We worked with The Global Poverty Project on the design and front-end development of their new Live Below The Line website. Backscratchers Chris took the reins and created a beautiful and engaging site.
Guy Kirkpatrick from The Global Poverty Project said this about the process of working with us: “We were working to a very tight deadline and budget to find a web designer for two new sites we were developing. Through The Backscratchers, this process became hugely simplified - we submitted the brief and within a couple of days their team had linked us up with multiple designers all of whom had a large portfolio of quality work. The resulting site designs speak for themselves!“
For those of you unfamiliar with Live Below The Line, it is an anti-poverty campaign where participants raise money for charity and pledge to live on only £1 a day for five days. The dates for this year’s campaign run from 28 April - 02 May. The Backscratchers team will be joining in on the challenge and we hope you will join with us! Read more about the amazing initiative (and see more of Chris’ design work) via the Live Below The Line website.
Stuck on what to get your loved ones for Christmas? Ever thought of commissioning a one-of-a-kind piece as something extra special for the holidays? If so, we have you covered! Some of our lovely Backscratchers have banded together to offer up their talents for all your Xmas shopping needs.
How about a one-of-a-kind fake nails set of your giftee’s favourite painting (see David Hockney’s ‘Bigger Splash’ pictured above for reference)? Our Backscratcher Mary Stephenson will create and package them just in time for the holidays for the cool price of £45!
Or what about getting them some bespoke Lego cube ear studs or cufflinks from Backscratcher Bwoy Wonder (who’s work has been worn by Cara Delevingne, Pharrell and P.Diddy)? Prices range.
We can also provide bespoke illustrations, animations, sculptures, 3D printing….whatever it is your creative gift giving mind can think up. Just email us at [email protected] with your ideas (or even if you need some help with ideas!) and we’ll help get all your Christmas gifts sorted.
We teamed Backscratcher Bwoywonder up with the brilliant creative agency Amplify on their #getwinterized campaign for Converse. The campaign celebrates the launch of the brand’s new range of winter-friendly shoes with a series of popups and installations around London.
Together, Amplify and Bwoywonder brought a storm cloud raining Chucks to the Truman Brewery…made entirely of Lego, we might add. The specially commissioned piece was suspended over Dray Walk just outside Rough Trade East and a photo of the piece racked up over 5.7k likes on Converse’s Instagram feed.
Find out more about #getwinterized’s events and installations here.
The Elephant Family, the charity dedicated to saving some of the most endangered wildlife on the planet, played host at the Animal Ball at Clarence House last month, in the presence of TRH The Prince of Wales & The Duchess of Cornwall with guests including Cara Delevigne, Jerry Hall and Rupert Everett. Guests donned animal kingdom-inspired masks to mark the occasion. In addition to recruiting some of the world’s top milliners, designers and artists like Diane von Furstenberg, Jasper Conran, Manolo Blahnik and Mario Testino to create specially crafted masks, The Elephant Family approached The Backscratchers in an effort to feature some of Britain’s top up-and-coming talent.
Not only were the masks our crew created sported on the night, but they also made their way through London with exhibitions at Sotheby’s and Selfridges and were featured in the likes of the Evening Standard and Daily Mail.
Meet the designers who did us proud here:
Mary Stephenson, a versatile art director known for her nail and installation art, created a beautiful glass and mirror rhino mask.
Milliner Lena Gunnarsson’s design was a powerful yet playful take on the endangered Monarch butterfly. She’s says, “Had it not been for The Backscratchers, I would not have been aware of the possibility to submit a mask for the Animal Ball."
Our third member to take up the challenge was Alice Fayle. Alice is a womenswear and print designer based in London whose work is inspired by British folklore, fairy tales and wildlife. She told us, "I was inspired to create the two badger masks after the recent call to cull badgers in the UK.” Aiming to raise awareness and support in order to help protect them, she said, “badgers are a much-loved symbol of British heritage and an icon of British wildlife - an animal that certainly deserves to be protected.”
The ball has raised over £600,000 for conservation projects across Asia, including a project to secure a habitat corridor in Assam, India - a lifeline for over 1,500 endangered Asian elephants. If you’d like to find out more about their work, visit http://www.elephantfamily.org/
We are very excited to announce that we are one of six companies who have been chosen to take part in the BBC Labs programme! The programme offers us the opportunity to work within the BBC Worldwide’s London headquarters for six months with access to mentors from within the BBC and external mentors from companies such as Wayra, Facebook, General Assembly and Google. The programme also includes the possibility of securing commercial partnerships within BBC Worldwide and with their other partners. You can read more about the Labs and the other great companies in this Gigaom article. Basically, big opportunities are in the works for all members of The Backscratchers!
Last night, we participated in the Music Pitch 4.5 competition organised by 2 Pears. The event is an industry showcase, featuring some of the latest music-tech startups in Europe. We were up against 8 other teams, including the brilliant companies Tourmanagement.com, who offer software to help artist managers organise tours and Spontly, which provides a tool to upload and collate comments and photos from events.
We pitched The Backscratchers and ended up winning both the Judge’s Vote and the Audience Vote (plus a bottle of champagne!). A big thanks to everyone who voted for us. Midweek champagne party, anyone?
Patrick, one of The Backscratchers co-founders, is a swell fella. So swell in fact that he didn’t winge or whine when I gave him the task of writing, recording and vocalising this little 1:30 intro video to The Backscratchers in a single evening. How much could he cram in into those 1:30 seconds? Well, you’ll just have to see in the video above. Patrick, I owe you a trip to the pub.
