How we did it?.........Happy Christmas

2009 is coming to a end, and here at the White Balance we wanted to show you how we do what we do! We have broken down the stages we went through to create our 2009 Christmas Card! Enjoy, and we welcome your comments.


When brain storming ideas for this years christmas card we saw this image of a standard light bulb. We kept coming back to the bulbs simplistic form and thought wouldn't it be nice if we could have the shape of a christmas tree glowing inside the bulb! using 3d and post production its possible ...

Stage 01.
First we create the 3D Environment, and model the details on the bulbs.

Stage 02.

Render a Ambient Occlusion Pass. We use this to add realistic grounding in Post Production.

Stage 03.

Next step Texture and light it up! and press Render (sounds so simple doesn't it!) 

Stage 05.

Post Production - We colour grade and add that extra Sparkle.

Stage 06.

Render a depth of field pass. We use this as a mask when we blur the image. This gives the illusion of a Macro lens camera.

Stage 07.

Using the depth of field mask we blur the final image.

Stage 08.

Finally a Happy Christmas and we are done :-)

My lifes a Jigsaw

See the Making of the "Jigsaw". We entered this table in this years Bristol Design Festival. This short film was shown at the festival, as part of the Grafikea competition! Make sure you have the sound on for this! although beware, the tune might be in your head all day!

Sunshine and Podcasts

Last month The White Balance were asked to take part in the new Bristol Media Podcast, the podcast was to be the first in a three part series discussing Business Start-up, Growth and Exit, in association with Business Link

Bristol Media invited five business start ups and six advisers from the world of business to discuss the issues around starting up a business. The Podcast covers everything from coming up with the big idea, business plans, money, marketing, bootstrapping, networking, entrepreneurship and everything in between. Download the podcast here to have a listen as Matt debut's on the airwaves.

We have been busy with a highly anticipated architectural project for the Award winning Dan Brill Architects. Last week we were thrilled to see the project featuring as BD magazines project of the day! The White Balance produced 3 CGI's for the proposed chalk extension. Click here to read about this great little project.

The White Balance are enjoying working closely with BBC Focus Magazine on a series of 3d illustrations. In this months issue see the images we created explaining the new surf reef in Bournemouth, and stealth wind farms. Here's a sneaky peek at a few of the images.

Having just got back from the beautiful island of Kefalonia we are fully recharged and ready for the next few busy weeks here @ The White Balance.

Jam Packed July and a Football or two

I have a spare 20mins so i thought i shall update the old white balance blog! its been a while! Cant believe we are half way through July already! last month was crazy and it seems July has carried on the trend! We have been busy on a couple more illustrations for BBC Focus Magazine (issue released 30th July!)Last week we finished 12 Exhibition stand CGI's for our Paintworks neighbors at Ignition DG, Unfortunately Ignition have whisked the views off to the USA for a series of presentations. Hopefully we can show them off soon!

The White balance entered the Annual Bristol Media 5 aside football tournament last Sunday (12th July)! After some very poor preparation Team White Balance rolled up in matching football shirts (no time to print logos) and a team put together the night before due to injuries and last min drop outs. Oh dear it wasn't looking good for our boys, never kicked a football together and entering a tournament! The guys did good! but not good enough! if it wasn't for those pesky kids! Theres always next year. Here's some lovely photo's of the day by Neil Young.Photography (capturing Team White Balance Versus Team Aardman (Blue) Result 2-2 - Pahhh so what if they have an Oscar!)

Thats all for this month busy busy i better get back to it - what ever it is! just better do it.......

Banksy, Grafikea and Milan

What a month here at the white balance!

Busy busy busy end to May getting everything ready for the Bristol Design Festival. As well as being proud supporters of the festival we were not only exhibiting, but entering 2 entries into the Grafikea competition! big love for the BDF!

The exhibition was on from the 5th - 11th June at the old fire station here in the heart of Bristol. We had a really good response so thanks to all of you who wrote in the comment book and enjoyed the constant supply of MAOAM sweets!
So next up our Grafikea entries! firstly the "jigsaw" inspired by a, well jigsaw. This was a tongue and cheek spin on ikea's famous flat - pack - furniture. my lifes a jigsaw........ tune is now haunting all those poor BDF folk! that was the theme tune to the film we put together of the making of the table. somebody must have liked the film so much they decided to steal the laptop playing it! bad form thief.
Second entry was "tablego" an ikea table with a pixel art splattering of lego. lots of lego, lots of glue, and lots of patience.
Here's a few piccies of the Grafikea tables.

Last week we woke up to find our favourite local artist that pesky Banksy had taken over the Bristol Museum. His largest ever UK exhibition had been unveiled as a top secret plot on the usually conventional museum. At the white balance we are massive Banksy fans - especially our northern leanne! Banksy was actually one the reasons "for" moving to Bristol - some say fan, some might say stalker. As u can imagine we were very excited to get down and see what all the fuss was about! we queued for an hour behind a family in chordory and "explore Bristol maps" - not the expected Banksy fan, but hey who are we to judge! there was a massive turn out of all sorts of art lovers - just shows what diversity Banksy has pulled in!
We were not disappointed! amazing - over 100 new Banksy pieces.
here are a few snaps from the exhibition.....

