer and which by our Boulton who thinks powerpoint is the program of the gods.