In addition to everything he mentions in the video, however, there are some cool new features and tweaks that we’ve released that you might want to check out! First up, you now have the ability to change the order that portfolios appear on your Portfolio page as well as the ability to choose the top 3 portfolio folders that appear on your Profile page. Simply head to your main Portfolio page and drag and drop the boxes into your preferred order. The first three portfolios will be the three that appear on your Profile.
Another new feature that we’ve added is the ability to choose the main skill associated with you. This skill will be the main one that shows up on your user snapshot on the User Search page (as in the photo above), but will also soon be added into our fancy schmancy matching algorithm that helps determine the best user match for each project. Make sure you choose one!
To set your main skill, just click on “Edit Profile” from your Dashboard or Profile page, click on the tab that says “Skills & Resources” and simply choose your desired skill in the “What would you like to show up as your main skill?” section.
We here at The Backscratchers are big fans of We Are Pop Up, the London-based startup that connects those looking for short-term spaces with those that can host them. When we heard about what they were doing, we just knew that we had to partner up!
In addition to finding spaces for some of the most innovative pop-up restaurants, visual artists and fashion designers, they’re also the guys behind those cool new pop-ups that have been finding their way into Boxpark in Shoreditch.
As part of the latest Boxpark x We Are Pop Up competition, businesses not only have the chance to win three months of rent-free space at Boxpark and a fit-out valued at £25k, but they will also be given access to The Backscratchers community of retail designers, branding experts, marketing gurus and more who can help make their pop-ups a success. Entries to the competition must be submitted by March 28th. More details can be found here.
Next time you need help finding space for a short-term gig or pop-up, you know where to go!
The time has come to show you a bit more of what you can do on The Backscratchers! First, innovative companies and creative freelancers are handpicked to join the website. They can either be invited to join by current members or can apply via the homepage. Joining is free and we favour applicants who are recommended to us and/or those who have interesting projects that they’re actively seeking collaborators for. We are currently in London and will expand across the UK this summer.
Once accepted, members sign up and create a profile. Profiles include their bio, availability, work and education history and examples of their past work. They also list the skills and resources they have to offer and the types of collaborations that they’re interested in.
This isn’t a passive portfolio website. Instead of just showing off past work, we have designed The Backscratchers to be the active network that members turn to when they actually want to create something new. Members can post projects they need help on, set a budget (paid, exchange or a mix of the two), choose a deadline and list the skills and resources that they’re seeking for it. Other members can then offer to work on the project. The project owner can view all of the pitches and easily accept or decline offers. All payments are transacted through the site with an 9% commission taken from the member accepting payment, which includes the GoCardless transaction fee.
Quality is very important to us, so we’ve built a recommendation feature into the platform where all members on a project can provide feedback on the experience of working together. The recommendation includes a short blurb about the work done, a link to the project in question and the opportunity to upload an example of the finished work. It’s an opportunity for both freelancers and companies to build their influence and reputation within the sector and to prove that they’ll do the work they say they’ll do.
Members’ profiles are also added to the network and are easily searchable by skill, availability and location. Click the white arrows to browse through portfolios without leaving the page. Audio and video can be watched in the preview window. You can message members or click the green + button to add them to a list.
Lists are a tool we’ve created to allow members to easily save favourite users’ profiles to view later. Think of them as your own personally approved ‘blackbook’ of creative talent. Although lists are private, we’ll soon have the option to share lists with friends and colleagues. Members can create as many lists as they like, customize list titles and easily add and remove users as their needs change.
We have lots more features and resources coming in the next few months. Keep an eye out here for details. In the meantime, please enjoy putting together your first projects and keep in touch with your feedback!
See you soon,
The Backscratchers team
We’re very happy to announce that we’re launching out of private beta! We’ve been ticking away behind the scenes since late 2012: testing, reiterating and fine-tuning our solution to finding and connecting creative talent. The site is currently live in London and we’ll be expanding across the UK in summer 2013.
What we’ve come up with is a network that we truly feel we can stand behind. The Backscratchers is a handpicked, cross-disciplinary creative network, connecting innovative brands and companies with top tier freelancers for collaborations on short-term paid projects and skills exchanges. Think of it as combining the best aspects of portfolio and freelancing websites with the industry approval elements of LinkedIn.
In the few months we’ve been up, we’ve generated a community that includes freelancers and employees from places like i-D Magazine, Secret Cinema, Fallon, EMI and Stella McCartney. We’ve also had some amazing projects go through the platform, from the likes of immersive cinematic experience company Future Cinema, creative agency Capitalize, basketball star Carmelo Antony and more. Here’s a little taster of some of the things we’ve been up to:
Lineage Interactive commissioned two filmmakers to create a promo video for Carmelo Anthony, the New York Knicks and Team USA basketball legend. The video has since received 36,000 hits on YouTube.
Future Cinema commissioned four illustrations on an overnight turnaround for their sold out production of Grease, which attracted over 9,000 attendees over the course of one weekend.
We can’t wait to see what our community creates over the next few months. Keep tabs on what we’re up to on the various social networks: Facebook and Twitter. If you’re a freelancer interested in signing up, please apply here. If you’re an innovative company and would like to talk about how The Backscratchers could help your work, feel free to get in touch with us here.
Thank you and see you on the flip side!
Love,
(Jody x Leo x Patrick x Sian)