• We’ve grown 50% since last year
• We’ve completed projects for companies such as Field & Fork, Chalet Floralie and Mafi Mushkila
• We’ve incorporated a marketing department offering a whole new range of services
• We’ve moved to a bigger office in Chichester and set plans in motion for a London office opening in 2010
• We’ve acquired 2 more Google qualifications- Kate has become a Google AdWords Professional and Chichester Design has become an Authorised Google Apps Reseller
• We’ve temporarily taken on editing the South Coast Design Forum e-newsletter as well as taking care of compiling and sending the newsletter and maintaining their website

Chichester Design would like to thank all of our customers and colleagues for their support. Please read on to find out more in our yearly round-up.

Our team is growing…

Many of you might have worked with Ben and Jeremy over the years but here are a few more names and faces that have worked with us during 2009 and you might not have had the pleasure of meeting yet:

• Ben Davis – Managing Director, Project Manager, Problem Solver, Photographer and Nocturnal Mountain Biker
• Simon Batchelar – Executive Director, Financial Brain, Voice of Reason, Audiophile and Husband-to-be
• Jeremy Gilbert – Senior Web Developer, Coding Wizard, Cheese Loving Rugby Nut and Father-to-be
• Ashley Stevens – Junior Web Developer, Boy Genius, Web Enthusiast and Media and Photography Student
• Kate Lassetter – Marketing Consultant, Search Engine Optimisation Expert, Organiser and Lover of Tapirs

Did you know Chichester Design is now in East Pallant?

Chichester Design is now located at Hollybrook House, 4 East Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TR.

You can find us just a few doors down from the Chichester District Council Offices and directly opposite the entrance to the Pallant House Gallery restaurant, Field & Fork.

This makes it really handy for meetings as Field & Fork knows how to make a good coffee and make exceedingly good cakes- Sam’s are far better than Mr Kipling’s.

As our offices are located on the top floor of a beautiful old Georgian building without a lift, we are more than happy to meet people in Field & Fork which on ground level and has wheelchair access.

If you haven’t been to see us in East Pallant this year, why not pop in and see us?

We’d love to see you and you can even have one of our spectacular limited edition pens – what do you think of that?

Would you like free hosting next year? Save £230 with the Chichester Design Referral Programme

We know that the best business is done by people recommending other businesses to their friends, family and colleagues.

We’d like to think that you would recommend us to someone you know and as a thank you for doing so, providing that your recommendation goes on to become a new customer, we’ll give you free hosting for a whole year.

That’s a saving of £230!

Would you like to recommend someone and claim your free hosting?

Either email us and let us know their details or feel free to pass on our details so that they can contact us.

Chichester Design has a new website

We decided that it was about time for a Chichester Design website design refresh.  The problem is that when you design websites for a living, regardless of how important it is to sell your services, your own website can tend to suffer. You always put those updates off and concentrate more on the bread and butter stuff.

But as we soon came to realise there is nothing more important than your own website when you’re in this business.

With more team members and more services to shout about we thought it would be a good chance to update our design and create a website that really reflects our brand as it has developed. The design is fresh, funky and highlights our love of the whole social media revolution as well as our commitment to exceeding our customers’ expectations.

Our website also highlights our new and improved range of services and features a load more additions to our project portfolio and examples of our photography for your perusal.

Check it out, you know you want to.

Chichester Design is here to Jumpstart your Google Adwords

Jumpstart for Agencies is a new business development service that makes it possible for Chichester Design to offer clients an extra element to their Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, at no extra cost.

We are currently the only agency in the Chichester area that Google are working with to offer a premium Jumpstart AdWords Management Service that can help to develop your business and, ultimately, maximise your Return on Investment.

What’s AdWords all about?

Paid search allows advertisers to tailor messages with precision in order to target the needs of their prospective audience and they have complete control over the budget – it is possible to set a daily budget for as little or as much as you would like.

What’s more, all campaigns are built according to a clients’ individual business objectives, whether these are to increase an online profile by generating more visitors to a website, or develop a more complex marketing strategy such as increasing sales of specific products.

What’s Jumpstart all about?

As Google AdWords Certified Professionals and part of the Jumpstart programme, Chichester Design’s Ben and Kate are now able to work closely with Google UK’s in-house AdWords team.  This enables us to take your paid search a step further.

We can create a bespoke campaign using Google’s industry-specific expertise as well as independent 3rd party reports from Hitwise on your direct competitors.

What’s the catch?

Believe it or not, there is no catch.  Our affiliation with Google means that you get the premium Jumpstart service absolutely free. Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch but the reason that Google have teamed up with Chichester Design to offer this complimentary service, which will make paid search marketing strategies fly, is because it’s open to all those who spend £3000+ on their AdWords campaigns per month.

You can think of it as a reward for those clients who are interested in dedicating a proportion of their marketing budget to AdWords and are wise to the old proverb that you’ve got to “speculate to accumulate”. The current B2B online market is now estimated to be worth £200 billion, and Chichester Design is here to help you get right to the centre of the action, for just:

A one-off account set-up fee + a minimum spend of £3000 on your PPC campaigns + our monthly management fee

How can you resist?

To find out more about how Chichester Design can set-up and manage your AdWords account or how we can work with our affiliates at Google UK to maximise the efficacy of your AdWords campaign contact Kate

Chichester Design is now an authorised Google Apps reseller

We are offering you the Google Apps Premier service with local set up and support carried out by our trusty technicians.

Google Apps provides reliable, secure online applications and communications wherever you work.

Some of the main features are:

• Gmail – webmail (email through your browser) and mail client (e.g. Outlook, Mail) on your computer
• 25 GB of email storage – it’s usually around just 5 GB!
• 99.9% uptime reliability guarantee – so no worries about your email going down
• No adverts – enjoy reading your emails without ads popping up and distracting you
• Powerful spam filtering, anti-virus and automatic message threading
• Google-powered email search – allowing you to find information and emails instantly
• Google Calendar, Google Docs and many other useful tools
• Mobile services with several options for accessing and syncing all your information while on the go, on your laptop, blackberry, iPhone, you can be productive with Google Apps even when not at your desk

Interested?

You know you can’t live without Google Apps! For more information take a look at our website or to arrange a time for us to set up your account contact Simon

Team News

This year Chichester Design introduced marketing to their services.  Kate Lassetter has worked for the company doing bits of copywriting and SEO for the last 3 years but in 2009 she took the plunge to join us on a permanent basis.  Kate’s now a team member enabling us to offer our clients key marketing services:

• Copywriting – We can write engaging, informative copy to promote any product, any service, any industry, either off or online.
• Social Media – We can build your brand using the likes of Twitter, Facebook and more.
• SEO – We can get your website higher on Search Engine Results Pages.
• Marketing Consultation – We can discuss what will work for you and write a comprehensive strategy that will see a significant return on your investment.
• Google AdWords – We can work with our contacts at google to manage your AdWords account and optimise your ads for a maximum return on investment.

Our Executive Director Simon Batchelar has also been setting the cogs in motion to open our new London office.  Simon has been dedicating a lot of his time to learning about the Google Apps program and as a result Chichester Design is now an Authorized Reseller. Read more about Google Apps.

Ashley has joined the team and has been helping with the configuration, development and maintenance of websites. In his spare time Ashley owns and runs independent fashion blog ‘Thread Rave’ and has plans to launch indie fashion brand ‘The Rave Line’ in 2010.

And for a bit of ahhhhh factor – Jeremy and Celine are expecting a baby in the new year so we all wish them the very best of luck and look forward to meeting the little one.

Keep in the Know

We’ve always got something to say for ourselves. So why don’t you stay in the know about what’s going down here at Chichester Design through social media:

• Check out the CD blog
• Become a fan of Chichester Design on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• See what we’re listening to on last.fm

Here’s looking forward to a prosperous and successful 2010, when we look forward to working with you on your web design and development or marketing projects.

Warm wishes and best regards,

Ben, Simon, Jeremy, Kate and Ashley

Chichester Design

It was time for dressing up and again and I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to don my dancing feet after all that walking in heels at Goodwood, but after a bit of pampering at the hair dressers I made a miraculous recovery!

