Online Music sales overtake CD sales for the first time!

So are CD's becoming a thing of the past?...

http://www.brandrepublic.com/DigitalAM/News/990252/Growth-online-music-sales-overtakes-fall-CDs/?DCMP=EMC-Digital-AM-Bulletin

To re-brand or not to re-brand...

Re-branding is one hell of a headache!

Everyone wants a great looking brand with a slick and meaningful logo, a beautiful colour scheme, website, newsletter, business cards, letterheads, stamps etc. etc. etc. but in reality, how important is it to the success of your business?

One thing I think everyone agrees on is that uniformity is extremely important - whatever you do or look like, make sure everyone does it the same...this shows a 'together' company and one that has the same set of goals and objectives.

It's the little design things I don't fully understand - the curve of a certain letter, a shade darker blue in the top corner, the width of your underline...Do people really care? Designers tell me they do! Funny that...

I think at the end of the day, of course I want my brand to look incredible...mainly because we are a marketing agency and I wouldn't trust an agency who can't get their own marketing right! However, I want something solid, something reliable and something eye catching - not something that sub-conciously makes you think of positivity, creativeness or financial benefits at the end of the day, people like nice colours and pretty pictures...

Trust me, if the quality of your work is high enough, easily accessible and presented in a great light, you're going to be successful...regardless of the degree of upwards slant in your logo!

RIP Beyonce or Jay Z

It's a dark day here at Syllabus HQ. Beyonce or Jay Z has died. I am unsure as to which is which. The other is now moping around looking suitably depressed. I think it is becoming apparent that perhaps we should have listened to the pet shop dude.

I'm thinking of trying to get hold of some of this magical stuff:

although I have to say, I'm not entirely convinced by it.

In other, more cheerful news, the work that we've been doing with Glade Festival has been mentioned in Music Week which is very nice indeed. Have a look here for the article: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1040332&c=1.

Jon.

Jay Z and Beyoncé join the family...

So last week we welcomed two new additions (in the form of Gold Fish) to the Syllabus Family....

Gideon had previously expressed his desire to house a shark tank in the Syllabus office, so for his 25th Birthday we made a start on his aquatic collection and surprised him with Jay Z and Beyoncé the Gold Fish.

Now seriously how hard can two Gold Fish be to look after?.... You would be surprised!

The first problem began when the man in the nice fish shop up the road told me that I needed to have a 'mature' tank (not bowl) to put them in with a working filter, greenery and water that has been in there for at least 2 weeks! - Now in true Lauren style I had left this to the actual day of Gideon's birthday and could not wait 2 weeks! So I thought quick on my feet and pretended that I already knew this and had a fully working fish tank already housing a couple of fish (I even named the pretend fish... quite worrying really)...

Anyway so after persuading the nice fish shop man I left with my two fish, Jay Z and Beyoncé, and headed back to the office where Joe, Jon and Leo had their new home waiting for them.

On arriving back I discovered there was a slight issue with filling the tank, of course the Syllabus office has to be on the 3rd floor and the only tap is in the basement, Hmmm... This was a job for Joe!

With Gideon happy and me happy, having two new additions to talk to who would actually probably enjoy my rambling the fish swam happily around in their new tank.

However it would appear that we hadn't (or I hadn't) quite thought this through properly, who is going to feed them on the weekend? So on Friday we over fed them hoping that they would survive...

On arriving into the office this morning Gideon expressed his regret that Jay Z and Beyoncé had sadly passed away from weekend starvation :-(

AND THEN....

A miracle happened, Jay Z and Beyoncé took another fishy breath and came back to life (they had obviously had enough of the boys and decided to play dead until they heard my voice)

We have now come to the conclusion that our Gold Fish may be depressed, so have filled their tank with pretty green things in an attempt to revive their spark for life...

And so the story of Jay Z and Beyoncé continues, lets see if we can make it through another week...

L x

The Big Move...Goodbye Bill, hello Steve!

I've finally done it! That's right...the picture you are looking at is my brand new Macbook, beautiful even in its packaging.

After dillydallying around for far too long I've moved over to the good side, and what a side it is - Just the experience of the Apple shop was enough to lure me in...

However, even with all the good looks, flash designs, slick feel and smooth operating, PC could still compete if only they spent a tiny bit of energy on one small detail - making a computer that doesn't break all the f**king time!

Let's be honest PC, your computers are cheaper but once you've bought three in two years and still spent half your time in repair shops, I'd rather invest in something that works.

I'm looking forward the experience...

Gid

Glade Festival - The Glade Union

This year we are all very excited to be working with the Glade Festival, the UK’s leading arts and electronic music festival. Having originated as a stage at the mother of all festivals, Glastonbury, the Glade has been running independently since 2004 and has blossomed into a haven for dance music fans. This year (15-18 July) looks set to be the biggest yet with the headliners having just been announced as recently reformed acid-house pioneers Orbital, electro-house duo Simian mobile disco and Bristol legend Tricky.

Have a look at this video for a taster of what the Glade Festival is all about… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW8HXbJZDxE

To help promote this year’s event, we have created The Glade Union – a specially selected network of student representatives who are tasked with marketing and promoting the Festival and selling student discount tickets. We are working with the Universities of Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff and Oxford Brookes. We’re giving Glade Union students commission on tickets they sell, a free ticket to the Festival and a £1000 prize to the top seller! As well as general promotions, Glade Union members are going to be throwing amazing Glade endorsed student parties and putting on campus events whilst always keeping a blog of the efforts…

For more info visit http://www.gladefestival.com/students/student.php?id=1

The Sounds of Christmas at St Pancras International

As Part of St Pancras International's Christmas celebrations, we here at syllabus were challenged with the task of designing the perfect festive calendar of live music events to enhance the station's atmosphere. So The Sounds of Christmas was born. Spread over 19 days and 32 hand picked groups of musicians, St Pancras was Brought alive by The Sounds of Christmas an eclectic mix saw a variety of choirs, Jazz bands, Big Bands and Classical ensembles perform their own take on Christmas music.

The feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive with commuters and passers - by alike often commenting on how much they loved to hear the music being played through the station. A personal highlight of the campaign was when a selection of musicians for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra came down and performed popular Christmas tracks to the delight of the herds of Eurostar passengers. We were also lucky enough to have the opportunity to tie many of the performances to charitable causes and invited all of the performing groups to collect for the Charity of their choice. On one particular day we had a number of choirs associated with the Royal National Institute of the Blind perform and collect over £2000!

All of us here at Syllabus would like to thank the groups and musicians who helped make The Sounds of Christmas at St Pancras International such as success as well as St Pancras for recognising the benefits of having live music in the station. A special thanks also goes to BOSE and Roland for supplying us with world - class audio equipment to enhance our sessions. Have a look at the footage collected for a snapshot of the events and keep an eye out for the long awaited return of The Station Sessions and further musical collaborations between Syllabus and St Pancras International during 2010.

Leo
The Sounds of Christmas Coordinator