In a recent Monday Morning Meeting, Jim asked us to create our very own Mr Men alter ego, with some amusing results. See if you can guess who’s who…

The awards celebrate outstanding creative work from its 25 winners in three categories: Animation, Design & Communication and Illustration, with submissions from 35 countries. Many members of YCN are in the early stages of their professional career, in areas such as design, advertising, illustration and animation among others. The organisation functions as a platform to promote their work and provide inspiration through online showcases, a creative directory and various events throughout the year. You can view a list of the winning designers here.

A massive congratulations to Paul for such a great achievement – if you’d like to view his portfolio here’s a link to his website: http://paulfelton.co.uk

The boys are looking pretty in pink today, and rather chuffed about it too it seems – according to Jim, real men wear pink.

Last Thursday we said goodbye to our Senior Project Manager Louisa after five great years at Purpose, whose leaving celebrations coincided with Maddie and Lynsey’s birthdays. As we’ll also be wishing Production Manager Rosie and Senior Project Manager Jo the best of luck when they leave Purpose in the coming weeks, we decided the best way to bring everyone together was to round up our talented bakers and transform the basement into a rather special tea party.

Among the chocolate birthday cake, toffees, Welsh cakes, marshmallows, vegan cake, profiteroles and the odd martini, were some emotional speeches and goodbyes, and yes – you guessed right – there was barely so much as a crumb left by the end of the day.

We’d like to wish Louisa, Rosie and Jo all the best in their new ventures, and make sure you come back and visit us soon – we’re really going to miss you all. A big happy birthday to Lynsey and Maddie too – we hope you all enjoyed Thursday and were as stuffed as us by the end!

Here are the girls looking super cool next to their favourite number, on 6/6/13.

For some, the journey to Lubstock festival this July is going to be an epic adventure, as we get ready to say ‘go Team Run & Roll’!

This year will be a memorable one for us here at Purpose, as we’re very excited to be celebrating our 10^th birthday in November, marking the special occasion by spending a weekend together in July at the small boutique festival.

In aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and Help for Heroes, Amie, Sean, Alex, Harry, Paul, Faye, Lee and Becky will be ditching the train for half the journey to Lubenham, Leicestershire, and taking up two wheels for the remaining 40 miles. Along with our cyclists, resident runner Matt Price has decided that his marathon across the Sahara this year didn’t quite satisfy his need for a challenge, and will be running a mammoth 84 miles from his house in London to the festival.

The brave Team Run & Roll have set up a Virgin Money Giving page if you would like to make a donation towards their challenge, which you can view by clicking here. We’ll be updating the blog in the next few weeks with photos of their journey and our weekend away at Lubstock, so keep an eye on our website.

Good luck guys – we’ll be there waiting to cheer you on at the finish line, most likely laying in the sun with a glass of Pimm’s in our hand!

Virginmoneygiving.com/TeamRunAndRoll

We were very sad to see him leave but in true Purpose spirit, we decided to give Nathan Webb a unique send off fit for a rather bonkers Design Director. Presenting: the Webby Awards 2013!

What better way to celebrate a brilliant and eventful career than sharing his most memorable moments at Purpose (and embarrassing photos) with everyone. The basement was transformed into a glamorous awards ceremony to rival the Oscars, with handmade Webbys for each winner – er, Webby!

Categories were presented by our lovely hosts, Rob, Paul, Lee, Amie and Stu, and here’s the evidence for Nathan being such a deserving winner. We started with Best Newcomer; when he joined Purpose at the tender age of 23, who knew we had such a crazy character on our hands when looking at this innocent face?

Next was the Best Dressed category, and as you can see, his time at Purpose has been one long catwalk show; right from the start he has been a master of sartorial elegance, favouring outfits from pyjamas to fur coats, to double denim.

Then came the nominations for Best Choreography. We’re not too sure if Webby’s varied dancing owed much to structured choreography, but he’s definitely got a knack for taking over the dance floor and giving Jagger a run for his money.

Best Drama brought back some blasts from the past, including his night spent fast asleep in the basement of our local, The Larrik – luckily he was found in the early hours by the landlord, and woke up a little confused and with a really sore head in James’ unborn baby’s nursery.

Webby has a lot of love to give everyone, as shown by snaps of his tender embraces with Piers, Rob, Stu, Giles and of course girlfriend Cat – with the two of them winning Best Romcom. Awwww…

Finally the Webbys were topped off with the Lifetime Achievement award, celebrating Webby achieving so many great things in his time here, including building a raft, bowling a strike, beating Amie at ping pong and dragging Giles onto the dancefloor.

