Poke are proud to present the brand new site for Manchester City Football Club. In the eye of the storm of new signings and a spanky new Umbro kit, we had to get a new website live. We just about got there, albeit it slightly later than planned (ahem!). It's all part of an exciting new era for the Club as they set-out to become a major player in world football.

The site is currently very much in phase 1. Before the whistle blows on the start of the new Premier League season, we'll have added a spanking new ticketing / seat selection area, fully integrated with the online shop - so that's a single basket experience for them that wants it. And, we're hoping the Match Day Centre, which plugs you right into the heart of the action, live, as it happens, is going to win us many new fans from around the globe.

It's been a mammoth project throughout 2009 featuring a huge Poke team, as well as a massive effort from our technical buddies at Aqueduct. Oh, and Endemol have just recently joined the party, creating some lovely videos for the site.

As with any of these things, having a great client is key to producing great work, and without getting all bum-crawly about it, we've been working with some of the best. Respect.

Visit: http://www.mcfc.co.uk

A little while back we were asked by the Design Museum to create a map charting the history of digital design in London. Very honoured and with two weeks to get something in the can, we set to work.

The digital design industry is the very epitome of rapid change, so we decided to make an interactive, time-based map. This allowed us to demonstrate that speed, as well as show off the advantages of a digital approach. The creation of a map also meant we could chronicle the geographical movement across the capital, triggered by a high rate of agency mergers, acquisitions and deaths, in a visually commanding way. 

We aptly named it 'The births, marriages and deaths of London's digital creative agencies of note 1994-2009'. 

Built in Flash with an XML back end, the biggest challenge was creating a dynamic system that could a) accommodate everyone working on it simultaneously and b) take one final information dump at the end.The knob was made possible with the addition of some Arduino jiggery-pokery. 

Lots of swearing and snack bribes for our developer later, and we had a rapid-fire, boom-bust-boom extravaganza showcasing the breakneck pace of change in the last 15 years. 

We ummed and aahed over whether or not to include the explosions. But upon reflection, while acknowledging the gravity of the events we were plotting, this is undoubtedly an industry with a sense of humour and we wanted to inject some fun into the project. 

Course, the Little Black Book took a massive hammering as we contacted countless folk to gather information. It was a gargantuan industry-wide effort and we can't thank you all enough. 

*salutes*

Now, do enjoy the video of our map below, in all its interactive glory. 

Design Museum - Super Contemporary from Poke on Vimeo.

Japan gave us Manga, GameBoy, the Udon and young chicks who run round Shibuya dressed like USB sticks. So we nicked some of their cultural awesomeness, mixed it with a heavy dose of next level augmented reality shizzle and RubberDuckZilla.com was born.

Our brethren at Mother made this killer ad for Oasis (the drink for folk who don't like water) - and we were briefed to make RubberDuckZilla come alive online. So we took them at their word and make RubberDuckZilla come to life (in your hand and on your face).

AR is a bit flavour-of-the-monthy right now - but we wanted to try and push it somewhere interesting. So we've used it at the heart of a bunch of waterphobic Nipponophilic retro-games. Only 2 of the 4 sections of the site are live right now. The next sections are unlocked when major media partnerships kick-in next month.

Here's Chris playing Massive Aqua Rampage:



Oh and in case you didn't spot the URL it's RubberDuckZilla.com

You could get depressed about all the fatcats who got minted before the fall. Or you could weep salty tears about the MPs who've been robbing our taxes to pay for dolls' houses, duck transporters and pig flossing. Or you could poke fun at them...

http://www.lolfatcats.com

For the fifth year running we're proper chuffed to be up for four Webby People's Voice awards. We'd like you to help us land a trophy or two with your votes.

 The Balloonacy campaign for Orange has been nominated in three categories and our work with Lonely Planet has been nominated once. You have to register and login at the Webby website before you can cast your vote, and there's a myriad of categories, so we hope the following directions (and shameless back-handers) sweeten the ask.

Once you're signed up and in, hit the Website icon on the bottom left hand side first. Scroll down to 'Services' and you'll find Orange's Balloonacy in Telecommunications and Lonely Planet in Travel. Then head to the Interactive Advertising light bulb icon on the top right hand side of the page. Here Balloonacy is nominated twice, first in Game or Application and then Online Guerilla & Innovation. Make sense? 

At the time of writing, Lonely Planet is in the lead, with Balloonacy needing a bump up from third and fourth places in the other categories. 

So give us a boost, we're most grateful. Cheque's in the post ;-)

Since we first posted about Bakertweet it's been on a bit of a roll.

It's been in real newspapers, blogs, trend websites, in Wired, on the radio, and someone even filmed a little segment for the tellyvision but that's not been shown yet (as far as we know).

However we were joking last week about how it hadn't yet 'made it' because it hadn't been featured in the Hindustan Times. (A few years ago the Global Rich List made it to the front page of the aforementioned paper and we've used that as the benchmark of PR achievement ever since).

So imagine our joy when we found that Bakertweet had made it onto the HT website. We're not sure if it's in the print edition, but our fingers  are crossed!

Just goes to show what happens when you execute a simple idea in the right way at the right time.

Cobra is a burp-light beer. Which means that whilst your on a session you can go on chatting without being interrupted by gassy interjections. Leading to ehanced banter-potential.

So we thought we'd go a bit further and create an iPhone app that allows you to be a banter-master even if you're not blessed in the wit department.

