Blog Archive

Our people are critical to our success; they are the beating heart of our business and we wanted to give you, our audience inside knowledge on the people who modestly sit in the background and work hard producing fresh, current creative for a plethora of clients on a day to day basis.

Name: Tom Ovens
Age: 28
Position: Senior designer 

How long have you been a designer for?
In the industry for almost 6 years now.

Who was your inspiration when you were at University?
I was really interested in grungy type design so David Carson stands out to me as an inspiration at the time.

Who do you aspire to now?
I really aspire to clean, modern and infographic design but don’t follow any specific individuals as there is a whole world of inspiration out there and it’s a relatively new and fluid design style which is constantly evolving. But I do have a few classics designers that I still reflect on from time to time. Alan Fletcher is a bit of a hero of mine for his sense of humour and simplicity in conveying a message. I also aspire to clean and vibrant retro and vintage cycling and car posters, mainly because of my interest in cars and bikes, but also for the pure aesthetics and feeling of movement they create.

What do you love about being a designer?
The variation of the job, every brief, client and target market is different and the most enjoyable part for me is the challenge of finding a solution that best suits each of those design problems.

What do you find most frustrating about being a designer?
Sometimes the final solution that best suits the client, their brief or audience might not be to your personal taste. This is a harsh learning curve coming from University, where you have complete creative freedom over your work and the final outcome.

What’s your favourite font?
This changes quite a lot but my current favourite is probably Bebas Neue as it works beautifully for infographic design

What is/has been your favourite piece of work you’ve worked on with Workbrands?
I have of course enjoyed every minute of every project but the one that stands out to me to date is the Spring Fair International Map for Emap due to its creativity, vibrant colours and 3D feel.

Can you sum up your current state of mind in three words?
Happy, driven, optimistic

You may have noticed we’ve been rather quiet lately. This is mainly because a few of us have had our heads down, putting together Abode, the new magazine from Andrews Lettings and Estates.

Workbrands Creative Director, Jonathan, gave a little insight to the project: "We wanted to create a friendly and contemporary approach to the design layouts and colour palette. The features needed to be informative yet easy on the eye and I feel we achieved this really well. The uncoated stock we suggested really complements the pastel colours - I'm really pleased with the results and proud to include another piece of work for Andrews to our growing portfolio."

Ronda Green, the Customer Service and Marketing Director of Andrews commented further; "Our new Abode magazine features inspirational articles alongside pages of beautiful property, both for sale and to rent. The style of Abode builds on the look and feel of our recent brand campaigns, and the magazine itself has a tactile, contemporary feel, which has been very well received so far both internally and by our customers. We will be looking to build on the success here with the publication of future issues this year, and are already hard at work on the next edition."

You can read the full online versions here

Here at sunny workbrands we don’t generally need an excuse to celebrate but if we did, what better reason than the fun business of welcoming in the little (mighty) dragon in style? We’ve worn red, feasted, brushed up on our Chinese proverbs and by the count of the lunar calendar, we’re officially into day 5 (of 12) of Chinese New Year 2012, wolfing down our 100th dumpling and going strong. Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone! Long live the dragon and the dumpling! (Illustration by our very own Nick Kelly)

It’s only the fourth week back after beginning the year 2012 and what a brilliant start! We’ve secured four brand spanking new clients as well as receiving some amazing feedback from Newcross Healthcare Solutions last week, regarding a number of concepts for a few projects we are working on.

“I’m really impressed, fabulous work!” from Stephen Pattrick, CEO of Newcross Healthcare Solutions.

Another high is that one of our designer, Bobby Peliza and his beautiful new wife, Tracy finally got to go on their honeymoon this month! They enjoyed a fabulous time sunning themselves and being pampered just round the corner from Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Also, to Mr and Mrs Peliza’s (and our) amazement they were recently asked and informed that their wedding photos are being featured in the March issue of the ‘Perfect Wedding’ magazine!

Back to work briefly, we’re still working closely with Andrews Estates & Lettings and are looking forward to finishing off and starting new, up-and-coming campaigns with them! It’s already looking like a busy year for them!

“...many thanks for all your hard work helping to make the campaign such a success" Ronda Green, Marketing & Customer Services Director - Andrews Estates & Lettings. Commenting on the recent 'Take a Look campaign'.

It’s sad to end on a bruiser but just to mention that our BD manager, Kelly was off between 16th and 20th January. She was rushed into A&E on the Monday evening. Although a little battered and bruised, Kelly is now back with us raring to go. Feel free to keep in touch with her and daily Workbrands news by following her on Twitter or Linking up with her on LinkedIn.

