With less than two weeks to go until the launch of the fabulous online Branding Masterclass the team in the studio are working incredibly hard dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the brand identity and blogsite. You can see the brand elements below.

You’re going to see a bit of a nip tuck to the Flourish brand identity over the next couple of months as we prepare for a very exciting extension and refocus on our own brand. I’ll be sharing more about the story behind that soon, but in the meantime, this gives you a flavour for where we’re headed. The Branding Masterclass needs to reflect and work with our brand, but it’s also a brand in it’s own right, with it’s own attributes and characteristics, so we needed to keep it all similar but not the same.

The colour palette focuses on creativity, communication, logic and clarity. The graph paper gives a nod to work (yes, it will be a lot of fun, but I will be working them hard too!) and the icons give direction around the site.

The class will be held online via a password protected blogsite, so we needed to create a clean and easy to navigate design that  inspired the participants to focus, reflect and take action. Here are a couple of screengrabs:

The login page

We wanted to keep this simple – it’s about getting people to do what you want – login or register for details of the next class. For the people that aren’t registered, obviously this is all they’ll see…

And the class pages themselves

I was in two minds about whether to show you this, but it just looks so beautiful that I couldn’t resist! I am desperate to overhaul the Full Bloom blog design now (yes, I know again but there is so much I’d like to change…). There are still a couple of changes to make but what I hope you can see is how light, airy and neat everything feels. The perfect setting to the inspirational and powerful nature of the content

Registration for the masterclass will close at midnight on Sunday 5th February so if you’d like to get involved, then don’t forget to book – go on, do it now, while you remember… Full details on the website.

Earlier I explained some of our thoughts behind the final design for the full bloom blog. And I thought it might be fun for you to see the journey we took. It’s worth bearing in mind that some of the early designs would never have made it to an external client – we’d have intercepted before that! But since I have a few mockups, I thought you might like to see them.

There were lots of bits to like about the first concept but ultimately we felt it was too monotone, too cool in colouring and that the yellow banner at the top was just too deep.

V2 was much better. We preferred the colours, the header banner was less deep and we’d added in a “Flourish presents” bit at the top to overcome the challenge of how we communicate that a design agency is behind the blog without plastering it everywhere!

We still felt that the strapline could use some work, and I was unconvinced about the colour. The social media bugs were also taking up a lot of unnecessary space so for V3 we wanted to tighten things up. The menu also still needs working on as it’s not right (but that’s easily sorted in WordPress).

And the final design. As I say, still some details to be finalised on WP – such as what goes in the menu at the top {services by flourish needs to go… replaced by categories} but in the main it’s looking gorgeous and ready to be built!

Do you remember a long time ago I asked for your help in naming our blog? Well after much deliberation and cogitation we settled on the name Full Bloom. We love the connotations of Full Bloom following on from Flourish – the concept of this being the place where businesses are thriving!

So why change the name from the Flourishing blog? Well mostly because we need to think big. We often receive lovely feedback from people who read the blog who see this as a place for creative inspiration and brand and marketing advice. And it really got me thinking. Why shouldn’t this be the place that people nationally, maybe internationally, turn to for inspiration for their small business?

But if that’s what we want, then we’re going to need to think much bigger. And we all agreed that we need to remove the direct link to Flourish from the name. Hence, Full Bloom.

Above you’ll see the final design. We went through quite a number of iterations to get to this point (and see my next post for the journey…). Either way it’s quite a change from our current design (below).

Back to the new blog design…

I love the creative orange-bordering-on-red (reflective of the passion, creativity and ambition) we wanted to inject. Orangey yellow for abundance, positivity and optimisim. We’ve tried to scale back the multi-colours from the current blog to give our designs a bit more space to breathe – but at the same time we didn’t want to go all grey and lose the life from the blog.

You know I love Californian design, and I think this feels just a little bit Stateside, do you? What with the serif font and the lovely kerning (space between the letters).

Eagle eyed visitors will also notice a couple of other changes. Firstly I want to put photos of the blogger next to the post (as long as it’s not me writing – you don’t need to see my face every time I post!) – so Stu will be setting the theme to automatically add the user’s photo as long as it’s not me. Secondly we’ve added in a second column for advertisers. Our readership is steadily growing and we are getting to the point where I would like to start thinking about introducing ads for businesses complimentary to Flourish and useful to the ambitious small business owners that read this blog. More details to come when we launch but do get in touch if you’d like to know more in the meantime…

We plan to get the blog live over the next week or so and I would love to hear your thoughts to the new design. And if you give me a few hours, I’ll share the journey with you too.

It was just meant to be a small token to say thank you, but we were blown away with the response we had, both online and via the telephone and email. And I was genuinely impressed that people knew it was us!

In less than a year the Flourish brand has become firmly implanted in our clients minds and is easily recognisable with or without our logo or company name.

We received a few tweets and emails and then I was knocked sideways by Nicky Parker’s very flattering post

“…because this company’s branding is so good I knew straight away that it was from Flourish. And that’s why the branding is so great. There was no mention of them anywhere, but the green velvet ribbon, the uncoated paper of the gift tag, the font and the message: “Just a note to say that we LOVE working with you”, was just so Flourish it had to be them.”

