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UNIFORM
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This is Sam from the Vimeo Staff. In case youre not aware, a bunch of us on the Vimeo Staff are big fans of your site. I personally check the Ceiga blog every day.
Sam Morrill

Andy Chambers
Chairman

Bryn Jones

Senior Client Manager

C O N T E N T S
Conor Moody
Head of Digital

Nick Bentley

Founder & Creative Director Architectural Visualisation

Michelle Ford
Head of Operations

Stephen Ardern

Scott McCubbin
Head of PR

Mark Lee
Senior CG Artist

Laurie Jones
Creative Director - Film

Business Development Director

Charlie Pastor
Senior Creative

Tim Sharp

Lucy Johnston
Client Manger

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Creative Director - Brand & Design

Natalie Loughran
Head of Finance & HR

Pete Thomas
Founder & Futures Director

Martin Skelly
Creative Technologist

or

niform is an independent creative agency. They create brands, content and products that help businesses connect with their customers and deliver results. Their studio is on Bold Street in the heart of Rope Walks, Liverpools creative hub. They use a rigorous creative process to uncover insight and simplify the complex - taking a step back to find the right strategic step forward. Driven by a restless curiosity and a desire to innovate, they use

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r mix of skills and instinct to craft beautifully unexpected ideas. Their goal is to create a personal

nection between our clients and their customers.

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ceiga.co.uk

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Editors Letter
After the success of the Saddington Baynes issue Ive decided that from issue 17 onwards the magazine will focus less on individual artists but creative production companies around the world that dont really get much recognition for the great work they produce and Im starting this off with a company called Uniform. Uniform is an independent creative agency based in Liverpool, UK. Theyve worked for well known organisations such as Westfield, the NHS, Foster + Partners and Carlsberg. Although the team creates print designs and do a lot of filming I believe their strength is in their visualisation work and thats what Ive decided to focus this issue on. The Shard, Hermitage Plaza, Westfield Stratford and many more well known buildings and even some yet to be built have been visualised by this team and I hope this issue can give some well deserved credit to what theyve done. I was introduced to Uniform by Mark Lee the senior CG Artist who sent me an email last year informing me of their new website. I had never heard of Uniform before and I was impressed with their website, minimal, responsive and colourful but most importantly showed off their work well, which there was a lot of. Anyway enough rambling from me, I hope you enjoy the issue.

E D I TO R

Richard Bray
richbray.me

Ami Guest
Client Manager

Andy Chambers
Chairman

Bryn Jones
Senior Client Manager

Conor Moody
Head of Digital

Nick Bentley
Founder & Creative Director Architectural Visualisation

Marcus McCabe
Senior Creative

Michelle Ford
Head of Operations

Stephen Ardern
Business Development Director

Scott McCubbin
Head of PR

Mark Lee
Senior CG Artist

Susan Wilson
Client Manager

Laurie Jones
Creative Director - Film

Charlie Pastor
Senior Creative

Tim Sharp
Creative Director - Brand & Design

Lucy Johnston
Client Manager

Nick Howe
Founder & Managing Director

Natalie Loughran
Head of Finance & HR

Pete Thomas
Founder & Futures Director

Martin Skelly
Creative Technologist

niform is an independent creative agency. They create brands, content and products that help businesses connect with their customers and deliver results. Their studio is on Bold Street in the heart of Rope Walks, Liverpools creative hub. They use a rigorous creative process to uncover insight and simplify the complex - taking a step back to find the right strategic step forward. Driven by a restless curiosity and a desire to innovate, they use

their mix of skills and instinct to craft beautifully unexpected ideas. Their goal is to create a personal connection between thier clients and their customers.

Mayfair is one of the worlds most exclusive areas, with the highest concentration of luxury hotels, fine shops, and high value residential dwellings in London. RER had an ambitious plan to build a new 12,000 sq ft luxury apartment block in the Mayfair Conservation Area. Mayfair Chambers, located between Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square and Bond Street, would include six high-specification two and three bedroom apartments, including a 1,900 sq ft penthouse with a rooftop garden. Uniform was commissioned to create a series of realistic internal and external images to pre-sell these premium properties. At this pre-build stage, high quality images were to be the primary sales tool. RER said the level of detail reflected their exquisite standards, with images so good it was impossible to tell whether they were architectural images or photographs. Despite the economic situation in early 2013, RER sold every one of the properties before the building was completed.