If this is what January 2012 looks like, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

Marketing is moving at lightning fast which is why the world of marketing is so exciting but also remains challenging to the marketer.

None of us can predict what 2012 will bring for marketing but what we can say is that we can count on our customers and prospects to access the information they want, where and how they want it; right at their fingertips.

We’ve noticed that a number of our clients now want to communicate with their target audiences by using the right messages, and updates using the correct mediums and channels at precisely the right time. And we agree!

Marketing is always changing and it is now essential to expand social, mobile and local initiatives to ensure we are fulfilling the demand. It is now vital that the customers feel they are getting a more personalised experience from the channels they use.

Trend 1: Personalised, humanised content.
This is set to be probably the most important trend for 2012. With the new Google systems released which rely on new and fresh content; we must all now spend less time talking at our customers and more time noting their behaviours, comments and suggestions. While remaining professional we should be talking to our customers like they are a person. Nowadays we need to provide extra value to our customers rather than trying to shove products and unwanted, mostly irrelevant information at them at every opportunity.

One way of giving your company, products and services a personality is by giving your customers a voice. Make sure your testimonials are always visible. It is important to ask permission to publicise comments and when they are true, they immediately give your brand a personality. Customer comments are vital and perhaps one of the most valuable pieces of content you can have. Many prospect clients read testimonials before considering you for themselves. Also, current, up-to-date testimonials are great to show you have a continual relationship with your customers.

If you’re using social media, having a ‘team’ page is another good way to give your company/brand a personality. We all know that people do business with people and so through offering a friendly face customers can interact with will always do you the world of favours especially if you share Twitter or Facebook with a couple of other in the office as people can see who they’re talking to. If you deal with customers and prospects that are local and you network, having a photograph of yourself will immediately waver that awkward moment of scanning peoples name badges to find the person you’ve been chatting to!

Trend 2: We like it local!
Knowing where your target audience are at a specific time is valuable but none of us want to be followed around by service providers all day!

Location based marketing has been made easier recently because of social networking sites and the ability to add a location to their status and updates. More people are “checking in” on Facebook through their mobile phones and in doing so they are spreading brand awareness to people who they are friends with.

To use this to your advantage and boost sales and generate leads, we need to ensure that we integrate local initiatives with email and/or mobile marketing and social media in order to maximise your reach and in turn, increase revenue. When someone ‘checks in’ at your workplace or company, interact with them. By making their experience unique they are more likely to come back again and ultimately keep your brand in the spotlight.

To increase numbers to your Facebook page or mentioned on Twitter, why not hold a competition with a prize which will encourage people to want to do it? You see this a lot with comments such as ‘Like our Facebook page and you’ll be entered into our competition to win a…’ or ‘RT this post and you could win…we’ll announce the winner at…’.

Trend 3: Customer commitment is your life line.
We are all ‘busy’ and your customers and prospects are busier than ever which is why we are always on the hunt for ways to make things easier. On average, we will each receive over 5K marketing and advertising messages every single day! Without realising (and understandably) we tune out to these messages because they are either irrelevant, not engaging and/or there is no call to action. Winning new customers is imperative but keeping the clients you have interested, is just as important.

Using newsletters can be great for re-engagement by informing your customers that you are still there. Discussing news which is all about may not be the best route to go down though. Be informative about the sector you work in. Offer hint and tips, advice. Blogging is a great way to keep your site current but also try and keep your portfolio as up-to-date as possible too.

Ideally what we should do is engage with our contacts before we lose interest and the relationship becomes inactive. By ensuring all new customers are kept on a system in which you can follow up with them say in 6-8weeks ensures their engagement remains but is not seen as pestering.

Trend 4: Track them, learn about them, love them.
In the past marketers have focused on self-promotion and third party data in order to assess what it is their customers want. Now marketing is relying more and more upon listening and learning from their prospects on a one-to-one basis. This year, we are going to have to engage with new technology in order to collect data about our customer demographics, preferences and behaviours.

We are also going to have to monitor social behaviours to understand how to best communicate through these platforms. When we get our customers behaviours right, we will be in a position to deliver timely, relevant content which enables you to connect to individuals personally, relevantly and on a platform they enjoy. By web tracking you can vastly improve the user experience.

