One of the favourite Christmas presents in our household last year was a book called ‘Information is Beautiful’ by David McCandless.  A wide ranging collection of facts and theories presented as wonderful graphics.

It really is quite amazing to look at topics, which if written in figures would have the potential to bore you to tears, that become fascinating and intriguing represented as shapes and intricate flow diagrams.  The other advantage is that my 7 year old became obsessed with learning all the facts on every page showing that, when teaching people, young or old, about a new subject sometimes presenting it slightly differently can really pay dividends.

Why not have a think about how you present information about your company, and whether the graphic touch could help get the message across in a more beautiful way!

You can buy the book here

Our local community is important to us, and we have long admired the Liphook in Bloom team of volunteers for their dedication and hard work in making Liphook look so wonderful with the plant displays around the village. To offer our support to the team, we have re-refreshed the logo for ‘Liphook in Bloom’ and assisted them with the roll out of the new logo across all their marketing and display materials.

This is a classic case of the importance of being flexible in your approach to brands requiring an update. Some brands, it is true, just don’t work for the organisation (they may have done once, but not in every case) and no amount of re-jigging, font changes, layout changes, motif updates and other design tricks, will help improve the situation. That signals a time to draw a line under the old and build a clear brief for the new. This isn’t always the case; sometimes we’re approached by companies who have the essence of a good brand – it just needs some TLC to make it sing.

That was the case with the Liphook in Bloom logo – as a community based scheme, the logo style needed to reflect that. So, we first set about work on trying to improve what was there already to see if this took the logo to the right place. As you can see below we re-created and updated all the elements of the logo (the font, the watering can, the water drops and the flowers), and used a subtle ‘brush stroke’ to frame the letters softly, and finally removed the detail within the letters which we felt was distracting, instead opting for a solid colours in a varied pallette across the lettering.

Carolyn from the Liphook in Bloom team had this to say: “It was a great surprise when Mzuri Design contacted Liphook in Bloom with an offer to refresh our logo and ‘brand’, but it has been a delight to work with them through the various stages.  They have shown great originality and patience, and the final product is wonderful.”

So, the moral of the story? Take a critical look at your logo and see if it is something that can be built on, adapted and updated to more accurately reflect where your business is now, or whether it has had its day and it’s time to start from scratch. If you’re unsure and looking for inspiration, why not contact us to get a copy of our ‘brand identity questionnaire’ – designed to get the creative juices flowing and help you in your decision making process! Email me for your copy.

Before and after logos for Liphook in Bloom

Now we are actually sitting in 2012, it almost seems surreal as everyone had been talking about this particular year for so long.  It was way back in 2005, when IOC president Jacques Rogge made the announcement that the Olympics would be held in Britain, for the first time since 1948.

As we approach the summer the inevitable marketing of pretty much everything we buy and do will think to feature some reference to the Olympics.  However as a business there are some pretty stringent rules to adhere to before you start sticking the Olympic rings on your marketing collateral.  IPC media have recently sent a very informative email about the restrictions, given that they have had to reject adverts submitted to them featuring references to the Games.

Below I have included their links to the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) website pdfs so that you can read all about it in detail if you need to.

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The Facts from IPC Media:

It is important to be aware that explicit or implied reference to the Olympic Games or the athletes is governed by specially enacted laws and regulations that are very restrictive to anyone but official sponsors. These Olympic Association laws go well beyond and are much stricter than what would otherwise be permitted by the CAP code  (Committee of Advertising Practice) or any other relevant advertising law.

The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) have indicated that they will be very vigilant in enforcing violations of the Olympic association laws particularly as the games approach. A basic summary of how these laws may affect your business can be found here:

http://www.london2012.com/documents/brand-guidelines/guidelines-for-business-use.pdf

More detailed guidance here:

http://www.london2012.com/documents/brand-guidelines/statutory-marketing-rights.pdf

And for those companies that have supplied the Olympics, Team GB or any other official British team competing in these games the supplier protocol must be adhered to – this effectively prevents suppliers from making references to the fact that they are a supplier in their ad copy:

http://www.london2012.com/documents/oda-publications/no-marketing-rights-suppliers-protocol-dec-2007.pdf

In accordance with the Olympic Symbol Protection Act and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games Act, any ad promoting an item of Olympic erchandise must feature an officially licensed product approved by LOCOG and must carry the official merchandise hologram.

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Happy reading!

I’m a firm believer in feedback. The positive gives just reward for a job well done, the negative gives you opportunity to improve.

We’ve received some really fabulous feedback over the years (as well as been told about areas we haven’t been so great at and which I hope we have now improved accordingly), and I just wanted to highlight the testimonial below, re-discovered after a recent review of client feedback, that really summed up what we hope to achieve for our clients.

‘I would like to extend my thanks to Katherine and the Mzuri Design team for their speed and professionalism in delivering a brand and supporting corporate literature that set the tone and positioning of my wife’s newly launched Reiki Practice.

In today’s massively competitive market place many brands have flooded the Health Care sector promising the world but in reality often delivering very little of value. Much more attention is now being focused on the natural benefits offered by Complementary Medicines/Services and so in order to appropriately differentiate these offerings it was critical to adopt a brand position and ‘look’ that captures all the elements that go into providing the ‘holistic experience’ clients look for when choosing alternative medical solutions.

‘Soul healing with feeling’ verbally sums up what the various treatments provide, but it is through the use of the natural, earthy and balanced colours of the brand identity that the business card visually sets the appropriate level of professionalism, allowing this to then be taken into the corporate brochure where the client’s desire to learn and understand is satisfied by fluid copy that ticks all the boxes.