It really got me thinking. How many of you have a distinctive enough brand that twenty of your most loyal customers would recognise something as your business without your company name or your logo?

So many of us make the mistake of thinking that your logo is the be-all and end-all of how your customers recognise and identify with you. Your logo is just the beginning – it’s everything else around your logo that makes a difference too – your colour palette, your house fonts and also your voice.

So go on, I dare you to send out a piece of communication without your details on it – do people know who its from? If not, come and have a chat with us and let’s help you create a powerful brand identity that extends beyond your logo…

Image: Not on the High Street

And 2010 has been quite a year for us: in more ways than one!

Launching Flourish in February has been an absolute revelation: and it’s paid off both financially as well as lifting and reinforcing team spirit and my motivation around the business.

In a year that has been tough for many creative businesses flourish has well and truly flourished. Do you remember my post at the beginning of the year with the launch party? You can catch up here…

I’ve been really proud of the creative work the studio have produced this year. Some gorgeous looking websites and blogs as well as some truly stunning brand identities – we’ll be giving you a round up of some of our favourites over the next few weeks.

On a more personal level this year has also been quite a big one for us. Rob, our Senior Graphic Designer became a dad for the first time (I’ll leave him to share the full story with you another time), Ian became a very proud uncle and Chloe moved to Nottingham (and by default expanded the business ooop North!).

Please don’t misunderstand me. We’ve also had our share of tough times this year, both personally and professionally. The snow hit us hard and by April we were way behind budget (thankfully that’s a distant memory now…). Difficult team circumstances (of which we will share more in the coming weeks) also meant that our firepower was seriously reduced during our busiest time on top of whatever impact that was having on our home lives.

But despite all that this year has been great for the business because it feels like it was the year we grew up.

When I started my business I did so because I needed a job and I wanted to be my own boss. There was no burning entrepreneurial desire: just a stubborn need to do things my way, on my own terms. This year feels like the year I took control of my own business and started making truly authentic decisions. I’m so proud of Flourish: of our work, of the business success, and most importantly, of the team, who have done a fantastic job this year and become almost totally self-sufficient.

And so with a tear in my eye and a swell of pride in my chest I raise a glass to 2010, to the fabulous clients we’ve worked with and the enriching projects we’ve worked on. Here’s to a fantastic 2011!

Glass of mulled wine anyone?

The Flourish website has been live for a little under six months now and we’ve reviewed and tweaked it twice in that time – once after three months and again this week. Tweaking isn’t about chucking everything out and starting again, it’s about making small changes that will make a big difference. Things like putting your “bestsellers” prominently on your homepage.

Here’s the very first design

Logos, websites and blog designs are the three things we sell the most of, so it makes sense to have those most clearly on the homepage. The initial design didn’t include blogs and did include marketing strategy. A quick check with Google analytics Site Overlay tool showed me that people weren’t clicking on the Marketing Strategy button – so it was binned! We also found that no one wanted to find out how colour psychology could help their business (button on bottom middle) so that was changed.

We replaced the buttons that weren’t working with our bestsellers and the click through rates have gone up. This is less important with a serviced based business, but utterly essential when you’re selling product online.

I’ve tweaked the copy several times as we’ve settled into our own skin as a bona fide design agency. I look back at what I wrote even six months ago and see how far we’ve come. It’s exciting!

Here’s the homepage as it stands as I write…

Recently we’ve tweaked the homepage to make way for the arrival of the new video. The video will get people thinking about some very specific things, so it made sense to have them just a click away to the right of the screen.I also wanted to simplify the “bugs” (call to action buttons) because we figured that if there’s a lot going on with the video everything else should take second place – otherwise you won’t know where to click first.

Here’s the new design

It’s a bit cleaner and simpler but hopefully still has the character and essence of Flourish. So what do you reckon?

The team are doing the final edit over the next few days and I’m hoping to get it on the website as soon as possible. In the meantime, for those of you that are as impatient as me I thought I’d share a few of my favourite bits with you on the blog. So excuse the slightly self indulgent post today but I know that many of you have been asking how we’re getting on… I hope you like it!

Now there is one massive caveat in me doing that – and that is that I have completely butchered Alex’s beautiful editing in my iMovie. So please don’t take the clips below to be indicative of the editing quality – that’s just my quick and dirty extraction of a few of my favourite things.

A massive thank you to the wonderful Sera Golding and Donna Pourtyemour for saying the lovely things about us that they did. I had no idea what they were going to say, and in fact only found out when I got the video back.

A couple of weeks ago I bit the bullet and commissioned a fantastic company to produce a short video for our website. Video is being used more and more on websites now: it literally enables you to bring your company to life and get people engaging with you before they meet you. I hope that our video will give visitors of our site a flavour of who Flourish are and what we’re all about and deliver an even more authentic and inspiring experience than copy alone can.

