HAPPY CODEMAS

We would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you for your business, we warmly hope to work with you again in the New Year.

Keep your spirits high with CODE

The countdown to Christmas is here and among those celebrating in good spirits are Fine Tubes. They have been keeping up the Christmas spirit this year by sending out advent calendars to their many clients across the world.

Fine Tubes wanted to do something different this year. They were looking for a Christmas gift with a little added value and a longer-lasting impression. The advent calendars involved their clients in a more three-dimensional experience, rather than reading a standard message with a few signatures. 

CODE was certain the calendar project represented the qualities of the Fine Tubes brand including an innovative design and an original, unique approach, allowing them to stand out from their competitors.

The CODE team faced a similar countdown when receiving the brief and having to deliver the following day. The team combined their creative thinking to produce a calendar which was both visually appealing as well as a representation of the Fine Tubes brand. The teams basic foreign language skills were also put to the test whilst communicating with the printing company, based in Germany!

The surprise twist behind the advent calendar featured a daily competition which gave their clients the opportunity to win a bottle of Plymouth’s local gin during the run up to Christmas day. CODE’s MD, Andy Staples came up with the idea to feature the bottle of Plymouth gin as the daily prize. The back of the calendar featured instructions to email the daily code, featured inside each numbered door, to Fine Tubes to be automatically entered into the daily prize draw.

Bettina Schadow, Marketing Executive at Fine Tubes commented: “CODE gave us great creative input and ideas on the interactive game we could play. The advent calendar is a great idea that works really well, even more so when supporting a local company. The prize, a bottle of Plymouth gin, suggested by CODE, had a local connection to our location in Plymouth.  Again, great idea from CODE – especially against the time pressure of “I need an idea today, i.e. now”, well done to the CODE team.”

Personalised customer care

For the fourth year running, Drakes Fine Jewellers, one of Plymouth’s leading independent jewellers have commissioned CODE to produce a series of greeting cards for their customers.

Drakes Fine Jewellers, established in 1950, is a third generation family run business with an extensive range of diamond and precious stone jewellery including; engagement rings, wedding rings and branded watches. Using fine diamonds and precious gem stones, many of their designs are made by specialist craftsmen, ‘A collection that is as diverse as it is beautiful’.

Every year, CODE provides fresh innovative images that are personalised with the Drakes branding by incorporating the Drakes logo discreetly into a chosen image. This year, the CODE design team have produced three greeting card designs which included; ladies birthdays, gentleman’s birthdays and wedding anniversaries.

Jerry Found, CODE Design Director commented: “We are thrilled to be able to produce the greetings cards on behalf of Drakes. The cards allow the Drakes team to continually recognise and communicate with their customers by giving something back on special occasions.”

Stacey Solomon wins I’m a celebrity.

Stacey Solomon wins I’m a celebrity.. just weeks after appearing in Devonport for Company of Designers. Well done Stacey! Well done DRC

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Account Director joins CODE team

CODE is pleased to announce and welcome Louise Kenna who has joined the company as an Account Director.

Louise has a sales and marketing background and will be responsible for building mutually beneficial, long term relationships with new clients, driving revenue and sales as well as other management responsibilities.

Commenting on the appointment, Andy Staples, MD of CODE, said: “We are lucky to have someone of Louise’s background and expertise come on board. Louise will be a perfect fit for us, as we rapidly grow our business further into the future.”

Louise joins CODE after a successful career in the sales sector. Her early career was spent in central London selling advertising space for The Universe and subsequently The Guardian where she was instrumental in developing the daily recruitment marketplaces such as ‘Creative’ and ‘Media’ on a Monday and ‘Futures’ on Thursday.

Louise has worked for a variety of SME’s in Devon. Prior to her appointment at CODE, she spent the last five years as Account Director for Broadley Speaking, a third party tele-marketing consultancy based in Tavistock. Louise managed a variety of sales teams delivering tele- marketing campaigns for well known brands such as Primelocation.com, KallKwik, the Holiday Cottages Group as well as many fledgling and start – up businesses.

Louise will bring to CODE 17 years of sales, business development and management experience.

Louise commented: “I’m delighted to join the team at Company of Designers particularly with their attention to delivering focused marketing communications supported by first class designers.  It’s a talented team with fantastic credentials and some great clients to whom I look forward to introducing myself in the coming weeks”

Louise is very approachable – don’t hesitate to pick up the phone for a chat on 01752 604848

Going the extra mile

 

Reflecting on a successful and enjoyable summer, the Blue Mile event was one of the many exciting ventures for the CODE team.

The Blue Mile, tag-lined ‘Race for the Environment’ is the UK’s newest mass-participation event designed to engage people actively with our blue environment.  

Conrad Humphreys, around-the-world sailor was the organiser of the event, which was designed to raise awareness of ‘what lurks beneath the waves’, and the environmental pressures faced by the marine environment.

CODE was commissioned by The University of Plymouth to produce an assortment of impactful flags to be used at the event, held on the Barbican. The team also developed an advertisement supporting the event which featured in the Western Morning News, in a double page article, prior to the event. The flags were used in conjunction with other Blue Mile promotional merchandise. 

Open to everyone, participants were invited to complete a mile in, on, or next to, a water environment to raise vital support and money for WWF-UK, the world’s leading conservation organisation.  

Over 600 hundred people took to the waters around Plymouth Sound. The event saw participants swimming, kayaking and paddle-boarding around a mile-long course, creating an all-round experience for both adults and children.

