British design for global digital brand Nxxgen

TOP UK branding and digital specialists were invited to pitch for a global digital brand set up by two US entrepreneurs last week.

Jamie Ader, who set up film distribution company Inpix in California, has teamed up with the cosmetics brand Hard Candy co-founder Pooneh Mohajer to launch a digital media delivery system. The idea is a business-to-business platform that gives consumers access to a range of digital media, including film and audio.

The pitch list for the project, which has a working title of Nxxgen includes: FutureBrand, Conran Design Group, Enterprise IG, The Partners, Pentagram Design, Interbrand, Wolff Olins, Deepend, Browns, Brown KSDP, Digit, AMX and Intro.

Ader and Mohajer, who have now returned to California, spent last week in London seeing consultancies. They anticipate appointing two groups in the next two weeks, one for branding and the other to create the consumer interface for the system. However, they are extending the list to include Tomato, Lateral and Good Technology.

Budgets have yet to be finalised and Nxxgen is at an early stage of development, Ader says. A beta version of the system will be put on test in the six months after June this year and the final version is anticipated to go live six months after that, she adds.

Ader and Mohajer pulled together the pitch list through a combination of market research and personal recommendation. Ader used to work in the UK design industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the Business Design Centre and at Fitch.

Ader comments, “If a business does not incorporate design in its strategy, there is a significant void. Design communicates emotion, imagination, innovation and philosophy of the company and its product.

“I chose to work with British designers because I believe they have the most soul,” he says.