Web development and marketing agency E-blueprint has been tasked with building and managing the Liverpool Innovation Park’s (LIP) online brand.

Animation production company Carbon Digital, which last month received a £30,000 investment from creative and digital support organisation North West Vision and Media, has relocated to larger offices..

Liverpool PR agency Ubiquity has secured a series of account wins. The agency has been appointed to handle the marketing and PR for bar chain Baa Bar and education charity The Ariel Trust, and has also been retained for this summer’s Brouhaha International Festival 2010. Head of agency Joel Jelen has also been appointed as PR and marketing co-ordinator on the Merseyside committee of property and construction network, the Forum for the Built Environment.

Almost 40 fund managers from across the UK have bid to run four new venture capital loan funds for the North West.

The Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) has announced that the £184m Northwest Venture Capital Loan Fund (VCLF) has received 39 expressions of interest. These are likely to include Liverpool-based Alliance Fund Managers (AFM) and Yorkshire Fund Managers (YFM) who are currently operating the £10m interim VCLF.
When the VCLF is fully up and running later this year it will include a …

Uniform, a Liverpool design consultancy, has created a new brand for the city’s RopeWalks area. The company was awarded the contract in February by The Creative RopeWalks Stakeholders Group, including representatives from The Mersey Partnership, Liverpool City Council, local businesses and residents.

Uniform said its new branding seeks to capture the “history, eclecticism, diverse offer and vibrant character” of the area.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment says the area, …

Liverpool creative agency Switch Media has been approved as a BBC supplier. The agency was accepted as an approved supplier to the BBC for new media commissions following a vetting process. 

Commercial director Aaron Bimpson said: “It is an exciting time for Switch Media and we hope to be working with the BBC on new media commissions in the very near future.” The agency won a gold award at the Fresh …

The £7.5m Capstone Building at Liverpool Hope University’s Creative Campus has opened. Supported by £6.5m funding from The Northwest Regional Development Agency and Higher Education Funding Council for England, were present at an opening event that incorporated a concert and awards ceremony.

 Steven Broomhead, NWDA chief executive, said the new building would help to support skills development in the region.

The Capstone Building is a project which has been in development …

Office Share – Bank of England – Castle Street

Creative Liverpool is looking for a synergy business to office share its prestigious head office in Liverpool city centre. This is a prime business address and a very cool office space, very competitive rates for the right company. Old Bank of Englnd Building, 31 Castle Street, Liverpool, L2 4GL.

Liverpool digital agency Mando Group said today it has secured software giant Microsoft as a “strategic client”. The agency, which has been a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for the past two years, will work with Microsoft to produce an innovative user experience application utilising the company’s Silverlight, Sharepoint 2010 and Bing Maps. Mando managing director Ian Finch said: “Silverlight and SharePoint are core technologies for us, so it’s fantastic to be developing with them directly with Microsoft and gaining crucial …

Warrington-based digital marketing agency Latitude, valued at £50m when it changed hands just over two years ago, was sold for less than £1.1m after it went into a pre-pack administration in January. A newly filed administrators’ report reveals that equity investors lost nearly £40m in the collapse of Latitude Group Ltd (LGL) and Barclays, its bankers, lost £4.62m. Latitude, a search engine optimisation specialist, was bought back out of administration by its previous owners Vitruvian Partners, a London-based private equity …

The announcement today of the departure of Jim Gill, the Chief Executive of Liverpool Vision, is one which raised a few eyebrows. Although unsurprising as he made no secret, privately or in public that retirement was looming. So what should the digital sector hope for in his successor?

Jim’s leadership of Liverpool Vision has been an undoubted success, delivering genuine results to the City Region, even through the dark and difficult days of the last 24 months. For the Digital sector …

I read with interest the news emanating about Latitude’s problems and its left me slightly confused. Their funders Barclays are believed to have lost several million pounds as a result of a pre-pack administration but the business says they are doing great, so why the call in from the bank?

Looking to move?  Looking for space alongside an award winning Digital Agency?

