Goodbye Blogger

Thanks for checking out our blog, now that our new website is live you can head on over there for all the latest insights into MDE.

http://www.makedesignenjoy.co.uk

The new site gives an insight to us, our work and whatever we are up to right now. Please do check it out and feel free to comment on any of the content.

Thanks!

We're looking for new creative talent.

Looking ahead to another year of growth and success we're excited to announce that we're recruiting for a Design Executive to join the team.

Please head over to our recruitment page for full details and how you can apply.

What 3 Mobile's adverts should really say...

Targeted Re-Marketing

Something that's been on my mind a little recently are internet cookies and targeted 're-marketing'. Where we as users are delivered online adverts based on our previous searches or purchases.

Now, initially I'm probably like most people in thinking that I don't like this, it feels intrusive. But on the other hand, we're all exposed to advertising every day and we can all choose to ignore it - but if it has to be there, why not have it be something we might actually be interested in?

The underlying issue with this really is the fact that people are gathering data on us, and our buying habits. I for one don't have a store points card for any retailer because the 'rewards' are a long way off the value of the data I'd be handing over.

So where does the future lie for online choice in terms of the data we hand over? I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on this, I'm no online data expert but I do think it's going to quickly become something we all have to deal with far more than we do currently.

Karl.

Digital Marketing for B2B With Google

On a fresh and crisp February morning myself and a whole host of eager advertising, marketing, digital, creative, nerdy type people queued outside Earls Court awaiting the opening of this years industry show - Technology For Marketing And Advertising.

Now, the reason for this rather enthusiastic early start to my day did not simply stem from the usual excitement of attending another exhibition, but the 10am keynote was being given by Richard Robinson, Industry Leader at Google.

The topic of his talk was specifically B2B digital marketing, this was of great interest to me as not only does B2B make up 70% of our client base, but I'm noticing an increasing trend towards digital marketing for these clients. The appeal of lower cost when compared to print, advanced methods to calculate ROI and the 'instant update-ability' of digital are all helping increase B2B client's interest in digital. These clients are also quickly becoming far more switched onto modern communication channels than before and especially so in the last 6 months.

Initial scepticism surrounding iPads, smart phones and mobile websites seems to be subsiding and we're now welcoming in an era of even the most conservative clients accessing digital information on a regular basis. And this access is going to change the B2B communication habits dramatically over the coming years.

Richard spoken specifically about some very inspiring projects showing dramatic success from utilising the ability to connect with audiences using digital platforms - in a B2B relationship. Everything from how we all access the internet to how much information is out there is growing, and this is really starting to effect the business buying process. Since 2008 there's been a 300% increase in B2B searches on mobile devices, and 62% of buyers spend more time researching online since the recession - we're all much smarter, more informed and more mobile decision makers.

This all makes the procurement process trickier for us, everyone in the office is able to Google something and find some local suppliers, information and reviews on them - hell, they can even see in their office windows with Google Street View! And I think as clients like ours are doing this themselves, they're becoming aware that their customers are probably doing it too.

I'm excited about this year, and we've got some great concepts on the table at the moment to use digital to great effect in some innovative ways in the B2B world. It'll be interesting to see what we can achieve by the end of the year.

Karl.

Thanks to @tfma_event for the tweets, the event images and the great coverage.

Robots in disguise...

We were up in Gloucester today with a client, they make the vehicles that tow aircraft around amongst many other massive powerful things. I snapped a couple of shots around parts of the factory so thought I'd post them up. They're great pieces of British design and manufacture, help move aircraft around all over the world and look like massive transformers!

Top of the chocs!

A couple of months ago we started something, something we were ridiculed for but we persevered like all trues visionaries. That something has grown into an opinionated, heated source of debate that everyone wants a piece of - Top of the chocs.

On a Top Gear style cool wall we each bring a bar into the studio once a week (usually Fridays) and then taste them one by one, voting and positioning them on the wall. Best at the top, worst at the bottom.

Everyone, I mean EVERYONE has something to say about the wall. It seems chocolate bars are somewhat of a sensitive point with everyone defending their favourite very strongly with the debate fuelled by sugar filled rage.

We'll tweet (#topofthechocs) and post up here the wall as it grows, we only have one simple criteria for entrants:

The bar must cost less than £1, it must be available in the corner shop, and no fancy stuff like Green & Blacks - strictly high street honeys up in here! I've posted shots of the entire wall below so you can scroll down it just like the wall itself (well, sort of, in a crude blogger kind of way).

If anyone else fancies having a go in their office please do share and in the mean time, I'm off to the gym - gotta work off all that chocolate ;)

Karl.

Funday Friday 27/01/12

The brief for today's "non project work" was to do produce some simple illustrated posters using big blocks of one or two colours. After some deliberation and a few coffees we've ended up producing posters based on Will Ferrell quotes / films.

I've done illustrations of the man himself from the films Anchorman and The Other Guys, Luke then went for depicting the "Tuna Vs Lion" argument that Will Ferrel and Mark Wahlberg have in The Other Guys.

If you've not seen these two films, please do check them out. If you have a childish sense of humour like us, you'll love them.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Running a small design studio - using the right software.

Producing great design is one thing, but running a studio means you need a whole lot more than just Adobe's Creative Suite.

I took me most of last year to finally settle into a system that works for us, and I found most of it through recommendation and reading up on the subject. So I thought it might be useful to post about what we use, how it helps us, and maybe it will help someone else in a similar position.

We are a team of 2 creatives, 1 developer and various contractors. We produce design, build websites, manage print and offer project management on exhibition builds etc. So we need to manage tasks, track time, send estimates and invoices - and of course submit accounts / VAT returns.

We've arrived at a solution that is the most cost effective and manageable way for us to do the above:

Freeagent (plus the Eon widget): Timeslips, Paperwork & Accounting.

