A win in the Annual Design Awards for third year running

Every year printing.com runs their Annual Design Awards. Open to over 200 creative agencies across the UK, the competition provides an opportunity for the 'best of the best' to be recognised for their creative services.

We always enter and we always come up tops and this year was no exception.

I am very pleased and proud to announce that Oliver came 2nd in the 'Prestige' category with his booklet design for Amy Karim of Crystal Bridal Accessories and 1st place in the 'Seasonal' category for his voucher card design for Rachel Hague of The Schoolrooms.

It's fantastic to be recognised for our design offering but even better is to hear the feedback our clients give us. Interestingly, a recurring theme in the work that gets the most accolades is that the client invests realistically in the design time and allows us creative freedom to produce what we believe will work best. 

1st place - 'Seasonal' for The Schoolrooms Butchery~Deli~Cafe

"I'm really pleased to hear that my voucher card has won this award. I enjoy working with the Sheffield printing.com team because they make things easy for us. I am very busy and often will provide a loose brief of what I'm looking for but then leave it to the team to come up with the solution. They understand our brand ethos and what we are trying to achieve and their designs interpret this perfectly. Importantly, what they do actually helps us to win business. The voucher card was a success, it brought in people and this meant more sales. We will definitely be running this campaign again next year!" Rachel Hague, The Schoolrooms

2nd place - 'Prestige' for Crystal Bridal Accessories

"I am ecstatic with the results of the style guide brochure – it is professional, high quality and very well-designed. The design process itself was stress-free and I was impressed with the way all our ideas, thoughts, likes, dislikes were discussed so that the end product reflected our image perfectly! We were given detailed information about paper types, styles and finishes which helped us to make the right decision about the look of our final brochure. Thanks for an excellent service and a beautiful brochure. We will definitely be recommending you to all our colleagues in the industry." Amy Karim, Crystal Bridal Accessories

 What a fantastic start to 2012, don't you think?!

We love to design... An e-booklet for a Sheffield events company

There's no denying that online approaches to marketing are evermore popular and so often I hear that offices are going 'paperless' and sending out less printed materials. Whilst I'd argue that printed materials should have their place in the overall marketing strategy, that debate is for another article entirely.

Whether you're printing or online, one things for sure - you should still invest in great design. If you're trying to win work, the impression you make counts and certainly, poor design will only create a hurdle that none of us need in current times.

One company that understands this is Speakers from the Edge. This seriously driven company organises inspirational speakers for events, with those speakers consisting of explorers, mountaineers, adventurers... people who are amongst the most inspirational you are ever likely to listen to!

Directors Rebecca Varley and Kerry Galvin approached us to discuss how best to develop the corporate side of their business. More often than not, when approaching businesses, they were being asked to email information but were coming up against large file sizes and attachments. People are never keen to receive large PDF's and often firewalls will stop the email coming through, remove the attachment or put the email into junk... all bad.

So, our solution was to design and publish an e-booklet which would provide a link that could be pasted into an email or added to the website to download.

Oliver worked through three different creative approaches for Rebecca and Kerry to choose from:

 

 

And then once they'd chosen, the style was applied to the whole booklet. The e-booklet is completely interactive, easy-to-use and allows click-throughs to the website, emails, links and so on. Importantly, it can also support the printed article as the same files are used. This means that you're covering all bases. Not everyone wants something in the post and not everyone is happy with just an email. Personally, I find doing both makes the biggest impact.

My photography doesn't do this project justice so to view the live e-booklet, take a look at the following link: Speakers From The Edge e-booklet

I think the crucial thing with this project is that Rebecca and Kerry gave Oliver his head with the design. Whilst he still worked within the brand constraints, having understood the brief Oliver had free rein over the approach and as a result, Speaker's had three highly creative, unique and eye-catching approaches to choose from and a final result that will, we have no doubt, help Speakers from the Edge to win the clients that they want.

"We came to talk to printing.com Sheffield about a new innovative way to market our motivational speakers to potential clients. We wanted a fresh, eye-catching and interactive way to engage our clients that would complement our existing website and drive traffic to it. Given their marketing know-how, we asked the team for their advice, and they suggested designing an e-booklet.

The team were extremely enthusiastic and totally understood our brief. The entire process, from concept to design through to the final product was expertly driven by the team. We now have a stylish, fully interactive and user-friendly e-booklet which is central to our marketing strategy. As always, printing.com Sheffield were a pleasure to work with and we would highly recommend this particular service to any company looking to grow their business."

