Preston Vision Identity

Preston Vision is a relatively new company formed to drive forward the regeneration and commercial development of Preston as a major growing City. The company needed a new identity and we were selected after pitching against a number of other leading North West agencies. The resulting identity has flexibility for use in a variety of media and the logo has already been applied to a website and other marketing collateral. We also designed the company’s corporate brochure and and a full identity manual for the brand.

New identity for AL Consulting

We have recently designed a new company logo and stationery for AL Consulting, the company, based in Aughton, Lancaster, provides strategic business consultancy for clients, ranging from corporate level defence clients, right through to SME's which is a growing area of business revenue for the company. The logo is based upon an 'Inukshuk'(pronounced 'in-ook-shook'). From the Canadian arctic, in the Inuit language Inuktitut, inukshuk means "likeness of a person" hence the shape of the rocks. The rocks are used as a directional guide across frozen arctic wastes, so they are a very appropriate metaphor for a business consultancy.

This week in the studio...

This week we have had a revamp of the front of the studio with a new window, which we will be adding our signage to very shortly. The whole building is being painted too so it is going to look very new and fresh, which can only be good for business. We welcome Ria Gatanou-Northwood as account manager, Ria has an excellent background in sales and marketing and we very much look forward to working with her. We have lots of new business coming through so will be regularly updating the site with examples.

Email signatures, the hidden giant in your marketing toolbox.

Anybody taking a pet to the vets will know the power of the cross-sell, as we leave with worming tablets, flea treatment or god knows what else we have been suggested. So that quietly murmured ask,just as you thought you'd got out scott free really works in driving up revenue and profit. This is where your email signature strip comes in, as an ideal tool to remind existing and new clients of other products in your portfolio, or at the very least, a link to your website - every time you send an email. happy cross-selling!

Guess where in Preston?

Just for the heck of it, so no prizes!

Our new recruit.

Harley has been making his presence felt in our studio, and when he needs time to think up a great new idea, he just takes it easy.

Summer Colours.

When thinking of new brochures, mailings and emailers, it's a good idea to consider the colours and maybe use the excuse of a new marketing initiative to explore lesser used colours within your brand's palette, or maybe adding new colours.

Colour is great for creating new associations and tapping into the prevailing public uplift in mood that comes with the changing seasons, so with a summer colour scheme, it may be yellows, fresh greens and blues, then just adjust your messaging to suit the style of the design theme, add a nice recycled stock for tactile appeal. It can equate to impact and response, so there are serious results to be gained, just by thinking about how the use of colour can be leveraged in your campaigns.

Old cricket pitch on Moor Park.

New website.

Our new website is now online at apple-design.com, we will be regularly updating with new work, and adding to our list of services. You can also now put a face to our names and find out more about us when we are not here, bashing out great design! If you have a requirement not mentioned on the site, just pick up the phone, we can probably help.

New corporate identity for Preston Vision.

Apple have recently designed a new corporate identity for Preston Vision, a company formed to promote living, working and development opportunities in Preston.

The company will have a major role in putting Preston firmly on the national landscape and the corporate identity will be an important part of conveying that message. See the holding page at www.prestonvision.co.uk

Effective Email Marketing

Email is still one of the most measurable and effective marketing tools, when good data is combined with a relevant message and persuasive creative, it is very easy to get a sound return on investment, and it's easy to build on your success to achieve regular sales and enquiries for relatively little effort.

If you are interested in email as part of your marketing mix and want a low cost introductory package to get you started, give Phil a call today 01772 561234 for prices and samples.

My Wage

I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have gladly paid.

~ Jessie B Rittenhouse

What makes an effective brochure?

The change to how Royal Mail charged for us to post out mail has had a large effect on the chosen formats for brochures as many clients choose to get within the small letter dimensions, effectively A5 and under 100 grams. This and the growth of email as a chosen marketing channel, and recessionary pressure, has meant that consumers and b2b clients are not seeing the creative level of formats and materials they would have a few years ago.

This is actually the opportunity, as bucking the trend and using the larger formats and more creative materials can lead to a much greater ROI as customers appreciate and respond to the impact from more creative pieces that really sell the products and services with size and material creating a real statement.

