Missing Ingredients

12/11/2007

Branding specialists Look Digital - a market leader in sustainable branding solutions – has manufactured and supplied catering company Missing Ingredients with café barriers and wall prints, for their most recent branding project.

Based at Pinewood Studios, in Buckinghamshire, Missing Ingredients are contract and corporate catering professionals, who provide restaurant service, executive dining and hospitality, as well as food service design and planning.

The company’s latest remit was a five-week long assignment, to transform six Home Counties Regus Café sites, creating a relaxed café environment, more conducive to meeting and greeting.

The refurbishment and re-branding project included the installation of Costa Coffee branded café barriers, as well as colour scheme changes and interior decoration – with wall prints also manufactured and supplied by Look Digital.

Tony Wicking, Managing Director of Missing Ingredients said: “Our priority is to focus on delivering the most cost-effective and striking food service design for our client and Look Digital has helped us in that aim.

“We selected Look Digital specifically for its experience in the manufacture of high quality posts and barriers, as well as its ability to deliver an exceptional service along with company branding produced to our exact requirements.”

Essex-based Look Digital provide numerous innovative sustainable branding options, including café barriers and parasols, hard and soft signage, digital signage, print, print management, design, manufacture and installations.

Look Digital Business Development Manager, Rory Blackwood said: “Look Digital is the new branding division of Piggotts set up specifically for the digital market. With the wealth of experience in our team, combined over 227 years, we are perfectly positioned in the market for branding projects for stadia, venues, arenas, events, retail and cities.”

Scout scrims World Jamboree

21/08/2007

Look Digital, the digital branding division of Piggotts – a leading manufacturer of banners and flags established in 1780 – is a proven supplier of sustainable branding products within the digital printing industry.

With the emphasis on producing environmentally friendly products, the company manufactures Stadium Branding, Arena Branding, Event Branding, Venue Branding, Retail Branding & City Branding.

When The Scout Association were looking for high quality, eco-friendly pa scrims and the production of the largest branded banners to be used for the recent World Scout Jamboree held here in the UK, they called upon Look Digital to come up with a viable, sustainable option.

The company supplied numerous printed banners for the event, held at Hylands Park, Chelmsford in Essex, totalling nearly 500 square metres.

The ceremonies and celebrations at the 21st World Scout Jamboree, saw over 40,000 scouts attending from nearly every country in the world at the biggest ever get-together, which ran from July 27 – August 8.

During the event, 50 troops, made up of 36 participants and four troop leaders, participated in celebrations to mark the Centenary of Scouting.  On August 1, 1907, Robert Baden-Powell sounded the kudu horn to start an experimental camp for 22 boys on Brownsea Island.

Gary Jarvis of The Scout Association said: “We selected Look Digital specifically for their experience in the manufacture of sustainable branding, as well as their ability to deliver high-quality products to our exact requirements.”

Look Digital recognises its environmental responsibilities and is committed to contributing to the reduction of local, national and global environmental damage.  They are proud to offer environmentally friendly branding and are helping to reduce waste within the events and branding industry.

The company has undertaken to reduce the environmental impacts of its activities and further promote environmental good practice, developing and implementing a closed loop policy on waste.

Look Digital Business Development Manager, Rory Blackwood said: “We have provided a tailor-made service for manufacturing banners and flags for more than 200 years.

“All of our banners, flags and branding products are created to specific requirements and are digitally printed using eco-friendly materials, which we are able to take back for recycling at the end of their useful life.

“We believe that our experience, coupled with our commitment to the environment, is a winning combination for our customers.”

FA Cup Final 2007

19/05/2007

One of the latest remits for the Essex-based company was to manufacture huge pitch banners for the recent F.A. Cup Final at the new Wembley Stadium. The footballing showpiece – which saw Chelsea defeat Manchester United 1-0 after extra-time to lift the famous old trophy – returned to Wembley after a seven year absence.

Watched by a capacity crowd of almost 90,000 at the new stadium and a television audience of 450 million worldwide, the fans and players alike were treated to a wonderful spectacle of noise and colour.

Look Digital's client event360, who were soley responsible for the production and implementation of the match entertainment and opening ceremony required 15 metre by 15 metre pitch banners representing the competing teams as part of the ceremonies.

Clive McElarney of event360 said: “As ever, our brief was to make this year's final the biggest and best ever!

“The plan included giant club banners and we chose Look Digital for their experience with large format banners, as well as their ability to deliver high-quality products on time.”

The banners were digitally printed, using a direct to textile dye sublimation printing process, onto B1/M1 rated fire retardant 120gsm lightweight 100% knitted polyester. Finished with reinforced webbing and coloured perimeter grab handles allowed for easy access into the ground and to be unfurled correctly.

Look Digital Business Development Manager, Rory Blackwood said: “At Piggotts we have provided a tailor-made service for manufacturing sports banners and flags for more than 200 years.”

Oxford Flag

29/01/2007

It started when Oxford United played Aldershot in a Conference game at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday, 4th November 2006. Aldershot's travelling supporters unveiled a large portrait flag of their team at the start of the game. It looked pretty impressive to say the least.  We went on to win the game 2 - 0 and at this part of the season, we were on a very good unbeaten run and top of the league and looking to get back into the football league at the first attempt, having been relegated the previous season.

