We love working with 'not for profit' organisations. The work is often fun, very creative and not to mention the 'feel good factor' of doing work with organisations that are trying to do some good.
Over the last few months, we have been working with a new organisation called Derby Hub.
Derby Hub is a 'not for profit' membership organisation, set up to help the Derbyshire business community flourish.
Derby Hub's core mission is to create a culture of giving and collaboration between Derbyshire businesses.
With the government reducing support and funding for businesses, Derby Hub is about encouraging businesses to'share business excellence', for the greater good of the Derbyshire business community.
The target market of Derby Hub is two fold:
The collaboration of both new and experienced businesses, will help all to grow their network, promote their business and ultimately become more successful.
It was great to work with the Derby Hub committee as they were very receptive of our ideas. As a result of having a client with this kind of mentality, we have been able to get them a lot of exposure and interest in a very short space of time.
We were asked to undertake the following work to help with the promotion of Derby Hub:
The Derby Hub brand needed to be fresh, vibrant and inspiring. It had to encompass the core principles of Derby Hub which include sharing, collaborating and uniting.
Derby Hub is very much about the people involved, so we wanted images of the members and their guests, to feature heavily throughout all promotional material.
We created the website to be unusual, easy to use and engaging, for both the users and the administrative team at Derby Hub. The core purpose of this website is to inform people about Derby Hub and encourage people to get involved.
Derby Hub are delighted with the work completed by Baseline and the results that are already being achieved. We are proud to be part of an organisation; which has such a fantastic buzz and presence surrounding it.
Derby Hub is going from strength to strength all the time, the monthly and weekly events have a real buzz surrounding them and membership is growing all of the time.
View the Derby Hub website and why not get along to one of the Derby Hub events.
By Justin O'Connell
In this 'digital age' that we all now live in, it is important to 'keep up with the times'. We are moving into a virtual business environment whether we like it or not, and to survive in this world we call business, we need to adapt to the change.
People and businesses all around the world use their computers, mobiles and tablet PC's to interact with one another on a daily basis. Some might say, the art of conversation has been lost since the inception of social media and these superior technology platforms, but they are just a form of change and development which we will spend the rest of our lives trying to catch up with.
So, before I drivel on more and cause you to lose interest in my blog (come on, don't give up now, it'll get better, I promise!) I'll try and explain social media and the importance that has surrounded it in the last decade.
As with many of my blogs, I like to start off with a definition, what is social media? Well people, Social media is defined as 'a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content' (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).
Social media has exploded since the conception of sites such as Facebook. The 'daddy/don' of social media (depending on how cool you are, delete as appropriate). Developed by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook allows users to create a personal profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages and notifications when people write on your 'wall', tag photos of you, etc etc. It also allows organisations to be able to set up a 'fan page' whereby, members of the public can 'like' their page and the company can interact with users, offers promotions, show photos of new products etc.
Facebook is just one form of social media where the market has expanded and has become a huge, powerful marketing tool for companies. With over 750 million active users (as of July 2011), the world is 'at your feet'.
Other social media sites that are held in high regard by businesses and people alike are: Twitter, MySpace and the recent emergence of Google+ (the Facebook killer, oooooooooh, beware!).
Now, at the risk of me going off and talking about social networking, I need to get back on the straight and narrow about social media.
I started off with a title; the importance of social media, so, why is social media important for businesses?
Social media is an effective strategy for many individuals and organisations to achieve their marketing objectives. It is a fast, easy and free way for you to create and share content.
Base this against traditional, 'paid for' media; purchasing print, radio, TV and billboard space - you put your money (and faith) in someone else, to convey your brand and your message, persuading people to buy your products. So why not be 'the face' of your organisation and do it yourself?
Having social media opens the door to the outside world. You open your door to your customers, let them know what you are up to, projects you have completed, promotions you are offering etc. One extremely important thing to remember here though is; if you are going to open your door to customers, make sure your house is clean. Essentially, there are a few 'social media faux pas';
There is no business like good business so don't force your customers to go elsewhere.
Now I am definitely not saying completely abandon traditional methods of advertising etc but why not help broaden your advertising streams by promoting yourself and your business on the Internet?
From as little as 10 minutes a day, taking the time out to update your companies Facebook, tweeting about your fantastic success with client 'A' or writing a fantastic blog and sharing it with the world, can have a fantastic impact on your business.
