New Open Blog

Hello everyone!!

Our lovely blog has a new home now at: http://www.theopenconsultancy.com/blog/

So update your RSS feeds or your bookmarks and bask in the sunshine of our tales.

Stopped-Open-Motion

Fluoro Brights flooded the Open studio last week with inspirations from the current catwalks and present trends we're spotting.

Shades essential complete with eye popping gear, here’s a snap straight from behind our closed doors to give you the first sneak preview of something bigger yet to come very soon here at OPEN.

"Five on Fifth"

Fond of all these store openings going on over the pond at the moment, and a brand never to disappoint when it comes to memorable activity, Diesel is no exception.

Linking in nicely with NY Fashion week and restoring our faith in retail, still being strong and being exceptional eco-chic. The grand opening of Five on Fifth, Diesel’s new flag ship store seizes our attention again.

Multiple 'mad hatter tea parties' sporting different themes daily, with endearing colorful characters and a few twists at its store front window for consecutive nights of its opening week.

The pap’d engagement of unwitting passers by and originality here was what we liked here at Open and the fact that the store also boasts a large amount of neon lighting, free wifi, recharging stations, multilingual staff and DJs on the spin and some nice attire too.

With lots of street teams handing over the freebees alongside the intimate window dinners we say one up for Diesel for this creative, inspiring and well executed Guerrilla campaign.

Bring on more alternatives for store openings, and lets hope we start seeing the UK doing the same!

Breakfast Clubbing

Ever heard the expression - I'm having a party in head?

Well now imagine a collection of random Open folks doing this together while munching down crumpets, muffins and bagels and slurping lovely mugs of tea.

That'll give you some idea of what our weekly Breakfast Clubbing sessions are like. We get together at 8am every Friday morning to share the thoughts that have been burning a hole in our heads.

We use it as a way to discuss cultural issues and breaking trends... today we were swearing. Well talking about it anyway and discussing language and how social culture effects our perception of different words. This and where belief comes from.

Yeah, not your usual banter about last night's TV, but that what flicks our switches.

If ever you want to raise a topic for us to discuss and share via the BC, feel free to drop us a line.

The Art of Being chipper

We're not up for plagarism, but this excerpt from the Hospital Club publication rings so true, we felt compelled to share it...


It's a critical time for the creative industries. The gloom and doom of the credit crunch, the redundancies, budget slashing, ring fencing, cost cutting - this vocabulary of financial misery is surrounding us. As Auden said 'For nothing now can ever come to any good.' Glooooomy or what?

But hold on a minute - isn't this the language of 20 years ago?

Following the 1980's Black Monday, Dim Tuesday, Darker Wednesday, Very Gloomy Thursday and Could-it-get-worse-than-this? Friday, something extraordinary happened in the creative industries.

A positive reaction. Bands from nowhere began making lots of noise, the new generation fashion designers back-lashed, artists took control - there was a renaissance in British creative attitude and the following decade became Cool Britannia. Blur, Damien Hirst, Pop Magazine, Alexander McQueen, Oasis, John Galliano, the Turner Prize, Isabella Blow, the Brit Awards, Portobello Road, St John's Restaurant, White Cube and Moro.

All over the place people took creative risks; the underground pushed its way into the mainstream and drove a stake into the heart of the Yuppie filled world of Neighbours, Wine Bars and Stock, Aitken and Waterman. It was a turning point in British Culture.

With a little less in the bank, how does the creative future pan out this time round?

When the cost of paper went up during The War, Penguin simply made their books smaller. Adjust, rethink, take risks and be creative. Welcome to 2009.

Neophilia : a love for things new.

Last week we got along to trends co PSFK's 2009's Good Ideas Salon in London.


Some interesting multi-disciplined designers, Troika with their ‘Cloud’ installation, currently being showcased at Heathrow's Terminal 5 and brand new concepts to storytelling from Punch Drunk engaging experiences.

And on a less positive note, A slow afternoon, with not many aspiring views coming out of it. The day needed less chattering around subjects with more clear points being made.

The day was stirring but unfortunately not outstanding, although what made it a success was the inspirational mix of content - Good Ideas Salon did have a number of engaging speakers, and the balance between designers and experts in their field was just right.

We definitely took away an interesting outlook on world trends but as we already have active absorbent minds here, we're not sure if sitting inside the ‘Good Ideas Salons’ four walls inspired us enough.

Highland whisky tour for The Glenlivet

Last week we were lucky enough to fly up to the Scottish Highlands and pay a visit to a couple of Pernod Ricard's Single Malt distilleries.

We picked an awesome time to visit with about 3ft of snow it really set the scenery off.

We were really well looked after and learned loads about the spiritual home of the err... spirits.

We came back perhaps a little tired and hazy, but definitely inspired by what we saw and could bring to the brands from our experiences.

And talking of experiences, Bex and GInny discovered the massage chairs at the airport, which proved a bit too much to handle!


Thanks for setting this up Mark.