I was given a private tour to Envato’s brand new studio in Melbourne. I’ve heard about Envato since I’ve known Themeforest few years ago, one of the world’s largest marketplace for website themes. The 3 storey 1890’s building once used to be a storage facility, then used to be the Melbourne City School has now turned into a home of Envato since July 2013. It is beautifully fitted with timber slats, Ghostpatrol’s murals and designer pendant lights.

It would be my dream to work in a place like this that has plenty of natural light, outdoor area, showers, playroom, yoga class and lots and lots of bean bags. The visit gave us an insight of where all the magic happens and got to know some other products like Tuts+ and Microlancermuch more in depth.

Top Secrets: They will be opening some co-working space and mentorship programs. Better keep an eye out.

Thanks to Kate McInnes for showing us around and taking us lunch to Purple Peanuts.

For an event that’s based in Texas, in a country perceived as the home of most internet innovation, there are a surprising number of kick arse Europeans presenting on digital matters that you may not have heard of. 

Most tech-idols publicised in Australia are yanks (Godin, Zuckerberg, Marshall, Cook) so we thought that we’d give some love to some Euro-genii that @SymphonicPixels will personally be hearing from in March at SXSW (wahoo!).

MAANI SAFA is speaking at Emerging Media & Devices on March 8. Maani is aboard a skyrocket on his path to mobile media royalty, and for good reason too. After launching wonderful mobile apps for The Telegraph in the UK, Maani went to work at Somo (one of the worlds largest mobile advertising agencies) where he is now Global Innovation Directior, responsible for ludicrously successful apps for Dominos, Audi and Condé Nast. Maani will be talking about how to reach your target audience with digital marketing strategies through Tablets and Mobiles. 

RICHARD RUTTER is a self-described ‘web typography evangelist’ and is as excited as us about the capabilities of CSS 3 in all major web browsers. At Symphonic, we are extremely passionate about getting the right font for a client’s branding strategy, so we can’t wait to hear from Richard at his presentation Awe-Inspiring Web Typography You Can Do Now (also on March 8 - we’re going to be busy that day!). Richard is one of the creators of FontDeck (!!!) so we worship the ground he walks on, and if there’s such thing as a god of Online Typography, this man is one.  As well as being a font-nut, Richard is Founder and Production Designer of leading UK-based user experience consultancy Clearleft, with a ridiculous list of clients in his portfolio. Wired UK named him one of their Top 100 digital power brokers. Can’t wait to hear from him. 

Something we love to do at SymphonicPixels is to instil stories in the branding we design. We’ve worked with an eclectic mix of industries, yet one rule remains constant:

The key to great branding is to resonate and create a story within your customer.

This is something we use as a lynchpin of our branding strategy. You need personality, smart brand positioning and an exciting launch, but all of this is importantly underpinned by the story of the brand.

We have a lot of experience, but we’re always excited to learn more. “The day you stop learning is yadda yadda”. So we’re stoked to be attending the SXSW Interactive Event: How Can Brands We Love, Tell Stories We Share? presented by Aman Govil, Product Marketing Manager @Google.

The Marketing Team @Google are without doubt one of the brightest going around. What can we learn from them? Well, lots. But more specifically, digital marketing strategies that capture collective imaginations with provoking stories. One of the toughest challenges of branding in the 21st century is being able to weave a story to a brand in the online space, and make people really feel something towards a brand.

This is a problem Google directly tackled in 2012, with Project Re:Brief - which sought to re-imagine four iconic advertisements for the online world.

If you haven’t seen this, it’s very interesting and well worth watching (directed by an Emmy-award winning filmmaker too). We can’t wait to hear how Google are tackling this digital marketing issue in 2013 at SouthBySouthWest in March from one of Google’s more experimental marketing minds.