People often think that there is no way they can keep on top of all these social media platforms, but the answer is you can. You can integrate them together so that when you update one, it'll update the rest for you. One update can cover all platforms!
There no longer has to be this barrier between you and your customer. There is a new paradigm, embrace it and share your success stories with the world.
Speaking of social media, I am on Twitter, @justin_oconnell (disclaimer, may talk cr*p a lot of the time) and so are Baseline, @baselinedesign (we don't talk cr*p and we can help with your social media!).
By Justin O'Connell
We have a fantastic opportunity available for manufacturing companies, but first a little background.
We feel that if the government is going to help the country to recover from the global downturn as quickly as possible, it needs to invest in business. Luckily there are still some support opportunities for some sectors.
Germany has recovered far better from the recession than the UK because they have a strong manufacturing sector.
One of the great things that the government is doing, is helping to strengthen and increase the UK manufacturing industry via the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS).
MAS have match funding available to help any company that can be classed as 'a manufacturing company'. This funding is to be used for various business improvement tasks including:
…but overall increasing the success and profits of manufacturing companies.
If the government are investing in business in general, then the country will prosper as there will be less unemployment and more disposable income.
It is very difficult to become an approved MAS supplier, in fact we have been informed that they are not currently accepting new suppliers.
We have formed a strong business alliance with a business consultancy; ResQ Management Resources.
ResQ are already an authorised MAS supplier and have 'made' and 'saved' millions of pounds for their clients. Our business alliance with ResQ means that some of our services are able to fall under the criteria for MAS funding, meaning that we can provide some of our consultancy and web design services match funded.
For example, we are currently finalising the details with a manufacturer of granite worktops to produce an e-commerce website with a value of £5400 (plus VAT). This project will be 'match funded' saving the client 50% of this cost.
As a result of working with us, this client will be able to increase sales into their business. Then by working with ResQ, they will be able to increase productivity and reduce waste from the business, this complete process will make and save them a significant amount of money.
This kind of improvement will enable our client to grow their business, this type of growth is exactly what the UK needs.
If you are reading this article and you know a manufacturing organisation that would like to take advantage of this type of opportunity, please pass on our details.
We are uniquely placed to supply these organisations and have a proven track record with other manufacturing based clients.
We will be adding case studies to our website as we complete work for these types of clients, so watch this space. :O)
By Craig Barker
We were recently commissioned to create a brand identity and website for a well known local family mediation firm, Family Mediation Forum, a sister company of EG Legal. They had asked us to create a brand which reflects their services, success and ethics.
We decided to give you an insight into our processes, and post updates on this project as it evolves.
Our branding process is as follows:
For every brand identity that we create, we take time to research:
Once we have a strong idea of the message that we need to convey and the people that we are communicating to, we start on the visual research and experimentation. We call this our Ideas Development stage.
Our Ideas Development stage allows us to use the research undertaken, to create style ideas and carry out further visual research and experimentation if required.
The selection of ideas are reviewed internally in the form of a mood board. Here we select the strongest ideas to carry forward into the concept development stage.
Concept Development is the process where we fabricate the overall brand style from our strongest ideas, conveying the theory behind them in the form of a concept presentation.
In this stage of the process, the client will have the ability to give input, make amendments and make a decision on the brand they wish to take forward as their own.
In the final stage of the process, we take the chosen identity style and generate any promotional material required. We also produce a set of brand guidelines; a document which informs the client of the exact fonts, colours and rules that have been used in order to formulate the overall brand identity.
Our approach to this design was to give it a clean and corporate feel to represent the professionalism of the Family Mediation Forum but to also keep it friendly, welcoming and balanced so that it appeals to the target market.
I have included some images to show the logo development process from three concepts, down to the final chosen logo.
We are currently working on the website for the Family Mediation Forum, it is going to look amazing! So watch this space!
By Sonal Odedra
Touted as the 'SMS for the Internet', Twitter was created in 2006 and in the last five years it has seen a huge increase in the amount of people using it. This got me curious; what is it about Twitter that makes people want to use it?
At a first glance, It is a different set up and layout to your 'beloved' Facebook page, restricting posts or 'tweets' to 140 characters, which is a short message to let the world of Twitter know what you are up to. You can tag fellow Twitter users in your posts by using the '@' symbol followed by the username (which Facebook decided to steal, sorry, 'incorporate' into their design) and it appears in their Twitter feed.
