Zeusblog

After ten years in the same office, our lease was up and so it seemed like the right time to take a step back and think long and hard about whether we still needed a West End address. Actually, unlike politicians who find every decision tough and every choice hard,  it was pretty obvious to us that we didn’t. The internet has changed our working practices quite significantly since we started Zeus nearly twelve years ago; approvals and proofs are now all done via PDFs in emails, and briefings too come in via email or conference call. It’s also less disruptive for our clients if we go to their premises for meetings, especially if there is more than one of them involved. The only exception was around Xmas time when late afternoon meetings near Oxford Street mysteriously became more popular. Strange that.

So we decided to set up home offices and invest in IT (mac-based of course) so that we could work together or apart in Finchley and Pinner, or anywhere else for that matter, without any detrimental effect on the quality and speed of our work. For years people have been saying technology would fundamentally change the way we do business and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Of course we were also told that we would have jet-packs by now, but we’re still waiting for those to arrive.

So what does it mean for our clients? Well apart from those Xmas shopping meetings, as the title of this post suggests, it makes no difference at all – we’ve already been working like this since mid December. Our phone number remains the same – 020 7255 2582 – wherever we happen to be working that day (we’ll usually be together in Pinner by the way), and our email and web addresses will be exactly as before. All that will change is our address for correspondence, which will now be the Finchley address you’ll find on the contact page of this website. We look forward to doing business with you as usual.

In a radical departure from the usual random ramblings that tend to end up on this blog, today we’re going to show off a poster we’ve just done as part of a campaign for the Wall Street Journal. It’s running in Belgium, so you probably wouldn’t come across it otherwise, and it would be a shame for you to miss out on one of the rare times we get to do posters these days. All creatives love doing posters, as they have to be simple strong ideas, and because they’re out there in your face on the street, you’re mum gets to see what you do all day (although my mum’s not Belgian so she won’t see this one).

One of our clients is an occupational therapist called Laura Slader. Julia recently designed her logo and a website for her (www.neuro-occupational-therapist.co.uk). Anyway, Laura was recently filmed helping Kirsty and Phil on ‘Location Location Location’. Laura had to check whether their suggested property was suitable for her client to live in independently – as it would need special equipment and adaptions. It’s on this Thursday at 8pm on Channel 4. Don’t miss it, or you’ll miss the chance to say “There’s that woman who Chalky and Julia know”.

 Sigma home page

The website we have designed, written and built for Sigma has just gone live. It’s at www.sigma-group.co.uk 

Sigma are IT infrastructure support and wireless networking and applications whizzkids, so we’re quite pleased that they trusted us with something so geeky!

Wireless networking side

When they get to be bigger than microsoft, you’ll know why

We’re very pleased with the posters we recently created for Kinetic, the Out Of Home (OOH) media agency.  

Kinetic asked us to come up with some posters to run in agency toilets to make media planners and buyers aware of their new Daily Post product, which allows media buyers to start poster campaigns whenever they want. You can’t beat a bit of toilet humour…

If you fancy living in a cool apartment overlooking the Thames and just across the road from James Bond and the gang and Jeffrey Archer, then it’s probably because you’ve seen one of our escalator posters in Vauxhall tube for Salamanca Tower. They’re shared ownership homes available through Notting Hill Housing, if you’re in the market, they’re worth a look – we know because we did the brochure too!

Clients in shock and awe at how quickly a blog post can be online

Is going on right now at their office

At long last, and after a mere nine years, we have revamped our site. We felt it was long overdue, after all, Julia had no kids when we launched the old site and now she’s got two; aged 3 and 5!

Gone is the silly little thing that followed your cursor round the screen. Gone is the test that booted Man U fans from the site (although this is still very much an Aston Villa-supporting company).

In with white space. In with the blog you’re reading now – which means in with an up-to-date-site. 

We hope you like our site and this blog, and we hope it gives you a reason to be a regular visitor. We’ll post news of projects we’re working on, and comment on ad-related things. We’ll also post random things that amuse us or catch our interest.  

Anyway that’s all sounding a bit corporate now, so I’ll stop. Enjoy the site and feel free to let us know what you think of it. Cheers.

Before magic: dull desk

After magic: winter wonderland!

Credit crunch? Ha! We just need to remember that xmas is meant to be magical; fat Father Christmas sliding down thin chimneys, flying Reindeer, grottoes, elves and snowmen – and of course the pure joy of socks and monogrammed hankies!

Merry Xmas Everyone