This then leads to segmentation of your audience, as you may not want to send a more expensive format to all your database, you may also want to consider this as a lower quantity give away at shows and exhibitions.

Yes it does cost more to send out, but if enquiries and response from your play it safe brochures and leaflets are getting lost in the small letter fog, then it may be worth taking a risk?

The Shell Directional Policy Matrix and you.

This tool can be quite useful for deciding on where to put your resources, it is a corporate model, but it still has relevance even if you are a sole trader. Essentially there are times in any business when you need to decide which areas are worth pursuing and which areas you need to drop. Google it for a more thorough explanation.

Power of Women event success for Blackpool Council

Apple were recently asked to design and produce event collateral for the Power Of Women event for Blackpool Council's Young Peoples Services. This involved the design of leaflets and posters, as well as supply of promotional items. The event was held on the 8th of March as part of International Womens day.

International Women's Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

The Power of Women Event was a great success, attracting a full attendance, particularly from women in the community surrounding Blackpool.

Integrating social media into your marketing mix.

Social media is a great way of boosting your online presence, reaching niche audiences who can add a new dimension to the type of new enquiries you receive and the wide range of networks you can access. B2B companies have been fairly slow to take up social media as a viable marketing tool, but there are some very tangible benefits to investing in this area as a complement to your traditional marketing mix. An example of this is that within your friends, fans or followers, you will build up a network, within this network there can be powerful decision makers who you would not be able to get through to either by direct mail or the phone. Your social media channel gets straight through to these audiences in a different way, reaching them when they are relaxing and in a more relaxed state, late at night for example. Although enquiries often don't come immediately, as with any networking activity, what you put in is what you get out. You will often find this becomes an out-of -hours activity where you strike up conversations with new people, who undoubtedly know other people in their wider network, people who could be very useful to you. If you are looking for ways to start or maximise your social media activities, contact us to discuss the many ways we could help.

Public Sector - Maximising return on tight budgets.

As well as many leading private sector firms, Apple now works for a wide range of Public Sector organisations, including four separate NHS Trusts, Local Councils and within the Educational Sector. As budgets in the public sector are being scrutinised it is inevitable that marketing will be a focus for cuts in spending and much greater accountability, yet this against a background of increased national and regional competition and the need for organisations to differentiate themselves to keep and increase customer loyalty.

We have worked hard to develop a very wide portfolio of services, that accommodate many of the regularly needed public sector marketing communication requirements, we also keep to a low cost pricing structure, to enable more client purchasing power and the ability to respond quickly to marketing opportunities, in whatever media, as they arise.

If you are interested in learning more about our public sector work, give Phil a call at the office or email us any time.

Why pop-up when you can really stand apart?

Click on the image above for details of our current all-inclusive display offer. Call Phil for more info on +44 1772 561234

Ps. could Apple be designing and sending email campaigns like this one for your business?

Apple Creative, appointed for Ring and Reg Website Design.

We have recently been appointed by Ring&Reg to design their new website, set to become an important payment and information gateway for the launch of Ring&Reg as a membership based parking initiative. The backend functionality is being provided by the company's in-house team, integrated with the creative and front-end elements provided by Apple.

Apple awarded East Lancs PCT, GP's Vocational Training Scheme Website

Apple have been chosen to design and develop a database website for East Lancs PCT, the website will be a hub for GP's undertaking continuous professional development and will contain training materials, categorised downloads and event information.

Time for a Marketing Makeover?

If you are thinking your marketing could be a lot better, but don't have a fortune to spend, why not take a small amount of time out and arrange to have a chat with us at Apple. We are a quality design and marketing agency, highly qualified and the agency of choice to many, well known, quality companies and organisations. Yet we are equally adept at working with smaller companies, charities and even for one-off private requirements.

There are no obligations in talking with us, in fact, for the majority of enquiries, we do advise clients to shop around and compare before making their final choice. We understand that choosing an agency is a big step and it is important to get it right. If you are a larger corporate client, or public sector body, you are equally in good company, as we have proven results and can provide strong testimonials from many sector areas. Call me, Phil Ashforth, Managing Director, on +44 1772 561234 or email me direct to my blackberry from our website - info at apple-design.com

Check us out on Facebook, better still, become a fan.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Apple-Creative-Design-Limited/266432807075

University of Central Lancashire UCLAN, Westleigh Conference Centre DVD

Apple Creative have recently been appointed to produce a virtual video tour of UCLAN's new Westleigh Conference Centre, once the site of a cold war nuclear bunker. When completed in the summer, Westleigh will be the premier location in Lancashire for conferences, events and private functions. you can read more about this exciting development in the article below, published in the Lancashire Evening Post.

