LEWIS, London’s most creative e-commerce agency, based in the heart of Soho, is hiring. Join our fast growing team and work in an exciting company in the industry’s fastest growing sector. Great salary, location, clients, and attitude to work-life.

FRONT END DEVELOPER
We are looking for a great front end developer. You need to be a creative thinker, skilled in HTML, WordPress and Magento themeing and responsive design. Our reputation is growing, and yours will too as you work with some of the most interesting luxury, lifestyle and retail clients out there. You are the conduit for our creative vision. If your brilliant technical and visual skills have been yearning to be stretched and challenged… you’ve found the right place to do it. Get in touch now to find out more – contact@lewisecommerce.com

DIGITAL PROJECT MANAGER
We are looking for the right technical project manager to keep ever more prestigious projects on track. You will need experience managing e-commerce projects – and you will be guiding them from start to finish. Responsibility for delivery sits with you. You’ll be putting together functional specifications documents and defining project requirements with the client, developers and the creative team.

You will be managing multiple projects simultaneously, watching resource and time tracking as well as overseeing the support desk. You will need good client side communication skills as well as a good technical understanding of the development process. This is a brilliant opportunity to make your mark in the digital space. If you have dreamt of more responsibility and a challenging PM role… this is the one for you. Get in touch now to find our more – contact@lewisecommerce.com

NO RECRUITERS PLEASE!

Saddened to hear news of the death of one of my childhood film heroes. Ray Harryhausen’s work fixed itself in the mind of the viewer. To a 10 year old boy the films were terrifying and exhilarating. Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Clash Of The Titans were superb examples of stop frame animation. But my favourite was always the even more surreal “Valley of the Gwangi”.

I loved westerns and dinosuars, and here was a western with a Tyrannosaurus Rex as the main villain. The scene where it escapes its cage in the bullring and rampages through the place, eating spectators, was as wild and scary as anything in Jurassic Park. RIP.

Congratulations to Peter Zumthor, architect of the Therme Vals for being awarded the prestigious RIBA Gold Medal. The Therme Vals, his beautifully conceived Swiss Spa, exerts a particular hold on the imagination. It references many archetypes – the submerged city, the inner chambers of pyramids, underwater caves. A labyrinthine, Borgean space.

Within its walls, natural warm water flows through towering quartz clad rooms and narrow corridors. Dramatic natural illumination is not conventionally situated, but pierces the interior from above and even below the waterline.

I imagine swimming through the Spa would be a dream-like experience. A slow drift through different rooms, each impressing the senses with sparkling reflections, mysterious shadows and watery echoes. A surreal, disembodied journey that draws the visitor through the spa, like dreams, perhaps, working their way through the corridors of the subconscious, the mansions of the mind.

Bowie’s new single “Where Are We Now?, his first in 10 years, was launched yesterday, without fanfare, on his 66th birthday. Once again, the master media manipulator has wrong-footed us all. He hadn’t retired, as we all suspected – it seems he has just been enjoying life and, perhaps, biding his time until meaningful work had been created and was ready to be released.

The single is a nostalgic, elegiac and mournful reflection on his time in Berlin in the late 1970′s when he lived there with Iggy Pop. There is a wistful, melancholic yearning quality about it. Rather sad and rather beautiful. He seems frail and vulnerable in the video, but I hope this is simply a reflection of the songs artistic and philosophical subject matter, rather than his physical state of health (as some have suggested). Either way, it augers well for the forthcoming album. Happy Birthday David, and thanks for the gift. Hear the new single.

PS. Jonathan Barnbrook, who designed the intriguing new album cover (based on the original Heroes album cover art) offers some fascinating insights into the creative process behind its inception here

The Blitz workshop, and the custom bike scene in general, rejects standard, mass produced factory output. It prefers to craft its own individualistic motorcycles from any mix of parts, both old and new, that it chooses. It creates unique, personalised and characterful machines that are really works of art. It’s an approach to work and life that we here at “Lewis” both empathise with, and celebrate.

