London animation company aka Pizazz has changed its name to Studio aka, reflecting the company's move to a more collaborative studio environment over recent years.

The company represents a number of animator/directors: Mario Cavalli, Marc Craste, Mic Graves, Dominic Griffiths, Oliver Harrison, Dave McKean, Grant Orchard, Ashley Potter, Shynola and Bram Ttwheam, as well as creative director/director Philip Hunt. The continued blurring of the lines between interactive, 2D and 3D animation was in large part the reason behind the name change.

"The change has happened over the last three or four years. We've changed from being a traditional animation studio to most of the work being creatively led from within studio. We are known for our creative pitching and many of our directors are also designers," says Hunt. "We've gone from having no in-house talent to having in-house talent and we won D&AD last year for Interactive."

Other interactive projects the Studio has produced include a web project for Hong Kong's "IdN" magazine and another project for British Petroleum. Hunt says the 3D side of the Studio is also defining itself; Marc Craste is developing an animated short film and continuing collaborations with London's FrameStore and Soho 601 assisting as the Studio becomes more self-sufficient.

"We are not doing so much traditional cartoon work although you will find examples of that. There is a definite, strong design sense to or work rather than being standard out-of-the-box caricature," says Hunt. "We've tested the water with studioaka.co.uk as our Web presence for a year now and have established ourselves as a collective entity of directors and designers. We have much more the feeling of a studio environment rather than an agency or traditional animation company. This is important due to the unsure footing animation has in the world of advertising. People seem to want to reinvent the use of animation across many types of media."

Hunt is one of four partners in Studio aka, along with Mario Cavalli, Pam Dennis and Sue Goffe.

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Studio aka> www.studioaka.co.uk