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/The-underground-house-party.6028005.jp

Apple on Recommended Agency Register (RAR)

We have recently been recommended by enough clients, enabling us to be a member of the Recommended Agency Register. We will be adding the logo to our site soon and putting up a more complete profile. Visit RAR here http://agencyregister.co.uk/

Studio

The new year seems like a distant memory already. We have recently been awarded a project with Chubb Security, producing and fulfilling many of their training manuals that go out to their alarm engineers. We have also Won a tender for the University of Central Lancashire to produce a DVD flythrough, for a new conference centre on a site that includes an old wartime bunker. Our email marketing side continues to be very busy with clients reporting a good response to Xmas campaigns. Several websites underway including a large corporate site for Evolve Energy, continue to think about the next move for our own site, but it is ranking extremely well and getting very good enquiries, so no rush. On the literature side, our studio are very busy with print and continuing to work on a sales folder for Lancashire Daf, as well as brochures and direct mail for Blackpool Accountants, Nixon Williams. Anyway, that's enough name dropping for now, better crack on...

HNY2010!

Happy New Year and best wishes for a succesful and prosperous 2010!

Check your inbound links...

Inbound links play a large part in determining your website's rank in Google and other search engines, you can use 'Yahoo Site Explorer', use that as a search term, then simply enter your web address. You can then select to view the number of inlinks that come from outside your domain, to your site. If you have a site where there are alot of high page ranked (Google) sites, i.e. scored 4 and above, linking to you, then this will, in turn, make your site rank higher, as well as all your other optimisation activities. You can check your home page rank in google by activating the function on the Google Toolbar, it appears as a small green bar, which will say when hovered over: 'PageRank is Google's view of the importance of this page.' then the score i.e. 3/10. If you are looking to make substantial increases in your website ranking, it is unlikely you will compete with companies who have amassed a large number of relevant inbound links, so your strategy may then need to revert to less mainstream search terms that have less competition. It's great to have a look at the way your site is working and how many people are linking in, but it's a much better idea to look after the more basic functions of your business and its service levels/ quality / marketing etc, which will have a much greater bearing on your success.

Make your site a favourite, for more enquiries.

Here is a simple technique, to get more enquiries and sales, based on peoples browsing behaviour and the tendency for people to add sites to their favourites, or bookmarking a site for viewing later. It is simply adding a link to your home page that enables a visitor to add it to their favourites immediately. you can get a link, similar to the one on our home page, for this very purpose, for free at http://www.addthis.com/ it is as simple as adding a line of code where you want the link, and visitors can bookmark your site or send it to a wide number of social marketing platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter.

We do marketing too.

Just in case you are looking at getting a bit of marketing advice for the New Year, why not visit our other site: http://www.marketing-consultant-uk.com/ yes it's still us, but we put a different hat on for the marketing side of things, and there are some good articles on there if you need to make more appointments or increase sales fast. The '15 ways to make more telephone appointments more often' is almost at 10,000 views, and is a top article on http://www.ezinearticles.com/ there are quite a few other areas covered too, at Apple we are qualified marketers with MA, MBA and DipM qualifications to name but a few, so we can advise on many areas of marketing.

Today is Lancashire day!! N' I want me' chippy tea...

Last call for Xmas...

This year, we have been working on quite a wide range of Christmas Cards and Emailers and we also have a few nice 2010 calendars in the studio. If you're one of those last minute shoppers, there's still time to get any promotions designed and printed in time for Christmas and the New Year, give us a call on 01772 561234.

Apple exhibiting at Lancaster University today...

Today we are manning a stand at the Flying Start Business Fair, at Lancaster University, Flying Start is a three day intensive boot camp for students and graduates who have a business idea and are looking to start trading within the next twelve months. It is part of a programme of events for Global Entrepeneurship Week. The idea of the business fair, which is on the last day of the event, is to let students meet local businesses and get access to advice and guidance on a range of different business areas.

