Myth news

Recent ‘Supreme award’ winners at the Cuisine Artisan awards, single origin honey producer J.Friend and Co approached Myth to transform their online presence.  There is worldwide demand for their very unique honey, and the website is a crucial marketing tool for the J Friend brand.

How Myth went about it:

Since launching J Friend and Co, Jeremy Friend and partner Sharyn Woodnorth have built up a careful network of trusted beekeepers, all of whom follow organic principles to produce the golden nectar.

Jeremy and Sharyn wanted the J Friend and Co website to better explain this point of difference for the product.

Myth communicated this by bringing the beekeepers to the forefront of the site, the large imagery helping highlight the importance of these people and their hands-on skill in crafting organic honey.

In keeping with the existing brand identity, retouched photos of beekeepers were used giving a ‘hand coloured’ look that emphasises the personal, hand-crafted brand values.  Captions with the beekeepers name and NZ location were used to communicate the traceability of the product back to beekeeper and location.  J.Friend honey is single origin and single vintage. Honey from different beekeepers is never blended and this ensures the products’ unique flavour, colour and texture.

On the home page, the location of the website menu is discreetly tucked away on the left-hand side. This allows the impact of the large-scale imagery to take centre stage and adds a level of technical sophistication.

With different honey varietals and flavours, J Friend honey is great to cook with.  Co owner Sharon Woodnorth is passionate about food, and so too are J Friend and Co customers.  The recipe section of the site was going to be popular, so Myth designed a user friendly ’slider’ for navigating recipes and a database system so Sharon can easily keep the site updated with new recipes.

Being a ’boutique’ product, you won’t find J Friend honey on all supermarket shelves, so we developed an online store so people worldwide could get their hands on this great honey.  The store is developed on Myth’s very own ecommerce platform, that is designed to be simple and user friendly – for both website owners and customers.

J Friend and Co are very pleased with the result, and they were a fantastic team to work with.  Make sure you visit www.nzartisanhoney.co.nz to see what makes J.Friend and Co so special.

Peregrine has achieved global acclaim for their wines and the highest international architectural accolades for their beautiful wing spanned winery. It was not that difficult to convince a large contingent of our team to travel through to Central Otago a couple of times to get to know the winery, wines, and the Peregrine team.

Peregrine had a specific brief for the site, which included a home page that featured a step by step fade in of the Peregrine brand. Peregrine prefer not to make too much noise about their company’s success – rather they let the wine and brand speak for itself, and this home page intro was a reflection of that approach. The step-by-step gradual reveal of the icon, logotype and navigation is a nice subtle unveiling. The watermark imagery in the page background acknowledges the majestic rugged mountains of Central Otago where the winery is located, and the award winning architecture of the winery itself. The richness of the blue and gold used gives a feel of real quality, and keeps the site consistent with their existing brand material.

In addition to the design, a database system was developed to present tasting notes about Peregrines wine selection along with an ecommerce system for online ordering.

After two weeks working on design we received a call from Peregrine that they had been nominated for a prestigious international award, and were soon to get a lot of attention on the international stage. We were asked if we could deliver the site a month ahead of schedule in time for the big announcement. This was a big ask, but the team put in big hours and delivered.

Following launch, the Peregrine website has had a high amount of traffic and praise. Peregrine won the Bouchard Finlayson Trophy Pinot Noir that they were nominated for in the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London, and have recently hosted the More FM Summer Vineyard tour featuring musicians such as Aloe Blacc & the John Butler Trio.

Keep an eye on their website in the following weeks. We are soon to add an online store to the site – be sure to get your hands on one of New Zealands very best wines.

This is an opportunity for an intermediate graphic designer to join our team in Dunedin in a full time, permanent role. You will join Dunedin’s leading creative company with opportunities to work in both print and/or web teams in a key role.

Reporting to the creative director you will be responsible for an engaging and varied portfolio. You will be provided with the latest technology and equipment.

Myth is thriving because we serve others well, we set high standards for ourselves and we think big! Most of all we believe and invest in our people. To fit into our team you will need to be motivated and passionate about design and life!

Last year our team building trip went international to the Gold Coast, and the year before that we were Skydiving in Queenstown. This role will challenge and excite you.

This role will be popular – we are seeking someone who is able to start soon so send us your portfolio as soon as possible.

Applications close 31st February 2012

This position involves:

- Designing for both print and/or interactive but training in interactive design will be provided.

