Kev O'Brien

It’s not often we gather round the TV at Rothco, usually we save it for special occasions like a pending Andy Murray Wimbledon implosion or a very slow Irish horse expected to excel at Cheltenham. So it made a change yesterday to turn it on yesterday as the cricket neared completion. All of a sudden closet cricket fans arrived announcing they’d been following it all day. One staff member was even heard to mutter, “I know nothing about the game and my life will remain completely unchanged no matter what the result… but Jaysus this is great!”

The crowd multiplied, confusion reigned but like Russian queues, interest had been aroused. So people stopped to see what was going on. Of course at Rothco we like to think we have strong ties to this Irish cricket team, sure didn’t Kevin O’Brien join us for a game of all star lunchtime football only a couple of months ago, Paul Hughes still reckons he gave him all the advice he’d ever need. Job done.

-Pat

Brilliant spoof on the DAA spot with Barry Murphy. Great craic! We love it!

We spotted this All Blacks Summer Skills video emailed in to us from a contact in Australia (not NZ believe it or not). Pretty impressive skills boys & not bad at 50,000 views on YouTube. Check it out….

In the same way, the owners of Rothco have come up with a lovely way of saying ‘thanks’ to the staff for their ideas, hard work, passion, dedication, late nights & for caring so deeply about creating brilliant work in twenty ten.

They’ve created the first ‘Thank Holiday’.

Announcing.... drum roll... The Rothco Thank Holiday!

So, on Friday the 25th of February 2011, Rothco will keep its doors shut for the whole day as each & every member of the Rothco team takes a well deserved day off. To do what? Well, whatever they like to do with a day off. Bake bread, go for a run, sleep in, play XBox, play the guitar, cook a big breakfast for the kids, or just do nothing much of anything at all. Or, they could do what Ferris did, but we all know how that ended up, now, don’t we?

There’s even a poster to mark the occasion (see above).

It feels good to be thanked. It also feels great to say ‘thank you’. The positive psychological effects of gratitude are widely known these days (both for giver & receiver). As are the behavioural motivations that come from receiving it. Gratitude can also serve to reinforce future behavior in benefactors. For example in one study, regular patrons of a restaurant gave bigger tips when waiters wrote “Thank you” on their checks. (thanks Wikipedia)

So, come Feb 25th, 2011, we could be looking at an entire company that not only enjoys a relaxing 3 day weekend, but a collection of people who come back to work Monday morning with a fire in their bellies & more to give than on your average Monday morning!

Rothmo.com - See our fully grown mo's!

Well done to the Rothco boys & all our supporters for getting into Movember. See our fully grown mo’s at http://www.RothMo.com

We Raised €3,006 (€1,006 above our target) for Action Prostate Cancer. Our funds will go to The Irish Cancer Society and their Men’s Health programme Action Prostate Cancer http://www.cancer.ie/prostate

Thanks to all who donated or supported.

Snow Sculpture of Pembroke

As the big freeze continued in Dublin late last week 2 Rothconians found inspiration in the snow. Fionan & Ciara made a snowman* version (above) of the Rothco mascot ‘Pembroke’.

Well done guys!

*(No 3D modeling software was used in the creation of this snow sculpture!)

For those who haven’t heard of the initiative, I’ll let @irishstu, the organiser, do the talking:
‘24 The Web is a 24 hour web design challenge, where teams of people build websites for a charity in 24 hours. The purpose is to highlight the importance of design, standards, content and process in developing a site, in a fun and challenging way. The event will take place from 13th-14th November. Inspired by Full Code Press (seriously, just see what they did. It’s fantastic and manic and fun and special and how we’ll do it) and NCAD 24 Hour Design Challenge’

For more information, check out the official website.
Follow twitter updates on #24theweb and @rothco, in particular from noon this Saturday Nov 13th to noon on Sunday.

We’d like to thank Selet Hire, also sponsors, for providing the much needed furniture to turn Space into a web design factory for the week-end.

Good luck to all participants for this coffee-fueled 24 hour web-design marathon!
See you Saturday!

Rothmo.com goes live!

15 mighty men of Rothco have promised to grow their miraculous mustachios for Movember to raise money & awareness for men’s health – specifically prostate cancer research.

Visit http://www.Rothmo.com each day to see the Rothconian men’s miraculous mustachios grow!

Help us raise over our target of €2,000 this year by visiting the site, liking on Facebook, sharing in your Facebook status, Tweeting, Blogging, emailing it to your nearest & dearest & telling everyone online & offline!!

Thanks in advance for your help & support!

Lots of the Rothco team attended the second OFFSET creative conference held in the Grand Canal Theatre here in Dublin at the weekend. Here are some of our highlights from what was overall an inspiring, positive, and superbly hosted event – a great moment for the Irish creative industry and a credit to the organisers Bren B, Richard and Peter.

James (Creative):
“Hearing a design super hero like David Carson speak about his process & work. Then getting the chance to meet him & have a casual chat about creativity & the creative process. Here’s a guy we all studied in design college showing his process (warts & all) & walking us through his creative ideas. Priceless.”

Stephen (Art Director):
“Brilliantly run event. World renowned speakers paired with a stunning venue and a great crowd made it an unforgettable atmosphere. Truly inspiring. Gives someone who is in the creative business validation that what they are doing can make a difference, no matter how small.
Only quibble would be – not enough Irish creatives.”

Cherie (Producer):
“The venue was immense! (Except for the 3 euro small bottles of water!)

Alan Clarke – Illustrator was brilliant and really entertaining. He held the attention of the audience so well – may have been something to do with the smoke machine he had He’s nuts, in a great way and his illustrations are strangely beautiful…The Darklight Lunch session on Sunday was perfect. A really nice way to sit and enjoy your lunch and take a little break for the brain…”

Alexis (Digital Creative Director):
“I found Poke’s work showed really well how a very simple idea and mechanic work very well in digital. But I was disappointed that a man of George Lois’ stature neglected to answer a question about Art Directors in digital.”

Rachel (Copywriter)
“I saw Gary Baseman on Friday who I thought was great fun, he just goes anywhere with his creativity. I loved how he has all this video of him taking his ‘Toby’ character all over the world and as yet has no idea what he’s going to do with it.

Poke were also good, brilliant innovations in the use of Twitter, YouTube – you really get the sense they’re striving to come up with completely new ways of doing things rather than just good campaign ideas.”

My own best bits included the quirky ‘circular’ presentation by graphic designer turned artist Daniel Eatock on Friday (will definitely be checking out his show at Monster Truck until the 23rd October) and of course legendary ad-man George Lois who entertained a packed house both for his talk on Saturday and Q&A discussion on Sunday. I also thought that Aiden Grenelle from Image Now and photographer Linda Brownlee’s lectures gave great representations of our own Irish creatives.

Bring on Offset 2011!

To celebrate the moving in together of the new PC World & Currys ‘2 in 1’ store at Blanchardstown, there’s going to be a wedding ceremony in the new store, where there will be €15,000 worth of Currys & PC World products given as a wedding present to the happy couple.

Are you that very couple? Are you ready for an Electric Wedding?
Enter through TheElectricWedding.com by midnight on the 4th October, and you could be walking down the aisle together on the 8th October with €15,000 worth of electrical goodies.

See the video below: