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.’

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.

Transforming Learners, Transforming Lives CEPPL Conference

Following on from the success of their 2008 conference, The Centre for Excellence in Professional Placement Learning (Ceppl), at the University of Plymouth have recently hosted a 2010 conference.

Teresa Thorne, Ceppl Project Manager commented “On behalf of the Ceppl team I would like to thank you (Company of Designers) for the excellent design work and for working closely with the team to ensure quality and accuracy. The conference was a huge success”.

The Graphic Design team at Company of Designers were briefed to design a package of conference marketing material that would reflect the theme “Transforming learners transforming lives” in a lively and innovative way.

The conference was aimed at academic and practice staff, students, service users and those with an interest in placement learning. The conference provided an opportunity to discuss and share innovation, knowledge and practice in placement learning, along with showcasing the work of the Center for Excellence in Professional Placement Learning (Ceppl)

The conference was a huge success with presenters coming from across the country and from overseas. Delegates enjoyed a varied programme of presenters, discussion panel workshops and posters, all of which generated opportunities for sharing of practice, networking and further growth opportunities for the centre. Click here to visit the Ceppl website.

UK’s largest independent consulting engineers change colour

Hoare Lea, the UK’s largest independent consulting engineers have launched 2010 reconfiguring their corporate website to a new grey colour palette. The strategic change will also be adopted for their printed marketing materials.

Hoare Lea will continue to use the visual identity devised by Company of Designers with the grey acting as a foil for powerful images of their projects.

MURVI Motorhomes- 30 years of award winning leisure vehicles

Murvi Motorhomes, specialist builders of leisure vehicles commissioned Company of Designers to update their company brochure to help celebrate Murvi’s 30th anniversary of award winning vehicle production.

The brochure features an extra 4 page section to highlight Murvi’s expanding range and unrivalled options available. Used at the week-long National Boat Caravan & Outdoor Show, held at the NEC Birmingham. The brochure proved a hit, generating significant leads.

CODE launches new CMS

All new technology for 2010… CODECMS gives you the freedom to edit and grow your site whenever you wish. Our system gives a non technical user freedom and flexibility when making changes to their website. One of the first users of this great new system is Derriford Health and Leisure – NHS.

Our new system has many advantages previously unavailable including:

In content editing

The option to preview your changes to content, before making them live

The ability to save draft versions of pages for approval via workflow

Automatically saves previous versions of page content for roll back

The freedom to edit Search Engine Optimisation data such as Meta tags and page titles

Choice of page templates when adding new features

We won! – ‘Most Innovative DVD’

Watch a video of the awards ceromony

Excitement and sheer delight has swept through the offices here at Company of Designers after winning the award for the ‘Most Innovative DVD/CD’ category at the Media Innovation Awards.

The judges said the ‘Someone Who Listens’ DVD won “for skillfully combining a variety of media, resulting in a well produced inclusive engaging DVD and using a variety of presentation styles effectively.”

Andy Staples attended the Media Innovation Awards on behalf of Company of Designers with clients, Annagret Ward & Kathryn Taylor. Andy stated that ‘Someone Who Listens’ was a “Collaborative adventure and the real stars were the young people and animators that were involved” A special mention went to Routeways, Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth City Council’s Workforce Development Team and Jerry Found, Design Director at Company of Designers.

See a selection from our DVD on our homepage

Media Innovations Award ceremony tonight, wish us luck!

Tonight the Company of Designers team will be attending the Media Innovation Awards, after our “Someone who listens” DVD was nominated as a finalist in February.

The “Someone Who Listens” DVD was produced in collaboration with Plymouth College of Art, for the Workforce Development Team within Plymouth City Council’s services for children and young people. The DVD was made as part of a training induction scheme for new recruits such as children’s social workers, child care workers and teachers. Recently the team has had interest in the DVD from as far afield as China.

The winners of the 2010 Media Innovation Awards will be announced at a special gala dinner tonight.
So wish us luck!

See a selection from our DVD on our homepage