Placement Opportunities

Each year current students and graduates start looking for placement opportunities to gain themselves some essential experience or even to hopefully start their new career path. And some people can find this stressful, but it doesn't have to be as hard as it seems.

There are a lot of companies out there that do start to hire at the beginning of the year, and while some may be hard to get into as they already require experience and good education, there are some that are always open to offering placement opportunities to graduates, students and the younger generation.

That is where skignz comes along.

All year round skignz is always offering placement opportunities to students and graduates. That is one of the most important aspects about skignz itself as a company. skignz believes that everyone should be treated equally and that by allowing the opportunity to be available to everyone, we are providing that equality.

skignz is currently actively looking at the moment to hire. So any graduates or students who are currently looking for work experience please feel free to contact skignz.

skignz vacancies are advertised through Teesside University as that is where our focus is. We currently through Teesside University provide the opportunity for a graduate to come and do a 3 month placement through skignz as part of their degree, hopefully with the intention of leading onto full time work.

Jeff Bramfitt came to join the skignz team this year on a 3 month placement with the possibility of keeping on as full time employment. Here is a little brief on himself:

“I trained initially as a Graphic Designer then spent over 20 years as a computer graphics artist at legendary games company Psygnosis/Sony Studio Liverpool, until recession hit and Sony started downsizing drastically.  Sadly, the studio ultimately closed as a result.  In my time there I had the pleasure of contributing as a 2D and 3D Artist on over 30 titles, including classic Playstation franchises Wipeout and Formula 1.

More recently, I decided to update my skills and improve my career options by doing a Degree in Web & Multimedia Design, graduating with a 2:1 in 2014.  I hope my unique combination of recent Web Design development combined with my C.G. production experience will help me move forward in a rapidly changing landscape.

I have an unhealthy habit of purchasing large dilapidated old houses and lovingly restoring them, which is the closest I come to having a hobby. At the moment (the last 4 years) all my spare time is spent bringing an early Victorian town house on Hartlepool's historic seafront back to it's former glory.”

skignz will be looking at expanding the team as the year goes on as you can read about our 2015 plans in skignz year ahead blog post. So do feel free to apply if you are interested or contact us personally to see what vacancies are available.

If you would like to know more on skignz current vacancies then please visit http://bit.ly/1myDwzK 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on a range of the popular Social Media Channels.

2015: The Year of the skignz ;-)

After a great and successful 2014, skignz now looks to what we have to aim for in the first half of 2015. Through a lot of opportunities being provided in 2014 for skignz.

January has already begun at a hectic pace. Setting us up ready to embark and progress onto fulfilling those opportunities, plus more when they come along.

We decided to have a small outlook on what the first half of 2015 will bring us and hopefully be able to fulfil our New Year’s resolutions! 

The very beginning of 2015 sees skignz with a new intern who has applied to gain some work experience alongside studying at Teesside University to help their career get started. 

Jeff Bramfitt is a Digital & Graphic Designer who recently completed his studies at Teesside University and was looking for some invaluable work experience to enhance his skills and help take the next steps in his career. This is also an interesting experience for skignz as we love taking on new members and getting fresh ideas and minds to the company. 

Also in the first month of 2015 we have continued working on a project, but not one we can divulge at this moment but more of that when we can! However the project will be big and very exciting and we hope to share some examples of the fantastic work we will have embarked upon over the coming months. 

The first quarter of 2015 has so far began in earnest with follow up on all the opportunities skignz was presented with in last year. Such as our visit to Boston, MA to develop relationships with a number of global brands and some truly awesome people. 

Attending Most Contagious in London, allowed skignz to meet a lot of companies and brands from around the world and quite a few were very interested in the skignz technology and looking at how they can work with us going forward.

The few months will also see skignz developing more relationships and projects with companies across Europe & The Middle East, whilst we increase our activity in the US both on the East & West coasts from our office in Las Vegas, NV. 

Moving onto the subject of offices, we will be announcing soon our new offices and later in the summer we are aiming to open one more office somewhere within the UK.

As the projects start to increase we will be requiring more staff to join skignz as we will aim to keep the quality of service at a very high level, but we aim to continue our significant work on R&D. 

