Just launched the new Acme Climate Action holding page.
This is just a taste of what the Acme Climate Action website will look like. If you thought the book was an ambitious little project, wait for the website! Lots of feisty tricks and treats and, as the name promises, plenty to get people active.
Visit the site at www.acmeclimateaction.com.
Hope you like!
OOOPS! Surely we meant Provokateur, the design and communications agency for ethical and charity clients? Sadly so. And sadly, some folk are still having difficulty finding ‘Provokateur with a ‘K”. So here’s another helpful link that might improve Googleability. Apologies for such shameless abuse of the indiosyncracies of the Google search engine, but hey hoo, every little helps.
Here’s a sneak preview of the work we’re doing for a new ethical jewellery brand. Danaya provides conflict-free diamonds, environmentally friendly gold and ethical jewellery. As a start up, Provokateur came up with the name Danaya, created their brand and are working on everything from their website to their packaging. We’re also working closely with them on their marketing and communications strategy, helping get Danaya out into the world and into our lives.
It’s just the kind of client we love. Creative. Innovative. Different. And it’s great to create an ethical brand that’s high end rather than hair shirt.
We’ll post more updates about our work for Danaya since our work in the ethical consumer sector is becoming a big part of Provokateur’s mission. And if you want to find out more, drop us a line.
Great news! The Government wants to extend rules around detention without charge to a magnificent 56 days. That’s 56 days you can be held, subjected to repeated police questioning, while facing no official charge.
That’s why Provokateur is proud to be working with Liberty to develop their campaign advertising on this important issue, bringing home the reality of what 56 days detention means. Our advertising can be found in today’s Guardian and there’s much more to come. Watch this space. And watch out for your civil liberties too. It’s a crazy world out there – particularly when politicians get involved.
Word is reaching Provokateur Towers that use of our beguiling ‘K’ is causing confusion to those trying to track us down. Those searching for ‘Provocateur’ and ‘design agency’ and even ‘charity’ are ending up directed to a well known purveyor of overpriced knickers, while missing out on our much celebrated ethical branding and communications. But as we like to say to folk when introducing ourselves for the first time, it’s like ‘Provocateur’ – but with a ‘K’. That way, you discover us immediately.
Why, you might ask, are we going to the lengths of putting this on our blog? Well, the sad, calculating truth is that now, at least, a search for Provocateur, charity, branding (or should that be Provocateur, ethical, design?) might at least register us somewhere in your results. In which case, you’ll be wanting to visit us at:
Neat, eh?
If, of course, you’re after some saucy knickers – well, you know where to go.
Sir Montgomery Cecil, the aviation legend and iconoclastic hero of the anti-aviation lobby, is back – this time, on the front page of The Daily Telegraph. The advertisement originally conceived for billboard hoardings has now been put into print. And he looks ace, exhorting readers to ‘Stuff global warming’. Good old Sir Monty. Where have you been, for goodness sake?
You can see the ad here:
www.unlimited-spurt.org
Provokateur Towers was pleasantly surprised to discover that Joshua Blackburn, chief mischief maker at Provokateur, ended up on the Evening Standard’s Top 1,000 Most Influential People 2007, ‘Up and Coming’ in the environment category. We were especially surprised since Joshua is not so much ‘influential’ as ‘mithersome’, and he is scarcely able to influence his cat. Still, his name did feature just above HRH Prince of Wales (also ‘up and coming’ apparently!), so it’s not a story without its mirth-factor.
We are thrilled to announce that Fourth Estate, part of Harper Collins, will be publishing Provokateur’s Acme Climate Action in Spring 2008. This is a uniquely Provokateur enterprise that, as the name suggests, is all about *action*. Doing something. Getting jiggy. The idea was to produce a book that gets people stuck in. In fact, we want people so stuck in, that by the time they finish the book, nothing is left. That’s why it’s full of posters, postcards, DIY ideas, notebooks, stickers, actions, ideas and inventiveness. It’s a sumptuous little affair and we’re tickled pink that it’s going to be getting out into the Big Wide World. Watch this space for further updates.
Vive Acme Climate Action!
This year’s Party Conference season will now be enlivened by Liberty campaigning on the issue of detention without charge. Provokateur’s been getting busy with Liberty for some time now and this is just the latest campaign we’ve done for them. If you make it to Blackpool or Bournemouth or wherever these parties hang out, look out for the ad vans and posters that will be popping up. And be sure to visit the Liberty website, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/, to find out more about this important issue.
Now, we aren’t the kind of agency that likes to widdle on another agency’s work. But when we were sent this, well, we couldn’t resist posting it here.
Other than that, we reserve the right to keep schtum on what we think about the whole 2012 hoo-hah.
Provokateur is recruiting.
Yup. We now have so much work that we are on the hunt for remarkable, fresh, exciting, brilliant, unique, passionate, one-of-a-kind, super ambitious, dedicated, lovely designers to join the team.
