Leith is who we are.
Leith is where we are.
The Leith Agency's weblog.

Agency summer party yesterday. Brilliantly recreating the IRN-BRU summer ad, a pack of Leith Agency Goths took to the beach with a session in the amusement arcades closely followed by bouts of sumo wrestling, lashings of lager and copious quantities of black eyeliner.

The beachside frolics concluded with a gothic game of volleyball as the sun sunk behind the sea.

And then the Goths retired to more lively drinking establishments in the city centre.

Huge thanks to Terry and Alison for their exceptionally kind hospitality (and exceptionally delicious buffet) at the Dalriada on the seafront in Joppa. And to the patient owner of Revolution who fed us vodka for the remainder of the night.

Hard to know whether the smudgy black eyes drifting round the agency today are the result of left-over eye make-up or too much vodka and too little sleep.

Prize of the night should go to Richard Thomson for a rather fabulous effort.

With the very lovely Katie Connelly as a close second.

But in fact, small medals are probably deserving all round for tremendous costumed enthusiasm. Hats off to you all for making it a truly Gothic summer holiday.

A former England footballer Geoff Thomas was fit and in his prime when he suddenly discovered he had leukaemia, he was given three years to live but thanks to amazing medical care and support, he is still alive. Not only that he is now dedicated to raising money for the research that he believes saved his life and one of the things he’s just completed is a charity tour de france ride. It’s an amazing feat. We gladly helped Geoff in a very small way by creating a new site for him with our colleagues at Blonde as well as the branding for his foundation. Find out more and if you can, spare a few pennies for a very worthy cause and an inspirational man. www.geoff-thomas.com

Alongside fetching my morning coffee from The Clock, once a week I like to fankle around in the 4th floor kitchen cleaning out Tiger, the planning fish.

Today was one such morning. A nice bit of variety on the to do list. But do tell Sir Alan if you see him, that a fish is for life and not just for Christmas…

On a recent trip to the Lake District for an extremely enjoyable away day our master of planning ceremonies, Professor Amers, lost his coolant.

Recently we visited the new Barr’s factory in Cumbernauld. The place was vast and extremely high tech with robots everywhere.

Apparently it’s one of the most advanced factories in the world.

The trip also gave me the opportunity to snap Claire W our planner and the marvellous Gail in factory threads. Nice headgear ladies.

For the Stagecoach shoot done with Farm we filled up a bus with crashtest dummies and drove it around the countryside. At one spot the coach stopped and a random punter got on. And then got off (fairly quickly)

The charming Irish director of photographer enjoyed strapping himself to the front of a car to get the shots he needed. Eejit.

One of my clients, the EDI Group, have offices above Hunter Square in Edinburgh. For those that don’t know the location, it’s set slightly back from the Royal Mile which of course is currently awash with fringe performers of varying degrees of competence. And in fact, the precinct area directly in front of their offices becomes an inpromptu performing space.

Wednesday’s monthly meeting began as a bunch of (peaceful) fan dancers took to this spontaneous stage so the studious atmosphere of the meeting was only disturbed when the throngs of people who had collected to watch decided to applaud them at the end of their routine. We weren’t so lucky with the next act - some kind of children’s Japanese choir. And as one of the clients bravely struggled through explaining a 3 page epic colour-coded spreadsheet to the accompaniment of energetic caterwauling, it all eventually proved too much for poor Becky and after several exasperated looks, Jim leapt up and shut the window, shutting out the lively festival soundtrack.

I feel sure that this variety and energy should be inspiring but of course in certain circumstances - as anyone who’s ever tried to walk up the Royal Mile during these 3 weeks of August in a hurry will surely testify - it is only mildly irritating. Sour puss rant of the day over.

We’ve produced a lot of work for the lovely clients at Spurs for sometime, from the new membership scheme ‘One Hotspur’ through to our work on their 125th Anniversary branding. This all came from the original rebranding work that Sir Alan did whilst at another agency. ‘One Hotspur’ came from the positioning, that in a world full of Uniteds, Citys and Rovers there is only one Hotspur. Clever words from Neil Taylor at www.thewriter.co.uk

The new mark has obviously gone live this season, as Aaron Lennon shows, courtesy of Simon Mooney’s cracking image. (http://www.mooney-photo.co.uk/ All images copyright.)

It’s the most expensive show on the Fringe, but is worth every penny of it. The title means brute force and from the moment it started it felt just like that. Music pounds, lights flash and water is sprayed into the air. A man runs endlessly on a travelator, defying bullets and crashing through brick walls made of cardboard. The best bit is the young women throwing themselves across the transparent swimming pool, which then is gently lowered towards you, but they remain just out of reach. The visual ideas throughout are spectacular, worth experiencing. Loved it. Sir Alan.

£154.85 was gathered from the sale of cakes. Good work, bakers of Leith!