We pride ourselves in always offering a range of opportunities at skignz for Internships & Work Experience. 

We love nothing more than people who are really keen to learn and want to make progress in their careers being able to come and join the skignz team just like our latest intern has last month. 

We are actively looking for new people to join our expanding team. So if you, or someone you know might be interested, then please get in touch.

We have an incredible amount of activity planned for 2015 and having already presented/pitched four different global brands in January alone, above are just a few of the New Year’s resolutions we hope to keep within the first half of 2015. Wish us luck and keep an eye out to see if we fulfil these and for further announcements on our client and projects wins.

Happy New Year to everyone! lets make 2015 the year of the skignz ;-)

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on a range of the popular Social Media Channels.

Which global tech companies could partner with skignz?

At skignz we always think of how we can assist others and how we can create new developments through skignz. Well by having a think we decided that we could work with a lot of technology partners.  

Creating a joint venture between two firms can have a lot of benefits to both sides. It can double the amount of engagement with customers and audience and create more attention to the new joint business venture created.

A few benefits of creating a joint venture are: 

- It can allow your business to grow further and faster
- It can increase productivity whilst generating greater profits for each
- It allows open access to new markets
- It allows greater access to resources such as staff, technology and finance.

There are a lot more benefits to creating joint ventures however let us now give you a few examples of companies we have been considering who skignz could create a joint venture with and show the benefits as to how it could benefit them through partnering with skignz. 

1. Google – skignz has had some great ideas about how we could work with Google Maps. Every pin on a Google map could be turned into a skign. It wouldn't just be something more attractive to look at it would mean that there is more for people to interact with through augmented reality. We could augment the planet overnight.

2. Apple – The past 10 – 15 years Apple under Steve Jobs have revolutionised many different markets with new ideas they have always brought about. However what could their next big idea be? We think that the next one could be ‘navigation without maps’. Brought to every Apple device people could navigate through skignz via Apple. 
Have you also read out blog post article on Apple post Steve Jobs?

3. Facebook – Think of your Facebook profile but in a skign above your head … like the sound of that? However only your friends can still see it who you allow just as your profile is online. You can interact in a different way no matter where you are. You can use it to find your friends at a concert or festival, allow you to let them know where a party is at and help them find where you are. 

4. Twitter – How great would it be to pull your tweets into a skignz above your head that only your followers can see? You can use the skign to interact with all live conversations going on around you. 


5. LinkedIn – Similar to Facebook you could pull your LinkedIn profile into a skign above your head. However this could be used using your professional/work based networking profile that only your own personal network could see – just as they see your profile online. You can use it to engage with different people at business networking events or even so companies could use it to help guests attending corporate events. 


6. Match.com – Do you find online dating a task or a bit of a long process? Well skignz could make it that little bit easier for you. Have you ever tried talking to someone but you can tell that they clearly are not a match for you? If skignz were to partner with Match.com it could allow users to pull their dating profile into a skign above their heads. Now how would this help you … well when you are close to others who are a match – say around 85% or above then skignz will provide you with an alert. This way you cannot only know there is a potential match close by to you, you can know who it is exactly and if they press accept then you can go straight over and introduce yourself. Speed up the long wait of online dating and get to know that person sooner rather than later. 

7. Microsoft – Through working on their cloud platform and Founder Bill Gates having a big passion for helping those less fortunate, skignz could team up with big data and charities to help manage and monitor all of their assets across their world countries or those that require disaster relief. As skignz is Carbon neutral and does not affect the environment, it can be used to help many good causes.

8. Military & Governments - Again as it is Microsoft, this is a secure way to track assets, reduces chances of friendly fire, monitor targets and more but all in a visual way. Take existing data and visually tag what you want to see, when and anywhere you wish on the planet.

9. Cisco – skignz creating a joint venture with Cisco would open up a lot of opportunities to themselves. skignz could help to visually tag their equipment when installed into large infrastructure projects. It would allow a platform to be created allowing technology to provide a pre hand viewing process before any agreed projects. 