All well and good, but why would this make someone want to use it more than Facebook or as well as Facebook; we all know that Facebook has been 'the king of social media' for a few years! So how has another social media platform managed to grow just as popular?
Colette Martin said in her Forbes blog that the reason that Twitter has become so popular is because 'Twitter is all about messaging. Messages go to your followers, but are easily accessible by everyone. Twitter is a goldmine of information and there is no need to ever send a tweet to leverage the data in Twitter.'
'Small and large businesses alike can benefit from “listening” to what their customers are saying about them on twitter.'
A perfectly good reason to join from a business point of view; your customer base are within touching distance and you can keep up to date with the goings on of their day-to-day activities.
So there are good business reasons to join, why would a person join Twitter?
Personally, I believe that people join Twitter because of the 'celebrity factor' it has about it. There is an overwhelming amount of celebrities who use Twitter and the majority of them are very active with lots of regular tweets. It allows the user to feel properly engaged with the celebrity as they know it is them replying or 'retweeting' their tweets.
According to a recent Nielsen study; 'people in the USA spend 906 million hours a month on social networks' - a phenomenal number, I can only imagine the numbers are around the same in the UK!
And I am not surprised, listening to Radio1 this morning, I think I have heard the words: 'Twitter', 'Tweet' and 'Retweeting' about 20-30 times in nearly two hours!
In conclusion, my personal opinion on the 'deal with Twitter' is that it acts as a knowledge base of information allowing people and businesses to share short messages with one-another and it gives us that social interaction with celebrities which, who wouldn't enjoy! Yes, It's a place where people are less likely to 'follow' their friends and more likely to 'follow' celebrities but hey, isn't that what Facebook is for?
Don't forget to follow us ;o) @baselinedesign, @justin_oconnell, @sonal_odedra.
Keep tweeting!
By Justin O'Connell
Dexter is a hunky serial killer in Miami who works for the Police Department. He only kills bad people so this makes him a good serial killer! This is definitely my favourite show at the moment, I love it! It's intense, thrilling, funny and beautifully produced.
The starting credits of the show are probably the BEST starting credits for any show I have ever seen. It is not just the standard cheesy video clip with an annoying jingle, the credits have been very carefully thought out and is more of a piece of art. Its an amazing introduction to what Dexter is all about, and it is guaranteed to send shivers down my spine (and make me hungry) every single time I watch it!
Check out the video below!
By Sonal Odedra
A really busy few weeks with yet more improvements for Baseline. We have settled in nicely to Friar Gate Studios now, it really feels like the right place for us to be.
I have definitely been neglecting my blog entries of late, so have been nagged by staff to make sure I do this today. Isn't it great when staff feel passionately about the business and help to keep the business owners on the straight and narrow?
The main feature of this article is Business on Toast...
We were one of the founder members of Business on Toast back in August 2009, we were fighting off the recession and this was one of the additional networking activities that we took on to push the business forward.
Shortly after joining, Business on Toast became one of our loyal clients and we helped to 'put them on the map', getting them the 'number 1' spot on google for the search phrases that they wanted to be found for (in a very short period of time).
Just over a year later Business on Toast have celebrated phenomenal success with their 'one year' birthday bash. The event was a black tie affair at Derby's Mickleover Court Hotel. I just loved dressing up like James Bond!
The event was very well organised and really felt like a celebration of businesses coming together to help each other succeed. We had great drink, great food and great conversation. The evening was topped of by an awards ceremony.
Baseline were given 2 awards one for being a 'founder member' and one for 'outstanding contribution'. We were very proud!
We have worked with Business on Toast since 'day one' and see networking as an integral part of Baseline's business strategy. We have gone from strength to strength, thanks to being a member of Business on Toast.
If you fancy coming along to a networking meeting, get in touch and I will take you along as my guest.
By Craig Barker
Photography courtesy of Cactus Images
If you're bored and taking a browsing break, take a look at this extremely cool and funky website: wonder-wall.com (You will need Flash to view this site)
The Wonder Wall is an interior design firm founded in 2000 by Masamichi Katayama in Okayama, Japan. As well as the very lovely design pieces on there, this site has very intelligently utilised web tools to give the user interaction a fluid illusion.
Have a play!
