Inspirations

Once again, Ian has turned his creative hand to some beautiful illustrative icons for A Thread and a Thought and they’re so lovely they must be shared!

When we show all of our polished designs together on one page it’s sometimes difficult to see the detail that goes into making them so bespoke. I love the imperfect smudginess of these drawings at this initial stage of the design process and they’re made all the more beautiful by some cracking photography. Hat’s off to Ian, and designer James for his camera skills! Enjoy…

Tagged as , brand identity, brand identity surrey, branding, branding design, illustration, illustration design in Behind The Scenes, Illustrations, Inspirations

Happy New Year everyone!

Hopefully the Christmas period has given you the chance to relax, unwind, recharge your batteries and distance yourself from your business (just for a little while at least) to launch yourself into this year with a plan of action? Well, if you’re not quite there yet then hopefully this post will give you a little inspiration.

Now that it’s back to business in every sense of the word, it’s so easy to fast allow ourselves to get wrapped up in the day to day activities and before we know it March is just around the corner and nothing’s ticked off on our to-do list. What’s desperately needed this time of year is time to step back, reflect on where your business is and think about where you want to it be this time next year.

If you’ve got your to-do list together already (you clever sausage you) then let me suggest just one addition if I may? Spend just a few minutes looking at your current branding and ask yourself a few honest questions.

1. If you know exactly what your business is all about, who your ideal clients are and what they value about what you do then your branding should be communicating with them in a way that puts your business to the top of their list. Are you confident you’ve got this right for your business?

2. If you consistently communicate with your customers and prospects in a way that inspires and resonates with them then they’ll ache to work with you: whether you’re the cheapest or not. And if you can show confidence and professionalism throughout all of your communications: website, printed collateral and through all the social media channels then when these ideal clients and prospective customers find you, why wouldn’t you blow your competitors out of the water? Do you think your customers ache to work with you?

3. Once you’ve got all of this right, spending money on advertising, search engine optimisation and pay per click marketing makes sense. Why? Because you need people to find your business! But you need people to see your business in the way you see it, and too often there’s a discrepancy between the confidence and passion you have for your business and what people see on the outside. Are you doing enough for people to see what you see?

Take at least 5 minutes this week to slow down and focus.

If you’re keen to know more about growing your brand style into something rather magnificent then book a place with us on our Branding Masterclass starting 21st January. We’d love to see you there!

Tagged as , branding, branding masterclass, Rebranding, rebranding surrey in Behind The Scenes, Big Thinking, From The Studio

Caroline has already showcased Chloe’s beautiful blog design for Little Big Bell and personally it’s one of my favourites!

Before we got started I played around with a few little sketches which could appear on the blog, and Chloe has used some of them in the category button, but thought I would share some of the others with you. A quote which is close to Geraldine’s heart has been used on the bottle which I think works really well and hopefully we can get to use this somewhere in the future.

We have a new project for the embroiderer Jenny Adin Christie that we’re really excited about, and you’ll see some sketches for Jenny’s new branding soon.

Tagged as , illustrations in Behind The Scenes, From The Studio, Illustrations, Inspirations

One of my very favourite quotes this via Uncovet. It’s a quote I often share with my branding masterclass students to help them understand the importance of niching, but as we head into another weekend (yey!) it’s something many of us could do with considering for our personal lives too isn’t it? Utterly inspirational and [...]

Tagged as in Inspirations

Blogging is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have at your disposal. Get it right and you’ll attract, engage and compel people to do business with you. You’ll demonstrate value in your business and find it much easier to find the sorts of raving fans who want to work with you because you’re [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Inspirations, Workshops

Creativity’s a funny thing isn’t it? To continue to produce work that pushes boundaries you have to be prepared to experiment, to take risks and to try things out. But you’ve also got to be prepared to look critically at an idea and question whether it’s working or not. That’s got to be easier in [...]

Tagged as in Behind The Scenes, Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Illustrations, Inspirations

Oh my goodness we have soooo much to share with you and it feels like ages since we’ve blogged properly. I can’t wait to find a little time to update you on some of our projects – we have some really fun stuff happening in the studio right now and as soon as I can [...]

Tagged as in Big Thinking, Inspirations

I’m sure I’ve posted something on this before but it’s such a powerful phrase isn’t it? Our Greatest Fear isn’t that we’re inadequate but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. Isn’t this just so true? In fact we love this phrase so much that James [...]

Tagged as in Inspirations

I took the opportunity to wander into Nottingham at the weekend and have a look at shop window displays for some design inspiration. It’s amazing the variety and contrast you see across different brands and it’s obvious those companies who really put a lot of thought and effort into making their shop window displays stand [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Graphic Design, Inspirations, Powerful Branding, Uncategorized

Not On The High Street (NOTHS) founders, Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish’s book is going down a bit of a storm isn’t it? And having got my hands on a copy last week it’s not hard to see why. The book is packed with inspirational anecdotes, straight talking and oodles of sensible business advice. Have [...]

Tagged as , Holly Tucker, Not on the high street, NOTHS, Sophie Cornish in Inspirations, Recommended Reading