10. Garmin/TOM TOM – skignz would take TOM TOM into the new age through using augmented reality. What better way to update the navigation system than through skignz allowing users to view a more attractive and easier straight head on mapping system through their satellite navigation systems and mobile devices (if integrated). Through using the skignz platform satellite navigation would be overlaid on real landscape rather than a computer generated one. It would bring real life navigation to you through your satellite navigation system.  

11. Amazon – Through joining together Amazon and skignz, we could bring a whole new tracking system to amazon themselves. skignz would be able to track Amazon’s drones and keep track of their customer orders, knowing where they are and when to then being able to keep the customer updated accurately. Its beneficial for Amazon themselves to be able to track their drones through an easier augmented reality system and beneficial to the customers themselves proving improved customer service to Amazon’s loyal people! 

12. Zoopla/Rightmove – Working with Zoopla/Rightmove skignz could help them to create a new way of promoting and advertising their available properties in a more easy, fun and convenient way. Through augmented reality, people in search of a house can go onto the skignz/Zoopla/Rightmove app and scan across houses in an area to see easily through their mobile device which are available and how much for. It allows a simpler and quicker form of contact between the company and the customer and speeds up the process of house hunting.

There are a lot more technology partners that skignz could create a joint venture with however we did want to give you just a few examples of how good the technology could become for skignz and other companies to work together to help create the next generation of technology!

What do you think of our ideas? Please feel free to leave you comments below. 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on any or all of our Social Media Channels.

Retro Gaming - Past, Present to the Future

It is amazing just how much technology is advancing each day and what new investments we are informed of each day.

However it is even better when games that were played 20-30 years ago and even now ones we have to play in arcades, are being brought to us for free through the comfort of our own homes through our very own computers or on our mobile devices.

Do you remember playing some of these games years ago?

- Pac Man
-       Jet Set Willy
- Super Rider
-       Manic Miner
- Space Attack
-       Mario Brothers
- Survival 
- Space Cruiser
-       Daley Thompson's Decathlon
-       Outrun


That’s just a few of the many we used to have a lot of enjoyable moments and memories on. The loading screens of games, turning tapes over or inserting multiple discs just to be able to play the game! Waiting time of 20-30 mins just to play Jet Set Willy or Manic Miner.

Although the graphics are on a different plain these days, the nostalgia surrounding playing the games of your youth still make them engaging and quite addictive. That said not having to plug in your Quickshot II into your Spectrum 48k (with rubber keys) through a Kempston Interface and your old tape player so you can play Daley Thompsons Decathlon does have its advantages.

But will the Iphone/Android handsets break as quickly as your Quickshot II even on rapid fire or will you wear the screen out like you did during the hurdles by pressing  'N & M keys' with 'Symbol shift' to hurdle.

But we wonder now, when these games were out we had to buy the game to be able to play it, nothing was made free and available to us that easy. As those games drone out new ones become about.

Now with the advancement we have different gaming technology devices we use to play games on, although these don’t come free either. There is now a lot of different devices such as Xbox, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation, and Nintendo DS and so on. 

Not mentioning the thousands of games made available to purchase (usually at a costly price) to play on these devices. 



Although now we look at how these retro games have been made available to us for free to be able to play through our computer, is this now an industry within its own right? 

With the technology now available to us, to be able to play these 'old skool' games on our mobile devices and smart phones. it begs the question if these games are being made available for free, games recently launched which you have to purchase to play, will it take 20-30 years for these games to be made available for free?

Will all games be free in different formats for people to use?

It makes us think what the future of gaming will be like? It is always evolving, changing and constantly exceed what went before. 

Will all gaming platforms become as one or will it be kept separate with the advancements of gaming being developed to where they can be charged at a significantly lower price. 

Or will gaming become so popular that it will always be free to download and use, but the revenues are created through in game purchases and real time virtual advertising like in 2nd Life!

skignz hopes to introduce something fresh new to the Games industry in 2015, suffice to say we hope it will open up a whole new area for games developers to explore... We will let you know more in due course!

What do you think the future will be like for the gaming industry? 

For further information on retro gaming then please visit this website: http://bit.ly/1wVYFev 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website: http://www.skignz.com 

and don't forget to check us out on the usual popular Social Media Channels.