Iceland’s interior is a cold and uninhabitable combination of sand and mountains. An abundance of volcanoes has given rise to a staggeringly unique landscape. Such is the island’s alien terrain, NASA sent its astronauts preparing to embark on the first moon landing to the island for training.

On reviewing the image taken by the 808, the reason for our journey, our adventure, comes into plain view and suddenly everything is perfectly pure – as it should be.

Creative roles:

3D Art Director
Forgive us for sounding like a lonely hearts ad but we’re looking for someone special: a 3D (preferably Maya) expert that can push creative direction, presenting unknown possibilities to non-3D creatives. We want to welcome an individual with an excellent knowledge of photographic principles, as well as an acute understanding of 3D modelling mechanisms. A problem solver and enthusiastic leader of both Maya and Nuke artworkers. Cinema 4D experience would be useful too. Are you ready to take the throne?

VFX Producer
We are looking for a producer who’s visually creative and technically astute to work closely with a 3D Art Director, oversee all production requirements and ensure that the client’s vision is met. If you want to be at the heart of a production, we want to hear from you.

Creative directors/Creative technologists/Digital designers/Print designers
We’re a design agency — we crave creatives. And not just any creatives; thought-provokers, game-changers, visionaries. We’ll need proven examples of how your work has propelled brands, wowed target audiences and taken full advantage of modern processes and technology.

Artworkers
We need meticulous Artworkers to produce high-res, pixel perfect assets. With a large number of assets to produce, resolute precision is key. If you have experience creating pristine design guidelines from scratch and retouching images to a flawless caliber, please drop us a line.

Copywriters
Attention wordsmiths! Send us samples of your work and you could be seeing your carefully constructed copy on a billboard near you.

As you can see, we’re after exceptionally talented people who are as passionate about the craft and culture of design as we are. If you think you fit the bill for any of the above, please send your CV, portfolio and why the opportunity appeals to you to: jodie.hurn@wearedesignstudio.com.

Due to resources, unfortunately only relevant applications will be responded to.

The super high-res, full HD film was created in time for the 808 PureView’s launch at Mobile World Congress 2012 and was instantly at the centre of the mobile imaging world’s attention. Every stage of the film’s production was considered and realised by our talented team, consisting of the entire device UI, 3D rendering and soundtrack.

The incredible detail of the smallest elements of the device are paraded throughout the film, and the composition and pace allow the beauty of the renders and on-screen graphics to flow with subtle movement and depth of field.

We recommend viewing the video in full-screen HD (coming to Vimeo very soon) to truly appreciate the stunning detail. The soundtrack was sourced from The Glitch Mob feat. Swan – Between Two Points.

In order to directly relate back to fashion in the visual language of the exhibition, we looked at the different stages of fashion design, from choosing fabric rolls at wholesalers to photographing the final garments in a studio.

With a tight turnaround and physical restrictions such as no wall and ceiling mounting, we had to generate a solution that maximised the visual impact of the students’ work, while being logistically possible.

The result was an environment that included a series of bespoke projection structures using repurposed and rebuilt photographic lighting stands to display the work in a democratic and exciting way.

Check back soon for a look behind the scenes.

We’ve just had some lovely proofs back for Issue 4 of Uusi, the Nokia brand magazine and we thought we would give everyone a quick glimpse. As well as featuring a healthy amount of finishes, we’ve gone all out with a very special cover, which we’ll reveal more about on its release.

Working with production house Framestore — who created the device renders — the aim was to show off the beauty of the product, whilst highlighting the introduction of the Windows Phone user interface.

View the video on our Vimeo page.

Music by The xx.

DesignStudio were asked to document the journey, which involved spending the night in a wooden cabin and travelling to the small island by the only means possible — a rowing boat filled with tripods, food and the N9 mounted to a custom-made rig.

The image itself can be viewed here, where various props, people and iconic Finnish design items are hidden within. See how many you can spot…

Bearing in mind that the exhibition would be installed at various Nokia offices around the world, we set out to make the displays as easy as possible to transport and set up without compromising on their sole purpose — to display a selection of the beautiful images in a gallery environment.

To do this, we called upon Exhibition Continues to fabricate the boards and frames — all of which can be easily built using a single allen key (or a drill). The photography prints were set into the boards, then covered with a pane of glass and framed.

The opening exhibition was held at Nokia’s Soho office, where we commissioned illustrators Babycrow and Robbie’s Brown Shoes of PUCK Studio to create a Real People, Local Stories-themed landscape drawing on a chalkboard, encouraging exhibition-goers to leave their comments.

We’re sure many of you may be familiar with some of the projects on show — some old, some new, some we couldn’t show previously. It’s been a captivating voyage through our masses of job folders narrowing down what to include. However, it certainly isn’t the last and no doubt we’ll be readying our next showreel before we know it.

Includes projects for Centrefold Magazine, 3DW, Heinrup, The Royal Mint, Benito’s Hat and Nokia.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the reel, so feel free to leave a comment below.

We invited the course to our studio, where we showed some of our projects and offered insight into the branding industry through discussing our working methods. It was very much discussion forum and we were more than happy to spend time answering questions the students had.

This is the first of a series of our DesignStudio Meets that we will be hosting in our Nile Street Studio. We are currently finalising a schedule of future events for students and industry professionals so please watch this space for further details.