The whole gang were soon there, Pete and I arrived first and had a good chat with Pete’s Cobnor colleagues (one of which revealed that he owns seven brief cases- the mind boggles!) Then Jeremy and Ben arrived with their lovely ladies Celine and Lucy. We found a nice big table just outside the marquee (close enough to duck under if the heavens opened) and near enough to the log fire to ward off that approaching autumn chill. 

There was much merriment from the Chichester Design table as we revelled in dining from a burger van while dressed up to the nines and built up the confidence (in glasses of wine) to throw some shapes on the dance floor. And let me tell you that a certain Monsieur who was insistent that he does not do dancing was up there shaking his stuff with the rest of us!

Big Boy Bloater and his band provided some sterling entertainment and Disco Dave filled in the gaps with some eclectic music (and eclectic jokes). Ben and Lucy even managed to bag themselves a crate of beer in the charity raffle, so all was good.

Everyone had a ball and it was a lovely opportunity for the Chichester Designers and their other halves to let their hair down at a local event and raise money for charity in the meantime.  Who could complain about good rustic food, good local booze, good music from a local band and, most importantly, good company? Ben and I complained a little about the giant mosquito bites we gained though!

We worked with our friends at Ascender to create a no holds barred website.  Ascender came up with the eye catching Field & Fork logo, consisting of a fork with sprouting leaves, which has quickly become synonymous with high quality, fresh food that has been locally sourced. The logo also supports their tag line “Field & Fork, sourcing the best food every day.”

We used this as the basis to carry the web design forward, building the website from scratch and incorporating an easy to use CMS so that Field & Fork’s Janet could update menus and business news as needed. Jeremy also included the functionality for the banner on the homepage to be updated so that Field & Fork could promote seasonal offers, in line with their branding.

We also managed to show a bit more of our creative flair with this site as our copywriter, Kate, was able to get stuck in and write some meaty copy to promote the restaurant’s Roux trained owners. Kate also used her SEO powers to give Field & Fork a chance of sliding up the search engine rankings and within weeks we had knocked Field & Fork’s competitors for the “field and fork” Google top spot down a few pegs.

Our resident photographers got happy snapping the site’s images at the Pallant House Gallery’s Restaurant opening party. There was picturesque food aplenty and it tasted just as good as it looked. Ben and Lucy did chef Sam’s beautiful culinary creations justice, I’m sure you’ll agree.

This was a particularly exciting project for us and whenever we lacked vision or energy we could just take a glimpse out of our office window at the waiting staff serving delicious lunches and cakes in the Gallery’s courtyard garden. Yep, that’s right Field & Fork is just opposite the Chichester Design office so if after reading this and you decide to check out the goods for yourself (and how can you resist?) think of us and give us a little wave.

The Field and Fork kitchen is lead by the talented chef Sam Mahoney and front of house is run by his wife Janet. The pair have two restaurants in the city, one in East Pallant as part of the Pallant House gallery and one in Baffin’s Court, and they serve lunches and teas by day and gourmet dishes in the evening.

Sam, who has worked with the Roux brothers, left the glamour of London’s Kensington Place behind and opted for a more intimate, homey location in this historical South Coast city. It can be said with certainty that Field and Fork were deserved candidates of this prestigious local award as Sam and Janet have brought a touch class to eating out in Chichester.

The couple were glad to attend the awards ceremony, which took place at the Hilton Avisford Park Hotel. Along with all the other victorious business folk, they collected their award from the evening’s special guest and TV legend, Fred Dineage.

Another Chichester Design client, Serious Sandwich of East Street, Chichester was Highly Commended for the same award.

Click here to see a video of Field and Fork’s Sam and Janet accepting their award and an interview with the Chichester Observer afterwards.

Our job satisfaction is seeing our clients businesses thriving assisted by our designers skills…

Sam & Janet Mahoney came down from London and have set up one of Chichester’s finest restaurants, and a serious delicatessen to match.

Hidden away in Baffins Court – just off St John’s Street, Chichester, you’ll find the Field & Fork 22-seater restaurant on one side, and the Field & Fork deli with home-made produce and local meats, cheeses, vegetables and fruit on the other all backed up with a strong brand image.

Read the review featured in the Portsmouth News