RER
Mayfair Chambers

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The investors behind Porto Montenegro had an incredible vision to take the unspoilt Montenegro coastline and create one of the worlds most luxurious waterfront developments. The aim of the transformation is to develop Porto Montenegro Marina Village, attracting super yachts and the Worlds elite, turning Montenegro into the next must visit holiday destination. Uniform has worked with Porto since 2012, creating the highest quality architectural visualisation images to communicate the vision to a global audience. The images run across marketing collateral, from websites to brochures and hoardings, generating media attention, and appearing in some of the worlds most exclusive publications. Within one year, the location was already being described in the media as the new French Riviera, attracting the calibre of property investors targeted for the development. The marinas success was quickly recognised amongst influential international organisations, including the World Travel and Tourism Council describing Montenegro as one of the top two fastest growing tourist economies in the next decade.

Porto Montenegro

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PRODUCING CREATIVE & EFFECTIVE WORK

m sure youre enjoying the work of Uniform but its always good to know a bit about the company and how it came together. What better way to do that than to get an interview with the co-founder and Creative Director of Visualisation Nick Bentley.
2) What does it feel like to be the co-founder of Uniform? What are all the events that led up to that? It all started as a result of Nick Howe, Pete Thomas and I meeting at University. We were all on the same Product Design course and became good friends through spending long hours constructing things in the workshops, as we were all dedicated to giving our projects a really high level of finish. We have spent 15 years working together and although we all have families and other commitments now, we still spend social time outside of work together. When I think back to the early days when wed just started out, its amazing to think how far we have come, and although what we do has evolved over the years, our principles are still rooted in great design, producing work of the highest standard and creating something we can be proud of. 3) Being in an industry for over 15 years is a long time, has much changed? Yes and no. Obviously technology and software has had a big impact on the ease of which realism can be achieved, however the fundamental principles of composition, colour harmony and a sense of narrative

1) Could you tell me a little about your background and how you got into visual design? I studied product design and visual studies at LJMU way back in 1996! One of our modules was focussed on 3D modelling which at the time Id never heard of before. I got hooked on the idea of creating objects in a virtual space almost immediately, from an early age I was pretty addicted to building Lego... When we set up Uniform, our original intention was to design products and furniture, but we didn't have any capital to support us, so when we were offered the chance of designing a restaurant space, for real money, we jumped at the opportunity. As part of our design process we modelled the spaces in 3D to help communicate our designs to our client. The CG aspect was something that I really enjoyed and after a couple of years of designing interiors and products, we decided to focus on building a CG team. The prospect of having the creative freedom to create images of a space, without the constraints that photographers have to work within is something which really excited us. We also knew we were getting quite good at it and thought it made more commercial sense than working for bar and nightclub owners!

which affect the success of imagery has been the same for centuries. In the mid 90s we pioneered the use of what people called hollywood style visual effects in our film work for architectural schemes. We wanted to create adverts for buildings not walkthroughs, we won some awards and very soon the industry followed. Every film is now a story or an ad, technology helped this, and the price point of software dropping allowed people to create quality work. But again the simple rules of narrative and creative storytelling remain the same as they have been since the evolution of the film industry. 4) How did you get involved in speaking at conferences and what is that like? The first major event I spoke at was around nine years ago, when Autodesk asked us to support them in a European Tour. They had been impressed by our film work and wanted us to tell their audience about our process using their software. Since then Ive spoken in the UK, Sardinia, Moscow, San Diego and Venice. To be perfectly honest I still find the prospect of talking to big crowds fairly terrifying, but once I get started it feels better, and its often a useful exercise in terms of taking a step back and evaluating our working processes. 5) How many employees are currently at Uniform and what is the atmosphere there like? There are currently 32 of us in total. Our main studio is in Liverpool, with collaborators in Scotland and a recently opened studio space in London.

The atmosphere in the studio is busy and productive, and having teams with a wide range of expertise makes things really interesting. Its a relaxed and friendly agency, everyone gets on well, and our new space, which we moved in to around nine months ago, has a big kitchen and dining area where we can all sit and have lunch together, which has been a great bonus and has really brought people closer together. 6) What are your typical day to day tasks as the creative director of visualisation? Leading the team and encouraging them to think in new ways, looking at different approaches to solve problems. Reviewing projects and providing creative leadership, discussing new creative opportunities with the client management and business development teams. And keeping a step ahead, constantly looking at how we stay ahead of the game as a business, and how we develop as individuals and as a team. 7) What makes Uniform different from other creative agencies? Because we set up the company whilst I was still at University, I don't have the experience of having worked at any other agencies which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not! What makes us different is the mix of skills within the agency. Weve got five distinct discipline-led teams; CGI, Film, Brand and Design, Digital and R&D. Its not often you get that all under one roof. Were very ambitious as a business, we want to work with the best brands and produce the most creative and effective work, and build