It’s taken me a long time to find our partners. I’m infamous for my high standards and I had a very clear idea about what I wanted and these guys really gave me confidence that they “got” what I was after and had done that kind of thing before. I’m after something that gives people a taste of Flourish, so I wanted to avoid anything too static. We’re fun, approachable, creative and (hopefully) inspiring, and that was what I wanted to get across in the video.

We did quite a lot of last minute prep – including Izzy arranging some flowers from my garden…

Do you notice that we’ve got rid of that horrible, huge “sample station” that was blocking Izzy’s view of the river and taking up half the front office? Instead we’ve had some amazing bespoke pigeonholes crafted by a local joiner that take up far less room and still enable Izzy to give our clients the print samples they need.

There was also much last minute faffing with labels for the folders (remember my high standards? Poor Rob was designing labels and cutting and sticking right up to the wire) as well as tidying up our desks – mine took a while, I can tell you.

It was scary because I’ve never done anything like this before and also because I had nothing to compare it to. None of our competitors have video on their sites at the moment and I was inspired by very few of the videos I saw on other websites that did have video. I’m sure that in six months time a lot more people will have video, and they’ll be able to learn from our mistakes! But for now I was going in blind. I had a lot of conversations with Alex, our director, who is an ex-music video producer and incredibly cool and good at what he does. Between us we agreed a format for the video and I prepared some questions for the team.

I’ve deliberately kept it unscripted. None of us are actors (with the exception of Caroline who boasts an A-Level drama qualification amongst her many talents) and I just don’t think it would have captured the essence of who we are if we’d scripted things. So instead I prepared some questions which Alex asked each of us.

We also invited in some clients to gush about us and in return kept them going with large wodges of cake and coffee. You’ll also spot the bucks fizz that I gave to each member of the team for breakfast to calm our nerves…

This is the lovely Clare Yarwood White (and her son Caspar exploring my office in the background…)

And here are Matt Pereira and Donna Pouryemour (enjoying a lovely large slice of carrot cake) with Rob, Ian and Caroline in the designer’s studio (Chloe and Izzy are just out of shot…).

I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. I can’t help thinking that I should have invested in a blow-dry for my hair! But hey ho, at least you’ll get the real (unkempt) me. I’m mightily reassured by their attention to detail and vision for the day and we actually all enjoyed it, which we certainly didn’t expect.

As soon as I have the first draft I’ll share it with you… But for now I just wanted to give you a sneak preview of the day.

Just thought I’d give you a bit of a rundown of the Flourish stand from yesterday’s Grow Your Business. We put a lot of time and effort into creating a stand with instant wow factor and that, importantly, would evoke an emotive reaction. I think that this sense of emotion is something that we put into all of our designs, and so it was important that this came across on the stand.

As you can see, we didn’t hold back when it came to the styling! Plenty of English garden flowers, potted plants and gardenalia helped create a mood that was an antidote to the grey stands and grey suits that typify most business to business exhibitions. I was well aware that in creating this stand, we were probably going to divide people. And that was fine by me. We had plenty of people coming up to us saying that they loved the stand, and I’m sure there were plenty of people there thinking “What on earth are they doing? This isn’t Chelsea Flower Show…”. But I would rather be memorable and evoke a reaction than be bland.

The orange geums are the perfect Flourish orange and look great against the paisley green stand. The crate came from a previous trip to Kempton Antiques market and I bought the wellies especially for the show.

We handed out Swiss Chard seeds on the day (more than 150 packets that I hand stuffed and hand-finished!), spreading a little Flourish love. The idea behind the Chard was the obvious growth metaphor (that’s what we help companies do) and also the fact that they’re beautiful and productive. And I think that sums up what we try to do at Flourish. We’re about making things look gorgeous of course, but they have to add to your bottom line too.

The desk was off to the right of the stand and covered in more Flourishness. The rabbit appeared on my original Flourish mood board and I think it’s artisan, handmade qualities as well as it’s bright colours perfectly fit in with the Flourish setting. The books are from the studio, original Penguin classics of course, and were a bit of a talking point on the day. The gilt frame was repurposed from the launch party and filled with a new poster and the desk is my own from home.

We all had a phenomenal day, meeting some great people, chatting to some lovely clients and forging new relationships. It was also great to catch up with business people and other exhibitors, some of which we hadn’t seen for a year or two. We’ll be announcing the winner of our competitions very soon so keep your eyes peeled for that. In the meantime… thank you so much for visiting the show, I hope you found it useful. And do let me know what you think of the stand!

Psst! Look! It’s up! And I did nothing more than fling a few seeds in the ground. After three weeks of neglect following our holiday I’m delighted to see that with a spot of water the Flourish rainbow chard is up and looking good! Already you can see the difference in colour between the deep red and brighter yellow seedlings (I think the rest might be weed seedlings but we live in hope).

In the meantime I’d love to hear how yours are getting on. Elizabeth Cairns tells me that hers has made it into a pot on her balcony. How about you? And if you don’t have any seeds yet, then fret not. Flourish will be giving away 250 packets of the beautiful rainbow chard Bright Lights at the Grow Your Business exhibition on 12th May.

And if you missed the details of why on earth a marketing and design company would be handing out seeds… well check out this post which (hopefully) explains all!