The perfect opportunity has arisen for an inspiring business to take space in one of the most prestigious offices in the Central Business District.  Grade A space available for a Grade A company.

City Centre location
Plug and play facilities
One monthly fee  - all costs included
Very flexible leases

Enquiries to Digital Liverpool or c/o Gareth@creativeliverpool.co.uk

Lets have a digital winner here! Any ideas? The search for Merseyside’s most innovative companies has once again begun with the launch of the annual Merseyside Innovation Awards. The awards, aim to recognise and reward the use of innovation as a means of boosting growth and profitability.

Soap giant Unilever has made a research and development agreement with Daresbury Innovation Campus, the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has confirmed. STFC scientists will use modelling and simulation to develop new software tools to speed up the development of new and more efficient products across Unilever’s personal care range.

Creative and digital support agency Northwest Vision and Media has invested more than £130,000 into four Merseyside companies through its Regional Attraction Fund (RAF). Well done to games production company Catalyst Outsourcing, digital art production studio Milky Tea, and games company Dou Yi Dou.

Trainee Social & Search Executive – Mando Group
Liverpool based Mando Group is a nationally renowned web design consultancy, with more than 700 web and online development or campaign projects to date. NorthWest Vision & Media will be partnering with them on the i.studio scheme and are currently taking applications for a Trainee Search & Social Media Executive. This is an ideal opportunity for individuals new to the web industry who want to build a career in …

12th November 2009, Soho Theatre, London.

For 5 years Creative Review has been bringing together Europe’s creative leaders to showcase, spar and demonstrate how to make your digital creative work bigger and better than ever before. Last years do in London was a phenomenal success according to CR and was a complete sell out. With a refreshed line up of speakers and new format – they promise that 2009 will be even bigger and even better.

Yesterday morning over 100 attendees gathered at Liverpool University’s Foresight Centre to see Rod Holmes, Lorraine Rogers et al deliver TMP’s assessment of the economic development of the Liverpool City Region.

So what were the key findings and what do they mean for the digital sector?

Well, to shamelessly steal Rod’s patient/doctor metaphor fitting of our surroundings, the patient (Liverpool City Region) is out of the critical phase of illness and making good recovery – but is not off the life support …

Facebook was valued at up to £6billion by experts but, until yesterday, had failed to make a cent in profit. Now, after five years and racking up 300million users, it is finally making enough money to cover its costs. The company’s income is on track to grow by 70 per cent this year.

Article by Enda Carey is Head of Games & Digital Content at Northwest Vision and Media. Liverpool has a long history of video game development and for a long time has produced some of the leading games in the industry. From its bedroom developer days through to the multi million pound budgets of today the industry and Liverpool’s role within it has come a long way.Everyone knows the exciting cutting edge work that Sony and Bizarre Creations have been …

The private sector has had a wake up call on their marketing spend at the same time the national news has been flooding the country with the power, profitability and absolute need of the web for business. This type of great industry promotion also creates insecurity for those businesses that haven’t quite got a proper online strategy. Or simply more businesses are accepting in 5 years their business will be very internet dependant and it works better and cheaper than …

I have been to the site several times as a potential relocation for our business, but until 2007, I was more likely to hit tumbleweed than a potential client. It was always well kitted out but a soulless and sterile atmosphere, not a creative hub of energy and excitement. We moved to Castle Street.

On the 8th December 2003, The Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) unveiled the branding for Liverpool Digital, at the Edge Lane site. The Vision in 2003. Liverpool …

Get In The Game is a project initiated by Northwest Vision and Media. The launch event will be at FACT, on Tuesday the 1st of September.Now in it’s second year, Get In The Game is designed to encourage companies from the digital content and games sectors to collaborate and improve their pitching talents. Beginning with a pitch to the Get In The Game producers (Sony X-Dev Studio Europe, Northwest Vision & Media, and Pixel-Lab), five companies are chosen to receive …

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Details follow of the first TEDxLiverpool which will take place at ICDC on Friday 7th August 2009.

