Author Archive

Cookers Quick Fit came to me with looking for a solution for attracting new customers. I suggested that they may get a better response using postcards, with the impression of a personal message rather than a sales promotion. Since a postcard arrives already opened, your message can’t be ignored – even by people screening their mail over the bin. I had previously designed their logo and used this as the main focus on the front of the card. A leading cooker manufacturer were happy to have their images used in this promotion and supplied us with a range of high quality shots for use in the design, free of charge – great value for money.

The cards were printed in full colour on the front and black on the reverse on 330gsm artboard and gloss laminated on the front.

Newsletters are a simple and effective way of advertising whilst giving news of interest to a special group. For the VfM newsletter (Value for Money) I used my customers’ existing corporate brand for the overall design and added a few custom elements of my own with the ‘Procurement Stamp’ and ‘Google like’ headline. Check out the snapshots below for a closer look.

 

Produced for a leading Housing Association, this booklet is aimed at residents and provides information about what the Association are doing about communal aerials before the digital switchover. Click on the thumbnails below to look at some pages.

 

A 12 page, A5 sized Booklet. Printed in full colour throughout, cover on 180gsm silk and inner pages on 100gsm silk.

Produced for a leading Housing Association, this booklet is directed at housing residents with common questions about the Digital Switchover. Click on the thumbnails below to look at some pages.

 

A 12 page, A5 sized Booklet. Printed in full colour throughout, cover on 180gsm silk and inner pages on 100gsm silk.

CID… Change Invest Deliver

The CID campaign was an internally run promotion at a leading Housing Association to promote value for money. The CID concept is the product of a brainstorming session between the Value For Money Champions who ultimately decided that CID should be a character and there would be a teaser campaign before the launch of the new initiative.

And that’s were I come in. I took the Champions ideas and developed the CID character using Adobe Illustrator.

Working with the Communications Team, I developed the ‘Coming Soon CID’ which was posted on the company intranet as a teaser. To coincide with this I arranged for A2 and A3 teaser posters to be displayed around head office and local offices.

For the launch of the initiative I designed another range of posters explaining all about CID along with CID balloons and name badges to identify the CID Champions. The Communications Team launched the CID intranet page encouraging feedback and Value for Money suggestions from colleagues. The response was so great that we designed and published a CID newsletter to all colleagues promoting the savings achieved with some initiative.

The CID Champions later took their initiative to their customers at the annual Residents Open Day. With a community theme for the day the CID stall was dressed as a Newsagents. Working with the print team we produced comment cards, balloons, posters, pads, newsletters and news boards to dress the stall. With the exception of the balloons all printing was producing using the company’s internal Print Service offering exceptional value for money.

This project was a lot of fun to work on and very rewarding in terms of response and feedback.

Advantis Home Maintenance

Advantis Home Maintenance use our content management approach to keep their web site fresh and up-to-date. We provided the basic website layout, created the customised graphics to suit and host the service. Advantis keep the pages fresh with weekly blogs via the user friendly interface.

Upgrading ALL of your software together can be hazardous to your website’s health!

Last week several of the packages I use on a frequent basis all popped up with update notices. Without even a thought I upgraded the packages and kept on with my work. A couple of days later my partner said that he noticed that my web site was not looking too good and low and behold; it was mostly wrecked!

The solution was of course to restore from backups. Unfortunately however some of the backups were made before certain updates and some were made after. In the end the web site had to be rebuilt section by section making hand repairs to code as we went along.

The reason I mention this is to remind everybody that it is essential to follow a backup procedure and never stray from it. No matter how many years you’ve got away with being lazy; one day it will get you. Like it got me!

…for me it is simplicity.

With the advent of accessible and competitively priced full colour printing it can be tempting to cram your business card with tons of colour and information – however, it is very easy to go overboard and make your crucial contact details hard to find.

Size is important with business cards. An average business card is only 8.5cm wide, so less is more. Your card should have your name, your company name, and contact details, a logo if you have one and colour/graphics that are identifiable with your business.

For my cards I wanted a clean, uncluttered design that sends out a professional vibe and shows clearly my contact details – the number one priority.

But I’m a designer, so i wanted my cards to have a little something special. I chose to have my star device applied as gloss varnished highlights to the one side of my card to add a little interest without overwhelming the minimalist design.

Jane Boardman’s Business Card: Printed single colour, both sides on 400gsm silk artboard (50% recycled). Matt laminated both sides with a spot UV varnish on the front.

I’m Jane and I’m a lover of design and print – and this is my website.

I have been in this industry 16 years and during this time I have seen great design. I have also seen my share of poor design that does not communicate a message effectively. continue