The Chimney House…
Such a great place to hold a meeting or event we thought we would do it justice with some new photography to show off the great interiors.

See The Chimney House project overview for more information.

On-One

See the On-One project overview for more information.

Progress Report..
The Chimney House Stock Room is nearing completion this week.. turning old into new. Keep an eye out for progress and details of The Stock Room on the 93ft website..!

Silversmiths really did have it’s heritage in silversmithing. So we’re working on devising clever ways in which we can pull on the heritage of metal working and marry it to an environment more conducive with a restaurant.

Each letter is hand drawn and deliberately printed small (on most occasions) to resemble a silver makers hallmark. All paper stocks and in-house selling tools such as the menus have been careful brought in line with an ex-industrial, vintage but modern tone. Rich bitter chocolate brown, classic brogue tan, and unbleached paper are key colours used through-out the scheme, and they do suit each other well. The thickness and texture of the stocks has also been something important to get right – certainly for those who appreciate a more tactile environment. Pick up, pocket and enjoy – welcome to the world of great print.

See the Silversmiths Restaurant project overview for more information.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could have a full designed bespoke front-end website matched with the power and flexibility of a fully Content Managed System that had room for growth and expansion in line with business requirements. Well, here it is!

Simple designs are always the best, and here we marry simplicity with a limited number of page template designs which gives the whole site a airy ease. The content management system we use strips away the unnecessary features known in WordPress, so from an administration point of view it’s easy to delegate, assign responsibility to your content editors and update yourself as and when you need to, from where ever you’re based in the world. This includes the broadcast of e-shots that tie seamlessly into the website design. Power at your fingertips for sure! For Silversmiths Restaurant that has also been an important bonus as to why they invested in a future proof website infrastructure.

For further information or a show around the websites we create email us, … speak soon!

See the Silversmiths Restaurant project overview for more information.

So it’s 2012.. this year in addition to our photography were going to see a flurry of short videos coming out of the 93ft office. This week we got our hands on the latest DR-40 sound recorder from Tascam.. This should be a great addition and were excited about using it alongside the Canon 5DMk2 on upcoming projects..

This week we’ve been looking at eye wear images for a prospective client.. So just to give you a flavour of what we get up to here at the Chimney house we’ve posted them up for you to take a look at..!

So we created these simple but effective images for use within an on-line catalogue. A very simple studio set-up was used to create these that can be re-created quickly to enable us to provide the client a quick turn around on images. Also the set-up means minimal work in Photoshop.

From Bakewell, Derbyshire we head to London town for our latest interior project – The Eye Place, Belsize. The brief this time was to instil a sense of old school Sherlock for opticians brand The Eye Place.

The components for the shop fit itself were all made off-site in Sheffield, then transported to London for final fitting. All the cabinetry has been hand finished from reclaimed timber, with key pieces of lighting sourced opposite The Chimney House at Kelham Island from the former Miba Tyzack steel factory. Alex, the client, prides himself of ensuring his patients and customers have the most advanced eye testing equipment at their disposal. Behind the reclaim, hides the super high tech, Optomap and MPod eye testing units. The sum total of all this we call Modern heritage, and an example of this at it’s finest.

See The Eye Place project overview for more information.

To help further in the refinement of the The Oast House brand, we produced content which capture a taste of the menu on offer, content like this helps to sell the venue as the place to go and eat.

The vision was to produce images that best represent the style and presentation of the menu served at The Oast House whilst maintaining a unique feel to the images. Shooting on location, in a fully open restaurant which transforms into one very lively venue in the evening proved to be somewhat of a challenge, resulting in a lengthy 20hr shoot.

Food styling, image capture and post production was all taken care of by the team here at 93ft, who worked closely with the staff at The Oast House and Living Ventures before, during and after the day of the shoot.

Again as usual a huge team effort went into producing these images..(not to mention the huge amount of coffee that evening..)

See The Oast House project overview for more information.

Capture the atmosphere of our new venue! So, we did! Romantic, and quintessentially English, The Oast House sits snugly into the hard glass contemporary setting of Spinningfields and actually represents something of a relief to discover a warming and lively house – particularly in the Winter months.

Careful lighting and considered post production help to contribute towards a professional and slick album of images, perfect for demonstrating the flavour of life at The Oast House. Oh, and those hanging kebabs … get another round in would you!?

See The Oast House project overview for more information.

Shooting with a Manfrotto supported Canon 5DMK2 with L series lenses all tethered to a Mac Pro.
Bowens lighting and Pocket Wizards were used to provide some subtle fill lighting to supplement the natural light available and to highlight elements of the shop.
In addition to the fill flash we captured a series of different exposures of the same image composition to allow the full range of shadow and highlight detail to be captured. These were merged during post production to give a hint of HDR production.

See The Eye Place project overview for more information.

Summer Reigns Eternal – and it’s true to say that in Manchester it often feels that way! Enter The Oast House, a new venture to Spinningfields, Manchester – and a project that we have been working on with our client for many months. Collaborating with our illustrators we’ve created a handwritten alternate to the simple yet strong typeface used on the key note branding. Both Emma Smith’s and Manchester legend Daren Newman’s illustrations work incredibly well to give the client unique and brand led content which helps to define The Oast House against it’s other City centre rivals. Bold but with oversized dashes of nostalgic pub we give you The Oast House!

See The Oast House project overview for more information.