By Sonal Odedra
Baseline were asked to create the following work for a charity 'Snow Ball' in aid of St Luke's Hospice:
The brief was to create a sophisticated identify for the 'black tie' event with an 'Art Deco' style. This was an unusual project because it was quite simple in it's purpose and it was heavily style led.
The process for this project was as follows:
The client was very happy with the results and the event was a complete success!
Click on the image above to see larger versions of the images.
PLS Re-Tweet/Like/Share/Comment. We don't think that there is an absolute right or wrong way to use Twitter, but below you will find some tips which may improve your experience. You may agree with some of these, some you may not... Use as many or as few as you wish...
We hope that you found some use in this article, if you need any further advice, get in touch.
This article was originally posted by Chris Brogan, many thanks to the author for allowing re-posting. :O)
By James Caves
Baseline were recently commissioned to design and build a website for LightSpeed Derby, a Derby Cityscape project supported by funding from EMDA through Derby City Council's Single Programme.
Baseline were approached by FOX Graphic Design to complete the web work for this project, FOX very capably handled the branding and design for print work.
One of the great thing about collaborating with other high quality creative companies, is that it forces all involved to raise their game. It always highlights the strengths of the companies involved and the areas that you can improve you own business.
We have worked on several collaborative projects with FOX, as we all have a passion for working in the public and voluntary sectors. I am delighted to say that all have been an absolute success.
From a technical point of view, the LightSpeed Derby website includes some of the following functionality:
What the client had to say about baseline:
"Thank you for your time and patience, I must say I think the website has been set up very well"
...and about the team / overall project:
"Just to say thanks to everyone for putting together such a good site. It looks good and the messages are clear and effective.
It was a bit painful at times with so many of us adding our strongly held ideas, but in the end I think we have a richer and better site because of it.
Especial thanks to Baseline for their unfailing patience throughout the process, to Sarah Jenkin-Jones for being able to draw together such good copy from the ideas of all of us and to Sarah Troman and Hannah for managing the process so well.
Without giving anything away, the timing for this has turned out perfectly. We are having a vital meeting with a key potential investor in superfast broadband in Derby this week. There are four key points in their criteria in choosing where to invest and one of them is that there will be an effective marketing vehicle to promote the benefits of fibre to the home to residents and businesses.
All we need to do will be to point them to the website.
Fingers crossed, but if we succeed, the website will have played an important part."
:O)
By Craig Barker
Recently we started working for a new client (Sara Gration), who runs a fantastic bookkeeping company called Saylavy.
Saylavy already had a logo and the beginnings of a brand style, so our job was to undertake the following work:
This is what the client had to say about the work completed:
"I can't stop smiling! You have totally captured everything I wanted Saylavy to represent. Fantastic work Craig. Thank you so much for listening and delivering exactly what I wanted!"
Thanks to Sara for being a great client, and passing us so many new clients in the short time we have been working with you!
:O)
By Craig Barker
Over the last few days the doodle on Google has been celebrating 40 years of Sesame Street.
I love Sesame Street, it’s characters – everything!
Today I looked and found yet another Sesame Street character, Elmo. This prompted me to look at what the Google doodles were all about.
OK, from what I can see there are two things to know here, there is the original doodler (Dennis Hwang) and then there is a cool competition for local schools (Doodle 4 Google).
I’m no expert on Schools but I think Google 4 Doodle is a great idea. It encourages creativity, teamwork and the prize is really cool – a day on Google for the winning design. What is most interesting for me is that I knew about Dennis Hwang but had no idea about this and wonder how many schools know about it?
So here is the challenge: everybody reading this that have children, know people that have children or that are involved with Schools need to tell the school about Doodle 4 Google.
For now however here is todays 'Doodle 4 Google' - enjoy!
By David Stump
Yesterday there was the Cookie Monster, today its Bert & Ernie! If tomorrow isn’t Mrs Piggy & Kermit then I’ll be very disappointed!
It’s not like you need the link but to save you time the logo is below or click here: http://www.google.co.uk.
You can see more from Sesame Street here: http://www.sesamestreet.org/ or here are some of my favourites:
Great fun, now better get back to work!
By David Stump
I opened Google today to a great sight – the Cookie Monster!
Today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, I may be giving away my age here but I loved Sesame Street as a kid and this tribute from Google is great in my eyes!
By David Stump
I was sent this great article from the BBC that I just had to have on the site. It's a little (well a lot) geeky but it's very cool and well worth a 5 min read!
Here is the link.
By David Stump
