Sysco Guest Supply are a multi billion dollar business who supply amenities such as bubble bath and shampoo to hotel chains like the Marriot and Hilton worldwide. To say that they’re upmarket bubble bath suppliers probably doesn’t do them quite justice! They have an impressive portfolio of both clients and suppliers and are responsible for placing brands such as Hermes, Aromatherapy Associates, Bulgari and Kiehls in top end hotels. In addition to this they also design, manufacture and distribute both their own brand products and create branded toiletries for hotel chains as well.

They approached Flourish to help them create a brochure that would encourage new clients to pick up the phone and arrange a meeting. We’ll be doing the design work over the next few weeks and the first stage was a mood board session to establish both the look and feel and the structure of the brochure. I love working on mood boards with clients. It all seems a little random when we suggest them to clients – how on earth is a bit of cutting and sticking going to make a difference to their design they wonder? And is it really worth the money? Well the feedback from each and every client we’ve done this with so far is categorically yes.

Alice, Sysco’s Marketing Manager, and I started by focusing on what made Sysco Guest Supply unique and the impression we wanted to create. We then brainstormed how the brochure might be structured. Immediately we noticed that our quick response plan lacked customer focus, so we spent some time thinking hard about who Sysco Guest Supply’s clients are and what motivates them to buy. This is often a really valuable exercise for our clients as they suddenly realise that all customers are not created equal, and even in these times, not all are motivated by price.

Understanding who Sysco’s clients were and what motivated them to buy enabled us to prioritise them in order of who Alice wanted to focus her energies on with this brochure. Very quickly and simply we were able to come up with a strong angle for the brochure, and voila, with a bit of jiggery pokery we slotted in a couple of extra spreads into the plan which suddenly made a very company focused brochure suddenly very customer focused.

Even if you don’t have a brochure, do this with your website. You’ll be amazed at the number of websites that are company rather than customer focused.

Anyway, back to the mood board. Within an hour and a half Alice and I had a plan. We’d sketched out roughly the content and order of each page and Alice had a plan that she could use for when she writes the copy up this week. We can also use it to give to the studio when it comes to the design work.

Next up was the cutting and sticking. Armed with a pair of scissors and a stash of catalogues and magazines we cut out images that reflected the stylish, luxurious and professional image we’d like the brochure to have. With our shortlist we then weeded out those that didn’t fit, and with the help of Caroline, the Flourish Studio Manager were able to create the fabulous mood board you see below.

I do realise that this just looks like an effortless collection of images, but trust me when I say that each and every one of those images has been carefully considered and placed on that mood board for a reason. Sometimes it’s about being literal, but more often than not we use these mood boards to think laterally, evoke feelings and spark our creativity. It’s also a fantastic way for the Account Director, Art Director and Client to ensure that we’re all on the same page before we start a job, and the output is so much better for it.

Alice’s comments at the end summed up what was a really fun and very productive morning. She admitted that she’d been sceptical about the value in the mood board but now that she had done it, could absolutely see the benefits. She said it was one of the most fun mornings she’d had in her working life. Praise indeed!

Lisa Cox is a garden designer based in Leatherhead. We’ve been working together for the past three months on her marketing strategy – focusing on getting Lisa plenty of profitable clients to help her achieve her financial goals. We started in May by defining Lisa’s brand strategy and understanding who her most profitable clients would be. This really helped us target our marketing to some very specific groups of people. In June we looked at pricing – how much Lisa should be charging and how she might package up some of her services to make them easier to sell. We also explored a financial plan for the year and created her a set of sales targets. Finally in July we created Lisa’s marketing plan. Using the knowledge we had gained in the first two months we were able to create a really focused and targeted marketing plan that will help Lisa attract more of the profitable clients.

Lisa's current website

Lisa had recently had her brand identity created and was very happy with that but was unsure about her website. We both agreed that whilst the website could do with some tweaks – both in terms of content and design, it wasn’t the most important area to spend her budget on at the moment. It looks good (if a little technical) and there were more pressing issues that needed dealing with, such as the creation of a branded blog and newsletter and the implementation of a direct mail campaign.

Rob has taken much of the look and feel of Lisa’s brand identity and developed it further to bring out more of Lisa’s personality and create something altogether softer and more engaging.

