Fresh topics this spring

hi brands is delighted to welcome reinforcements.

Three young women are bringing plenty of drive and new ideas to the agency's work. In this post, our new project manager and our interns introduce themselves. Plus, a look inside our small but growing photo studio.

Working at hi brands – what it's really like…

Jasmin is genuine relief for the person in charge, with synergy effects you can feel. She also keeps an overview of the agency's workflows. One advantage hi brands can offer her is planning and organising across boundaries – because in a hybrid agency, creative work is followed by production and hands-on delivery. Jasmin's first impressions: “A cool office with creative minds and the best coffee for miles around. The best conditions for bringing lots of great projects to life. I'm looking forward to the time ahead with hi brands!” What we can reveal is that the job of coffee-making assistant is handled by a fully automatic machine that fulfils almost every wish, from espresso to flat white.

Safely supplied with hi brands

Those who know us know we tend towards understatement. But sometimes, when it's warranted, we follow the motto: “if you've done good, talk about it.” And alongside the good comes the helpful – in large quantities. We could hardly believe it ourselves, but to date we've delivered over 5,000 litres of disinfectant to the places where it was urgently needed. Our decades of experience in sourcing and logistics for promotional products and exhibition materials helped enormously here – and secured us satisfied clients.

In fact, the past 12 months have been shaped by the supply of protective equipment of every kind. Along the way we were able to ease more than one bottleneck in the supply of masks. Together with our partners we also designed and delivered scalable hygiene stations for all kinds of facilities, from doctors' surgeries to bricks-and-mortar retail and hospitality. We'd be glad to advise you – simply send an email to our colleague Alexander Nill [a.nill@hi-brands.de].

Say cheese!

Nothing teaches like practice. So alongside working with the industry's standard design programs, our interns Julia and Vanessa had a project on the agenda that demanded real hands-on work: setting up a small photo studio that would deliver usable results. That meant preparation on the one hand, then the actual shoot, and finally image editing in post-production.

The scene of the action was the creative gallery on top of the cube that houses the conference room in our large office hall. Setting up called for imagination and a talent for improvisation: two softboxes and a work light were used to create different lighting moods. DSLR cameras from two leading manufacturers showed in very practical terms how the equipment shapes the result. That became especially clear against a white background, which contrasted the object in front of the lens perfectly.

The way of working mirrored a classic photo studio: arranging the flashes, setting up the cameras and synchronising shutter speeds. The carefully arranged subjects were then photographed – as an exercise – from different perspectives. Reviewing the results on the monitor immediately revealed the unvarnished truth: a success with minimal retouching, or back to the start and shoot again. Just like in real working life.