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German based tattoo studio Chaos Crew clearly wanted to make a mark with this PR stunt/poster.

The firm tattoo’d history onto a real calf skin to promote their art.

Here’s a few facts about QR codes, you may see a few around town next week.

QR codes were developed in 1994 by Toyota. Since then the consumer world has largely ignored them. Many logistic and delivery companies have used them on a day to day basis. QR codes (until recently) were only used by Japanese consumers regularly.
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Japanese consumers used QR codes as customers, retail buyers and just generally since around 2001. From 2001-2008ish they were part of every day life in Japan. They were used to redeem vouchers, get links to gigs and parties, to find directions to places and many other things. They are still in use in Japan, ubiquitous and useful.
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Clichéd it may be, but Japan was ahead of everyone else here as they had phones that were constantly connected to broadband etc. As we here in Europe have only got mobile broadband over the past year or two we did miss out. Japan still uses QR codes, but they have recently moved on to the AR world a little more.
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Anyway, here in the UK, over the last year people have begun to understand what QR codes are and how to use them. Like any technology, this understanding will gradually work itʼs way down from the early-adopters to the average person on the street. For this reason I believe theyʼre something every retailer should pay some attention to
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QR codes are ridiculously easy to create and implement, even easy to create via code automatically
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Mobile barcode scanning (both QR and traditional barcodes) increased 1600% globally during 2010
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Canon and Herbal Essences have run campaigns using MSTag to reportedly good success
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68% of QR code scanners are iPhone users, 26% Android, 4% Blackberry
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87% of QR code scanners expect a coupon or voucher in return
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63% expect to find product information

We have some big news to announce (que collective gasp of excitement), on Monday 16th April we will be moving from our current home at 22 Lever street to our shiny new studio.

Over the past 12 months we have grown as a company, branched out into motion design and expanded our digital department so a move to a bigger space is a natural step for the Sparks as we move on to bigger and better things.

Watch this space!

We’ve just said goodbye to Hakim who’s been spending time with us on placement. Here’s what he had to say on his time with us.

After arranging an interview with Andy, where I showed and explained some of my work, I was offered 3 weeks work placement at Creative Spark. Looking through some of their work and their amazing list of clients I expected it to be a very difficult 3 weeks. When I started though I was surprised at how calm and relaxed everyone was whilst at the same time producing brilliant work. During my 3 weeks I was involved in all aspects of design from print to web. The team at Creative Spark are also amongst the friendliest people you could meet.

With each project you are to come up with some ideas and concepts. What surprised me most about this was how much freedom and opportunity they gave you to build on your ideas. Every idea I came up with was listened to and given the chance to produce something from it. In my last week  I was even given the choice of which project I’d like to work on to feature in my portfolio (I picked Web Design :D )

Overall my experience at Creative Spark has been priceless. I’ve gained so much knowledge in a space of 3 weeks and my time there has inspired me to continue learning as much as I can about the design industry. I wish to thank everyone at Creative Spark for giving me the opportunity to work with them. But most of all for their kindness and being so welcoming.

Thank you, Hakim

You can have a look at Hakim’s work here

Back in October 2011 Creative Spark opened ‘Little Print Shop of Horrors’ to sell our recreations of classic Halloween movie posters. All proceeds went to our chosen charity and thanks to your support we managed to raise £600.00 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. We want to say thank you to all of you who bought a poster and thanks to everyone who contributed and helped out along the way.

After a brief dry spell at Like Club (we didn’t post anything in January, sorry!) we’re back in full swing with February’s likes of the month. Top of the list is craft model maker Kyle Bean, this 70′s style OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5 CAMERA , Sean Click’s McDonald’s X California Poppy Seed Bomb Ad, Jennifer Causey’s appropriately named ‘Simply Breakfast’ blog featuring some truly mouth-watering photography & finally some amazing websites—a particular favourite was slaveryfootprint.org/

Enjoy!

Granny Instagram

Jennifer Causey's 'Simply Breakfast'

Kyle Bean

We’ve been getting all lovey-dovey here at Spark Towers, designing our own range of love song-inspired cards. Why not treat your loved one this Valentines Day to an original piece of Creative Spark artwork and donate to charity all at the same time? Take a look and see which one takes your fancy.

Congratulations to David Wayman on the launch of his new shop on the Avenue in Spinningfields. We popped down to have a nosey on Friday night where it was bursting at the seams with potential clients.

We were all very excited to see Santa in the office today. He popped in to say hello and give us all a gift for being good boys and girls this year. Thanks Santa!