New to The Oast House, a collection of over 100 editions of this beautifully illustrated beer almanac featuring over 60 of the world’s finest and most revered beers. Illustrated by the famed London illustrator and ceramic artist Emma Smith, it captures something of a wonderful journey for all of those avid beer-heads. Each illustration is accompanied with hand written tasting notes and essential information about origins, makers and awards. Made from recycled vintage book covers sourced from around the UK, each book cover features an olde English title – often to much amusement in the context of a beer house setting. Printed digitally using the latest Indigo Press, on the Cairn Eco Range from Paperback, each hand finished in Sheffield for export to Manchester. The covers feature hot foil embossing with a silk book marker so you’ll never forget your place even after a few deadly Duvels! Happy reading.

See The Oast House project overview for more information.

Ingenious gift-cards designed and produced for award-winning restaurant Silversmiths! Made from the Cairn Eco Range of papers from paper coop Paperback, London. As ever we instructed our embosser to ensure the utmost care was taken to ensure these were produced as envisioned, and he didn’t fail. Featuring embossed branding to the front, and satin silver hot foil to the interior. The gift-card values can be tailored to suit any pocket by punching the value from the numbers listed using a Boston made stainless steel hand punch. Raw, industrial but with an edge of uber-cool, enjoy your meal and see you again soon.

See the Silversmith Restaurant project overview for more information.

As part of a wider re-brand strategy we were asked to create a series of marques and logos for Blackhouse Restaurant. These could be used on menus, e-shot broadcasts, website and any other promotional print. Our ethos was to pull on the graphic heritage of traditional steak house branding, keeping in mind the context of the work appearing in contemporary restaurant units across the UK. These marques could be hot foiled, printed, letterpressed, or fire branded onto various media.

See the Blackhouse project overview for more information.

As part of the Design and Brand Refinement for the Silversmiths restaurant in Sheffield they were looking for a fresh approach to their food photography. One that would maintain the look and feel of the restaurant whilst looking different to the food images they have had produced in the past.

We were shooting at the Chimney House with Silversmiths Chefs on hand throughout the day providing their expertise in food preparation.
Food styling, image capture and all post production was done by the 93ft team.

Using the Live view function on the Canon 5DMK2 whilst tethered to the MacBook Pro made the process of focussing the Canon L series lenses and composing images much much simpler whilst the 5d was boom mounted above the food arrangements. Resulting in far fewer images needing to be captured and less post shoot image processing and selection. 3rd party software ‘DSLR Assistant’ allows fine tuning of the focus point via the MacBook without having to touch the camera … very handy feature indeed!!

Bowens lighting was triggered via the Pocket Wizards and images were available for client review throughout the day as the shoot progressed via the Apple HD displays. Post production was through a number of steps starting with the fantastic ‘DXO Optics Pro’ software then ‘Photoshop’ and ‘Adobe Lightroom’ were used for editing and cataloguing.

On the whole it was a massive team effort from the start to finish of a very long day, but the results were worth it. Images can be seen on the Silversmiths website and a selection were put into print for the Silversmiths Seasonal Look Book.

See the Silversmiths project overview for more information.

Developing the profile of a leading figure in any business is something that is rarely undertaken. To mark the development of the Living Ventures blog we approached leading illustrator Nick Hardcastle – who regularly contributes artwork to top fashion and style magazines Esquire, and broadsheets including The Times and The Independent. Here Hardcastle worked quickly, drawing on all his skills to capture a fond likeness of visionary entrepreneur Tim Bacon, MD of Living Ventures Restaurants. The result, a superbly executed pen and ink portrait that can be used across a range of media both on and off line, in editorial campaigns, personal stationary as well as featuring on ‘that wall’ in ‘that rather nice frame’. Nice work if you can get it!

See the Living Ventures project overview for more information.

Just in – the Mio Amore brochures, featuring the illustrations of Norwegian illustrator Esra Roise.  Printed on uncoated stocks across the scheme, to pull back the glitz and glam of traditional make-up and treatment brands.

This one’s a bit more sophisticated with an edge of underground chic.  The logo on the front cover also features a deboss – a great way to add some to plain printed typeface.  These deluxe clutch compendiums reveal a fold out guide telling you everything you need to know about treatments and beauty remedies available from this luxury spa brand.

See the Mio Amore project overview for more information.

We continue to work alongside Living Ventures Restaurants advising on brand and graphic direction across their collection of restaurants and bars.

The Grill on New York Street hosts a collection of menus that take the avid diner on a journey through the menu. Our main task on the suite of menus was create a consistent feel, and pulling in an edge of 1920 – 1930′s classic glamour back on the menu.

Printed on uncoated stock, with thick black inks to finish these fine documents. Business cards have been made from duplexing 2 textured boards from GF Smith card with text finished with black hot foil impressions. If that doesn’t get your appetite going …

See the The Grill on New York Street project overview for more information.

Mio Amore’s mini spa is an exclusive hideaway dedicated to the love of looking and feeling tiptop.

This boutique brand specialise in luxury treatments for ladies looking for a little glamour in their lives, daily grooming and pamper essentials for ladies who love to look and feel fabulous.

Illustrations provided by the fabulous and ever in vogue Esra Roise from her Oslo studio. Esra produced a short series of illustrations under the direction of 93ft. Our aim was to try capture some of the textures, colours and shapes produced when make-up-ing, so the dusty pinks, eye liner pencil grain and powder puff tones we think seal the deal on these hand drawn works. As part of the body of work produced for the salon include brochure, price lists, business and appointment cards, and to follow a Magento e-commerce store in collaboration with Dermalogica UK.

See the Mio Amore project overview for more information.