f1 recruit Integrated Project Manager Wasim Bhatti.

We are delighted to announce Wasim Bhatti has joined f1 in the role of Integrated Project Manager.

With a solid background in production and account management f1 see Wasim as the ideal candidate to handle the integration of cross media projects.With more clients now having a need for a multi channel approach, projects often cover design and branding, photography and video, printed collateral and then web and mobile as well, so integrating the project from start to finish can be quite a challenge.

Wasim is excited about joining f1 and helping to tackle this challenge. With a decade’s worth of experience in print—including sheet fed, web, digital and pre-press—Wasim joins f1 with practical experience of delivering projects to a huge range of customers. He invests time and effort in building strong relationships with the people he works with. Wasim’s extensive technical knowledge of the print process allows him to ensure the right product is being produced and delivered to his clients’ satisfaction.

“Wasims career to date dealing with blue-chip clients, coupled with a friendly ‘can do’ attitude means he is going to prove a great addition to the team.” stated Jamie Robinson, Production / Systems Director

New addition in web development team adds some dynamics

One of the most difficult aspects of implementing any web project is dovetailing the design concepts with robust engineering. It’s that intersection where the design vision meets the engineering reality. On so many occasions the original concept is either misinterpreted or the quality is compromised due to platform restrictions, leaving the investment made in the original design experience wasted.

Understanding and predicting these pitfalls up front is key and by having the right teams with free flowing interactions between them is essential and with that in mind we’ve yet again strengthened our web development department with the addition of Daniel Hill.

Daniel brings a wealth of knowledge in HTML5 scripting languages, bolstering our PHP, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL and Java skills base. He also adds the natural passion and enthusiasm being one of our youngest team members, which equally provides some interesting dynamics between the “old skool” thinkers within the team.

f1′s rapidly growing, especially within the web division and we’re currently working on a host of very exciting projects and no doubt we’ll soon be expanding the team yet again.

“We’re currently on plan and are very fortunate to have gained the business to support our organic growth, we’re all very excited about f1′s future”. Peter Gatward, Creative Director.

F1 Colour chosen to shoot video for L’Occitane around Europe.

With great excitement, f1 colour continue to build upon their close working relationship with French luxury retailer L’Occitane we were chosen again recently for the task of traveling to Corsica and Provence to film the development and inspiration for the L’Occitane garden build at this years Royal Chelsea flower show.

Following the success of their award-winning garden back in 2010, a team from f1 travelled to Corsica, to cover the story behind the incredible everlasting Immortelle plant, grown extensively on the island purely for L’Occitane. Beauty Journalist and long time enthusiast of their products Jo Fairley, was there to interview the key people who have inspired and shaped this year’s design of the L’Occitane Immortelle garden at Chelsea.

The f1 team set to work filming in a rural Corsican setting, interviewing the designer behind this year’s L’Occitane Immortelle garden, 8 time Chelsea Gold winner Peter Dowle. With our team using 2 x Sony EX1 video camera’s capturing the inspiration behind this year’s showpiece, with both camera’s filming the interviews and  Audio Technica lapel mic’s capturing the sound allowing filming in just one full take.

With filming in Corsica & Provence in the can so to speak, and with the f1 team back in Blighty, it was time to move on to the next stage of the project, producing rushes of the extensive footage taken. This would allow the client to select the desired story board clips ready for our Post Production guys to edit. All of which were edited with an intro and outro, top & tail branded, musical backing track and addition narration segments added all to 1080 HD finished formats.

Leading up to the Chelsea Flower show the f1 team were again commissioned to film the garden build using Time Lapse photography to cover the inspiration as it came to life. This required camera’s to be placed at designated points around the garden build to capture the still photography that could be formatted into a motion time lapse video of the entire garden throughout the whole project.

f1 were on hand to document every detail, from the construction of the L’Occitane garden, it’s grand unveiling and through the whole week of the show at Chelsea, producing both still and video footage throughout, again using a 2 man video camera team to interview TV personalities on the garden including Amanda Holden and L’Occitane founder Olivier Baussan.

From the footage taken at Chelsea coupled with additional London based footage undertaken by the same f1 team we finally produced a final edit into a fun and funky video employing a totally London theme throughout which was specifically produced for an event involving the heads of L’Occitane globally in New York.

Pieter Grobler to head-up expanding web application services.

In a move to respond to their clients increased demand for web and mobile applications,
f1 colour has done well to appoint Pieter Grobler
who is welcomed on board to head up the expanding web development team, based at
their headquarters in Bankside, London.