I love the font he’s used which just softens the look and feel. He’s also kept the very structured images but softened them with an inset border which just feels a bit more classy. It should appeal to Lisa’s target market very well! You can see the blog at the top of this post – both newsletter and blog reflect eachother without being exactly the same, which I think is important.

Over the summer Lisa will be running a two stage direct mail campaign. She already has some brochures printed and she’ll be dropping a handwritten note into each of those before posting off to 300 select houses (we’ll be testing two different notes over 50 houses first to see which one pulls the most response). She’ll follow up that campaign with a very focused flyer aimed at encouraging people to book a consultation with her.

I wrote the copy and Rob has created this gorgeous design to really lift the words and bring them to life.

And here’s the back

So what do you think? We have one very happy Lisa, and I’m pretty chuffed with the results myself – even if I do say so myself…

Denise Allen has been a regular visitor to the flourishing blog ever since I met her at Grow Your Business in April of 2009 and we were delighted when a couple of weeks ago she asked us to create a new identity for her baking business. Denise currently trades her business as Cupcake and Cookie Central and has been working through the night to bake enough cakes to sell at Surrey and Hampshire Farmers Markets.

Having recently moved to Hampshire Denise is getting serious about taking her baking business to higher levels and is keen to stop the exhausting cycle of weekend farmers markets and build up the commissions.

Denise recognised that in order to stand out from the competition and attract the right sorts of clients she needed a professional and engaging logo. Her brief was to create something that was fun, professional and most of all, communicated the love and attention she puts into each and every one of her cakes.And so without further ado, I present to you Concept One.

Concept One

Personally I love the font, the colours, the spots (yes, probably too much detail when small, but it would work well without the dots too…) and the cute piping bag.

And here it is in context.

Concept Two

This one feels a bit more corporate and we’ve played on the idea of a doily framing the cupcake. It’s a much more slick take on what Denise has at the moment and the cupcake image and doily could be used elsewhere on their own.

Concept Three

This one takes a bit of a different turn. Denise was unsure about whether the company name should be Cupcake and Bake or Cup, Cake and Bake. Both have very different connotations and we promised her we’d try out one option with the comma. In our initial brainstorming we’d sketched out a few ideas with tea cups, but they didn’t make the grade. Instead a delicious font which just exudes the emotion that Denise puts into her cakes and a heart icon to reinforce the idea of love.

This logo would work just as well across two words: Cupcake and Bake as it does across the three, so don’t let that skew your judgement! And finally option 3 in context.

So now over to you. Denise has a clear favourite but we’d love to know what you think. Which one “speaks” to you the most? We’re aiming to move more upmarket than where Denise’s business currently is so it’s all about looking fun, professional and like the cakes have been made with care.

You’ve heard of Butlers in the Buff? Well get ready for Sera of MIB’s new concept for a band: Band in the Buff. I kid you not, this band will perform naked. It seems that the finer details are just being sorted but I understand that they will be naked save for a few strategically placed instruments covering their modesty…

I have to be honest, it’s not something that we’ve been asked to design before, but never ones to shirk a challenge, we rolled our sleeves up and got stuck straight in. The brief was to create something fun, NOT sleazy and high impact. We’ve created logos and websites for pretty much all of Sera’s bands to date so we made sure that this logo would fit in with the others whilst hopefully living up to it’s name. Do let us know what you think…

Concept One

Here’s what Caroline (our Studio Manager) had to say about the first concept: “It seemed obvious to us that we needed to design one logo that played with the Adam and Eve theme. As with all your logos, we’ve stuck to fonts that are bold, fuss-free and confident.”

Concept Two

Over to Caroline… “We thought a little stitched label would be a nice ironic play on the fact that all the band members are naked. This logo is simple but effective and has some little icons to carry across onto things such as buttons on your website, etc.”

Concept Three

Caroline says… “OK. We couldn’t help ourselves. We had to create an option that worked around a censorship theme! The graphic is subtle but the message is clear and comical. We’ve deliberately tried out a great, zesty green to give the message even more punch but this still works in the overall MIB colour palette.”