We are delighted to have been invited to attend the business fair and we look forward to meeting lots of students and discussing their business ideas.

Follow us on twitter

Yes, like everyone else we're on twitter, www.twitter.com/applecreate our tweets may be months apart sometimes, but it's worth the wait when they come.

New Apple website launches soon...

We are currently in the process of designing a new website, the new format will show more immediate examples of the creative work, in easy to access format concentrating on a more visual approach, over a smaller, yet more frequently updated range of live projects. We have worked on many new projects and campaigns that have not been displayed on the current site due to workload in the studio. Our new site will show photographs of work much earlier and have case studies of the larger scale projects we have worked on. Coming soon!

Studio move completed.

We have recently expanded our studio space within the same building to give us a larger street presence, we now have a large window sign, so drivers on the A6 into Preston can now see exactly where we are! It has also meant we now have more off road parking and a little more studio space to spread out into. The main studio room has excellent light with a high ceiling still with the original victorian cornicing and sash windows.

Free Ecommerce event for your diary...see you there!

"Maximise Your Ecommerce Profitability" - FREE Seminar
An invitation is extended to attend a breakfast Seminar being held at the Leyland Hotel. Don’t miss this session – it will transform your approach to the Internet.


•Find out about the do’s and don’ts of website design
•Is pay-per-click right for you?
•Find out about free tools to transform your website
•Covert visitors to buyers
•Email marketing
•Can you set up and deploy a white-label website within minutes?
•……and more
Speakers include Lee Thompson, Sales Director of Exact Abacus, Phil Ashforth from Apple Design, Rob Galkoff from The Business Consultants and Khalid Saifullah, from Business Link Northwest.


Places are limited and interest is already considerable, so Click here to Register for this FREE breakfast Seminar

Registration: 9.00am – Tea/Coffee and bacon butties!
Location: Leyland Hotel
Duration: 2 Hours

www.exactabacus.com/EventRegistration.aspx

Good copy sells.

If you are currently writing your own copy for brochures, ads or the web, it may be a good idea to consider using the skills of a professional copywriter. A good copywriter, when combined with a talented design team, can make the difference between mediocre results and something much more impressive. Finding a good copywriter is not difficult and most will offer a sample of work relevant to your enquiry. Ultimately, you have to ask yourself if writing your own copy is the best use of your time, and if for a reasonable investment, you could be getting much better results, without the headache of doing it all yourself.

The value of exhibitions

When you have planned to exhibit, it can often seem like a groundrush as you get nearer to the event and realise that you only have a number of days to get everything ready, produced, insured and powered up on the stand. There is nothing worse than getting it wrong and having to repair things on the day, usually with an overactive cheque book and your neighbouring exhibitors looking over at your several square metres of bareness with knowing amusement. Planning is essential, and from a creative point of view, getting the one strong message across can give you a real benefit, and you only have that one window of opportunity to get it right. With early planning and a strong creative message, innovation in how you display products and services, exhibitions can be great at raising your profile and give a big boost to incoming leads. Think colour, think light and don't be afraid to explore more abstract ways of bringing your products to life. It is the one marketing tool that gives you this opportunity to exercise your brand in new creative approaches that create interest and give your stand that wow factor. There's nothing better than fielding appreciative comments from all who visit, and getting loads of leads to work on when you get back.

Busy times..

We are well and truly into the holiday season, which for a design agency can be a quiet time but happily not for us this year. That's not to say we don't have capacity for alot more so keep it coming...

Shark in the water

Need marketing advice? - visit our micro-site

Celsian Marketing is our separate sister company that deals with marketing consultancy enquiries that are more marketing, rather than design related. Check it out! http://www.marketing-consultant-uk.com/

Thinkbox ad.

A great ad for Thinkbox, featuring sounds from other great ads (please note, we are showing this ad only because we like it! We had absolutely nothing to do with this, or any other ads we feature on our blog, unless stated - just to make that clear).

We're on Twitter too...

Check out our twitter page at www.twitter.com/applecreate

Are you suffering from marketing VPL?

