(Shhh...) Nearly completed new logo and corporate identity for an estate agent. Have enjoyed using my heraldry skills again on the griffin icon you can see in the screen shot!

I'll be updating my recent work page with new projects soon and will be including this one when they launch this month!

If you're fed up with the waiting for the next government, why not design your own party political poster here! Here's one I made:

This is a must-have for your office wall if you're a designer! And I'm going to have to get one for our office...

1. Designers are meant to be loved not to be understood.
2. The purpose of design is to make the ordinary extraordinary.
3. The best designers are the ones who find the good clients.
4. Design must seduce, shape and more importantly, evoke an emotional response.
5. Good design can be planned but great design just happens
6. Design the right things. Design the things right,
7. Imagination is more important than knowledge. (I believe Einstein said this...?)

To order or view more wall graphics: Document sans titre

From my experience in working with businesses it is essential for a successful company to have a good website that stands out from the crowd. So here are my ten top tips to help you with your website design...

1. Plan your site. Wireframe diagrams are a great way to clearly layout your website. (And to explain your site to other people). By having a fair idea of what your site will contain and planning it all out before you start will save you time in the long run.

2. Keep it simple. When a website has too much imagery, text, fonts, links and colours it can hurt the viewers eyes. (I've seen too many sites with yellow Comic Sans font on black backgrounds!) By keeping simple and not being afraid of using 'white space', visitors will be more attracted to your site and stay longer.

3. Keep it consistent. Follow through the site using the same colours, fonts and alignments. Also, your company logo should always be top left, so each page should look like it’s from the same website.

4. On brand. Be sure that the design of the site is consistent with the company's brand message, tone of voice and style.

5. Clear navigation. Don't lose your visitors with hidden navigational buttons, they should be found easily and in the same location on all pages of your website (I tend to design them at the top or top left of the page as with the logo).

6. Contact information. Give your visitors all the options to contact you. Some prefer to telephone or email, others prefer to fill out an enquiry form. But be sure they can quickly find this information. (I usually have this at the top of the page)

7. Updating. Regularly updating your company’s website not only shows that your company is still trading and dedicated to keeping up to date, but also helps in your search engine rankings.

8. Pay attention to the detail. Even a spellchecker can be wrong! Make sure your content is correctly spelt and without any errors. Ask a friend to check for you (And please make sure you have permission to use the images you found on the internet!)

9. Website loading speed. A visitor will have no patience when it comes to waiting for a website to load. If it's loading for more than 10 seconds, they've gone elsewhere...

10. Test it out. Before you go live, try it out. A simple way to do this is show it to a friend who is not involved, let them test it and ask for their feedback

Following these simple tips, your website will be on course in attracting more visitors.

I found this design scouring through my old portfolio and thought I'd share it online. In my freelancing days, I would often send out mailers to the design agency's around Bristol and Bath. This 'Wanted' poster campaign idea was used and it did get me some freelance work back in 2003!

Relevant to graphic design and advertising, here are some of my favourite ads seen recently that use wit and great design behind them:

1. A great ad that catches your eye, as on first glance, looks like a well-known whiskey, but the detail in the copy on the label says something different. Before you know it, you've read the whole ad and absorbed the message.

2. A clever play of the space between the letters using pen and ink.

3. Simple, strong and clear message. Although I would have given more space to the strapline:"(one lung at a time).

4.The best advertising campaigns from the government in recent years is the Think Road Safety campaign. This ad below really hits home the message.

If you are looking for one of the best standards in website design layouts, then the new BBC website homepage design will be your first port of call.

It was updated two years ago (check out the original 1997 version).

Since then they've been busy in the background working on unifying the visual and interaction design of bbc.co.uk and their mobile website.

Read the full post explaining their Global Visual Language 2.0. (You can download the full document. 5Mb size).

I have just returned from The Bath Business Club where I gave a presentation about Designbull - with current work in progress, case studies, logos gone wrong, and a simple graph to please the accountants in the group!

Click to view the slide show.

A short video message for the Festive season!

Have a great holiday and look forward to 2010!!!

For my recent one minute presentation at The Bath Business Club, I wrote out cards with my speech and also examples of work written on them, with music playing in the background. (Thanks to Paul Lewis for the original idea). View it below or in YouTube

Neil Gibson is physiotherapist trained in the Bowen Technique. He not only treats people but has recently qualified to treat horses and their riders. Neil came to us with a rough layout in Word, we helped with the redesign and the final leaflet is shown here. (If you have any type of pain or injury, I recommend talking to Neil! It works!)

We have recently finished all the marketing material for a new online recruitment system called TRAC. They required a new brand logo identity, a mini brochure and roll up banner. Plus, working with zedcore a content managed website, which was delivered in time for their exhibition stand at a trade show this November. See their website at tracsystems.co.uk

My new client, going-there.com required marketing material for a presentation including a branded intro movie to be shown as the delegates entered the room at the start. To keep within the budget, I suggested purchasing a stock library movie and tweaking the source file to incorporate the going-there.com brand and logo.

I was asked by Sonja Bass from The Physiotherapy Clinic (in Fitness First, Bath) to complete a brand design with a new logo, signage, hanging banner, Word templates for printing A4 posters internally.

I firstly took some pictures of the original entrance...and then in Photoshop, created visuals of how the new design will look.

I also created the Bath Life magazine advertisement and hanging banner - which is creating a higher visual awareness and clarity of her services in and around Bath City. Of course, I recommend visiting Sonja at The Physiotherapy Clinic to get rid of any painful muscle injuries!

The new Ethically Essential website from Essential Trading Co-operative is now live, so we can mention it now!
It currently has about 150 - 200 products, but what an interesting selection! All organic or sustainably sourced, they are an 'essential' to your weekly shop!
The logo design and website was created through out other arm, Fizzdot, who specialise in e-commerce site development.

Just completed another logo design for a new start up company, McNeil Commercial, a commercial property consultancy. The client wanted a simple yet strong design which could be used throughout printed and online marketing material. Business cards were printed full colour, to enhance the black, with a matt laminate for protection.

Completed the brand logo, the website and graphic design work on the new campaign for Send a Cow called, Picnics in Peculiar Places. Click on the image below to see the new website:

Brejeiro, one of the bands I play latin percussion in, asked me to design their new CD album. (You can have a listen to the album music on .) The final CD cover and CD on-body design is shown below:

Playing traditional samba and 'Choro' music from Brazil and South America, I wanted the album art to reflect the design style from the turn of the century. I also wanted to emulate that rough screen print effect from the dancing lady in the centre of the design.

Inspiration for the CD design came after discovering one of the band members is an avid collector of old matchbox cover art (and he doesn't even smoke!).

From his South American collection of old matchboxes I 'carefully' scanned, high resolution, a selection of these and worked up ideas in Photoshop. Then applied these to the CD artwork template, ready for the printer. (You can have a listen to the album music on .)

I have just finished creating another animated gif advertisment for an Intellectual Property Services client, Handsome IP.

The challenge was to create an eye-catching ad, which got the message across within a 40kb gif file size. From the initial ideas, it took two hours to create and is currently being advertised on www.growingbusiness.co.uk.

If you require help in creating online advertising, please contact Andy at Designbull

I have just downloaded probably one of the most useful iphone applications. WhatTheFont basically identifies the fonts in a photo or web graphic!

How it works:
You simply take a photo or find a photo in your iPhoto library, it connects to the MyFont servers and will identify the font from your photo!
Amazing for any graphic designer who's out and about and wants to know what a font is they've seen on a poster design or sign.
If you're a designer with an iPhone, this is a must-have! Download it here