Pieter has a broad enterprise software knowledge, particularly within the fast moving web applications arena and is used to a pressured environment having honed his skills working on many blue-chip clients projects. Pieter also provides additional strengths by bolstering f1 colour’s MVC and agile development methodologies, which are very much welcomed with the increasing intricacies and complexities of today’s multi-platform implementations.

Managing Director Ken Harrison stated that “once again f1 are able to expand the team with a seasoned industry expert, we have been looking for the right individual for this very important position for a while, and we are delighted that Pieter elected to join us”.

Pieter is keen (having over fifteen successful years of software engineering behind him), to quickly add value to the f1 team. It was his desire to join an organisation that had similar core values and is able to excel in the area of customer service. I am very excited about working with such a professional team”

Ken Harrison also suggested “Pieter is the first of a team that we envisage we be growing over the next year and beyond. We’ve seen new and existing clients increasingly needing this areas of expertise and we’re very excited about our future”.

Amazingly f1 colour is celebrating twenty years of innovation

The 1990s was the decade in which the world got a whole lot smaller thanks to  technological innovations that changed the way we interacted with each other. Inventions in the 1990s would include some of the most important communications advances to ever find their way into human hands, the world wide web and email became the glue that would bind people and businesses together.

The 1990s also saw the launch of the UK’s first ‘digital-only’ pre-press agency. In 1992, Nigel Mansell was the World Formula One champion, and Haymarket Publishing had decided to publish a magazine celebrating his win.

f1 colour produced the Mansell magazine for Haymarket from the demo suite at Pershke Price Service’s headquarters in Morden, South London, during evenings and weekends when PPS’s suite was available and with the proceeds put down a deposit to buy their own equipment of two Apple Macs, a scanner, an imagesetter and a Cromalin proofer.

With an emphasis on hard work, new technologies and as much fun as possible the next 20 years go in a flash!

1995 sees f1 colour win Printweeks ‘Pre-press Company of the Year’, the staff count increase to 3 shifts and 24 hour working, as new technologies emerge f1 evaluate the value to their client base and embrace them where they see fit. Digital Asset Management, a Xeikon digital press, Digital photography, Colour Management to name but a few.

The fun element is squeezed into any spare time in many forms from go-karting, quad biking and five-a-side football, paintball, fancy dress parties and trips to Spain at the weekend!

The current f1 colour is based in Bankside, central London premises. One of the founding partners, Ken Harrison is the sole 20 year survivor and resident MD, Jamie Robinson has risen from a school leaving ‘trainee’ through to Production and Systems director and Peter Gatward, has recently joined the company as Creative director, bringing a wealth of experience and much-valued expertise.

So, having steered its way through the economic, technological and industry challenges thrown at it,
f1 colour celebrates its 20 year anniversary in great shape to navigate the constantly changing world of cross channel, multi-level marketing. While the team looks forward to innovating the next twenty years of cross-media marketing solutions and all the challenges and changes it will undoubtedly bring.

f1 colour wins sole supplier contract for Sunday publishing

When Sunday Publishing, a leading provider of customer magazines, catalogues and web solutions, decided to choose a sole supplier for its pre-press requirements, they knew who to turn to! f1 Colour was recently awarded the contract, and is now producing materials for leading brands including Vodafone, Toyota and Serco.

“The output that Sunday provides is on a massive scale – scores of different ‘users’ need to access and annotate pages, so keeping track of amends and editing requirements could be a challenge,” explains Jamie Robinson of f1 Colour. “Fortunately our online asset and project management keeps the process simple and streamlined, with each user only having access to the pages that concern them, based upon secure logins. It helps the client run a tight ship in terms of an efficient, streamlined production-line, with what could be complex approval processes becoming much more automated.”

Michael Wood, Production Manager for Sunday Publishing, says the innovative project management system and a consistently good level of customer service played a big part in their decision to award the pre-press contract to f1. “We have worked with the team for over five years now, and they have watched us win awards and grow from a start-up company into a large-scale organisation that employs 35 people,” Michael explains. “We continue to have a great working relationship with f1, and find they always go the extra mile for us. Their attention to detail is extensive, which of course is essential when we are producing collateral for high-profile brands. Fortunately we can count on f1’s colour management provision, and their ability to proof on gloss, matt and uncoated stock, to all to ISO standards,” he concludes.

“Sunday are really making news with their contract wins and are a vibrant exciting bunch to work with. We are delighted to have beaten off stiff opposition to cement our working relationship and have just signed a 3 year contract, so we look forward to working with Sunday for many years to come.” Added Jamie.