As a supporter for over 40 years, its right to say that over many years we have had many problems at the club, what with receivership possibilities, possible amalgamations with another club (Reading FC), Chairmen that have had no idea about football and have taken money from the club, as well as relegation's from higher divisions. But its also the case that Oxford United have had successes. Winners of the Milk Cup (now known as the Carling Cup) in 1986, successive promotions from division 3 too division 2 and then division 1 which is now the premier league. We have produced many world class players who have gone on to international status, so its not all bad.

However the last 7 years and under the Chairman Firoz Kassam, who is head of the Holiday Inn Express chain, and a very wealthy man, the club have been in decline. Kassam did provide some capital for our present stadium but has readily accepted that he took over the role as chairman, with no knowledge of football and on leaving the club, indicated he had no idea what it was like to run a football club. We now have a new chairman in Nick Merry, who many years ago was a trialist at Oxford United before leaving these shores and making his fortune in America. Today he has returned to Oxford as the Chairman and hoping to put Oxford back on the football map.

So what with the Aldershot flag and the exciting new regime, the fans were clearly keen to support the team. We have a web page for a supporters forum - thisisunited.com and a suggestion was made about having our own flag. It did transpire that the Aldershot flag was home made and would most certainly not meet with the Health and Safety standards that are required....

On the forum there was discussion about the design, size, materials and so on.

Sue, my wife, was a dress maker and we volunteered to take on the role of making enquiries to initially make our own flag. However this ran into difficulties with fabrics, printing etc. Also the initial size of 40ft x 20 ft grew to 50ft x 30 ft and in fact some supporters wanted the flag much, much bigger!

So the forum spent some time discussing design and size and eventually it was agreed that the flag would measure 50ft x 30 ft and be of landscape design. That the design would be of the old logo of the Ox head in blue on a yellow background. This design was produced by a former Director at the club, Dr Desmond Morris, famous for his features a few years ago on human behaviour. He still has close connections with the club and I also discussed with him the flag design. He was very proud of the fact that it was his design that the supporters had chosen for the flag we wanted.

So various enquiries were made with 4 / 5 flag companies, including Piggotts. We looked at the webpage for Piggotts and clearly their designs on flags produced for other football clubs as well as for other companies and events were very impressive. Also I found, as the organiser, that contact with Piggotts was first class, both by E Mail and phone. Any enquiries that we made were answered swiftly which then helped me get back to the forum and advise of the present position of enquiries. I would add that the forum for the main flag project had over 10,000 hits. This does not include other threads that were opened for comments etc and if this was to be included too, I would suggest probably in the region of 11,500 hits.

(Clearly it would not be the amount in individual hits as many of the forum users are regularly viewing and making comments. But it also goes to show how popular this project was). I would also add that I was advised that there is an after sales service for such things as repairs for any damage and even arrangements for washing when required - all things that help us in the future for the upkeep of the flag.

So it was left to me to decide which company to use and I chose Piggotts for the above reasons. Added to the fact that we wanted the flag ready for December 26th 2006's game against Woking FC, and this was the day that Oxford United intended to break the Conference attendance record. The record was broken - 11,500 supporters and also the flag was ready some 10 days or so earlier. Reliability was important and Piggotts were certainly that (and that's a very big thank you, Rory).

The flag was paid for by donations from the supporters, though Nick Merry and another director of a company made bigger donations. But a bank account fund was set up and many contributed in this way. We had a ' bucket collection ' at the ground on the 25th November and Sue and I managed to get a further £800 from the supporters in mainly one of the stands, which went a long way to being able to purchase the flag.   

When we had delivery of the flag, we went to our stadium and unveiled the flag in fron t of the local press, the chairman and manager of the club and some of the forum users. But we wanted this fairly low key as it was intended for the surprise to have a big effect on the Boxing Day game. And this is what it did. The flag was on both the BBC and Sky TV .

So now the flag is a regular feature of our matches, mainly the home ones, because there are not many grounds at Conference level that can accommodate our flag due to its size. Clearly the flag is good quality and we feel will last many many years. I have really taken 'ownership ' of the flag and sort out before the game starts where the flag should be and to make sure its the right way up etc.&

We are very satisfied and proud of our flag and think its a symbol to the club of our support and commitment to the team. The fact that the funds were raised within a few weeks, the order was confirmed and we had the flag within probably 5 weeks, shows what an excellent service Piggotts provided and delivered on time, in fact earlier than anticipated. I have been asked who the suppliers were, by a number of people  and have no hesitation in commending Piggotts for their excellent service and quality of the flag and hope that they will contact Piggotts should they need any products such as banners, flags etc. The website is also easy to follow and the many designs that can be produced are shown and is very precise and clear.

Phil Fugle

The Red Ultras

The red ultras have a friendship with the Panteras Negros group who follow Boavista fc in Oporto. They were coming over at very short notice so we wanted to have a gift ready for their arrival. The Portuguese lads had often mentioned a banner about the friendship being made so they could display it at their stadium so we contacted Rory at Piggotts with a design. Time was against us but Piggotts managed to turn out the banner in 3-4 working days which was a fantastic achievement. We presented the Panteras Negros with the flag at a dinner we had organised for the lad’s first night in Aberdeen. The Portuguese lads loved their gift and now the flag is in its new home in Portugal.

So obrigado Rory.

Stephen McCormick The Red Ultras