Tracy Wilson, Head of Corporate Marketing at the University of Plymouth commented: “The flags CODE produced for us, for display, at the Blue Mile Festival creatively balanced the branding requirements of this large scale, multi audience event with our corporate enterprise branding guidelines whilst clearly articulating our position as the UK’s greenest University.”

Talented Students get creative in a bid to raise awareness of SWGaTE

SWGaTE (South West Gifted and Talented Education) is the South West’s Regional Partnership for supporting and ,developing the education of able, gifted and talented pupils.

The CODE team was commissioned by SWGaTE to work with a small group of students from five local authorities across the South West to design innovative postcards to be used by schools across the area. The student group undertakes different projects on behalf of SWGaTE and meet once a term to advise them and share their experiences as able students.

The aim of the project was to get the students thinking creatively to produce possible designs for the postcards. The initial stage involved the CODE team taking the students through the different design stages, enabling the students to learn how to make creative decisions on images, written content and layouts. The CODE team then helped the group to analyse their initial ideas before producing two postcard designs which the students then evaluated before one design was chosen for production.

The postcards are used by schools across the South West in a variety of ways, including: aide-memoirs between teachers and students, as invitations to parents to attend school Gifted & Talented events and for students to give to teachers with suggestions on how to improve interaction with Gifted & Talented students in their classes.

SWGaTE‘s Regional Co-ordinator Christine Mitchell commented: ‘The CODE team was able to enhance the students’ understanding of the design process and to challenge their thinking as they began to generate possible designs. The postcards are now being used across the South West in a variety of ways and each time a postcard is used it helps to promote the work of SWGaTE and the Gifted Voices student group.’

Giant cartoons, massive labels and X Factor star, help promote city’s largest one day exhibition – delivered by CODE

Devonport Regeneration Community (DRC) Partnership commissioned CODE to deliver a multi-venue exhibition showcasing over 220 DRC funded projects to celebrate the work and achievements of the Devonport Community.

A ’future video’, massive fact labels, banners and flags all created impact for the 4000 visitors that toured Devonport between 11am and 6pm. To accompany the event a twenty minute DVD produced by CODE was shown on the big screen in the city’s piazza.

Lynda Harris from the DRC Partnership said “there’s been a continual stream of people in and around Devonport all day long.”

The theme of the day was ‘Devonport’s in great shape.’ Over the past 10 years the DRC has supported and funded the regeneration of Devonport via 6 themes featured in the Brickfields Sports Centre; Health, Education, Employment, Community, Community Safety and Livability & Development. The recently restored Devonport Guildhall hosted an exhibition on The Future of Devonport and included details of the Land and Leisure Trust as well as the new Devonport Area Neighbourhood Board.

CODE obtained sponsorship from Frobishers, the South West’s pure smoothie company. Free smoothies were given out to members of the public from the juice bar, one of the events key attractions.

The huge cartoons were brought to life from the DRC Partnership’s logo and featured in prominent positions throughout the exhibition, whilst large Devonport-shaped maps hung from the ceiling above overshadowing the different themes of the exhibition.

X Factor star Stacey Solomon came to Devonport to entertain the people of Devonport and performed a collection of songs to the crowds.

The CODE team also produced large venue flags, large banners and information boards which were given to 40 external projects around Devonport allowing the public to drop in to find out more information. Other attractions on the day included; garden tours, boat tours and a free buffet held in the Kier Marquee situated in the Plymouth Albion rugby grounds.

The event provided an opportunity for the work of the DRC to be recognised by the public and to emphasise that Devonport was now in ‘great shape’ for the future.

The DRC team stated ’It was a great day enjoyed by all with many positive comments about all the changes to the area.’

High quality motorhomes – now motoring online!

The CODE team have recently designed and launched an exciting new website for Murvi Motorcaravans Ltd. 

Murvi have 30 years of award-winning leisure vehicle production to their credit – not to mention enough awards to fill one of their motorhomes. Every Murvi is special, built just for the individual by people who care passionately about quality.

It’s the same at CODE. Having recently produced Murvi’s high quality brochure it was a natural step to develop their website. The new website provides Murvi with an updated web presence to communicate with their new and existing customers.

The website takes advantage of a state of the art, search engine friendly content management system which enables it to be easily updated and managed online by the Murvi team.

MD of Murvi, Rex Kneebone commented “I am very pleased with the final result; the website allows us to communicate more effectively online to a wider audience.”

How do you expose 18 brilliant Research Centres and 3 Research Institutes effectively?

MD Andy Staples worked with senior members of The University of Plymouth Research & Enterprise division and Marketing team to deliver a strategic marketing communication plan that has resulted in a new Research Marque and associated collateral.

The strategy devised by CODE included a visual identity, copy development, 3D mapping and web structure plus a range of other marketing initiatives.

Research Expo

With a distinguished record of world class research at Plymouth; the showcase provided an opportunity for government agencies, business and community organisations to access the university’s research centres and institutes in a specially created venue on Plymouth Hoe.

The CODE design team led by Jerry Found, developed and produced the visual aspects of the event including research datasheets, a recyclable research folio and supersized roller banners. The visuals helped create an interesting and interactive showcase which demonstrated the breadth of research which is undertaken.

The CODE team created a complimentary DVD which was shown during the event. The high impact DVD incorporated a countdown to the number of institutes, research centres and featured ‘Plymouth Discoveries’ which highlighted the top 5 discoveries by University of Plymouth researchers.