And Finally we are off to Milan in September for the Italian Grand Prix. Very excited here for a couple of days in the Italian city of culture! bit of art, hint of grand prix bling and maybe a spot of shopping!

Its non stop! work wise we are busy working with our friends at preconstruct on a big architectural project, a couple of illustrations for BBC FOCUS magazine.

We are officially a proud Supporter of the Bristol Design Festival 2009.

In our vigilante effort to get out and about the city more (Crimes of Passion, 17th April) we have been accepted to showcase our work at the coveted Bristol Design Festival 2009.

This is a great opportunity for us to show off some of our latest work, and a select few self commissioned works to the public and design professionals of Bristol and South West alike.

Bristol Design Festival has gone from strength to strength over the last couple of years and we are particularly interested to see what this years "Grafikea" competition throws into the mix!

"Modify an Ikea coffee table.
Put your own price on it.
Exhibit it & sell it at the show.
Win prizes"

So simple its great, right up our street! We are going to have an overload on the smarties and fizzy pop this bank holiday weekend and see what comes out the other side, watch this space!

Whilst the festival is being held at several different venues across the city we have been given a prime spot in the main venue, The Old Firestation, Bristol there will be over 100 different

designers at the festival's main venue plus the results of the Grafikea competition the old firestation is the hub of the festival and we will be right in amongst it.

You can meet designers, have coffee and relax whilst seeing some of the most innovative and exciting design work from Bristol and the South West.

The festival opens on the 5th June (running through to the 11th) so there is plenty of time to pop down and say hello.

As ever the visual people we are we'll be posting pictures and blog updates as the event goes on.

Remember you can subscribe to the blog to keep upto date with our goings on or you can follow us on twitter @thewhitebalance.

Wedding bells are ringing.

So as it's my little sisters wedding this summer we couldn't very well let her go and get some wedding invitations designed and printed somewhere else now could we!!

With a clear idea of style for the wedding we went for it, creating a three piece card for the day invitiation and single card with ribbon tie for the evening invitation.

We have even designed an identity and logo for the wedding, well it is what we do!



Not only do we have all the joys of the wedding we also get to enjoy the atmosphere of Goldbrick house for the service.

We are unfortunately not planning on making it regular service at the white balance, but it was definitely good to see the potential scope of various design and print markets.

We all know weddings are big business.

Crimes of Passion - Bristol

After a few crazy weeks here at the white balance, we thought it was long overdue that we took a trip around this city we call home and see whats about.


Our first stop was the crimes of passion exhibit at the Royal West Of England Academy. There was some out standing work on display and some pretty crazy stuff too.


Graffiti meets historic architecture now that's our cuppa tea!






Now don't get us wrong it's not that we don't love our work, but over the coming months we are planning on getting out of the office a little more. At the weekend we are off to that place they call London, maybe snap a gherkin or too!
Pics of Guildford and London coming next week. In the mean time matt will be finishing the new logo for Walsh Bro's. Website coming soon!

Well let you be the judge of our work!

Sofa Surfers Goes Live.

As you all know there have been some late nights over the last couple of months here at the white balance and i bet you are starting to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Well the wait is finally over we are pleased do our bit and spread the good word of Sofa Surfers.













Be sure to check it out.

All work and no play.......

Sorry it's been so long.

So here at The White Balance we have had a crazy couple of months. Consisting of late nights, more take away Thai curries than you can shake a stick at and plenty of coffee.

We are currently working on our website and it's 75% complete. Once it goes live you'll be the first to hear about it. We'll be showcasing all of our projects and featuring our animations and BBC work.

Honestly we do work a lot of the time, we are not just sat around taking silly photos!












design.
Still on the case with The Grange Hotel we are soon to be launching their new website. Along with identity and literature designs and a web package for Pomegranate, our local late night cafe. There is lots in the stir.

motion.

Hot off the press, The work with Green Rock Media and Walsh Bro's Ltd has finally reached completion. It has been a busy 3 months and the roto-scoped animations are finally complete. Sofa Surfers (the show) airs on BBC HD and CBBC on March 16th at 6:30pm and will follow shortly after with it's BBC 1 slot. We'll keep you posted.........



visual.
With the 3d being the backbone of our work we only thought it fair to sneak in a small image for The Bush Consultancy. In amongst everything this month there has been time to chat to Dan Brill Architects based in Winchester. Which has positively lead to a project for next month. The architecture is very clean and ultra modern so right up our street here. Look out for some very exciting images coming up.












We're taking a holiday.
Not that we aren't appreciative of the spell of snow we had here in England. We are off to Austria for the first week of March to dust of the snowboard and hopefully find some fresh powder and a bit of après ski. Matt's going to be taking his DSLR so being the visual people we are there will be plenty to show on our return.