He left with 6 Webby awards, a signed vest to accompany the hundreds of others in his wardrobe, and a very big grin on his face.

Webby, we’ll all miss your energetic self around the studio, and wish you all the best in your next venture. See you in the Larrik?

Aiming to showcase a great selection of talented creatives, Playdesk tours the capital in the hope of sharing their inspirations and body of work, over a beer or two of course. Emily, who has collaborated with a range of international artists and brands such as the BBC, Creative Review, Orange and Paul Smith, has worked in the industry for nearly ten years since graduating from Liverpool School of Art & Design. Her clients extend across sectors including cultural institutions, advertising, retail, publishing and editorial, producing work in a variety of media including illustration and print – all evoking her perception of beauty, creativity and humour.

Emily will be designing an exclusive print for the occasion which guests will receive, as well as judging work produced by the Purpose team in response to a brief set by our Design Director Paul; watch this space for the results. Tickets are £15, with all proceeds going towards Emily’s chosen charity, Save the Children, and be warned – they sell really quickly. So get yourself a ticket and come and spend the evening at our lovely studio – what else would you be doing on a Thursday after work?

Click here to view Emily’s website, and if you’d like to buy a ticket click the link here.

We can’t wait! See you all there.

As Faye will now be managing external events, she has cherry picked the very best in local events, lectures, exhibitions, conferences and much more, so the hard work is done and we now have our calendars packed full with the best in creative goings on.

Here’s a taster of what London has to offer in the coming weeks.

15 May – 23 June
Jerwood Encounters – After hours
Jerwood Space is exhibiting a selection of personal work created in the spare time of a group of graphic designers – largely displaying work never seen before. And it’s free! Our Designer Sean attended the recent opening and thought it was a really good, diverse show.

www.jerwoodvisualarts.org

28 May, 7-9.30pm
Nicer Tuesdays: Collaboration
Its Nice That’s monthly event delivers an evening of talks centred on ‘collaboration’, with a host of great speakers and collaborators, including Simon Esterson and John Walters from Eye Magazine, Studio Weave and Freddie and Hollie – the brains behind 3′s moonwalking pony. We think it sounds like a pretty good way to spend a tenner!

http://nicertuesdaysmay.eventbrite.co.uk

20 – 31 May
Digital Shoreditch
The annual Digital Shoreditch Festival will be hosting thousands of top brands, agencies, entrepreneurs and creatives from East London’s Tech City and beyond, as well as workshops and talks to get you involved and engaged.

http://digitalshoreditch.com

Fri 24 May, 8.45am
Digital Shoreditch –Behavioural design
“Giants of behavioural economics and user experience probe the mechanisms of influencing behaviour”…couldn’t have put it better ourselves! If you’re interested in discovering the psychology and science behind our online decisions, then this is the event for you.

https://tickets.digitalshoreditch.com/

Wed 29 May, 6.45 – 10pm
Science Museum Lates
This is the one we’re most excited about! A gang of us are planning on heading down to South Kensington next week for the Science Museum’s monthly late opening, to indulge in a bit of speed dating, dancing in the silent disco, having a go at the pub quiz and some general adult playtime. There’s also the Google Web Lab until 20 June which looks well worth a visit too.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

Fri 21 June
Here 2013
It’s Nice That are also curating a one-day creative symposium offering the talents and insights of creative heavyweights such as Wayne Hemmingway, Kate Moross and Andy Rementer, in a series of inspiring talks.

http://www.itsnicethat.com

There’s also a whole range of university degree shows happening over the next few months which the studio will be attending, starting with the Free Range art and design show from 7-10 June, which you can check out here.

We can’t wait to indulge our creative senses!

Yesterday Lee, Cat, Becky and Matt took part in Beat the Banana, a 5k run organised in aid of the World Cancer Research Fund. Nic, Nathan and Nevs went along last night to support our runners and to take a few snaps to share with everyone. Here they are preparing to channel their inner banana…

Nathan had clearly never seen a life-sized banana before – maybe he was shocked that he had no shoes or socks on. Well he is a banana after all…

It all started with warm-up time for the two hundred runners, in a sea of yellow…

Here are the guys, raring to go and chase the barefooted banana.

And here they are in action! Cat was probably too fast to be caught on camera…

All the while Nic, Nathan and Nevs chilled out, enjoying a tasty bag of chips and a beer. We think they had the right idea.

In the end the gang managed to finish the run in under 25 minutes – well done guys!