Following an all-guns-blazing surge of wooing from the crew we are giddy as you like to welcome the one and only Kate Booth aboard. Yep. Kate Booth.

Kate is an industry gem, clocking up 10 years of digital know-how and brings a treasure chest of knowledge with her to share amongst the crew. Her spoils include Recollective, Tonic and Candi amongst others but she professes a particular love for us pirates and has surrendered her liberty to join us as Client Services Director.

Fitting that she takes up a position in the crows’ nest as there’s a lurking penchant for a spot of ornithology in there… not to mention being unbeatable at computer games and possessing a vast collection of around 118 pairs of shoes!

It might seem like we’ve been hibernating in the hold over winter, such is the scarcity of recent updates, but we assure you it’s been all hands on deck. We’re busy enough in fact to have cast our net far and wide to ensnare a few new shipmates into the fold.

Gabriel Bucknell is another in a long line of pirates who we’ve managed to lure away from the roaming liberation of freelance to take the tiller as Senior Developer. Gabes has sailed on many ships since his days as a powder monkey including stints at Tonic, Deepend, De-Construct and POKE, created some pretty big work – picking up a couple of D&AD pencils on the way.

When on shore leave he plays Bike Polo, gets tattooed, walks his dogs and enjoys a bit of pain… apparently.

On top of having a surname that sounds a little like a famous rum, Marta Bacardit grew up watching Hook and loves a bit of Lost. A pirate if ever we knew one. She’s come from the party town of Barcelona, bringing some much needed sunshine with her and joins as Junior Producer on the back of a stint with the D&AD.

Jess joins us from her travels as Studio Manager where she’ll be keeping us all firmly in check and everything ship-shape. Anyone who’s hobbies include surfing and being by the seaside pretty much has a golden ticket to the Pirate life. She’s a little scared of pigeons but that’s fine – we prefer gulls anyway.

If it wasn’t lovely enough to see how many mums have been blogging about our Put on a Panto site, we’re thrilled to bits to have been awarded FWA Site of the Day on the 27th of November!

The site, created for Robinsons and BBH to let people stage their own pantomimes during the season appears to have gone down a storm and a nod from the FWA is the best pat on the back we could have asked for. Since the launch we’ve also added a great little iPhone soundboard app to let kids play about with all the panto sounds and if that wasn’t enough, we also made a little promotional panto Flash game that’s being seeded out as we speak.

To the boards, my young star!

Adrian studied sound and video engineering in Leeds before taking a job as a multimedia designer and “webmaster” at a technical company in East Yorkshire.

He moved to London in 2002 working as a freelance Flash designer until he joined Wheel (now LBi Group) at the start of 2003 where he later got promoted to Senior Designer. At Wheel he worked on wide range of digital campaigns and websites for clients including Starbucks, BT, Ikea, Paul Smith, Marks & Spencer and Brahma.

In 2005 Adrian moved to Dare as a Creative Lead, where during his tenure he was part of the pitch team that helped them win Vodafone as a client. He worked across a range of their clients including the BBC, Axe/Lynx, Wanadoo, Sony and Sony Ericsson and did some award-winning work for Barclays and Vodafone.

After leaving Dare in 2007 he returned to his technical roots as a freelance Flash developer before joining Pirata early in 2009.

During our rather tumultuous September we heard reports of a stowaway on board our vessel who’d slipped under the radar, armed to the teeth with a slew of prized portfolio pieces.

The buccaneer in question was ratted out by means of an outburst of infectious laughter and on inquisition revealed that he was in fact Jonny Goodall; our new Senior Designer.

Jonny joins us from Dare where he’s been busy hoarding accolades – a proclivity he developed from landing a D&AD student pencil – as well as featuring in the alternative music press. With claims of an affinity with our grog of choice, rum, he’s more than welcome on the ship.

Part of the Pirata lifestyle is a good old treasure hunt and what a bounty we’ve dug ourselves up. Mark Evans has declared himself a proud pirate and is now part of the crew as Senior Producer. He’s made his way o’er the tides from Dare where he helped look after the Vodafone and Sony UK accounts, not forgetting to earn a few Campaign Digital and Revolution trophies for Vodafone and Becks along the way.

Not content with just running projects, Mark is keen to cut the flab from the shipmates and he’s already instigated Pirata FC, rising to any agency fool enough to challenge us on the astroturf.

‘Ello boys and girls! I see you’ve come here looking for some tip-top digital delights so allow me to show you our latest creation and it’s a right scorcher. We’d like to invite you to put on a pantomime in your very own home with the assistance of Robin Heuser, world famous panto producer I’ll have you know!

Robinsons have not only providing thirst quenching relief to the nation for years but also love to put on a great show every year in theatres across the land. BBH London brought us along to bring this right into your living room with all you need for the big night… props and posters and sets and scripts, right through to a fully featured autocue so you can perform a pitch-perfect panto to precision!

Now, run my lovelies, and put on the performance of a lifetime!

Put on a panto at home

The Pirates have finally relinquished their moorings from the warm bosom of our friends at Work Club and have docked in a beautiful little spot just down the road in the former home of the Southwark Playhouse.

In true form we’ve landed a stone’s throw from the former Marshalsea Prison where condemned seafaring scallywags would be banged up for all manner of things piraty and also has the dubious honour of housing the young Charles Dickens’s father – one of the more famous of London’s debtors.

History lesson over, sorry… back to the studio. With french windows opening onto an idyllic courtyard and our proximity to Borough Market unharmed we couldn’t be happier in our new home where we can continue to concentrate on crafting the best digital as far as the eyes can see.

Plum make organic food for babies. Not to be confused with your sub-par salty sweet babyfood this stuff is the real deal so it deserves a brilliant showcase online.

We took the site right through from conception to delivery including commissioning the wonderful Rachael Smith for the photography. In amongst the abundant goodness is a spot of Facebook integration to get the mums talking and we’ve made it extra easy for busy parents by letting them browse and buy at their leisure in Plum’s very own online shop, built right in to the site!

Visit the Plum Baby site