The fourth edition in our children’s Christmas book series, has proved to be popular once again with Kev the Kiwi and his friends Pete the Pukeko, Tina the Tuatara and Kate the Kea off on another exciting adventure in “The Story of Jack Frost’s First Christmas Gift”.

Written and illustrated by Imagic, children are also able to see their new friends come alive with each character lovingly recreated by the Ballantynes model maker. Come and see them when visiting Santa at Northland’s shopping centre.

Illustrations have been created by Ben Johnstone one of our favorite on-call illustrators (and past imagic-employee). Here you can see the illustration process from draft outline concepts for client approval to final coloured art.

The illustrated characters are fun, delightful kiwi-focussed icons that give New Zealand children ownership of the Xmas story. New characters have been introduced with each edition and this year Sammy the lamb features along with a rather chilly Jack Frost.

Books are printed on 300gsm satin art stock by Spectrum Print. Previous editions are titled: Santa’s Kiwi Christmas Adventure, Santa’s Kiwi Christmas Adventure MKII, and, Santa and the Christmas Tree Mystery.

The team worked together creating season-inspired sets specifically with Christmas in mind. Combined with gorgeous retro styled fashion and beautiful makeup we think the shots look pretty fantastic.

The team also managed to knock out some of next years promotions as well giving North City a head start on 2012. You can check out some of the final Christmas billboards, posters and the behind the scenes video below.

Images were shot by our very own in-house photographer Mr Nick Wright. Sensational styling was again sourced by TV fashion stylist Lee Hogsden with Mike M shooting our behind the scenes video, edited by Mike B and Dale and Angela on Account Management.

A big thank you to Lightworkx for the use of their studio and gear and to Adgraphix for set printing.

This programme equips workers with the skills to be physically intelligent individuals, focusing on what  employees can do to control and reduce the risk of workplace injuries.

Have you ever asked why one person gets injured while the guy working beside him doesn’t?

First Move helps individuals recognise early warning signals and make changes before reaching significant pain and injury. It makes training and learning fun, memorable and interactive. What we hear we tend to forget. What we see we remember and what we DO we understand.

imagic have created a multi-media training resource package that will significantly reduce company costs in work place injuries. Resources include posters, flip charts and CD-Roms.

For more information on SAFETY by DESIGN email Julie Weatherall.

Horncastle Homes set us the task of reskinning their entire vehicle fleet and we took up the challenge with zest, producing some very recognisable, Canterbury-themed imagery.

Check out the vehicle signage and brand imagery produced.

This month saw us give The Plaza brand a big shake up. The challenge was to make x2 Television commercials and a series of billboards on location that would cast The Plaza as The fashionable address, ticking all the boxes with gorgeous models, high fashion, lush settings and a little X factor. And all of this in just two days!

Finding luxurious locations amidst the rubble and chaos of Christchurch was a tall order, but with some clever recce’ ing we found two venues to fit the bill and bring the bling! A big thanks to Christchurch Casino and The George hotel for hosting our crew and giving us some wow backdrops.

Faced with a hectic two day schedule to get it in the bag, we split into two production teams – one dedicated to filmmaking and one to photography. This exciting project took over Imagic’s resources like a juggernaut as we plundered our in-house talent to pull it together. Kate directed, Mike was cameraman, Michael was camera assist, Justine was art director and most of the Imagic team were roped in to work their dramatic muscles as paparazzi and high tea diners (see if you can spot anyone in the billboard image above.)

We rounded up an ‘A’ team of creatives including esteemed international photographer Dean Mackenzie and his assistant Jason, lighting wizard Steve Jarden from A&C, accomplished MAC make up artist Renee Kereopa and her assistant Ben, intuitive TV stylist Lee Hogsden and two beautiful RED agency models fresh off the NZ Fashion Week catwalk, Kirsten and Laura. Coupled with a smoking soundtrack from popular R’n'B signing sensation J Williams and a smooth scene stealing white Rolls Royce.

