Thursday, November 11, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
3 weeks to go! 100% of funds raised go to Children In Need. Do something different! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106578862737852
BBC Children in Need ZUMBATHON 2010
I want to give a big thank you to the printers who have generously donated the print of the promotional materials for the BBC Children in Need ZUMBATHON 2010 they are: Paul at www.printsynergy.co.uk, Ben at www.spectrum-graphics.co.uk and Simon at www.printroom.co.uk. With flyers, banners, A Boards and posters we are hoping to raise massive funds for the event. Thank you guys - much appreciated! Having had the pleasure of working with all three of them I can recommend their services whole heartedly.
BBC Children in Need ZUMBATHON 2010.... Latest News. We offer Zumba classes in Berkshire, Wokingham,
After last years tremendous success the BBC Children in Need ZUMBATHON 2010 will be held on Friday, 12th November at the FBC Centre, Wokingham.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
My new banner
I've never actually had a banner produced for my own company before, so I am very excited about my new banner! Ben Hood at Spectrum Graphics http://www.spectrum-graphics.co.uk/ produced my design for me and as always he produces top quality large format print with top quality service too.
Plus even I can put it up, even though I'm little. And all the bits are connected so you can't lose anything either. Plus they are light enough to carry on the train but sturdy enough to use time and again.
Ben does my clients pop up stands, exhibition boards, polyboards and vinal banners so if you need a reliable large format printer - give him a shout.
Need a banner or any large format print? Ben at http://ping.fm/69SEK is Great. See my banner at http://ping.fm/onlO8
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
http://ping.fm/H6ZSo Relaunch of The Berkshire Women's Business Clubs - 29 Sept - Join me for a fabulous networking lunch! At The Mercure Windsor Castle Hotel
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Just seen the http://ping.fm/S3oRT page has been updated with finalist details. It's fun to see other faces from across the country who are also beavering away at home.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Remote Worker Awards News Release
Four Freelance Women Finalists in Awards
Four local freelancing women have been selected as Finalists in The Remote Worker Awards, in association with BT Business.
Emma Cossey and Rahel Peirce both from Reading, Berkshire are competing against Jane Rimmer from Binfield, and Billie Wootton from Bracknell for the title of PCG Freelancer Award, which highlighted freelancing as a lucrative and rewarding career.
The Remote Worker Awards appealed to hundreds of eager entrants around the UK. Home workers, remote workers, freelance consultants, and wannabe entrepreneurs who dream of winning a new home based franchise and internet business, have all given inspiring accounts of why they should win this Award.
There has been a range of skills with enterprising individuals, who have forged a career for themselves using their expertise in consultation to help other businesses grow. They have show the judges reasons to choose them as the most engaging freelance consultancy.
The Finalists Are:
Emma Cossey, Reading
Emma Cossey became a freelancer in April 2009, and has since managed to take on a variety of roles simultaneously, including social media consultant for Chocolates for Chocoholics, production assistant for Miramus (dealing with clients like AOL and Aigua Media) and writer for an assortment of popular blogs and websites.
Rahel Takle-Peirce, Reading
Rahel Takle-Peirce has been creating specific abstract designs over 20 years to bring inspiration and beauty spontaneously using her historical culture of Ethiopia. Her unique intricate art reflects years of international influence including work in psychiatry. She is able to capture the spirit of the individual using inherent emotional colours.
Jane Rimmer, Binfield
As an IT industry marketing veteran, Jane decided to set up a marketing consultancy business that would enable her to maintain a better work life balance and remain at the forefront of new technology innovation. She has achieved both and has gained a bevy of clients over the past five years.
Billie Wootton, Bracknell
Billie Wootton is a Graphic Designer who works with companies to give them a consistent and quality identity throughout their corporate literature. Working freelance enables her to tailor her services to suit her client, providing design services for those that don't have an in house team. Her passion lies within creatively translating their message into visual communication.
They now compete against other finalists at the winning ceremony, which will be held at The Grand Connaught Rooms in London.
Award winning website, Remote Employment, Google’s No 1 job site for flexible and home based jobs, launched The Remote Worker Awards in association with BT Business to highlight how home working and remote working benefits the British public and their working life.
More information can be found at www.remoteworkerawards.com
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Bracknell Business Insight
You can view the series of Bracknell Business Insight breakfast events at on Youtube. The next event is for CocaCola so don't miss out! Book now!