(Visible Promotional Lapse) No, it's nothing to do with pants... More to do with you simply stopping marketing to the point where both existing and prospective clients think you may have stopped trading altogether. Marketing VPL can be an embarrassing condition, but is easily treated with an appointment at your local design practitioner. such as ourselves may we suggest!

Studio moves.

We have decided to move the studio to a larger, ground floor office, within the same building which will give us the opportunity for some street level branding, a cooler (temperature!), larger creative studio, and also provide more parking for clients visiting the studio. It may also mean less of a strenuous stepping workout for clients climbing up to our current top-floor offices. We will keep our existing offices at the top, so you can still enjoy a good workout any time you visit.

Time for a summer branding pit stop?

Whilst the summer months can be a little quieter for some business sectors, it can provide the ideal opportunity to make changes to your brand, effectively bringing it in for a pit-stop, enabling your positioning and communications to be right on target for the last two quarters of the year. A good idea to start, is just to look at your visual communications, quite literally - lay it all out on a table, including a print out of your website, and try to look for any signs of drift, any areas in need of attention. It is a good discipline to get into in general, but if you are in a position to make some improvements, this point in the year is an ideal time to get to work. The other question to ask is, what new ideas can we generate? Ask your staff for a few ideas, it may be a surprise to hear some of the great things that can be thought up. The next stage is action, start immediately getting the things done and implemented. Come back after the summer with new tyres, a full tank and no more stops needed...Oh yes, the racing metaphors are because it's obviously the British Grand Prix this weekend, apologies if you're not a racing fan.

Here's a Dr. Pepper ad, just brilliant... and what's the worst that could happen?

What makes a great promotional product?

Here are a few ideas of what we think makes a promotional give-away a worthwhile marketing tool.

A, Getting it cheap enough
B, It being as useful as possible
C, It having desk stickability, i.e. it doesn't start bugging you.
D, Having a slightly higher perceived value.
E, Being a good fit for what you do as a business/ organisation
F, Your logo prints well onto it
G, Getting your hands on it quick.

So there you are, our favourites are hexagonal pen holders and you can't go wrong with a nice USB drive, (just don't skimp on the memory).

MVLB - Marketing on a Very Low Budget.

When it's tight, you can probably still squeeze out a few small initiatives, but what about when it's really, really tight? Rather than face total marketing paralysis, you can try thinking up, and actioning, small ideas to get your marketing out of flat line and back into a normal sinus rhythm. It is always a good idea to speak with your agency in these times, as we are experts in creating something half reasonable, from very little. MVLB is about dipping into the expanse of your imagination and getting new ideas. Not without a little money being needed, but also about maximising leverage, creating disproportionate results from your tiny investment. Main tools: phone, letter and piggybacking/ sharing opportunities with others who are in the same predicament.

This week in the Apple Studio.

This week we have been working on a wide range of projects, we are currently designing signage for a number of locations around Blackpool, for Blackpool Council's Young Peoples services. This follows the recent rebranding samples of which are displayed on our web home page. The locations vary from a training and resource centre, to a main office in the Town Centre. We also have a number of web projects coming to final stages, including Ashton, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust and hairdressing salon, Urban Hair. We will get samples of these up on the website as soon as completed.

Hoarding for Christie.

This is a photograph of the site hoarding we designed and project managed for the new multi-million pound Oak Road treatment centre, new build project. Sited opposite the main entrance of The Christie, It is displaying the artists impressions of the building as it is constructed and also incorporates images of other sites under construction in Oldham and Salford. You can find out more about The Christie's full development programme at christie.nhs.uk - Click the back button on your browser to get back here...

Subway

This is a nice ad, I like the use of bringing to life inanimate objects, having said that it is used alot, from radiators, towels, fruit, ornaments, plug sockets and cereals, there are few remaining items that haven't been given a digital personality. The actor in this clip, although looking initially shocked at his pocket suddenly turning into a monkey, also looks like it isn't the first time it's happened, in fact, there actually appears to be a look of quiet resignation combined with the surprise.

Robinsons Ad

This is a great ad, nice concept and a great execution, it looks like a great place.

Notice the level of detail, little bird boots by the door and the quality of the kitchen floor, the end copy line to the sound of bird speech is a great touch too. Nice work!!