We love to design... an elegant new brochure for a bridal accessories company

I think it's time I updated you with what we've been up to in the design studio this month!

We've recently completed a project for fabulous bridal accessories company, Crystal Bridal Accessories. Crystal is owned and run by the very driven and focused Amy Karim. 

Amy clearly has her finger on the pulse when it comes to ideas for accessorising your wedding outfit and I love the way that she's approached her business as a fashion advice resource. Often it can be difficult for people to visualise what should go together or how to create a particular look but Amy has made this easy for her customers, with lots of advice, imagery and a blog. I particularly love the vintage-style accessories and looks, evoking art deco imagery.

Amy was keen to bring a selection of her products and inspiration together into an elegant brochure which customers could purchase as a handy guide to creating their perfect wedding outfit. 

Amy was fantastic to work with, providing a clear vision of how she wanted her brochure to look but allowing us to have our creative input and responding to advice in a way that allowed us to add real value to the project.

Amy opted for a square format with silk inner pages and a matt laminated cover, which adds to the elegance and finesse of the finished brochure. We were given beautiful, professional photos to work with (half the battle won in a product brochure!) and Amy provided visuals of where we were heading. It was then up to us to realise her vision. Amy had this fantastic feedback for us:

"I am ecstatic with the results of the style guide brochure – it is professional, high quality and very well-designed. The design process itself was stress-free and I was impressed with the way all our ideas, thoughts, likes, dislikes were discussed so that the end product reflected our image perfectly! We were given detailed information about paper types, styles and finishes which helped us to make the right decision about the look of our final brochure. Thanks for an excellent service and a beautiful brochure. We will definitely be recommending you to all our colleagues in the industry."

Thank you Amy! It was great to work with you and we are equally pleased with the results!

Check out Amy's site (www.crystalbridalaccessories.co.uk) and tell your friends about her, especially if they're planning their wedding or have a special occasion coming up. And order your own Bridal Accessories Style Guide before they sell out!

Inspiration and direction

A simple cover using elegant typography

Clear instructions on how to order

Eye-catching headlines that categorise the range

Magazine style spreads that offer fashion advice

Individual styling for each page

Clear contact details to drive website traffic

 

We love to design... another wild success!

We love a project that we can get our teeth into and one of our latest design projects for Aim 4 Africa provided just that.

Aim 4 Africa is a fantastic Sheffield-based company run by Nancy Cutinha. Nancy organises high quality, tailor-made holidays to the heart of Africa. Nancy is clearly passionate about what Africa has to offer and this comes across whenever we speak to her. Our briefing meetings are always fascinating since we get an insight into the sort of holidays she organises... animal safaris in the Maasai Mara... relaxing on the beaches of Zanzibar... gorilla treks in Rwanda... and so many beautiful images to accompany the stories.

And so it goes without saying that the opportunity to create a company brochure for Aim 4 Africa was well received!

Nancy's holidays are not 'run of the mill'. They are those special holidays that will stay with you forever and for many people, they are honeymoons. So it was important that the brochure portrayed the quality and individuality of these experiences. It needed to be eye-catching and compelling to the reader. Nancy also attends exhibitions and shows and therefore she needed something that was cost-effective enough to hand out and handy enough to pop into a handbag without becoming lost. I believe that the objectives of the project have been achieved and it would seem that Nancy agrees:

"We would highly recommend printing.com in Sheffield for their excellent design services. We've recently had our company brochure designed and printed (30 page booklet) with Spot UV colour and the result is simply amazing. Joe and Oliver, from the initial meeting to discuss the brief, have been incredibly helpful with lots of  practical suggestions and advice particularly on improving our image to a more "cleaner" yet professional layout. Oliver, with his great flair for design took the project from our inital concept and developed the booklet  through various forms of artwork design through to proofing. The outcome is a professional booklet that we are very proud of.  I am sure our clients will be equally captivated by our booklets and entice them to book a holiday with us!"

You can visit Aim 4 Africa at www.aim4africa.com and follow them on Twitter @aim4africa.

If you're looking for a professional company brochure that will sell your products and services, why not give us a call to arrange a free consultation to discuss the possibilities - remember... there's more to us than printing!

Until next time,

Sarah