I don’t know who the photographer is, but these shots are great, the gritty subject matter, interesting use of shallow depth of field and the thoughtful contrast between the 1970′s type dystopian architectural exterior backgrounds and the the vintage rocker style work so well.

I’ve got to get me one of those Blitz -made bikes!

Visit Blitz Motorcycles

Went to a great gig in an East London home last night put on by Rafe Offer’s “SOFAR’ (Songs from a room). These gigs, which showcase new and upcoming musical talent, are hosted in private houses around the world. This one was in Whitechapel.

“Like Spinning”, a waif-like Norwegian singer with an ethereal, crystalline voice, captured the attention of the room with her beautiful songs (link to new single “Forces” below) – as did the ambient electronica of “Memotone” (with corresponding stacks of digital equipment).

Indeed, it was refreshing to hear synthesised crossover sounds emanating from SOFAR’s predominantly acoustic based roster. As brilliant as the folk revival has been, I am certainly ready to embrace this new variety it’s also serving up.

Listen to “Like Spinning’s” new single “Forces”

Visit “Songs From A Room” website

Highly competitive package and great location on central London. Full time or Contract. More details to follow.

The most important skill you will posses is a natural sense of style and an understanding of fashion and lifestyle trends that you can turn into powerful engaging and persuasive online design. You must have a love of digital media and be proficient with Photoshop, Illustrator and, ideally, will have studied digital design and creation including HTML. An Examples of good branding and typography will be beneficial. You will need good interpersonal-skills and be able to work to tight deadlines in a creative environment. In return you will recieve an unparalleled learning opportunity in a vibrant digital sector in Soho, in the heart of central London.

Initial salary is the minimum wage leading to a competitive salary when you become full time.

Naturally sporting achievements took centre stage (my favorite being Nicola Adams women’s boxing gold). However, for me, the greatest sense of “wonder” during the games was elicited by Danny Boyle’s astonishing opening ceremony. Often described as “bonkers” in the press, it was a work of joyous, anarchic brilliance. It pressed all the right buttons, and was so powerful in its vision that it seemed to unite the whole country in a moment of celebratory self belief. Why was it so successful, so life affirming so breathtaking? Are there any lessons we (and our clients) can take from it’s success to apply to our own creative endeavors?

Firstly, I suggest, the selection of Danny Boyle as creative director was a stroke of genius. He has talent, personality, passion, integrity and energy. He seems his own man and not a party political placement.

Lesson No.1 – Be bold when selecting a creative partner. Look for vision, boldness, opinion, good form and a clear sense of creative direction.

Having selected Mr Boyle, Seb Coe apparently placed a “protective ring” around the whole creative team keeping out any “small-minded” political interference.

Lesson No.2 – Let them get on with it. If you have enough faith in your creative team to actually select them, let them get on with it and trust them to deliver the right results. If you have chosen your creative partner well, the results will be worthwhile.

The opening ceremony was audacious, anarchic, enlightened, intelligent and full of heart-warming human values. It wasn’t aimed at pleasing everyone, It didn’t pull punches. It had a personal point of view.

Lesson No.3 – Don’t try to please everyone. A clear individual vision will always stimulate debate, but it also implies creative integrity, and that resonates with consumers. Whereas design by committee leads to compromise and that can weaken a brand message. I don’t mean to be encouraging creative arrogance here… I mean that every brand has a personality and people buy personality. Therefore don’t dilute the creative message by letting too many people influence the outcome.

The opening ceremony was so much more stimulating and interesting than the closing ceremony. I am not exactly sure why it turned out that way, but my guess is that the closing ceremony creative team tried too hard to please too many people. Finally, during the process, the whole show became a middle-of-the-road compromise, not really pleasing anyone. In these highly competitive days, the bold vision, beautifully executed, surely has the better chance of winning gold.