A Look Back at the Welkome Agency
Circa 2012
In 2012 this digital design studio was called the Welkome Agency. However by 2013 its name had changed to We Make Something. Jeffrey Blum was the creative director and founder of this creative design studio that had two offices, one in NYC and the other in Paris.
At the beginning of 2018 the domain registration for welkomeagency.com expired and the site disappeared from the web. The new owners of the domain have admired the work of Jeffrey Blum for a number of years and decided to showcase some of the Welkome Agency's work as a tribute to Jeffrey Blum and the group of talented artists who were part of his studio.
To learn more about what Jeffrey Blum is now doing go to: https://blumjeffrey.com/.
Contact & Jobs.
Paris
26 rue du Chalet
75010 Paris
France
+33 (0)1 84 16 03 93
helloparis@welkomeagency.com
New York
1 Little West 12th Street
New York, NY 10 014
+1 (646) 797 3089
hellonyc@welkomeagency.com
We imagine, create and manage your brand in its digital world.
in other words, where it really matters.
Digital design starts with an idea
One that sums up your brand, its vision and story.
To seize this idea, we work with you to understand your culture, customers and the world you live in. We share inspirations, we talk about touchpoints, we plan, we go for lunch, and by the time we reach the coffee break, we usually have a clear idea of where you should go and what you should say and show. A digital design idea is born.
It offers a user experience.
On every digital media, within a pixel.
We’ll make out of your digital idea a tailor made user experience on every digital media, pixel perfect. To make your digital design powerful we think user interface and experience is essential. That’s why we make it simple, so that your brand experience flows and looks sharp.
It needs management and support.
Your digital world is precious, we’ll help you taking good care of it.
To implement your digital design everywhere, we handle production as well. And to make sure you can manage it too, we use new compliant standards to make it all user-friendly. From an App to a total digital universe, we’re concerned about making things Design: simple and ready to use.
There’s only one way to succeed
November 20, 2013 | by Carolyn Amurao | https://www.wework.com/
For this edition of Do What You Love — a series that showcases the entrepreneurs behind startups and small businesses — we sat down with Jeffrey Blum, the creative director and founder of We Make Something (previously Welkome Agency.) Here’s what Blum shared:
I was born in Switzerland and my mother’s American; she’s from New York. I grew up in the south of France in Saint-Tropez. Then I went back to school in Switzerland and then Paris to [study] computer communications, branding, culture, paintings…for three years. After my graduation I decided to move to New York in 1998. I had studied so many things: illustration, logo design, typography, layouts. At that time the web was so small that no one was teaching it, so everything that I do right now I learned by myself, in fact.
We Make Something is a digital agency. We do web design and web strategy. We do mobile app design (iPhone, iPad, Androids), responsive design, and social media strategy (Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
We had to change the name [Welkome] to something else because a company called Wellcom in France sent us a letter to change the name of our company. At the beginning we started to fight to keep the name and make everyone happy—but we couldn’t keep it and had to change everything. The Welkome website is still up; we still have to make time to change it.
I’m traveling a lot for work. The big office is in Paris. I do a lot of back and forth because it’s important to see my clients overseas. My travels [inspire me], movies and things I see on the street—so many things.
For me, New York is the place to be. The web industry is so strong and all the big companies now are bringing offices to New York: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and so many others like Google, which is right here. I like the energy here. The energy in Paris is kind of different; the weather is always gray and people are moody. But it’s nice to have an office there because for luxury businesses it’s a nice city to be in because of the fashion industry. Also we work with a lot of companies in Switzerland so it’s close.
Apple Inc. is one of the main companies that I really like. I’ve never touched a PC in my life. My first computer was a Mac when I was six-years-old and I’m 37 now. The other company I really like in terms of design and web strategy, corporate identity and the way they communicate, is Nike. They’re really strong in terms of design.
I run a lot. I ran three marathons this year. Every time I’m traveling and I’m getting into a country or city, the first thing I do before going to the office is go for a run. So all the stress and everything goes out. That’s a key thing for me to always stay sharp and focused. When you run it’s like a drug; it’s an addiction now. When I don’t run for three days I’m like, ‘I need something.’ [Running] is one of my ways to get away and think about something else.
I don’t drink coffee, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol. A lot of people in the running industry and my running friends have the same minds: don’t drink, don’t smoke and run. So when you’re surrounded by people like this it’s easier to have this lifestyle.