Basecamp: Project & studio task management.

When I started the company I used (again on recommendation) a piece of software called Billings. It's fantastic for sole users on one machine and really gave me a lot of value when first starting out. From timing jobs to billing for them - both essential!

Last year we grew, and with new team members (full time, part time and remote) I needed a new way to assign tasks and track everyone's time.

I did a lot of looking around, and fell in love with products like Streamtime and Sohnar - but with only a couple of us these systems were simply too big. You need your own server, and those systems also both feature a chunky CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, and we don't need anything that complicated yet. But we do need to keep track of leads, who's called them and what is the next step.

I then discovered that Billings produce a "Pro" version, one which either ran off an in house server - or off their cloud based service, perfect! We could migrate all our data, use a system we were familiar with and people could login using a browser window to track their time.

Well, that worked for all of five minutes.

We found their cloud based service to be very unstable, and after a lot of patches, updates and fixes we were faced with a system that failed to work on a daily basis.

By this point we were already using Basecamp for task management and it works wonderfully, flat monthly rate no matter how many users you have. Give clients and staff access to individual projects, assign tasks, track comments, see timelines on a calendar (which you can import to your calendar) and a whole host of other goodies. Please do go and check it out. I also use Basecamp to keep track of my leads, creating a to do list with tasks for each lead. We can comment on these and keep everyone involved abreast of what stage we're at with each lead.

Thankfully then a friend came to the rescue with a system for timekeeping and accounting he'd been using for his similarly sized company - Freeagent.

Freeagent is bloody awesome! All your time, all your money (inc payroll and taxes) all in one place. You can get a 30 day free trial and I'd wholeheartedly recommend giving it some consideration. You access both these services through your browser, and both carry costs of around £25pcm (cheaper than Billings). To track time using Freeagent you'll need a widget called "Eon" this can be found over here. And it carries a one off payment of £30, you can then install it on all your Macs and sign into Freeagent through it to access tasks and projects. We then all simply submit our time at the end of every day and it syncs straight to Freeagent.

This is what has worked for us, and everyone's needs are different. If you've got any questions please don't hesitate to give me a shout, I'd be happy to help in anyway I might be able to.

Karl.

Funday Friday's

We always try to make some time on Friday's to do some 'self initiated' work. Either random briefs we come up with as a team, a tutorial or something we just fancy doing!

Last Friday I was out all day, but Luke did this rather lovely hand drawn type that he's worked up into a vector. It's looking really nice, and I think with a little more flourishes could be worked up into a really nice screen print for the studio.

We'll try and post up what we get up to on Fridays (when we're not fending off deadlines!) regularly and we'd love to hear your feedback.

Karl.

Free pitching on the increase

Design Week reported today that free pitching is on the increase - not a good thing to hear as far as I'm concerned. I can't say I'm entirely surprised though, with tighter budgets and more agencies popping up every day, our market is becoming tougher than ever before. New young agencies, and freelancers, I'm sure also contribute to this reported increase of free pitching.

The Design Industry Voices survey questioned a (rather modest) number of designers (496) and 71% of them said clients expected more free creative work at the pitch stage.

The age old free pitching debate I fear, will never go away. And like so many trials and tribulations we go through as owners of design agencies, big and small, if we worried about every possibility we'd never get any work done! And it is for this reason I enter this new year with hope, optimism and my head held high when I refuse non paid creative pitches.

We sell ideas, the shoe shop sells shoes, and the baker sells bread. But if you asked to try a pair of shoes for a few days to see if they made you look good, or indeed asked for a free loaf of bread to see if it filled you up as promised - I'm fairly sure you'd be laughed out of the shop.

It is madness that our industry allows itself to be de-valued by giving away our 'materials' - our IDEAS for free on the basis that we might win the work. Why, when so many industries work fine by presenting what they do, how they do it, showing relevant case studies, estimating how much it will cost the customer and moving forward from there?

I wonder if this is all our own fault? Creatives love creating solutions to problems, and wether it's a discussion over a pint in the pub, or a new brief from a client - we can't help but run away with ourselves coming up with ideas, problems, solutions and all that pretty stuff we call design. And over the years has this become more evident to clients? That this natural desire to create can be exploited, because frankly, we love it. Ironic though, that free pitching will only continue to drive up the cost of design - are clients even aware of that? For every free pitch an agency might win, they might have lost 3 others - where do clients think the cost of the lost pitches will be recouped? Probably on their bill I'm afraid.

Clients know we love designing, and (for some brands) know that we'd all fall over ourselves to work with them. So they know we're keen and raring to go, and because of our natural desire to create, over the years I think the free pitching situation has become accepted by some design agencies because it's the only way to win those big, desirable clients - and frankly, we love a challenge - and winning!

But I think design has never been stronger in business terms, and this should enable us to fight back and be respected like the shoe shops and bakeries (where AM I going with this metaphor?!). Most agencies can now prove how their input has helped to grow their client's business. And I think this clear illustration of ROI from design is still a relatively new thing for clients, certainly the ones we deal with. But by presenting great case studies, being aware of design as a business tool, showing returns, your processes and being clear in briefs and deliverables there should be no reason you can't win work without new creative ideas. And no reason for clients not to feel comfortable appointing an agency based on a credentials pitch.

We do not support free pitching, and we turn it down regularly. And I think it's far more interesting to see how we're developing as an agency by having to communicate our processes and case studies better, in order to win clients.

I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight the great work the Design Programme are doing to help battle the free creative pitching debate, please do check out their website. And the original article from DW can be found here.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this one too so please don't hesitate to drop me a line on here or by email: studio@makedesignenjoy.co.uk

Thanks for reading,

Karl.