Airside

Company: Airside
Type: Design, Multi-disciplined
Based: London UK
Staff: 11 full-time

Airside is a London-based design company set up in 1999. We work in moving image, graphic design + illustration, and digital + interactive media. The Airside folk have diverse backgrounds, from fine art to programming, knitting to English literature.

Although we mention three main areas of work above, in fact we work in as many different arenas as we're able to get our hands on, what's more important and what Airside is best at, is having good ideas that work across all medium, be it a TV commercial, a website or a billboard. Everything we do is done in-house. Clients range from Unilever, Orange and Coca-Cola to institutions such as The Royal College of Art, The Science Museum and Greenpeace. We have also worked with musicians and individuals like Richard Ashcroft, Lemon Jelly and Nadav Kander, photographer.

Airside staff consist of a hands-on MD and two creative directors, one of which is Lemon Jelly's Fred Deakin, three designers / typographers, an interactive designer, in house project managers, studio managers, PR and accountant. A good cross section of work is covered as mentioned on their site, and their output has a definite personality to it. I would describe this as colourful and vibrant and upbeat, although they do produce more formal websites (e.g the Pet Shop Boys and Nadav Kander)

I like their ethos, their desire to get their ideas out in many ways. This way the same visual look can be seen on adverts, packaging, installations, music videos and on the web.I also think this approach would help them survive as a company even if the market changes, whereas a company that had a niche speciality might be more vunerable to these kind of changes.

Pros: Inspiring, multidisciplined, succesful and really groovy.
Cons: Based in London.