graphic design | web design mansfield, nottingham

Gill Wilson Paper Artist

2008-05-08T12:41:00.003Z

Completed and live today is brand new website for Gill Wilson.

Gill is a Fine Artist based in her studio in Crich, Derbyshire. Specialising in hand-made paper making from plant fibres, Gill produces commissioned artwork to clients specification.

The website shows a portfolio of completed projects ans well as profile information and contact details.

The website also features a news section which can be updated in real time by Gill herself, along with updating the projects, once complete.

Lollipop Camera causes Web Stir

2008-04-30T14:30:00.004Z

Well it's been a hectic day so far for one of our clients in Oxfordshire. Today Routesafe launched their new lollipop camera with Kirklees council and have been in undated with press and media coverage.

The camera which is designed to sit on the lollipop, can help protect both crossing people and the children against dangerous drivers.

With coverage on BBC Breakfast, Radio 5 Live, Radio 1 Newsbeat, BBC Website and BBC News (former BBC News 24) the website has seen a fair amount of traffic today, with plenty more to come.

Making It! Celebrate 6 Years of Success

2008-04-29T13:58:00.005Z

On 22nd April was Mansfield Making It! Centre 6 Years of Success celebration. Many local business people and supporters went a long to offer their support. Also pupils from the local primary school were there to show just what a great resource the centre is in Mansfield.

I was there too, leading in a helping hand by taking up the challenge of trying to build a buzzer game, one that visiting children get to try to build. Apologies for the face, I was concentrating!!

It was a great event and everyone there enjoyed themselves.

The Making It! Centre is currently fund raising to help it carry on the great work it is doing in the community. They are looking for people and businesses to donate money to help fund a variety of activities. Businesses for £60 can sponsor 10 free child's entrances to the centre and also receive a brick with the company name on, on the sponsorship wall.

To find out more contact Sue Walters at the Making It! Centre.

Taylors Transport Use the Web to Communicate

2008-04-22T17:02:00.000Z

2 new websites have been recently completed for Taylors.

Taylors transport have 2 sides to the business. B Taylors Transport and Taylors International. Their brief was to develop to 2 websites for each business, but to keep them part of the Taylor group. Each website is a bespoke design, built to the needs of the business. It porvides customers and potential customers an easy way to see the services offered and the benefits of Taylors.

Networks 4 Business Website

2008-04-16T15:52:00.003Z

Recently completed was a small website for Networks 4 Business (N4B).

The website gives a basic overview of the company, who provide business mobile phone tariffs for corporate customers. The website will develop over time and we are currently working on some further enhancements and interactivity for their customers. So watch this space.

Website Design and Autotrader

2008-04-16T09:19:00.003Z

Recently completed has been a brand new website for Parkway Motor Group. Including new functionality as Autotrader integration and database development.

Parkways's existing website was cumbersome, did not reflect the current position of the company and was difficult to use. They asked us for help, so we set about finding out what their business goals where and what their customers wanted.

Once we had our research we set about updating the website, with and updated design to reflect the company's ambition and added functionality to make it easy to use. The new website has a fully bespoke built admin system, that makes it easy to add edit and delete sold cars from the system in an instance.

A major function of the new website is the integration with the Autotrader website. When new cars are entered or updated on the website, they are then sent to Autotrader to update their website. Therefore allowing Parkway to advertise updated vehicles on 2 major websites from master database.

If you like to know more about this project or other bespoke solutions, please give us a call on 01623 600620

Premier Foods Folder

2007-08-17T10:17:00.001Z

Premier Foods Folder, originally uploaded by xvc.

Recently completed was a new induction folder for Premier Foods. The brief was to design a folder to be given to new recruits and to convey the size and quality of brands the company owns.

The folder is printed and laminated and then bound with a semi-opaque polypropylene cover. Inside a d-ring mechanism is fitted to allow information to be added and changed accordingly.

Dividers were also designed and printed to finish the project and to give an overall impression of quality and pride.

Adobe Award Winners Revealed

2007-08-07T14:37:00.000Z

Adobe have put a page on their website with this years adobe student award winners.

The competition is an international one and students from around the globe submit work in various categories to win one of the awards.

It's a great to look at and see what up and coming talent is about, and also, again, its a good source of ideas and inspiration. Competitions like this are great for the industry as they promote and push creative thinking. See the winners here.

Inspiration is all Around

2007-08-06T17:20:00.000Z

Well it's been a long time since the last post. Lots and lots of things happening, and plenty of new work being started and completed.

Also managed a holiday recently in France, which served as a good rest as well as inspiration for the coming year. Going out and visiting places, is a great way of keeping the creative juices topped up. It can be quite refreshing to visit new places and see different takes on the same problem.