You’ll have to be someone pretty special though, since Provokateur is committed to going above and beyond in our quest to create fantasticness. Think that might be you? Drop us a line at gimmeajob@provokateur.com.
And spread the word!
Early days, but just finished the branding of Adventure Ecology’s new ‘waste’ campaign. Provokateur was getting its hands dirty on the concept, naming and design, and this is a first peak. Watch this space cos there’s going to be a lot of exciting stuff coming our of 4R:Planet – and we’ll be doing our provokative best to make this campaign really make its mark. Just so you know, a Pacific-crossing in a boat made from plastic bottles is already on the cards. You have been warned.
In the meantime, check out Adventure Ecology – http://www.adventureecology.com/
Exciting news for us. Provokateur has just been appointed Great Ormond Street Hospital’s design agency.
It’s a great opportunity to work with a world-class charity with big ambitions for the future.
Watch this space!
Introducing the new brand for the Crisis Urban Village.
The housing charity Crisis asked Provokateur to create a brand for their pioneering housing initiative, Urban Village. This is about as exciting as it gets. A brilliant, mixed use housing development that will create a vibrant buzzing community, first in Shoreditch (it is hoped!) and then rolled out in other developments around the country.
This isn’t a homeless project, it’s about housing. Good quality, well designed, community-centred, creatively buzzing. The brand needed to express all the energy and optimism of the project and to communicate a sense of the aspiration Urban Village represents. We hope it does so nicely, and continue to work with Crisis on helping bring their communications to life.
The aviation industry seems to be getting away with a bit of a PR coup at the moment, conning politicians and the public that aviation emissions are ever so wee, and scarcely worth worrying about.
Working with GreenSkies, Airport Watch and Enough’sEnough, Provokateur was asked to help get the facts right. Because, you see, aviation emissions are not quite so diddy when taken as a proportion of Britain’s total CO2 emissions. And then, of course, you’ve got to account for the additional damage that emissions at high altitude creates. Long and the short, aviation accounts for a fairly chunky slice of our CO2. And it’s time the industry was held to account for the TRUE figures.
This ad, printed in The Independent and The Times is just the start.
Anyone taking a train out of Paddington, especially those merry Heathrow Express travellers, will be in for a wee surprise from Monday.
Provokateur is proud to unveil Sir Montgomery Cecil, Chairman of Spurt Aviation, in full billboard glory, proclaiming : Screw Global Warming – Let’s Fly!
With the Climate Bill announced this week, and with international aviation EXCLUDED from Britain’s CO2 emission targets, you could just as well put Gordon Brown in the picture instead of Sir Monty.
Talking of which, be sure to check out the Independent on Tuesday. Readers are promised a pre-Budget warmer to remind the Iron Chancellor that talking the talk on climate change is not enough. Watch this space.
A cheeky little campaign for those brilliant people at Global Witness, highlighting corporate hypocrisy and double dealing.
HSBC, the World’s Local Bank, is so proud of their environmental credentials that they are holding a ‘Green Sale’. Marketing materials are replete with pandas, paw prints and other schmaltzy crap.
Imagine the surprise when it was discovered that the self same bank was also managing the business affairs of Samling, one of the world’s most disreputable logging companies. And that’s up against some pretty stiff competition.
Presumably, then, the ‘Green Sale’ refers to the price at which HSBC is prepared to sell tropical forests down the swanny.
Global Witness being Global Witness, they wanted to make sure that no bad deed goes unnoticed. And as ever, Provokateur was glad to help out.
(For those who are interested, HSBC’s ‘Green Sale’ benefits from a little scrutiny. Those lovely bankers are planting a virtual forest, full of virtual trees, to help save our virtual environment. Well actually, what they’re really doing is planting a virtual tree for every customer who chooses to take their statements online. For every 20 virtual trees, they plant an honest-to-goodness real one (up to a maximum of 20,000 trees). Given that each sapling is sold at around £0.07p per tree, 20,000 trees costs around £1,400. Total tree planting spend per customer? £0.0035p. HSBC’s 2006 profits? £11bn. Smacks of a bank that virtually cares.)
Time that Provokateur stopped harking on about itself and used the power of Blog for the forces of good, evil and general mischief.
Where better to start than by ensuring that David Cameron’s happy days at the Bullingdon Club are fondly remembered by all. Aaaah, those were the days. £1,200 tails, buckets of champagne and a rather fine sneer known only to the Ruling Class. If you listen closely, you can just about hear their braying ‘haw haws’.
Be afraid! One of these men could be the next Prime Minister. God help us.
Oh, and if are interested, here’s the names of this bunch of splendid chinless wonders.
1) Sebastian Grigg
2) David Cameron
3) Ralph Perry Robinson
4) Ewen Fergusson
5) Matthew Benson
6) Sebastian James
7) Jonathan Ford
Boris Johnson
9) Harry Eastwood
Can’t see any of this lot wanting to ‘hug a hoodie’.
