Recommended Reading

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 you read it yet? I’d love to know what you think…

The book is beautifully designed, very easy to ready and structured in such an engaging way that I’m afraid I read the lot in one sitting! I wonder if I should do as my friend Clare says and go back through it, cover to cover, notebook in hand ready to act on the nuggets!

I found Holly and Sophie’s style incredibly refreshing and despite them having very different approaches to their work life balance than I do, I finished the book really liking and respecting them. Their honesty about the sacrifices you make to build a business of NOTHS size was so reassuring. Whilst I really admire them for what they have achieved and their passion for their work, I feel even more clear that I’m just not prepared to go down a similar route myself to achieve multi-million pound greatness. I’d love to know what your take is on it.

I also loved hearing their background stories and their honesty that this is not a rags to riches tale – they came across as very normal and very likeable. And the fact that Holly is married to a Met Police officer did strike quite a chord with me! I do think that they’re absolutely right when they say that you get out of a business what you put in. And they put in a lot. They also made the point that they’re highly efficient and that’s something that I’ve always made sure of; that on the days that I’m in the office I’m putting in an incredible amount to get everything done. They seem to do that and work more than full time and I’m quite in awe of them.

The practical sections of the book – like the Not On The High Street Down and Dirty Test, the advice and questionnaire on finding the right business partner, the right name and working with friends and family were so useful – and honestly not just for startups either. I think there are plenty of gems in there for more established business owners – if nothing else their stories make for fascinating reading along with their trials and tribulations along the way to fame and fortune.

Have you read the book? I’d love to know what you think!

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

Are you thinking about refreshing or updating your website soon? If so you’re definitely going to need to download yourself a copy of our Website Planning Workbook.

We love creating websites for our clients and see helping with making sure it’s going to work commercially as one of the fundamental parts of creating a gorgeous website. Thinking about how a page should be structured, how to create an engaging customer experience and how to drive the sales message home are all commercial elements of a website project that we thrive on. But nothing can beat you doing a little homework yourself – so whether you’re working with us on your website or putting together a site yourself, we hope that you find this planning guide full of useful foundation questions that will help you get the most out of your next website.

You can download your free copy of the website planning guide on the resources section our website (where incidentally you’ll also find plenty of other goodies to inspire your business journey). Enjoy!

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff, Marketing, Online Marketing, Recommended Reading, Web Design, Websites

 So you want to take better photographs of food for your website or blog but don’t know where to start? Rush out and get yourselves a copy of the gorgeous Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling, go on, right now! Rarely do I leap about quite so much over a book as this one. It’s amazing. Seriously amazing.

I’ve long been a fan of food photographer Helene Dujardin’s blog Tartelette. Her photography is just stunning and always, without fail, picks me up after a stressful day. I find her styling inspirational and her photography just beautiful.

And so when I discovered that she had written a book on how to take food photography I didn’t need any encouragement to get myself a copy in the interests of research.

I think that most of you will find the styling, information on props and creating a mood with your food photography the most valuable. Helene is so generous with what she shares and the whole book is truly inspiring. I just couldn’t wait to rush out and play about with my lunch, much to the delight of my family.

Styling, props and how to create a mood

I really “got” some of the things she was saying around thinking about the mood you want to create when styling a dish – give a homely dish homely props, an elegant dish elegant props. I think it’s something that’s very obvious once you think about it, but the point is that I’d never thought about it like that before. Haleluja Helene!

There are chapters on styling specific styles of food and Helene helps you tackle some of the challenges, like wilting lettuce or melting ice cream. And best of all, Helene cooks real food, the sort of food you want to pick up and eat, so you won’t find anything dodgy going on with mashed potato in place of ice cream, varnish or any of those other odd food styling tricks of old.

The technical stuff is certainly a little overwhelming for a complete novice like me. I found myself reading and re-reading the chapters on exposure as I’m not much of a technical girl but Helene is reassuring in her knowledge and I value the fact that I can play around with styling and then go back and re read those chapters when I’m ready.

And here’s something I made earlier

I just couldn’t help playing about with our lunch in prep for this post. There’s a lot to work on technically, and these were very much 5 minute snaps while the toddler and my husband chivvied me along to finish so that they could eat their lunch (because we’re staaaaaarving).

It’s also probably fair to say that these are “inspired by” Helene’s work rather than even remotely being on the same planet as hers but it’s not often I get to publish my food photography on the Full Bloom blog so I’m just going to stop apologising now and let you make your own minds up…

Enjoy. Oh, and I happened upon this video from Helene sharing the inspiration behind the book via Creature Comforts blog and I couldn’t not show it to you.

If you do buy the book, or do have a copy, do let me know what you think!

Plate to Pixel Promo Video HD from Taylor Mathis on Vimeo.

Tagged as in Blogging, Recommended Reading

If my post yesterday remotely inspired you about the art of letterpress then I thoroughly recommend you rush out and buy yourselves a copy of Reinventing Letterpress: Prints by Contemporary Practitioners by Charlotte Rivers. Caroline and I discovered the book at our field trip to the Design Museum a couple of months back and I [...]

Tagged as in Graphic Design, Logo Design, Recommended Reading