Concept Four

A bonus concept (we usually only present three), that Caroline was keen to show the client. “This last logo design is based around the same idea as concept two but we’ve labeled the logo in the form of a swing tag. We thought this design looked great on the T-shirts and felt we had to show you! We’ve tried a vivid red for this design which again, works so well with the rest of the MIB colour palette.”

Sera was delighted with the options and immediately came back with the response “Wowwwww we love them!!! …Looking fab!Thanks guys, soooo excited! Looks amazing! xx”.

We’re currently tweaking and refining a couple of the concepts before starting the website design so I will make sure that I upload that as soon as we have the first mockup.

I’m on a bit of a roll with my in the studio this week… posts this, ahem, week. So much so that I’ll be staggering them throughout the next few days. And what better a design to start off the week with than the MIB music blog. Sera Golding is one of those dream clients who tends to give us pretty much free rein on her projects (just wait till I share with you her latest band!!!) and plenty of encouragement and positive feedback along the way.

Sera attended my blogging workshop back on 17th June and fired up from that commissioned us to create her a fun and funky blog for her music management agency, MIB. I know I’m blowing my own trumpet but personally I think Rob has done a cracking job on this one. I love the font he’s used, the polished look and the overall cohesiveness that the design has about it. The pink makes a statement without being over the top (at least I think so) because it’s tempered by the white page background.

I know that Sera is over the moon and is already frantically blogging away. The feedback has been very positive on twitter, and we’d love to know what you think. Do also check out the blog, she has some great articles on there already and I’m loving her song of the week section!

Sam Jones is a superwoman. Not only is she a well renowned photographer, famed for making women look beautiful, she’s also a property sales consultant extraordinaire. Sam runs a very unique business helping people who are struggling to sell their houses achieve their maximum value – usually without dropping the price. As you can imagine, she’s pretty busy in this market!

Sam approached us to help her create a more engaging blog that would help her communicate her expertise and get the word out about her services. She literally is unique – she’s not an estate agent, but she helps people sell their homes. And she’s not a house doctor, although home staging does form a part of the service. Sam works with couples who have had their house on the market usually for more than 6 months, and she helps them get it sold for it’s maximum value.

Here’s Sam’s blog before we waved our fairy dust over it.

Ok so the design is wholly uninspiring, and you can see why she was keen to work with us on the design. But the content is fantastic and that’s the cornerstone of a great blog. Blog regularly, make sure your posts look great and write great content and you’re on to a winner.

Back to Sam’s shiny new blog…

The imagery gives it the upmarket polish her clients expect of someone at the top of her game and the colours add style and professionalism. Sam has only just updated her photograph and I can’t tell you the difference it makes (in fact, I feel a blog post coming on for the subject of headshots, but that’s another story…). The blog is now much easier to navigate – visitors aren’t forced to read posts in chronological order, they can click on the subjects that interest them in the “menu” bar at the top of the page. Oh, and just in case people want to get in touch, Sam’s contact details are there loud and clear.

What do you think?

So earlier this evening I finally hit “publish” on my post on our initial brainstorming of the Bisley Shooting Ground rebrand. I’ve always wanted to give you sneak peeks of a logo before we start the polished Mac work, but it always feels a little unfair on the client, so as soon as I knew that Shirley and the team from Bisley were delighted with the concepts I knew I could safely show you the beginning of the process.

Today Caroline and Chloe had the nailbiting task of presenting our four logo designs to the team from Bisley Shooting Ground before running a mood board session to help them take the online and printed collateral further.

Now I have a very clear favourite, but I will do my very best to remain unbiased. The Bisley team have two favourites currently, so your feedback would be very much appreciated.

Concept One

This simple, stylish and evocative logo was inspired by the Ground’s mascot, Oscar, the terrier. It exudes class, confidence and country but at the same time it’s beautifully understated. Chloe had a lot of fun researching the dog’s breed and illustrating him.

And here’s option one in context.

Concept Two

This upmarket and elegant logo takes inspiration from the shape of the cartridges and the intricate patterns on the guns. The stylish illustration is a nod to the heritage of the Ground’s lodge – a Victorian hunting lodge from the 1850’s.

Concept Three

The decorative B marks the idea of a well established ground that is a leader in it’s field. The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed the development of this one from Ian’s initial sketch in our brainstorming. He went away following the session and re-drew in much more detail and then Chloe re-rendered the letter on the mac.

