Birmingham ‘creatives’ walk the walk with ‘Hollywood-style’ project

Bringing a taste of Hollywood to the streets of Birmingham is the latest exciting project for one of the City’s fastest growing creative agencies. 383 Project, which is the brainchild of local graphic designers John Newbold and Sukhi Dehal, celebrated its first birthday in May by winning the contract to complete the full marketing, branding and website of Broad Street’s ‘Walk of Stars’. The concept recognises local people who have made a significant contribution to the world of music, television, film, radio, sport, business and literacy and, following an online public voting system

suggested by the agency, has received massive global interest.

It capped a remarkable first year in which 383 Project has used Business Link West Midlands support to secure work with both the BBC and Channel 4, not to mention seeing its designs hit the shelves on 12 million Sprite cans and bottles. “We never expected the first twelve months to be so interesting,” admitted John, who studied at Coventry University. “The ‘Walk of Stars’ launched earlier this year, with over 1000 people turning out to see Ozzy Osbourne unveil his stone on Broad Street. More celebrities will be announced shortly.” He continued: “This was just the start. When we launched the website we had over a million visitors log on in the first 6 weeks! Within that time, it was also featured by Jonathan Ross and Chris Moyles and was also named website of the day on Radio 2.”

Hot on the heels of the ‘Walk of Stars’ concept, 383 Project is now working on the city’s largest business and retail directory – www.broadstreet.co.uk - which launches later this month. “It’s a project we’re tremendously excited about and has given us the opportunity to showcase the best of what the web can currently offer and will give the 270 businesses on Broad Street an interactive and manageable web platform to work.” explained Sukhi. The duo started the company in May 2006 after deciding to swap their freelancing days for the challenge of growing one of the West Midlands’ most dynamic design and marketing agencies.

383 Project, which now employs four people and is looking to take on a further two by the end of 2007, provides a multi-disciplinary service, including web design, branding and new media interior design. Its success stems from a desire to match creativity with business understanding and this is reflected in the work it completed for Sprite – a milestone achievement and one that really kick-started their dream into life. Former Wolverhampton University Student, Sukhi picked up the story: “We received a lot of advice from Business Link West Midlands and Birmingham City Council when we first started out and this proved invaluable when putting the foundations in place and finding city centre premises for our business.