Christie March to London...

Our client, The Christie took their 100,000 signature petition, for money to be paid back from the Icelandic banking collapse. The petition was successfully delivered to 10 Downing Street yesterday, and we were proud to be asked to produce the advertising for the London Bus that drove down to London, and the Placards used by the delivering team. See video here; http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/video/?bcpid=1586371503&bctid=22414507001

External Branding - getting noticed on a street level.

External branding, whether it be signage or vehicles, packaging is an important aspect of your marketing mix, as to a large extent, this is what the public sees and use to form their opinions of your organisation. An example of this is DynoRod and the familiar hi-vis orange vans, the company have made the colour their own and it is highly recogniseable. The downside is that many of the fleet of vehicles are suffering from the colour fading and looking a bit of a mess on vehicles that are getting that bit older. The choice of materials and duration of application on external branding applications is an important consideration, to ensure that the last day of its life, is as effective as its first. Tesco are very successful at using external branding with very fast installation and long term durability of all the external branding tools, this creates a positive association with the public of a succesful and modern brand in action, alongside all its other marketing actions such as online and tv.

Public relations, better value than advertising?

In times of competing media channels and the fragmentation of TV and printed channels, PR can be a very valuable marketing tool. Advertising, whilst very beneficial for the promotion of some products and services, can be less effective for a drip effect of constantly putting your name forward at a time and place where the audience is receptive and absorbs the information as an item of 'news' as opposed to an ad that is designed to promote and convert enquiries. PR is a relatively gentle medium as it is more informative and it is the cumulative effect of PR that makes it effective over a longer term. If you think PR could work for you, give us a call anytime to discuss.

Yes, she owned it, but it was her 18 yr old grandson who thrashed it around for 34000 miles!

Seriously, i'm sure being really old, she was very careful with it.

Street view, worth a look.

just been playing with Google's new toy, Street View, it's a bit like a 360 degree movie but on a street. Start at Google Maps. I tried it by putting in Oxford Street, Manchester, then just drag the little yellow man icon over the street and off you go!! It's actually quite interesting. Doesn't cover every street yet, but well worth a go. Enjoy.

Coping with the upturn.

Recessions can't and don't last forever, so what are you doing to plan for the upturn? What are the key areas in your business to take care of now, so you're not taken by surprise by that massive influx of demand, and the ready pots of disposable income coming your way? All the signs are there. Financial experts are now almost certain, bar a miracle, that the good times will almost certainly be back, and those who are not shrewdly making allowances for these prosperous times, may well be left behind - but still doing quite well.

The week that was.

The last week has been one of our busiest, and we are proud to announce we have been successful with three new public sector contracts, more details of which we will provide in the coming weeks. The recession is continuing to bite and now is the time to start taking action, making calls and getting marketing out there. We are producing more and more email marketing campaigns for our clients. We can save you time and effort, as well as money in getting the basics of a new email campaign right from the outset. Contact us if you would like more info.

Direct Mail, still an effective marketing tool.

Direct mail gets a lot of bad press, but it's still a very effective marketing tool, especially when combined with an outbound telemarketing campaign to follow up the mailing and convert enquiries. As with PR, one of the most important aspects is the creative approach and the 'angle'

chosen to frame the message, so it is entertaining to the recipient and presents the information and call to action in an interesting way. In a downturn, you could look at posted direct mail in two ways, either there will be less of it as marketing budgets are cut to weather the financial storm, threfore making your campaign stand out as there is simply less for it to compete with. The other potential scenario, in some sectors, is that DM is increased to stoke up flagging sales, making the competition more intense and potentially less attractive as a marketing option. As with all marketing comm's the same old rules apply, make the message attractive, on brand and on message with a relevant and attractive proposition, and you won't go far wrong. One last thing on direct mail, the following up bit can increase your conversions massively, so it's worth doing rather than sitting waiting!

Getting more from Google Maps!