Concept Four

Less of a concept and more of an evolution. I loved the “feel” of the original logo from Bisley Shooting Ground. It fitted perfectly with the colonial building and the characterful and warm environment. I was keen that we recreate that original logo in some form, if nothing else, as a bit of a control experiment. I’m not sure that it holds it’s own next to the others, but it’s good to see it. This is a bit of a bonus design as we’ll usually only design three concepts…

And in context…

So I have a clear favourite, but how do you feel about them? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Gareth Palmer has literally just set up Playscene, a company that specialises in creating fun and imaginative playspaces for children. We met Gareth at this May’s Grow Your Business exhibition and he loved the Flourish stand, so when he booked the EcoSchools show in Peterborough he approached Flourish to help him create an engaging and memorable stand.

Gareth and I worked through an exhibition planning session together and helped him establish what his key angle was going to be for the show. We focused very much on the fact that there was a mix of teachers and pupils in attendance, and Gareth’s focus needed to be on engaging both, but it was the teachers who were likely to become potential customers.

We explored how we might create an impact, and Gareth had some fantastic ideas and together we whittled them down into a cohesive idea that would make sense to visitors. Gareth created his own graphics for the back wall and he and his girlfriend worked incredibly hard painting furniture, baking cakes and creating goody bags.

Gareth had also commissioned a fabulous Storyteller’s Chair which proved to be a real talking point and had also obtained hundreds of seeds to give away to the children which reinforced his ecological commitments.

You can also see plenty of his products on show – and we made sure that we kept them all rustic and natural to make sure that the impact was cohesive. I love the grass green floor and the vibrant backdrop. And how fabulous is the garden planter with all it’s fresh vegetables growing?

Gareth picked up well over 90 entries into his compeition and he’ll be announcing the winner shortly. Then he has the hard job of following up. But a jubliant Gareth was delighted with how the day went. The show organisers were so impressed with his stand they told him it was the best at the show and even used the stand as the backdrop to MP Lord Henley’s press shoot. Not a bad accolade! And proof that you don’t have to be a big company to have the best stand at a show – it’s all about your imagination.

Phil Johns runs Ergonomic Office Imports – a company that pretty much does what it says on the tin. Phil mostly sells to the trade, but is just about to take on premises in Wood Street Village which will enable him to sell direct to the public. I worked with Phil a few weeks back on his marketing strategy, and we identified a few key areas for him to start investing in.

First of all, he needed a logo and identity for the business. Getting this right at the outset will mean he attracts the right type of clients from the get-go, and will also save him money in the long run. Every business needs a logo, so why not start as you mean to carry on? He was still going to need signage so rather than throw out a poorly designed sign in a few years/ months time, Phil is starting out with a gorgeous logo and identity from the off.

Phil didn’t have an enormous budget, so we’ll be working on as many low cost and no cost marketing activities as possible to get him started: workshops and seminars, building up strategic links with other local businesses, leaflet drops in the areas that he’s had success in before, and blogging. Phil has such an enormous knowledge of all things ergonomic – he is a true expert in his field, so the sooner we can get him on social media, the better!

Here’s Rob’s design for the blog. I love the clean, fresh approach he’s taken.

What do you think?

We had a great day at the blogging workshop yesterday, some wonderfully inspiring business owners and great headway made. In a moment of rare modesty I showed the delegates lots of beautifully designed blogs from some of the world’s best bloggers. But what I didn’t show them was any of the blogs that we’ve designed at Flourish. So without further ado, here are five simple and stylish blogs hot off the Flourish press.

A simple, stylish and quick blog design for a weight loss specialist and image consultant.

I love the colours and energy that exudes from this blog. It perfectly captures Elizabeth in all her sparkling glory, and the warm and welcoming photograph of Elizabeth only adds to the mood.

Tom’s had many a blogger assume that he’s a 6-figure blogger thanks to this design. It perfectly encapsulates Tom’s brand of slightly esoteric with creative thinking and technical backup.

I’ve shown this one to you many a time. Beautiful, timeless and elegant; with a good pinch of romance thrown in.

I love the friendly images down the side (which neatly click back to the “team” pages on their website) and the gorgeous background image.