Have you ever stopped and thought about what business you are in, I mean really stopped and thought about it? Brand image is about more than what you do on the surface and more about the aims and ideas behind your products or services, their true values

Let me put this another way for you; Harley Davidson does not simply sell motorbikes. It sells the concept of freedom to middle-aged men. You see?

The issue here is that you can only start providing these intended values to your customers once you know what they are. So take a good hard look at your product or service and think about why people choose to buy from you. Think about your products or services in relation to lifestyle and experience. Are you selling a sense of freedom? Are you selling self-confidence? Are you selling security?

Once you’ve worked it out then come to Chichester Design and we’ll help you express what business you’re in clearly and creatively through strong branding, copywriting and web design. It’s all of these factors that work together to communicate who you are and what you do and that’s precisely what business we’re in.  Contact us for a proposal today.

Simon’s fiancée Ellie Williams is entering the BP Portrait Award 2010 and after careful contemplation of which face inspires her most, husband-to-be Simon was the perfect subject choice.

The Portrait Award is now in its thirty-first year at the National Portrait Gallery, is open to everyone aged 18 and over and is aimed at encouraging artists to focus upon and develop the theme of portraiture in their work.

Last year over 1,900 artists submitted their work and the exhibition, which featured sixty paintings, was seen by a record 298,000 people in London alone. Many artists who have had their work exhibited have gained commissions as a result of the considerable interest in the Portrait Award and the resulting exhibition and let’s hope that such successes follow for Ellie.

The portrait process

After settling on her subject, and with the competition’s submission deadline of 14^th February fast approaching, Ellie went ahead with the preparations. She commissioned Ben’s lovely Lucy to take some portraiture photography of Simon looking moody and thoughtful as a starting point.

You can see more of Lucy Hackett’s fabulous photography, featuring the original shots of Simon at: http://www.lucyhackett.co.uk.

Ellie, who showcases her artworks at the Artway Gallery and via various social media platforms such as Facebook has recorded each stage of the long process to perfection.

The stages show how Ellie started with a simple sketch and then gradually built up both detail and colour with the greatest care and precision. I think you’ll agree that’s Ellie has captured Simon beautifully, even if his multitude of freckles were giving her painter’s cramp

Stay tuned to find out about Ellie’s progress in the competition…

Myself, Pete, Jeremy and Celine thought we’d make a day of it in the Big Smoke and set out bright and early in the morning. After braving the trains, which were all over the place thanks to the previous night’s electrical storm blowing the signal box between Chichester and Havant, we arrived at London Victoria to face the palaver which was the London Underground 4 shopping weekends before Christmas. Busy is an understatement!

Here, we split off – Pete and I ventured to London Zoo and Jeremy and Celine hot-footed it to Westfield, Europe’s largest mall, to check out the maternity clothing shops for a growing Celine. We had a fab time at the zoo where I was especially pleased to see my favourite animals, the fascinating tapir. I love tapirs! The other highlights were a gorilla with a penchant for a pink glove, 7 otters snuggling from the cold in a tiny den, an aardvark munching his supper of termite gruel, a beautiful prancing albino porcupine, a 69 year old Galapagos tortoise who took around 2 minutes just to yawn and a tiger cub trying his hardest to climb a tree while his mum looked on disapprovingly.

We met back up with Jeremy and Celine at the Somers Town, Chalton Street, near Euston Tube. They’d had a good nose around the shops and Celine got a few ideas for her baby accommodating wardrobe but no purchases were made, apart from a pair of Swedish swimming goggles?! Jeremy is a fountain of knowledge on said swimming goggles; if you too are a goggle enthusiast you can find out more from jeremy@chichesterdesign.co.uk. (;-p)

Pete and I arrived at the same time as the party’s hosts- but if you can’t be fashionably late for your own engagement party when can you be? After some hugs, congratulations etc we settled into some comfy seats at the lovely French gastro-pub and met a few of the happy couple’s mates.

Unfortunately Lucy, Ben’s better half, had to work – such is the life of the excellent Chichester Design photographer – so the pair joined us later in the evening at the soirée’s venue. They turned up, complete with the Simon and Ellie’s engagement gift from the Chichester Design team – a digital photo frame so that they can start documenting their life in union, awwww! Simon and Ellie, of course, loved the gift and everyone was as happy as Larry, whoever he is – especially when the French fries with Bloody Mary ketchup came out- mmm mmmmm!