One of my favourite examples in France was a town map that I came across in a little village called Biot.

I really liked the solution to this age old problem. It was very welcoming and certainly interesting to look at. In fact I later found out that quite a few village maps around the area where in the same style.

Corporate Identity - Is it more than just a logo?

2007-05-24T12:31:00.000Z

Well this morning was a bit nerve racking, as I was booked to stand in front of 130+ business men and women of Mansfield and give them a presentation on Corporate Identity.

This has been in the pipeline for several months now. So after working with Glenn from Woodhead on their corporate identity since Christmas, we thought it would be a good idea to present a balanced view on the subject. I would talk about Corporate Identity what it is and is not, a bit of background information. Then Glenn spoke about his experiences and what he and the company learnt from the exercise.

The presentation took place at 8am this morning at Mansfield 2020 Breakfast meeting and was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, which showed the broad range of material that has been produced for Woodhead and K-Panels.

The feedback afterwards was excellent and the new brochures that we had produced for Woodhead's were distributed at the tables.

Me, presenting… ooh eck!

Glenn doing his bit!

The brochure was well received.

Arials Dad is 50

2007-05-10T16:33:00.000Z

That font that is probably the 2nd most used font on your PC (after Times), Arial, has a very famous father that is now 5o years old.

Arial is a close relative of the most famous font Helvetica, albeit a slightly younger version. And now Helvetica is 50 years old. Used through out the Western world, Helvetica has made it through the graphic design mincer to emerge as a true classic.

One of it's most famous incarnations that I know of, is its use in the Orange logo. So it's not quite the true Helevtica, as it is a slightly updated version, but to most it looks the same. The word Orange is written in Helvetica, and its simple understated presence works well for the orange brand.

To find out more about this plain, yet universal daddy of fonts visit the BBC website.

Focus on Branding

2007-05-03T09:30:00.000Z

We have recently completed a re-brand and updated corporate identity for one of our new customers. Focus Management for Business Ltd.

With updated logo, corporate identity and revised stationery, Focus are now set for the future. To find out more visit the full branding story on our website.

Below are a few examples of the work we did.

Sample pages from the corporate identity guidelines

Sample of the Compliment slip (front & back)

More New Customers

2007-05-02T14:26:00.000Z

Well it's been a very busy month. Lots of things happening, so not much time to post information on here.

One of the things we have been working on is new customers and we have secured several more in the past month including:

BizFizz
Warsop Sporting Trust
B&K Nottingham Ltd
B. Taylors Transport
Taylors International
Chemex International

Watch this space to see the forth coming fruits of our labours!

CCM LPAY New Website Launched

2007-03-30T15:58:00.000Z

Launched this afternoon was the new website for CCM LPAY.

Specialising in payroll solutions, CCM LPAY provide SME's with payroll solutions tailored to their needs.

The website is fully updateable in-house and comes with a full statistics package, so they will be able to know how many have clicked on the links from this blog!

Built using CSS and XHTML the website is fully developed for maximum search engine optimisation, so they will be soon benefiting from a better position in the search engines.

New Customers so far this Year

2007-03-29T17:40:00.000Z

This year has been a good start so far, and 3 months in, we have successfully pitched and won many new customers, including:

G. Wilton Decorators
CCM LPAY
Earthplan
Maurice Hill
Novocellus
Perry Electrical
Premier Foods

More information about the work we are doing with these customers to follow. Keep watching…

How to get a Free Book on Direct Mail

2007-03-20T10:26:00.000Z

If you are interested in starting with Direct Mail, or you run direct mail campaigns, then this is for you.

The Royal Mail has launched a Direct Mail service that allows you to create a campaign online direct from their website. To promote this they are offering everyone who visits the site a free book on direct mail - "Direct Mail for Dummies".

To get your hands on your free copy, click the link below and at the bottom of the page in the centre is a link to order your free copy.

I received mine this morning, so I'll having a good read through for any marketing ideas.

Webmail is Upgraded

2007-03-19T21:50:00.000Z

As we continually strive to bring better and more advanced solutions to our customers, I can proudly announce we've upgraded our webmail for all our web hosting customers.

You can now check your emails, send new ones and download attachments, from anywhere in the world. It's like Hotmail, but without the adverts!

And the system is included with all our standard hosting packages, so all our customers benefit immediately.

The system comes complete with:

To Do List
Calendar
Notes Application
Bookmarks
Remote POP Fetch

If you would like to know more, then you can visit our website which has a more information about webmail.

2 Great Offers

2007-03-19T16:37:00.000Z

We've updated our latest offers on the website with 2 excellent promotions.

Click on the links above to find out more.