- Brand asset design, brand applications, marketing collateral

- Designing logos, business cards, brochures, reports, signage, advertisements

- Client interaction during design brief, development or updates

- Working as part of a design team

- Working to studio deadlines

Skills Required

- Excellent Adobe Creative Suite
- Very good graphic design and print knowledge
- Ideally a tertiary qualification in design
- Good interpersonal skills

Skills Desired

- Excellent attention to detail
- Multitasking
- Studio Experience
- Project management skills

Personal Attributes

- Excellent work ethic
- Ability and drive to keep up with latest trends
- Engagement and self motivation
- Real creative flair
- Enthusiastic, hard worker with drive and determination
- Attentive to detail
- Sense of humor
- Outgoing fun disposition

Salary to suit applicant qualification and experience. Bonuses dependent on company performance. Relocation assistance. Company iPhone. To apply, submit your portfolio and information about yourself to the HR manager at: office@myth.co.nz

We are operating a reduced team in the office during the holidays, three days a week, who are available to complete a range of requests. The majority of our team is on Holiday from close of business Friday 23rd and back again 16th January 2012.

Any urgent requests can be made to Hayden on 021485050.

Merry Xmas and a Happy new  year everyone. See you in 2012!

Competition was hot last night at Sexy Summer Jobs held at the polytechnic. The Myth interview slots filled up fast, leaving a few late arrivers disappointed. But the early bird does usually get the worm, or in this case an interview. Hayden and Gena facilitated the speed interviews over two hours and two phone calls were made immediately to a couple of lucky applicants.

Humans can be simple creatures, we love to generalize and place things into boxes. It makes it much easier to understand our world. While someone may have diverse and complex interests we define people by their role in society. Fred is a plumber, John is a lawyer, everyone has a role to fulfill. City identity is similar. Consumers like to generalize about locations.

It seems to me of late that storytellers prefer to have audiences daydream about romance or mysterious discoveries. Marketing cities has therefore become less about the Single Minded Proposition and more about what happens to you when you get there.

In advertising it seems to make some sense to place the projected consumer in a romanticized context in hope of consumption. These fantasy environments, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland for example in the Auckland campaign “BiglittleCity” have interwoven reality and truth. Only time will tell if Big Little City comes close to the cry of City of Sails.

What interests me is, how do these creative campaigns build long-term regional identities in the minds of consumers. How do we get everyone signing of the same page so to speak, and the same song?

There are a myrid of possibilities in this question given that locals get to define their song, and consumers or visitors may already associate right or wrong stories with a location. Which may make convincing them otherwise more difficult. Take my home city Dunedin for example. A commonly heard story outside of Dunedin is “Dunedin is too cold”. Yet Dunedin has a beautiful climate even in winter where locals get outside in the sun. Stories are everywhere, and they can confuse and complicate the marketer’s role.

So what core stories exist already in New Zealand? When thinking about the core story for Wellington, I would use the words, fun/quirky, lively, forward thinking/proactive, and creative. Brand advertising and even on the ground environmental design evidence reinforces this story.

When Dunedin questioned whether to build a stadium there were people for and people against it. Ultimately, that passion came down to touching a nerve of the core story of the city. When the idea was progressed it was a defining moment where the core story of the city was changed. Dunedin through off conservatism and reflection and became progressive, proud, bold and confident. Dunedin’s evolutionary story will always be about revitalizing a proud prosperity and a new future and not languishing on what it was in the past.

The challenge of the City Brand Identity champion is to define a role for the city and to craft a song. A single minded proposition that sets the location apart from any other. We can flirt with supporting campaigns and other objectives but before all that everyone must know the core story. After all, like cities, we may all have jobs and roles to play but we are all have our own unique story, and this is what sets us apart in this world, this is what attracts like minded people to us.

Article: Hayden Breese

The reference point for the new City College Dunedin website design is the shapes and colours of their buildings that they keep reiterating as their distinct characteristic. The colours are kept in the pastel hues but in a more fresher and contemporary palette. The strong use of repetitive geometric shapes reference the terrace like buildings the relationships between the different flats and students.

We have recently expanded our service to the Auckland market and are 100% committed to operating an agency that can serve our clients national interests.

One of our team is now operating on the ground full time in Auckland and we will be looking to expand further on this development in the near future.

This is an exciting time for the company and we are relishing the opportunity to work more closely in Auckland for existing and new clients.

Around 50 clients gathered for our first knowledge and networking event of the year. The theme for the knowledge presentation revolved around the concept of new places for customers and companies to interact, and how marketers can grow value over time from a structured communication and technology strategy. Naturally, we were well served by Sweetasanut catering, Folding Hill wines, and the Rusty Pilot band.