Its a relaxed and friendly agency, everyone gets on well, and our new space, which we moved in to around nine months ago, has a big kitchen and dining area where we can all sit and have lunch together

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Join us
We are currently looking for a talented Senior CG Artist to join our award winning Architectural Visualisation team.
jobs@uniform.net

a great business whilst were at it. Weve got a strong board and management team who are all working together towards this same goal and that helps keep the culture dynamic and energetic. 8) What has been the most challenging project you've worked on and why? Lots of them! - Its very difficult to single one out - every project brings its own challenges, whether thats gambling with the weather when trying to organise a helicopter shoot, or getting the best from actors and extras on a greenscreen shoot, managing the clients needs and working within the project constraints while at the same time injecting the best possible creative, to the more technical challenges across large complex projects. I think that even after doing this for 15 years, we still learn something from every project, and thats one of the aspects which keeps it exciting. 9) Lastly if you could go back in time and tell your younger self one thing what would that be? There are actually quite a few things Id tell myself Less procrastinating around business decision making - get on and do it, then adjust later if its not 100% right, rather than not making decisions! Ensure you give people enough responsibility and space to develop their skills and careers. Work with people who are better and smarter than you. Think big, be ambitious, dont be afraid to chase the dream, have confidence in your ability. Dont be scared of change - constant evolution and growth is critical. If youre not moving forward, youre losing ground to your competitors.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, youve given brilliant answers which Im sure will benefit the readers. You can keep up to date with Uniforms activities by following them on Twitter (twitter.com/uniformtweets), Instagram (instagram.com/ uniformtweets) and Vimeo (vimeo.com/uniformltd).

Weve got five distinct discipline-led teams; CGI, Film, Brand and Design, Digital and R&D. Its not often you get that all under one roof.

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Developer CIT saw an opportunity to take a brutalist building in Londons thriving South Bank and redevelop it as one of the capitals newest, luxury residential properties. The former Kings Reach Tower would undergo an extensive redevelopment, creating 191 luxury apartments and penthouses. The new building, to be named South Bank Tower, would not only benefit from a swimming pool and spa, but extensive views across the Thames, including the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral. Uniform was asked to produce a series of interior images for marketing purposes. Working alongside architects KPF and interior designers Johnson Naylor, Uniform created a series of photo-realistic images, including the lobby, apartments and the pool and spa.

CIT
South Bank Tower

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Principal Place is a 290 million, 1.2m sq ft office and residential development in Shoreditch, London. The office element of the flagship project is a 16-storey, 623,000 sq ft block designed by architect Foster + Partners. Uniform was appointed to create several internal and external images for the office development, as Hammerson the developer looked to market the project and generate interest from the worlds major corporate businesses and attract high level tenants. The images had to communicate the quality of the development, especially the lobby, and the view from the luxury roof terraces. To create an accurate impression, Uniform had to complete the skyline across the City, including the buildings still under development. In 2012, Hammerson put its office portfolio up for sale, but retained a few key unbuilt projects, including Principal Place, one of it prime sites.

Hammerson
Principal Place

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With 3.5 billion of private investment already committed, Croydon is described as Londons next big regeneration opportunity. Working at the heart of the towns transformation, Westfield has identified the Whitgift Shopping Centre as one of the groups main UK development opportunities in the town centre. In 2012, the developer briefed Uniform to create a set of CGI images and animations to support the planning application, Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and marketing collateral. The objective was to secure public and stakeholder support for Westfields plans. In early 2013, Westfield formed The Croydon Partnership, a 50/50 joint venture with another developer, Hammerson, to deliver the 1 billion development. Uniform is now creating updated images for the new joint venture as it goes forward to final planning consent.

Westfield
Croydon

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Westfield, the worlds biggest shopping centre group, built Europes largest urban shopping centre at the London 2012 Olympic Park in East London. Westfield Stratford City became one of the most high profile retail developments in the world. With the aim of attracting over 300 occupiers to the destination, Westfield worked with Uniform to create a set of 18 photo-realistic images to help visualise the 180acre development. Used extensively for marketing and media within the UK and internationally, the images positioned Westfield Stratford City within the context of East London, articulating the social and commercial success of the regeneration. Prior to the Olympics, Westfield had secured 95% lettings. Uniform has since been appointed to create further images, as Westfield looks to develop the site further, creating new retail space and extending the landscaping.

Westfield
Stratford City

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Single Images

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KPF - Bondway Tower

CIT - St Edmunds Terrace

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Private - Lake Lugano House

Mount Anvil - Union Street

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Sellar - The Shard

cgstepinside.com
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