We had an awesome treat in the studio today to accompany our morning brew and brighten up our Monday. Our friend and local baking extraordinaire @dollybakes (www.dollybakes.co.uk) realised our logo via the medium of delicious cake and icing. The result is pretty amazing - and pretty tasty!

Cake and icing on double-hit spot uv GFSmith Colourplan dark grey!

Absolute has taken some inspiration from BBC’s Top Gear to liven up our studio in 2012!

Clients, staff, suppliers and friends have been invited to try the agencies new race simulator. The Vision Racer simulator was acquired from a client who was closing down a hospitality business and we decided to take one off their hands.

So visitors to our chapel have the opportunity to top the charts driving a Nissan Skyline GTR on the official Top Gear Test Track when they come for a meeting!

We will update this leader board regularly over the coming weeks –

Current leader board

1st Chris – Absolute 1m 08.97
2nd Simon – Absolute 1m 10.68
3rd Ben - Halbro 1m 11.58
4th Max – Henderson Homes 1m11.96
5th Wayne – Absolute  1m 13.94
6th Richard - Synergist 1m 17.01
7th Dave – Absolute 1m 20.89
8th Duncan – Sport First 1m 25.50
9th Kelly – Golfer 1m 27.30
10th Steve – NB Print 1m 30.12
11th Steve – NatWest 1m 31.41
12th Ben – Cloud Clever 1m 35.81

Well ladies and gentleman, we have a bit of a hidden celebrity within our office. No its not our MD Chris, and its definately not our Creative Director!....no no..its our cleaner, Harry Booth! Thats right, our cleaner. Many moons ago Harry recorded a single called "Flying High"which was promoted over the local Bolton radio shows. Unfortunately the record never got the glory it deserved, so we think that its well overdue we get this out to the public to enjoy as much as we do. Its actually quite a belter!...so its an honour to present to you...Harry Booth & Roger - Flying High. Spread those wings and spread the word.!! 

Our rock star video expert, Martin, will be worshipping at the Altar Of Rock at the upcoming Methusala festival with his band, Johnny The Fox. Catch his exclusive interview with one of musics most prolific journalists above!

Recently, we decided to take a slightly different approach when producing an advert for our lovely agency. Channeling the spirit of Neil Buchanan we set out to build a papercraft model of Royal Birkdale golf club. The tools? Paper, CD cases, glue sticks, scissors, sticky tape and a can-do attitude (and a healthy worry that it would end up looking a little bit rubbish).

A trip to our local craft shop fitted us out with a load of coloured paper and glue sticks. "Is this a project for school..?" we were asked.

Undeterred and back in the studio we set about sculpting the rolling hills of Birkdale - utilising a stack of cd cases to give us the required lift and swathes of the finest green sugar paper to create some contours...

Hills are in place. 12 CD cases worth of height...

Once we were happy with the overall shape, we created bunkers, grass and the green. Using forced perspective we also created distant hills and a model of the distinctive clubhouse (the hole was marked with a flag, that was lifted from the office Scalextric set).

Nick operating the glue gun. Safety First!

Trimming the grass. Nice.

We lit, then shot the model using our trusty Canon 550D and re-touched the results in photoshop, adding in our supporting copy in inDesign.

I suppose the whole point of this post is to show that even if you do call yourself a digital agency, you do not always have to rely completely on the Mac when producing some nice artwork. You can surprise your clients, surprise yourself, and get surprising results when you go back to basics and hand produce something. You will also have a bit more fun in the process!

STOP PRESS!

Living legend Neil Buchanan stopped by on Twitter to comment about our Art Attack inspired piece!

Cheers Neil - we dedicate this one to you!