The Neighbourhood - Manchester design, illustration and animation studio

Looks like we grew again!

Say hello to Mark, our newest hoody who joins us as a 3D Artist in the Architectural Design Communications team.

You can read more about Mark on our About Us page, but here are a few things that you really ought to know...

Your role at the neighbourhood in 5 words?
Aiding photorealism in CG environments.

What part of your craft do you absolutely love?
I love it all, start to end. Apart from filling out timesheets...

Chippy Friday or Biscuit Wednesday?
Biscuit Wednesday (extra pop fact - Chocolate fingers are numero uno for Mark)

Favourite Film?
At the moment my favourite film is Oblivion. That may sound stupid but it's mostly because I'm a huge fan of Joseph Kosinski who directed the movie. He started out as a 3D Artist and it just goes to show what you can achieve with hard work.

What's on your 'walkman'?
Right now it would be the new Daft Punk album Random Access Memories.

Any words of wisdom?
"Whether you think you can or you can't, either way you are right."

And finally... Mark also has his own blog, so why not give him a follow here.

This week you will find us featured in Hello! Magazine, for our architectural design communications project The Royal Nursery, in which we imagine what Will and Kate's regal nursery might look like.

We were commisioned by Redbook to work alongside interior designers Christopher Prain and Guy Goodfellow to craft two very different interior imaginings for Will and Kate's princely playroom, the former taking a contemporary approach and the latter a more traditional style.

Take a look at the Royal Nursery project here, or pick up a copy of Hello! to see the contrasting visions the designers have imagined for the Royal couple.

We've been thinking lately about architecture and cinema...

Specifically we've been musing over how the representation of physical spaces in film (the way they are shot, framed, lit, constructed, edited...) can lead to the built environment becoming a cinematic protagonist or presence in its own right.

Architecture is so tied to our memories and our experience as a key feature of how we subjectively interpret the world. And so, in skilled hands the articulation of space becomes a powerful tool in evoking an emotional response from the viewer.

At the will of the director, a location can become a welcome friend or a dangerous enemy... It might represent an external force upon a character, or personify their internal struggle... It can be the physical setting and the social context, a space in time or an imagined future!

Films that explore environments in a representative or symbolic way are often those most successful at encapsulating a feeling or impression of life. Think of the dismal grey world of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, all filing cabinets and pipes, metal and concrete; an oppressive, structural rendition of a rigid bureaucratic society. Or perhaps consider the collapsible, experimental worlds of Michel Gondry; the places that fold in and out of one another like an elaborate pop-up book, morphing and merging the real with the fantastic.

As a studio that imagines worlds through films and imagery, we're so invested in finding new ways to capture architecture and in exploring the practical mechanisms that add atmosphere, intrigue, character and context to a story setting.

So many films, directors, and genres come to mind when you begin to think about this topic... Blade Runner, Christopher Nolan, German Expressionism... So we've decided to make this a regular little blog feature to share some of our favourite representations of architecture in cinema.

Visit soon for more, and why not get in touch on twitter with your favourites so we can check them out too!

We had our annual Neighbourhood Easter Egg hunt this week... A bunch of hoodies legging it round the studio to the tune of Benny Hill (obviously!) trying to find hidden chocolate goodness.

There were some pretty good eggs on display, with Rob taking the prize for his Mr Potato-Egg Head (which was promptly devoured in about 10 seconds, complete with stop-frame animated evidence!).

We also held our annual Easter drawing competition which always generates a few, err, questionable results! This year we had to do an artist's impression of a fellow hoody as an egg head or an Easter bunny. You can see the quick fire eggy illustrations for yourself above!

Happy Easter everyone. Work hard... play hard!

From architecture to street art, the city has long been used as a canvas for self expression.

As the tools and methods available for creative expression grow, so the faces of our urban landscapes become more numerous and the scope for us to meaningfully interact with our environment becomes further amplified.

We've all felt that sense of wonderment and joy at stumbling upon something new, often hidden in plain sight. Something as simple and playful as a mosaic space invader, or visually and technologically spectacular as projection mapping on a minster can allow us to interact with a familiar environment in unexpected and exciting ways. Similarly, short lived events like Park(ing) Day or Empire Drive-In cast a new light on how we view our environment, the things in it, and the roles they play in our lives.

What's great is that more and more cities have begun to embrace and welcome creative participation, inviting us to have a relationship with the space that we occupy. Manchester is a wonderful city in this respect, and so often there are new and exciting things to be seen or to get involved in; creative events, random happenings, interactive art installations...

This weekend was no exception as Salford Quays played host to NVA's Speed of Light; a public art installation in which a group of runners (many of whom are local, voluntary participants), dressed in LED light suits charged the evening landscape with breathtaking patterns of colour and light.

Our very own Ben Davies took part in the inaugural event during Edinburgh Festival last year, which then went on to internationally debut in Yokohama, Japan before coming to Salford for its third incarnation. The performance  "uses light, intentional movement and sound to change the way we see and feel about a chosen environment" and is a truly spectacular piece of work (as a quick search for "Speed of Light" in Flickr will show you).

The motivation behind Speed of Light is to harness physical spaces as a vessel for a "new visual language" that may perhaps allow us to reflect upon or cast new perspectives on the familiar settings we inhabit. It's a sentiment very interesting to us, and one that can be applied or articulated in so many different ways.

We're excited to see what the year holds for Manchester. Who knows, we might even get our own giant puppet parade!