Every time we have an intern I tell them, “you have to believe in what you do and there’s only one way to succeed: to work.” Money doesn’t come from the clouds. Especially in New York, you either work or you go back home.
Work is fun. There are some stressful moments, but since we’re creative…I don’t feel like I’m working when I come to the office or when I see clients.
Ain't nobody got time for that!
Daniel Foerter
Our Work.
SOME CLIENTS
HYT Watches
Global Digital Strategy
HYT Watches is a young luxury brand who made innovation its watch-making priority. Thanks to its unique fluid mechanism, the H1 HYT watch has received numerous awards in the watch-making world.
At the launch of the brand, Welkome Agency imagined its entire digital presence. A presence and identity that we wanted resolutely modern and sharp, as the image of the watches’ brand.
This identity is now applied on the website, but also on the iPad and iPhone apps that we designed and developed, allowing a total immersion in the brand's world and its products.
We also assisted HYT Watches on all of the digital strategy through social medias like Facebook or Tumblr, on which we conceived the HYTNNOVATION platform that aims for the readers to discover the best of contemporary innovations.
Client: NiftyThrifty
Services:
Design & Strategy
Creative Direction, Art Direction & Copywriting
HYT Watches
Services Conception & Strategy
Creative direction, Art direction & Copywriting
Website
Application Mobile
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NiftyThrifty
Global Digital Strategy
Client: NiftyThrifty
Services:
Design & Strategy
Creative Direction, Art Direction & Copywriting
NiftyThrifty is an e-commerce website offering New Yorkers private sales of unique vintage clothes. Willing to re-envision its e-commerce platform, the brand wanted to create a real digital identity to stand out and clearly differentiate itself from competing sites.
With this opportunity, Welkome Agency imagined a unique concept of e-commerce based on the photography social media Instagram.Each product sold has an unique hashtag on its label. Upon receipt of the product purchased, the buyer is invited to take pictures with their purchase via the Instagram application adding the product hashtag. The photo is automatically replaced on the site niftythrifty.com as the new Product main picture.
This innovative concept offers the brand an original and playful interaction with its customers by turning them into models and ambassadors of the brand.
Website
Application Tablet
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Chronic'art
Realization of the website
Client: Chronic'art
Services:
Conception & Strategy
Creative direction, Art direction
Chronic'art is a monthly reference magazine, devoted to cultural news. It covers cinema, music, literature, video games, comics, philosophy, politics and new technologies.
On the occasion of the release of the new version of the paper magazine, Welkome was commissioned by Chronic'Art to design the new version of the site chronicart.com, a real online version of the magazine, also offering a very large number of archives in many different sections.
The challenge was therefore twofold for this new version of the site: to recreate a graphic territory specific to Chronic'Art on digital, at the height of the paper magazine, and to imagine a site architecture and ergonomic principles allowing a quick and easy navigation to through the different articles of the site. The new site designed by the agency's teams will allow you to browse the hundreds of articles on the site without leaving the homepage; Moreover, the implementation of color codes and pictograms will allow users to find their way easily and quickly.
Website
Application Tablet
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Cadik's Jewelry
Video
Some sequence shots recorded in the french jewelry creator Laurent Cadik's workshop.More of a aesthetic than a conceptual film, this video reveals some sneak peeks of the know-how, expertise and universe of this young parisian jewelry creator.
Client: Cadik's Jewellery
ServicesRecording & Post-production
Film
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Johnnie Walker
Global Digital Strategy
Client: Johnnie Walker
Services:
Conception & Strategy
Creative direction, Art direction
Website
http://www.johnniewalker.fr
Johnnie Walker is a globally known brand of blended Scotch produced in Kilmarnock, Scotland, part of the Diageo group.
As part of their initiative to redesign all their sites around the world, Johnnie Walker assigned Welkome Agency to perform the re-thinking of the ergonomic and design for the French website, in accordance with the global graphic guidelines.
In addition, the agency suggested two additional digital operations with the objective to build customer loyalty and its digital brand image.The first operation, called "the club" is the creation of a private club for premium online customers of the brand, giving them access to exclusive content, brand and also courses or Scotch testing.
The second operation, aimed for a younger target, emphasizes the "dandy" character of the brand. Through a dedicated platform, users can create a "dandy" portrait in the Johnnie Walker style and share it on the social medias such as Facebook and Twitter.
Website
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Dom Perignon
iPad app
Digital publishing iPad application for the french champagne brand : Dom Pérignon.
Client:Dom Perignon
Services:
Conception Realisation.