Soon it was time to find our way back to Victoria to get the train back home to Chichester. We made it in good time and stopped for a photo in front of the ridiculously huge camera in the middle of Victoria – not sure why, it just amused us at the time! We then got peckish and headed to the food court to stock up on train snacks. Ben went for some dried mangos and rice cakes (the fascinating diet of one who cannot consume fat!), Lucy went for a crowd pleasing Pic ‘n’ Mix, Celine fancied some digestive biscuits and an orange, Jeremy opted out (well he did consume a big fat meaty burger in the pub) and Pete and I went for some rather refined cheese and crackers – a choice selection, I must say!

That was that really, an insight into the wild and wayward lives of the Chichester Design team members- we truly are a bunch of crazy social animals! Our next team social will be my snow-themed flat-warming party in two weeks time, where there will be dressing up aplenty. Stay tuned, you won’t want to miss those photos!

As all good Chichester Design followers will know, Ben and I now offer Google’s Premium AdWords Account Management service, Jumpstart.  This means that any new customers looking to spend £3000 plus on their AdWords each month can not only benefit from our account management skills but also benefit from the expertise of our dedicated team at Google HQ. 

As a Jumpstart customer you will gain access to Google’s market research resources through Hitwise, so we can advise on the best AdWords campaign tactics for your business. The experts at Google will then also help us optimise your accounts so that your Return On Investment can be maximised. Read more about Jumpstart from Chichester Design.

Well, rumour has it that those crazy cats at Google are offering a fantastic special offer from now until the end of December.  Google will double your spend on AdWords up to £1000, meaning that you have the opportunity to get your hands on £1000 worth of advertising for free! Sound too good to be true, it’s really not, there’s no catch just free wonga.  All the usual rules apply, in that it’s entirely up to you how much you spend on your ads, there are no contracts and you are free to pause your ads or delete your account at any time if things aren’t working out (which we’re sure they will).

So what are you waiting for? We may be seeing the light at the end of the recession tunnel but we know that marketing funds are still quite depleted and at a low.  Maximise your Return on Investment by taking chance of up to £1000 worth of free advertising.  There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t, and every reason why you should.  To find out more contact us for a free, no obligation consultation today.

Ben comes from a background as a professional photographer with a degree in Photography Media & Society. He went on to share his passion for the arts with the public by working as senior administrator for Chichester’s Oxmarket Centre of Arts before co-founding Chichester Design as it is today.

Just as we bet you didn’t know that Ben shot the photography for the latest book of scenographer, director, writer, educator and curator Professor Pamela Howard OBE FRSA. Pamela, like us, is a local and has a studio in nearby Selsey. Chichester Design helps Pamela out with her website and is also involved in Pamela’s Eddi of Manhood End opera.

Being an admirer of our Ben’s work she asked him to use his photography skills for the cover of her new book: What is Scenography? (Second edition). Pamela then applied her creative vision to cut out Ben’s photos and develop an arty visual of a stage set (see image above).

The two chairs on Pamela’s book cover inspired Alan Fletcher (one of the most influential figures in British graphic design, according to the Design Museum) to design and create the famous red and blue chair image which featured in his ‘Beware Wet Paint’ book published by Phaidon.

Pamela and Alan were good friends and both taught at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, which has developed a reputation for pushing the boundaries of arts, design and performance. The chairs were made especially for The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov’s last great play. This unique comedy tells of an old family estate up for auction and how, with the sale, a whole way of life comes to an end. It shows fifteen widely differentiated characters in situations that are by turn farcical, tragic and romantic. A performance of The Cherry Orchard was shown at Chichester Festival Theatre earlier this year.

This new edition of What is Scenography? is being published in the UK and USA from July this year. It takes a critical look at some of the issues raised in “What is Scenography?” (First edition) in light of Pamela’s personal and professional practice as a scenographer and director from 2001 – 2009, following several ‘case studies’, and how they relate to aspects of scenography in the book.

Much adoration for the book has already been stated including that it: “Gives an excellent sense of scenography and a window on a life in the theatre – which is fascinating. …A superb book.” – Professor Arnold Aronson, Columbia University, USA

The book also takes on an enlarged format, 40 new drawings and 40,000 new words and is being translated into Greek, Serbian and Galician. This means that not only will keen scenographers from across the seas will be able to relish in Pamela’s knowledge and expertise but Ben’s photographic images will become far flung too!

You can order What is Scenography? direct from the publisher, Routledge, or you can buy directly from Amazon.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s creative services such as photography, graphic design, web design and copywriting, contact us today.