I am proud to shout about the fact that I designed, built and host the Bracknell Business Insight website on behalf of Bracknell Chamber of Commerce.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
innov8 graphic design is an I-ntarsia Reseller for I-Next
We have now been an I-ntarsia Reseller for a while and I can honestly say it's one of the best business decisions I have made.
innov8 graphic design is about exactly that - Graphic Design, so to have a fully comprehensive content management system that just slots in to our designs is something we have been waiting for, for a long time. Plus with the technical team available for any queries or problems we are fully set to provide any kind of website from a basic brochure site to a full e-commerce shopping experience. The level of security with an I-ntarsia site is brilliant so there are no worries there either. So from as little as £15 a month our clients can really use their websites as a marketing tool to grow their businesses as well as much more.
Being an I-ntarsia Reseller for I-Next enables us to say 'yes' to what our clients ask for in a website, whatever size, shape style of website our clients want, we can deliver. Completely bespoke designs without template restrictions telling us where things should go on a page. It really has made the possibilities endless.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Some light Reading for the sunshine. http://bit.ly/bYBCSx. Including my first article for all you DIY Graphic Designers!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
What is Graphic Design?
In short it is the creative construction of imagery and text in order to convey a message. This can be applied to anything that is produced in a visual format for communication.
Behind the scenes!
Although it can be very minimalist in style Graphic Design is born from structure. The structure originally comes from the ‘point sizing’ and ‘leading’ system used on the metal presses to produce News Papers. So before computers and digital printers each letter and space between letters and the lines themselves were created from little ‘metal tabs’ that held each individual letter (much like the little metal letter tabs on the stems of a type writer). These ‘metal tabs’ were put together by hand and held together in clamps in blocks of type and then inked up and printed from.
So today, when we refer to ‘point size’ and ‘leading’ we are referring to the sizing derived from the size of the ‘metal tabs’ that the letters were on and the bits of lead that created the spaces between the lines of text.
Now this structure was converted into digital form for use on computer but before that Graphic designers would draw up a grid across their page to which they would design within.
The creative skill of Graphic Design is making a piece – whatever it’s for – look pleasing to the eye whilst carrying out a functional job ie; conveying a message.
How to apply it to your promotional piece
There are some basic tips that can help you honor the structural grid that lies in the background of any design, and this is what will help your promotional piece stand out from the crowd as a professionally considered and respectable business communication.
Top Tip 1
Decide how many columns you are going to work to in your grid. This could be 1, 2, 3, 4 or more columns depending on the complexity of what you need to put on there. If you take a look at magazines you can usually work out what grid system they have worked to across a double page spread. For example in a basic data sheet, you could break a page into 5 columns and have text across 2 columns with a column of space down the left or right in which you can put an image or two.
Top Tip 2
Alignment. Left aligned, right aligned, centered or justified it’s easy to get carried away with using all four in one document. If you can, try to avoid this. Most text heavy documents work better left aligned as that is the way our minds read, and there is nothing wrong with that. But try to keep consistency throughout. If you decide that you would like to center align your flyer then just make sure you have no ‘widows’ or ‘orphans’ – these are odd words that are left on their own,
just like this
one.
Top Tip 3
There are many fonts out there and once you have chosen the font that is right for your brand you should stick to it. You might have a ‘header font’ that is a little more interesting than the ‘body copy font’ but once you have set those styles keep them consistent across all your communications. It is also common to have a ‘screen’ font for your brand. This caters for things like websites and power point presentations because not everyone has all the fonts you have and only have a core few on their system. Because software like power point and web browsers will use whatever font is available locally when it’s viewed on another machine it is safer to stick with fonts like Arial, Helvetica or Verdana. These are standard fonts on most machines and you know that your piece will render accurately as you have designed it to.
Top Tip 4
‘Bastardising fonts’! This is something that used to infuriate one of my Uni Tutors. Word and other software packages will enable you to Bold, italicize and underline fonts till it looks like someone threw up on the page! This is not good. It makes your design piece look messy and amateurish. It’s also unnecessary in many cases. Maybe one word or two needs to be highlighted for importance but that can be more pleasing to the eye and effective if it’s in another colour (no – it’s not always good to have a multicolour page either!) Choose one ‘accent’ colour that fits with your brand and use that consistently too.
Top Tip 5
Clip Art. Oh yes we’ve all done it. The little symbols and a man throwing papers into the air in frustration. They do have their place, but be under no illusion that they are giving you a professional appearance. Photography can be a good replacement and there are many cheap stock sites out there. One of my favorites is ‘www.istockphoto.com’. On this site you can buy pay as you go credits and if you are only using the images at a small size they are not expensive.
There are many things you can consider when creating your promotional piece but overall the main thing to remember is consistency in your style and quality.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)