Google Local Business is a great way of tapping into the power of Google Maps, for getting your business in front of people looking for services in your town or city. You can add loads of information, images and even video to your listing and it's a very good way of getting to the top of Google for free. You can also ask customers to leave reviews for you, which are visible on your search query results page within Google's natural listings. Signing up is fairly straightforward, just type 'Google local business' into Google and follow the instructions. Given that many people are looking for services from local suppliers, it makes very good sense to make full use of this underutilised resource. If you want to, you can pay an agency to do it all for you, but really, it's not difficult! - if you have a few minutes spare over a cuppa... Ps. You can check out our listing by googling, 'design agency preston' Cheers.

In the studio this week...

This week, so far, has been extremely busy, we are working on a few web projects which will be filtering through to our portfolio in the next few weeks and months. It is already a little difficult to believe that we are nearing the end of the first quarter, the days and weeks seem to be going by very quickly, but it is all good, and we are enjoying the challenge of working on so many current projects, and the variety this is bringing to the studio. Our new business efforts have been paying off with some very good recent enquiries from the website, and plenty of tenders that we are competing for, for some very exciting opportunities.

The benefit of design and marketing is that no two days are ever the same, and although we are sometimes under, what can seem like intense pressure, it is great seeing the success our work is generating and knowing we are making a very big difference out there. We are very much wanting to display some new stuff on the website and as soon as we get just an ounce of breathing space, we will be updating the site with some more of our latest work. Once again, thanks to our fantastic team and our dedicated supply chain who are backing us up with amazing service and attention to detail - Phil

Marching on...

March is a great time to look at your marketing and decide what needs doing to ensure a good run of business through the summer. A bit of spring in the air and a bit of work on your marketing now, can make a very big difference to the results you get throughout the rest of the year. Contact us now for a no-obligation review of any of your marketing activities. (Pic courtesy of Freeimages.co.uk).

Apple Testimonials

We will be adding a testimonials page to our website very soon, in the meantime, you can visit our Freeindex page, click on the icon from our apple-design.com website homepage, or just search Google with term: 'design agency Preston' where clients have also left several comments. Thanks to all again!

This week in the studio.

This week we have been very busy with a number of new creative briefs, which included presenting pitches for two public sector contracts, and also working on many of our ongoing projects. We are currently supporting The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, on their exterior branding and we are looking forward to seeing the results over the coming weeks. The hospital is in the middle of an extremely large capital development project, over multiple sites which will see future cancer treatment delivered at other regional centres, making it much more accessible to wider areas of the North West and beyond. Our client OCNW, a National Awarding Body, are continuing the process of rebranding, and we have been working on many of their marketing communications, including leaflets, posters and email campaigns. We have been improving our own offices with more canvases and banners to brighten up the internal spaces, (what there are of them). We didn't get round to eating many pancakes on Tuesday, but here is a pancake themed picture, courtesy of Morguefile, to remind us, there's always next year...

Watch batteries, gadgets and watches.

Whilst we're on the subject of linking out, here's a useful little site, it's not one where we would rave about the aesthetics, but it does what it says on the can, and lots of hard to find bits and pieces. http://www.watchbattery.co.uk/ Again, use your browsers back button to return here!

Check your rank...

Whether you call it the 'world wide web', 'the net' or maybe it's still the 'information super highway' for you? Anyway, here is a rank checker, just key in your site and see where it's ranked on Google...http://www.searchenginegenie.com/google-rank-checker.html This will navigate you away from this page. We hope you'll return soon.

Where design and brand reputation collide.

The current economic crisis serves to remind us how the graphic design of a brand can only ever go so far in conveying trust and authority, and how ultimately, it is relatively unimportant, if that trust or loyalty is broken. In recent months, we have had many of the major banks shaken by the admission of poor decisions which have led to nationalisation of some, and at the very least, severe damage to the reputation of others. On the high street, we have lost Woolworths completely, and many others have had to call in the administrators, or are changing hands. So from a branding point of view, we see the brand equity of many well known companies, and the association we all have with them, changing on a daily basis as the bad news goes round. In the light of these problems, there is no quick fix from a branding point of view. As with the Icesave brand, it's a case of nice logo, but a terminally ill association, as soon as it froze its accounts leaving so many customers stranded. This serves as a reminder to all of us involved in branding, that what we do for our clients visually, whilst very important, is only the icing on the cake (no pun intended), which can turn stale very quickly if customers are let down and the company's reputation goes pear shaped.

ATL, BTL, TTL BLT?

