New for 2012 at 383 are our monthly film nights. The idea is to show a film each month that gets the team thinking or sets the creative juices flowing. We kicked off last week with Art & Copy, a fantastic film about advertising and inspiration. Over Christmas we’d kitted out our den in the upstairs part of our studio with a load of comfy seating and a new media setup. It’s the perfect place to spend a wintery evening watching good films and Art & Copy didn’t disappoint. If you’re in to advertising, interested in how it all came about and would like to see George Lois waxing lyrical about the state of advertising then give it a watch.

A couple of weeks ago now Birmingham was named 19th in the New York times places to visit in 2012 list, primarily for its fantastic food offering. At 383 we’re big food fans, and so were fully supportive of the view that Birmingham has a lot to offer the hungry stomach.

All the talk online after the article gave us a little idea for a side project which we’ve spent some time throwing together and are now sending out in to the wild. It’s called brumDished, and it’s a quick way of people sharing what they’re eating and where they’re eating it in and around Birmingham. Think of it as a socially generated gallery of good eats around the city – a way to curate all those different snaps floating around different networks in one place for the world to see.

You can view the site at brumdished.co.uk, and if you want to add to it, simply tweet a picture with the hashtag #brumdished or use the submit form. So, if you think you’ve eaten Birmingham’s best balti or know the king of the kebabs, just share your picture and we’ll pick it up.

(It’s also worth noting, before anyone asks, that this isn’t a startup. Nor is it supported by any agency around the city. There won’t be ads appearing at a later date and no funding has gone in to it beyond the time that we’ve spent hacking on it. It’s just something fun we thought people would like! Bon Appétit.)

Just a quick note to wish all our friends a very happy Christmas. It’s been a great year for us at 383 and we’re looking forward to an equally exciting 2012. Thanks to all our fantastic clients who made 2011 so special.

We’re having a studio refit over Christmas and so the blog post image is a sneaky peek of our new reclaimed desks. More on that when we’ve finished the building and sanding in January!

“…Whittled down from a long list of agencies compiled by the combined expertise and insight from The Drum, RAR and MiNetwork, we think our final list includes the best agencies across a variety of disciplines and locations who may thus far have flown under our readers’ radar.”

Here’s a sneaky peek of the interview Jake gave as part of it.

So go ahead, pledge your support for Birmingham City Centre and use the #backtobham hashtag. You might even get a nice surprise from Bullring too!

A few months ago a very talented young designer called Holly spent some time with us on placement. We wanted to give her a little shout out on the blog having recently completed a lovely piece of work producing this book on second hand book shops. We’re welcoming Holly back to 383 Project for another stint over the summer and look forward to hearing all about the process! Nice work Holly.

Why a new site?

We’ve felt increasingly for the last year that our own site hasn’t properly represented the agency we’ve become. As with so many things, your own work always comes second (the plumbers tap always leaks?!) and it’s an itch we’ve been meaning to scratch for some time. The new site better positions where we sit and what we offer clients. As much as digital has always been part of our DNA, our newest work has encompassed much more than just ‘building things’, and we wanted something which matched our blend of strategy, digital and advertising.

In addition, recent months have helped us really figure out why clients work with us. We’ve been told we’re great problem solvers, and our RAR ratings (having made the top 100) have highlighted that clients seem to like how we can keep things simple. With this insight, we decided to distil a fairly large incarnation of our previous site in to a slimmer one-pager, focusing on our key strengths and building a site which was useful for clients and helped paint a more realistic picture of what our growing team could provide.

So what’s new?

In the last year we’ve added some significant names to the client list and doubled both our staff and turnover. With the addition of new clients like Chevrolet we’ve been able to demonstrate what we can really do on platforms such as Facebook, and we continue to have a growing number of big retail clients on both a national and international level.

The new site has a few of areas of interest that, if you only had a minute or two, we’d want you to look at. The first is ’383likes’. This is a collective brain dump of tumblr links from our developers, creatives and account team. For clients in particular we hope this area will be a useful window in to the stuff that makes us tick, and the work happening within our own industry that we think is remarkable or noteworthy.  Secondly, we have a new showreel (thanks to Muchuu for kindly providing us with an edit of ‘Getaway train’ as the soundtrack to this)  which you can look at near the very top of the main site. Lastly, if you’re on the move, then take a look at the mobile version of our site which we’ve also given a face lift.

It feels good to have our own house in check and we hope you like how we’ve chosen to redecorate. We’re also looking forward to sharing some other account news in separate posts over the coming weeks. Thanks for bearing with us during the ‘quiet’ period, but we’re ready to be noisy again now. Hello!