BT announces the next generation of super-fast fibre-optic broadband exchanges across the UK, but Liverpool misses out on this much-needed investment in digital infrastructure.

Liverpool-based New Mind has adopted technology from Microsoft to be used on tourism sites such as VisitBrighton, which New Mind designs.

The photosynth technology creates a 3D virtual map, almost like being inside a video game. New Mind’s managing director Richard Veal said the company is “taking e-tourism into a new era”. New Mind has created such as visitliverpool.com and visitbath.co.uk which are amongst the highest performing sites of their kind, both in terms of visitor numbers and income. …

Liverpool technology company AIMES Grid Services has won a three-year contract to provide an on-site disaster recovery programme to North West training and consultancy provider Sysco Group. The service streams data from Sysco to the AIMES ISO27001 certified data centre facility at Liverpool Innovation Park, ensuring data is backed up off site in real time. AIMES is the lead organisation behind the Digital Inclusion and Enterprise Programme, which aims to transform levels of digital infrastructure in the Liverpool city region …

Rippleffect is one of the fastest growing technology companies in Europe in 2009 and confirms for the second year its outstanding performance to be listed in the Deloitte Fast 500. Rippleffect have had recent and well deserved run of award victory’s and accolades including being short listed for Digital Agency of the Year, ‘Best Interactive Agency at the NetImperative Awards’ and ‘Digital Agency of the Year’ in the recent DADI Awards (Drum Awards for Digital Industries)

BT announces the next generation of super-fast fibre-optic broadband exchanges across the UK, but Liverpool misses out on this much-needed investment in digital infrastructure.

Will the idea of a £5m national training academy to support Liverpool’s games development sector take the first step of learning from those in the industry?

Well done Mando Group on winning this year’s big chip design award for the ‘Liverpool Biennial 08’ website. It’s a great achievement by the Liverpool agency beating off a lot of heavy weight contenders. For me it confirms Mando Group’s position as one of the region’s best agencies.

The creation of one of Europe’s largest Science Parks plus innovations such as the International Centre for Digital Content and a new Art and Design Academy put the Liverpool City Region at the forefront of the creative and digital economy. IT, Digital and Creative companies include:IBM, Sony CEE, BT, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Cybertill, Orgmetrics, Lime Pictures (formerly Mersey TV), Mando Group, River Media, Hurricane Films, Rippleffect, Bizarre Creations, Fraser Williams Logistics, New Mind, Amaze, Felix Blow, CL5 Search Engine …

Funding for Creative Industries.

There is, after much searching, a plethora of pots of money out there. I know this because I have been through the considerable task of leaving no stone unturned in an effort to find funding to launch a new business into the digital media sector.

As the banks bolt their doors and concentrate on re-stabilising and re-capitalising, less and less of their money …

MediaCity – Is there an opportunity for Liverpool digital companies to get invloved?

The 36 acre Peel development is possibly the biggest opportunity that will happen to the digital media community this decade in the North West. Manchester will be the biggest beneficiary of the opportunities and rewards, but surely Liverpool must be invloved in thier plans?

Access to finance has been the big issue for SMEs in the recession, obtaining public sector investment can be a useful alternative.

I started CL5, a digital consultancy specialising in search engine marketing in April 2009. To launch and then grow the business I needed more capital than I could afford to invest personally. I had been kicking at the doors of all the major banks for a good six months asking the questions, with only a set of …

b.TWEEN is holding a digital media forum where creative innovators can meet potential collaborators and major clients in the industry.

Where’s the heart of the North Wests Digital community. Take the major commercial developments which have emerged over the past decade, which have brought real term benefits to the creative community and two names dominate the arena – Urban Splash and Peel Holdings. Both developers are backing our sector with long term and specific building design.

Peel Holding’s Media City – need I say more. Also for those of you …

Emote Games Ltd
London Studio,
Wimbledon Bridge House,
1 Hartfield Rd, London, SW19 3RU
Tel: 0208 543 5844
Email: enquiries@emotegames.co.uk
www.emotegames.co.uk