A classic BTL with TTL aspirations and a seriously ATL Future? No, it's just a classic BLT sandwich.

And you think you're having a bad day at the wheel?

I think they're trying to tell us that this is Cleveleys Working Mens Club.

CASH FOR SCRAP

CASH FOR SCRAP


SCRAP

CASH FOR SCRAP...This is an example of a great copy line. It's directness and unequivocal message stands it apart from many other marketing headlines. We also get the exact nature of the transaction - that being the offer of cash, i.e. money, in a direct exchange for scrap. We don't get the benefit of an explanation of the kind of scrap referred to, but most people would assume this is in the form of scrap metal or perhaps a car past its useful lifespan. We also don't get an indication of the amount of cash that will be exchanged for the scrap in question, but we can assume by the large bold lettering often chosen, that the proposer is offering a worthwhile amount - furthermore, that it is well worth calling the accompanying number to find out how much. The use of the word 'Cash' as opposed to 'money' or 'financial incentive' positions the ad as probably aimed at those who would commonly prefer a slightly slang term when referring to their financial affairs. So what about the common choice of colour? Well, of the variety of examples I have noticed, the preference seems to be a primary red, no surprise given the need for the wording to stand out against the metal chassis of the lorry. Red also positions the offer as value and suggests the immediacy of the transaction available.

Remember the Invacar 70?

As we tend to do in creative agencies, our conversations drift into all kinds of areas, one of which was about those funny turquoise disabled cars you used to see around (or should I say, cars driven by disabled people). We were wondering about that particular colour and how it carries, even now, a strange association with disability in general, just as a colour, well, maybe that and Barclays...! So then I got looking for a good image and a little bit more information. The car is an Invacar model 70, it was banned from UK roads only in 2003. They stopped manufacturing them in the 70's. On one level, I kind of miss them, I remember seeing them and dodging a few on the road, they would usually be going hazardously slow on the very far left of the road, and even then I thought, how come they only come in one colour? I don't know if anybody can shed any more light on this? The other remarkable fact is just how few images there seem to be on the web. We just couldn't find one we could use legally, so we had to draw it from scratch. Contact us if you want to use our pic for anything! Phil

As our thoughts turn to Easter!

With Easter on the way, is it time to face up to your marketing...? This is a portrait of me, Phil, complete with goatee beard, in association with local chocolate sculptress, Madeleine Ashforth, 6. (Think I can see a bit of Easter Island in there too, or maybe that grumpy one out of Sesame Street)??

In the studio this week, 16th Feb 08.

This week (16-02) has seen us working on a wide range of projects, we delivered a new trade ad for Dudley Industries, which incorporated a new product shot of their new stainless recess steel modular hand wash and dry unit. The full page ad will be used to promote their attendance at a forthcoming trade show. We are also working on visuals for a new website for Urban Hair, a contemporary hair design salon, in which we will be using many Loreal images. We have worked on a number of flash and animated gif banners for Graduate Prospects in Manchester and also a similar project for our client, Freightlink. We have some fantastic opportunities coming up over the next few weeks, and hope to have plenty more to announce very soon. Despite the downturn, we continue to be very busy, so we are grateful to our clients who continue to market themselves positively, it is great to see our work contributing to their success.

ABC Video Facilities site goes live...

We have recently designed a new website for ABC Video facilities. Chris and Julie live two doors down from me, (Phil), so there's nothing like keeping it local. So if you are looking to tie the knot this summer or you need a great corporate video filming, go to www.abcvideofacilities.co.uk

We have recently created a new website to look after the marketing consultancy side of our business. Through Celsian, clients can access more strategic and marketing problem solving services, rather than solely creative. You can take a look at the new site at: www.marketing-consultant-uk.com

Our studio can undertake all kinds of illustration commissions, see www.apple-design.com

The images here were designed by Laura Haire, our super talented illustrator and senior graphic designer, we had the designs printed onto a stretch canvas and they are placed at the entrance to our corporate offices, ok then.. our small office suite.

Welcome.

Hi and welcome to Apple Creative design's blog. Everything has to have a start somewhere and for our blog this is it. you can see our main site at http://www.apple-design.com/ we are a graphic design agency, based in Preston in Lancashire.