Shot on a Canon 550d/t2i DSLR* in slow mo at 50fps to give a saturated, romantic feel, the finished product is a mix of sexy, sultry, I-want-it fashion. Peppered with lingering hero shots of gorgeous accessories (all available at The Plaza!), an intriguing storyline and some broody male eye candy (LMC models Mitch and Jono) it’s sure to be a winner.

*A big thanks to Rubbermonkey Rentals for the hire of kessler cineslider, dp6 monitor and Canon L prime lenses.

Our team have been having a ‘little bit of fun’ with the North City rebrand. Our client wanted a distinct look that had style with a bit of fun thrown in. This is just a preview of some of the material resulting from the photoshoot. We really love the new retro look our client let us create for them!

Take a look at our behind the scene images from the North City photoshoot and find out what else we got up to on the day.

“Introducing MOTIF, the intelligent fabric that knows how you feel.

MOTIF stands for Merino Origin Tracked Intelligent Fibre. The word motif comes from the French for motive and our motive is simple. To create the world’s finest smart fabric from nature’s own miracle fibre. Merino.”

The Merino Company (TMC) asked us to create a new brand and marketing collateral for their active outdoors / sportswear fabric. It created a buzz at Ispo, the International Trade Show for Sports Fashion, where it was launched in February 2011.

Imagery juxtaposes extremes of climate and environment, showing the miracle fibre working equally hard whatever is thrown at it. This theme is played out again in the logo device, the sunflake, a simple combination of a snowflake and sun symbol.

I’m pleased to let you know that, despite the challenges and sadness of the last fortnight, Imagic is up and running again.

The Imagic building, although undamaged, is located within the Christchurch CBD cordon leaving us temporarily homeless. For the last two weeks the team have been working remotely across a number of sites, including my dining room.

However Jade Software very generously offered us space at their Christchurch Development Centre and as of yesterday we have taken up residence in our new, temporary home.

Physical address:

Imagic, c/o Jade Software

19 Sheffield Crescent, Burnside

Christchurch, 8053

Email addresses: all remain the same

Telephone: all lines have been redirected and remain the same

Postal address: has changed to PO Box 764, Rangiora, 7440

We have heard some clients say they want to ‘leave us in peace for a while’ as we adjust to our new home and everything that has happened over the last fortnight. Please don’t!

The best thing you can do for Imagic right now, and for the whole city of Christchurch, is to help us get back to some kind of normality.

If you whisper sweet nothings in our ear, you just might get a big box of sweet somethings in return.

We recently completed the delightful new website for Denheath Desserts and as a Valentine’s Day celebration we wanted to shout three of our clients and suppliers a Denheath morning tea.

So in the spirit of Valentine’s, we are inviting you to send imagic a love letter. Put pen to paper, finger to keyboard or just yell it from the rooftops*. If you love us, let us know why!

Is it our cuddly creative? The way we manipulate your CSS? Or the way we often know what you’re thinking…

Send us some love and our three favourite pen pals will get a whole lotta sweet lovin’ in return. Send your love letters to Paul before the end of the week (5pm on Friday 18th) and a big box of scrummy Custard Squares, Cheesecakes, Profiteroles and Cupcakes could be winging its way to your office.

* The best rooftop would probably be ours, otherwise we wouldn’t hear you.

The small print

Apologies to our international clients, but we are only able to have Denheath morning tea goodies delivered to New Zealand addresses.

Deadline for receipt of ‘love letters’ is 5pm on Friday 18th February.

We’d like to share your loving words by publishing them on our website and in our email marketing. If you’d rather we didn’t, please let us know.

Judge’s decision is final… no correspondence (or bribery!) will be entered into.

The start of our beautiful relationship with Denheath Desserts was when they came to us to be brand spanked.

It was a match made in heaven.

They loved being spanked and we loved their goodies.

See results of the latest spank here.
What is a brand spank?