Author Archive

Matt Buchanan is now working with Koogar

Matt Buchanan is an Illustration and Animation student who is coming to work with Koogar on a Work placement. He has a certain style that we like and have asked him to work with on various different projects. We are looking forward to working with Matt as we know what we want and what he is capable of.

Read more below as Amanda interview Matt to find out a little more about him

My full name is Matthew Josh Buchanan, I live on the Wirral and was born in Arrow Park Hospital, but have also lived in Derby as I went to University for 3 years but stayed for a further year.

I completed a BA Hons Degree in illustration for Animation using digital composition, animating characters using flash starting simple and progressing onto After Effects and Final Cut Pro. We weren’t given tight briefs as we were given encouragement to develop our own styles.

My inspiration are people like Patrick Coldfield – I like the use of colour and bold lines and Edward Hopper – with him I like the use of light and the Night Hawks project.

My ideal job would be to be working in the creative industry, being given a lot of freedom to do what I want with the requirements from a client. I enjoy creating characters and bringing them to life and also creating worlds for the characters. I could work in the gaming industry but I’m not technically trained.

I found out about this opportunity through Jo Turner. It sounded exciting and something t enjoy to get more experience. Eventually I want to get paid for a job I love doing.

I want to work within a team working in collaboration with other people bouncing ideas, also Koogar wants something specific but its also loose enough to do what I want.

The type of person I want to be is disciplined, produce very good work. I don’t want to be rushed. I’m good with ideas which helps me be more productive. I want to produce meaningful pieces of work and generally be a good person. I don’t like wasting time! I like to spend every minute doing something.

Bite the bullet” is a quote I live by. Embarrassing your fears and get on with something you want to do… Don’t leave it too long, just get on and do it.

Koogar is excited to be working with Matt over the next 3 months. Im sure youll give him a warm welcome if you meet him.

New office with a few teething problems

You will have noticed things with Koogar are changing and changing for the better.

The Telephone

When you call us you will no longer get a greating message due to new telephone lines in the office. This will be rectified over the next month.

Emails and Internet

Also this week we have been experiencing technical issues which means we haven’t got a broadband connection for the next week or so until BT have added it to our new telephone line.

We truly apologise for the inconvenience of this as we have a bit of work that is outstanding with a few of our clients. Koogar is doing the best we can to keep in touch with you and get back to you as soon as we can.

If you can bear with us through these “NEW office” teething problems of that we would be grateful!

HQ nearly complete!

This morning we finished painting the office. We also got the carpet back down and some of the furniture in.

Its starting to take shape and I cannot tell you how excited we are to be moving in! 1 week today and we will have moved in…

Koogar’s NEW HQ

Koogar has been asking over the last few months lots of questions about offices, telephone systems, broadband and much more. We have now chosen the offices we are going to move into and thought it would be nice to see our journey.

Here are a few photographs of what we have been doing during January ready for the move in February!

WiRE presentation on Social Media

I was asked by a client who attends a WiRE network meeting if I would give a talk on Social Media, as not everyone knows what its and how it can benefit their business.

Obviously Koogar jumped at the chance of speaking as this is something we would like to do at least once a month.

The presentation I delivered was called “How Social Media WILL benefit your business” and we went through what social media is, how you can use it to benefit your business and also went into what you need to do to setup your profiles.

At the end of this talk Koogar was asked to come back and finish off the talk as it over ran due to a large amount of questions being asked by the audience. We have taken up the offer and will be back speaking to WiRE members (Northwich) in March 2010.

If you would like Koogar to give a presentation on Social Media, please contact Amanda on 0844 811 8464.

Where did the name Koogar come from?

During 2009, I have met a lot of people/businesses and regularly get asked what does it mean and where does it come from… so I thought it’s about time I told you.

Most of my life I have had something to do with drawing or painting. I won my first drawing competition when I was 6. It was of a horse in a field, eating.

I did GSCE Art and Design, Textiles and then went onto to do “A” Level Art, an “A” Art Enrichment and History and “A” Level Pottery in 6th form. In the summer months, I attended Art college and went onto do a Repro-Graphics course.

In my 3rd year in college, I changed my last year of Foundation Art to Graphic Design. Most people on this course wanted to be artists or sculptors, who wanted to flick paint like Jackson Pollock or create something out of cardboard to save the earth. I, on the other hand wanted to see my work on billboards for brands and record sleeves for famous bands.

My inspiration came from architecture. People like Antoni Gaudi and Victor Horta, the first graphic designer I got to know was French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his famous “Chat Noir“.
If you know me you will know I’m a cat person and I love anything feline.

From Withens Lane we (as students) where moved to Borough Road in Birkenhead, where I went onto do a HND in Graphic Design (pre Computers) and this was where the name “Koogar” was born.

I was given a design brief which was to create:

  • Shoe box for mountain shoes
  • Out of cardboard
  • No more than 2 colours (Remembering black and white are not colours)
  • Paint
  • Cardboard
  • Glue

The cougar is a mountain lion which is generally based in America. It has a nice design on its face, which is where the idea for the logo came from. The Koogar logo was designed when I was 18-19 yrs, and has stuck ever since and sometimes people call me Koogar instead of Amanda.

The only thing that has changed in the font.

So, now you know…

Are you up for the challenge?

Design every day is a challenge that has been set by Smashing Magazine and Koogar is taking up the challenge. We have compiled a list of different subjects, features and layouts we are going to create during each month in 2010 and would like your support and guidance of what you would like to see.

Amanda would like to get her drawing skills back and wants to use this opportunity to do so. “Designing something everyday will help my hand get used to using a pencil/pen again. Working with computers everyday means I don’t use these tools on a daily basis any more and sometimes get cramp when I do use them.

This opportunity is also a great way to get new ideas down not just for me but for our clients and others too.

So please bear with me while my drawing skills get back to what they used to be…”

In January we have decided to design whatever comes to mind… So you will be seeing some random drawings until February, where we have collated a list of things we would like to create.

Each time Koogar designs something, we will be submitting it for everyone to see on www.koogarsox.co.uk. We will be tweeting the design along with #daily365 so that Smashing Magazine will be picking it up.

Please follow the Koogarsox blog for the updates to see what we have been up to…

What was so 2009?

Koogar and the team would like to wish all of our clients, colleagues and friends a fantastic 2010.

We have already created our goals for 2010 and for the first 4 months of the year and are looking forward to achieving them all.

In 2009 Koogar achieved:

  • full time commitment on the business (due to redundancy)
  • defined Koogar’s offering
  • joined a very successful BNI chapter and became Education Co-ordinator
  • creating a Wirral based networking club called “MyWirralHub”
  • held a “Wirral Tweet Up”

Continue Reading…

Could this be Koogar’s NEW HQ?

I went to have a look at this place to see a NEW office for Koogar… Hmm… I like it!

How well do you know your clients?

Do you understand your client?

Had a fantastic 1-2-1 with a new member of BNI and also had a great conversation it was about knowing your clients and making sure you cater for all of them as they are all different.

Karen from Adaptive Comms split clients up into 4 categories:

  1. Peacocks
  2. Bulls
  3. Sheep
  4. Owls

Which one do you think you are? and before we carry on yea all of us have some amount of sheep within us! Its true!
Continue Reading…

FeedburnerTwitterFacebook