Mansfield Museum wages war against the Eco-Invaders

2007-03-14T13:32:00.000Z

We have recently completed a new interactive game for the Mansfield Museum website.

Having been pitching against several other companies our dedication to customer service, creative ideas, and past record won the day, and now the museum have a new flash based game for their website.

To find out more about the interactive web based game and the website visit the full story on our website.

Is Chocolate the New Caffeine?

2007-02-21T14:39:00.000Z

A new report from an expert at the University of Nottingham has found that eating chocolate helps sharpen the mind - short term, 3-4 hours.

At last proof, as to why the chocolate biscuits in our office don't last more than a day.

Building a Team for Business Growth

2007-02-07T13:07:00.000Z

Last Thursday night I was invited to talk at the "Technology Business Forum" at the University of Nottingham.

The event took place at the Business School at their new campus, which is on the site of the old Raleigh factory. The place itself is amazing, all new and architecturally interesting.

The evening was an informal chat with Nikin Patel (Chief Executive Officer of Molecular Profiles and Myself about how to recruit a successful team to build business. The chat was chaired by Rob Pittam who is a business reporter for the BBC's working lunch. I also discovered that he is a local lad having been born and bred in Mansfield.

It was a bit nerve racking at first being unsure of what to expect, and not knowing if I was in for a grilling. But the event was an informal chat with other genuine businesses interested in how the business has grown and succeeded.

It was also a great opportunity for myself and the company. As it's not often you get to talk to a captive audience of 30 odd businesses who are there to listen and learn about your business.

Afterwards there was a buffet and plenty more questions, and a great many brochures and business cards where handed out. And even though I did not get to eat my cheesecake (too busy talking), it was well worth it. Over all a great success - lets see what happens.

For more info on the Technology Business Forum visit their web page on the Nottingham University Website.

Some quick tips on communicating to your target audience at an exhibition

2007-02-02T08:37:00.000Z

Do your homework and plan

You will need to clearly identify and comprehensively understand your target audience, you can only sell yourself and your business successfully if you know what it is they want and can provide it to them in a confidant and prepared way.

Before the event

Use press releases and direct mail before the event to inform people about what your doing, where, when, why and what they will get from visiting you.

Choose a suitable location for your exhibition booth; pick a place that will attract your intended audience.

Know exactly how much space will be available for your exhibition booth it is nothing worse than turning up with a stand that is to big or small.

During the event

Stay to the side, out of the way so people can view your booth.
Do not leave your booth.
Have giveaways that are well branded and will work.

After the event

Always follow up your leads promptly after the event, if you do not then you could have wasted your time doing an exhibition in the first place.

For this full article please follow this link to our hints and tips section.

Xposure's pot washing campaign - please support us

2007-02-02T08:25:00.000Z

Just to share with the world Xposure's pot washing rota was designed to spread the task of cleaning up amongst all staff including management.

Monday Week 1 Andy Week 2Heather
Tuesday Week 1 Lee Week 2 Owen
Wednesday Week 1 Nigel Week 2 Matt
Thursday Week 1 Mark Week 2 Jeff
Friday Week 1 Julie Week 2 Julie

This system works fairly well with the majority of the team doing their fair share.
BUT unfortunately the Managing Director (MD) of the company is not pulling his weight, resulting in dirty pots lying around till the next persons turn.

This should not be allowed to continue.

The team at Xposure are starting a campaign and would like you to support us.
We would like your support to get Nigel to do the Dirty Pots on time every time.
You can support us by contributing to this post by stating - "Managing Director Manage The Pots As The Xposure Team Cleans The Pots All To Often" this campaign is also shortly known as the "MDMTPATXTCTPATO" campaign.

Please support us!

The Companies Act and Your Website

2007-01-21T13:00:00.000Z

Its not very well known, but the update to the Companies Act came into affect on January 1st 2007, that affects your website and emails. It is most likely, without you knowing, that your company could be breaking the law and in risk of being fined.

The changes affect the details that must now be included on emails and your company website. To find out more about this change in the law visit the full story "The Companies Act Update And Your Website" in our news section

6 Low Risk Ways of Improving Your Profit

2007-01-09T11:57:00.000Z

Our latest newsletter was sent out yesterday, with plenty of information on latest news, case studies and most importantly hints and tips.

This months hints and tips give you some tried and trusted ways of improving your profit. Including tips on a 'bounce back system' and the '80/20 rule'.

The full article on 6 low risk ways of improving profit can be found on our website.

Also included was a case study on the Greenhouse website. This is a the latest bespoke database driven website that promotes creative industries in the region. Fully updateable by the administrators in all regions, it tracks useage data and automatically changes content based on predefined rules.

To receive our monthly newsletter with hints & tips, case studies and special offers, fill in the form (right).