We pulled together a bunch of 'funny guys' and got them to fill the app with gags and blokey blah blah blah. Even if you don't stick it in front of your gob like in the video it's a sweet way to get funny stuff on your gadget.

Now you're talking.

Well maybe not doughnuts, but certainly lovely warm scones and scrumptious cupcakes.

Everyone knows the best time to get your baked goods is when they're fresh out the oven. So we figured that this could be a killer use of Twitter. Letting followers know that fresh goodies are ready right now. But bakeries don't want laptops or phones lying around in the kitchen. Flour, eggs and technology don't mix so well.

So we built BakerTweet.

It's a bespoke piece of hardware (with Arduino-based guts) that allows our friends at Albion across the road to select what's just been baked and ping the relevant Twitter message to local customers. Meaning that you can time your trips to Albion to pick up the freshest freshness. We're pulling together a 'how we did it' post for all you geeky types to check out. Just give us a day or two...

If you want to see what's coming out of the Albion's Oven you need to follow @albionsoven on Twitter and you'll be up to speed on the latest oven output.

Just a day old and followers are flocking to Albion - even No:10 has signed-up - so maybe Gordon and Barack are planning to drop in for tea and scones after business winds-up at the G20.

• First of all, the IAB award was wrongly printed with an image of the Never Ending Web Page. Spooky.
• Then. At the Design Week Awards. Balloonacy was attributed totally randomly to the guys at The Partners. Weird.
• And, as if that weren't enough, at The Revolution Awards we were missed off the billing. Quite bizarre!

Spare a thought for Mother Nature at 8.30pm on Saturday, and switch your lights off in aid of the Earth Hour Campaign, organised by our friends at the WWF. 

By going dark for just 60 minutes, you'll be sending a message to the world's governments to start tackling global warming head on. How easy is that? You can sign up and pledge your support here.

If you'd like to blog about Earth Hour, head here to get the Earth Hour widget. You'll also find videos and banners there too.

So why not flip the lights off on Saturday? It's a fine thing to do.

(Not least because it gives you carte blanche to scare the bejesus out of yourself and others with a game of Murder in the Dark. Hazy memories will find these instructions invaluable.) 

Tearing through the Poke studio like wild fire a few weeks back, was the Facebook Meme Make Your Own Album Cover craze.

Creating imaginary record covers was compulsive stuff. The best bit was mashing up random Wikipedia text with Flickr images, then seeing a spookily plausible album and band emerge.

We liked the results so much, we've covered the music-themed toilet cubicle wall with the work of the musicians we never were.

And thanks to Poker Nilesh building his nifty Make An Album Cover website, we can get all the bits we need for our next fix of Meme art in a single satisfying lazy click.

Give it a whirl yourself. 

The new Orange Gold Spots ads are going to break really soon (we're still not really sure why they're called gold spots, and if you're confused, they're the things that go in front of the films at the cinema). The eagerly-awaited new cinema ads are the first ones to be made by Fallon, the originals came out of Mother.

Anyway, we've been developing a spanky new website to go alongside the new work, the first that the Orange Film Board have ever had - you'll be able to see that in a couple of weeks. And as part of the process we made a bunch of films. And now one of them has been put out as a teaser for the campaign. And it's been picked as the Campaign Live ad of the day. Blimey.

Up until this week at Poke Towers, the reception was feeling a little neglected after a string of exhibitions had been and gone. So we turned the wall space over to the talents of Pokers Marc and Greg. 

In homage to photographic infatuation, they have put together a multi-coloured composition of their personal work.

The piece is the product of six years spent observing people and places through a lens. Most of the shots are taken using a Lomo LC-A film camera. There's been no digital tampering and the shutter-happy duo handpicked all 748 photos to create a slightly obsessive, yet seamless sequence of colours. 

If you like this, you can see more at Greg and Marc's Flickr streams. 

We've just given the Orange Film portal a revamp. Orange customers can now take advantage of 2-for-1 trips to the flicks in three simple steps. Find your film, find your cinema using the handy postcode search, then book your tickets. Done.

There's a glut of trailers to get stuck into. That should send your office productivity plummeting faster than Christian Bale's likability after *that* movie set rant. Have a gander at the latest film choices too. They're listed by the most watched and thee ones people want to see, which makes a change from top 10s compiled by a nameless know-all critic.

Plus there's the usual film fare too, including s'leb interviews and news, polls, quizzes and all that jazz.

And here's a tip. If you're doing an Orange Wednesday you can now double up on pizzas too. Hoorah. So you can either treat a friend, go Dutch and save cash, or, if you're a fat knacker, wait till your friend's gone home and chow down on two pizzas. All for the price of one. Thanks PizzaExpress (and Orange). 

Get in! Orange Film

Last night Orange Balloonacy won Creative Showcase Grand Prix creative campaign of the year. Which was nice. Not to be ungrateful, but there is a minor 'issue' with the award. Spot it?

So, the BAFTAs are back. Kate will be crying her way up the red carpet and Mickey will be wrestling with security, but who will win the coveted Orange Rising Star Award? On the Orange BAFTA website you can see biographies and clips of the Rising Star nominees in action, and you can vote for who you want to win. Oh, and there's a spanky prize for one lucky voter. If that isn't enough, check out the lovely Myleene Klass and her red carpet interviews from last year. We're spreading the word in the Orange Film Clubs on Facebook and Bebo where you can have another go at winning prizes by filming your own BAFTA acceptance speech.