Trend 5: Get personal with your marketing
I’ve mentioned before that relevance is key well, using pURLS can enable you can provide relevant messages to each and every one of your prospects or customers. Personalised and relevant content helps your message stand out from the other 4,999 marketing messages your prospects see. You can read more about pURLs and gURLs on one of my latter blog postings here

Trend 6: The future is now. No, it really is.
Computer games have been around for almost 30 years and since then, graphics have become much more sophisticated since then. Game graphics are pushing the barriers of photorealism. Now, researchers and engineers are pulling graphics out of your television screen or computer display and integrating them into real-world environments. This new technology is called augmented reality. Augmented reality blurs the line between what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.

According to Wiki “AR is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”

Augmented reality is changing the way we view the world -- or at least the way its users see the world. Imagine walking or driving down the street. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of vision and audio will coincide with whatever you see. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head. Sounds amazing right? Check out one of my favourite demonstrations of AR on YouTube, Marmite.

So, that’s our prediction(s). What do you think? Feel free to comment or chat to me on Twitter about any of the above… @WorkbrandsKelly - Happy 2012!

After a nice long break (well, for some of the Workbrands team) we’re back and raring to tackle a new year head on.

2011 was a fantastic year; one filled with some fantastic meetings, resulting in new clients, sustaining some excellent relationships with current clients which resulted in the completion of some top rated creative work.

Our creative team has grown and are now at full capacity. With some truly fantastic experience behind our belts, Workbrands are recognised as one of the top full service, creative agencies in Bristol!

We are all seriously looking forward to getting our teeth into 2012 and with seven new business meetings, two tender pitches and a number of deadlines all happening in January, we can't wait!

It's gonna be a good year!

What a year 2011 has been! We’ve had some brilliant meetings resulting in some lovely new clients and of course not forgetting the catch up’s we’ve had with our lovely existing clients. We’ve produced some fabulous designs, jaw dropping (web2print) portals, cracking campaigns and daringly good digital print! We’re exhausted (we love it really)!

This year we produced a modest yet pretty, informative yet festive Christmas card to thank and show how much we appreciate everyone who’s made this year a great one! Merry Christmas Everybody!

Love,

Workbrands.

Ahhhhhh. The annual RVC CPD brochure. Excitement levels are always high when it’s that time of the year to work on the design for one of our most eagerly anticipated briefs. From the photography session - Oscar the dog, Angus the cow, to Douglas the hamster, this is combining business and pleasure (furry animals, say no more) at its best. When printed copies landed on our desk yesterday, there were gasps of delight only to be topped by an email from our favourite vet, Dr Jill Maddison, saying "I love it! So fresh, clean and contemporary!". Oh and check out the foil block on the front. Here in the great southwest, we call it lush

Christmas fever is definitely upon us. Even though we've all been (just a little) obsessed with the serious business that is the mince pie challenge (Sainsbury's taste the difference? Asda extra special? Waitrose essential!?). Joviality aside, we are honoured to have worked with Andrews estate agents on a worthy campaign - their Choose us, help them Christmas campaign. From funding chickens to feeding families, their plan to reach out to the less fortunate over the festive season is truly heartwarming.  Next time you drive past an Andrews branch, look out for the fun, engaging window graphics that we’ve created to help them spread their message in this season of good will.

PURLs & GURLs, the acronyms stand for Personalised Uniform Resource Locator and Generic Uniform Resource Locator. What does this mean? Basically, we come up with micro websites that can be personalised to your customer based on the information you know about your customer.

For example, you only know your prospects first and last name and personal email address. You could send them an email inviting them to log on to their own special website to take advantage of a special deal. They may see this as the website they have to go to:

www.YourDomain.co.uk/Firstname.Surname

Getting excited (it’s got their name in it!), they click on it, see your amazing offer, fill in or confirm some details, complete a survey or register for an event for example and click submit. Easy!

What just happened there? They took advantage of a great offer, completed a survey or registered for an event, right? Yes, but you also got to collect a bit more information on your client, which we can use in further marketing campaigns, or trigger an email to your sales team to follow up, or both. Remember, this all happened automatically.

The brilliant part of this system is that it can tell who didn’t go to the PURL, who visited it but did not complete, and who visited and completed the survey. This automatically flows into the remainder of the campaign, directing what marketing piece they receive next.

What if you don’t know any information about your customer? That’s not a problem, as we can just use a GURL as the website that fields all responses. We can send out a marketing campaign that links back to the GURL, where prospects will fill in information to be eligible for the deal you are offering.

Once we know a little more about that prospect, we can use that information for multiple further marketing touches, making sure that you get the sale. It’s not just marketing, it’s smart marketing with demonstrable return on investment figures.