The result so far has been that appointments are being booked in direct relation to the number of corporate brochures picked up from the Centre of Complementary Medicine, a testimony to the instant impact of the brand.

Thank you Mzuri for taking the time to get this right.’
Nick Hawkins

If you have any feedback on the service we provide, positive or negative, I would love to hear from you. As an organisation we are always changing and evolving and so we are open to ways we can be better. Email me on katherineb@mzuridesign.co.uk If you would like to know what your clients’ think about you, have you considered an online survey? We have run several for client’s recently with some really interesting results. Somehow the beginning of a new year seems to be a great time to take stock.

Ann's brand and brochure

If you’re planning to do any print or online advertising in 2012, you’d be wise to plan ahead.  By creating a media plan for the year you can reap the financial benefits of block booking as well as being able to negotiate best positions in the publications and potentially getting them to agree to place your editorial as part of the deal.

To give you an example, I created a media plan for one of my clients with their annual advertising budget of £20,000. From the initial rate card costs of £21,700 I managed to negotiate a reduction over all the publications of nearly £9,000 allowing them to increase their exposure with additional advertising in their chosen publications as well as adding some new ones to the mix.  I also managed to secure regular editorial coverage as they could see we were
committed advertisers.

Whilst there is a lot to be said for a great last minute space deal, you are subject to the restrictions of fitting into the particular ‘space’ they have for your
advert and perhaps being persuaded by price, rather than logical thinking and planning around your target market.

A girl in search of a kiss-ass outfit for a series of important forthcoming meetings, shopping alone save for a restless 13 month old baby who would rather be anywhere but her buggy is a special breed. This was me on Saturday!

So, there I was, a little on the fraught side, but ready to attack the mission at hand. What I needed was a helpful steer in the right direction, then efficient service as I had a limited window of opportunity before the task became mission:impossible (I refer you back to the buggy comment above).

One of my mantras at Mzuri is to treat all clients as individuals and each project as unique so we can tailor a bespoke solution that achieves the very best outcome for our clients’ needs. This is a philosophy that the shop assistant at LK Bennett who served me on Saturday could have usefully taken on board.

She did so many things brilliantly, that if she had dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s it would have made for a sublime shopping experience, but a few basic errors in my customer experience let it down. It led me to think about how it is the small things that can make all the difference to our experience of and perception of the companies that we patronise, so thought I’d jot down my top tips resulting from this less than perfect shopping experience:

1) Ask the right questions and listen to the answers. I wanted a dress and possibly a coat. I didn’t want persistent attempts to be upsold a bag, scarf, jacket, shoes and boots. One gentle introduction of these options would have been fine (I want to know the options available to me that would enhance my basic objective!), but she was a woman on a mission and it put me off.

2) Don’t change the keenness of your approach when you realise the customer only wants the dress may be persuaded on the coat, but it’s an absolute no on the other stuff. Engage my interest, show your skill at combining other elements of an outfit and respect my clear signals that I’m not here to break the bank by buying it all; exceed my expectations by not taking the traditional ‘I’m gonna sell you as much as I can’ approach and you’ll win more of my respect. And probably have me saving up my pennies to rush back and get the boots when I can afford them, and telling my friends how great the shop is (instead I’m blogging about the fact that it irritated me!).

3) Make sure you ‘hold the baton’ until the transaction is complete. Don’t dump my clothes (that you handled so carefully and presented so beautifully in the changing rooms) on the counter then rush off to serve another customer while I stand at the checkout with an irate child and I just want to pay and get on the move. I stood for 5 minutes waiting to pay for the goods. If I hadn’t needed the dress for a specific meeting, I would have left.

4) If you offer a discount (20% off splashed across the windows), then make sure this is applied at the till without having to be reminded (when I’d realised half way down the high street!) then having to wait another 5 minutes while you get the store manager to come and process my refund.

I left feeling slightly let down that I’d gone from feeling a million dollars in the changing room in the lovely dress, to feeling a bit annoyed at having been ‘processed’ in a horrible salesy way.

In telling this little tale of my shopping adventure, I have concluded that customer service is a bit like an essay – it has to have a beginning, a middle and an end to be great. And if you neglect one element, the whole thing is much less persuasive and doesn’t leave the lasting impression that it could have.

We’ve all seen them – those ‘site under construction’ holding page with some clip art of a yellow hazard cone. Often unbranded, without contact information or even a sugestion as to what the site will be for. Not a crime I hear you say, when you are starting out and not promoting your website yet. True enough.

But with the huge list of ‘things to do’ that all new business start ups have to contend with, it’s not uncommon for the website to be promoted before its ready. Business cards handed out at networking: check. Emails with jazzy email footers linking to website and social media: check. Free business listings online: check. You see what I’m getting at. The website’s on the agenda, but you’ve got lots of high priority tasks and in some cases getting some money flowing in by doing what you do is higher up the list.

That’s when a more extensive ‘holding page’ can be an inexpensive and valuable tool for new businesses. As with the example below for EnViva Care you can express your company propostion and values and include all important contact information, dressed as appropriate with graphics and images. And not forgetting the lovely new logo you’ve decided on. This approach doesn’t help for search engine optimisation (SEO) for all manner of reasons – but that’s not the intention here. Your main site is where you will be concerned about keyword density, live content, meta descriptions, H1 tags and all that SEO jazz that we get so excited about (but then we’re a bit geeky like that). But at least a more considered holding page like this provide a professional and useful interim measure while you get the full site ready to rock.  See it here www.envivacare.com