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Archive for January, 2012

The evolution of a logo – Recognise & Relieve

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Your logo is the main element of your branding which you’ll use pretty much everywhere along with your brand colours. Two people who understand the importance of logo design and brand colours are our very own Tamlyn Hall from TLD and colour consultant Karen Haller.

Karen Haller is an Applied Colour Psychology Specialist.  She helps business owners to communicate their brand’s authentic business personality in colour, further strengthening their marketing message to increase brand recognition by standing out from the competition and increasing sales.

BEFORE: Recognise & Relieve old logo & brand colours

Recognise & Relieve old logo

Recognise & Relieve old brand colours

In analysing the old Recognise and Relieve brand colours Karen Haller found that the brown colour palette is from the colour family related to the Autumn season. The monotone variants of brown give an overall subliminal message of safety, seriousness, reliability and support.

Looking at the brand’s core values – aiding positive change, healing and self awareness in a calm and nurturing environment, the old brown monotone colour palette may have, over time, reflected a feeling of heaviness, reluctance for change and seriousness.

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“Make Do and Mend” – 8 free or almost free ways to improve your presence online

Friday, January 27th, 2012

We have been working hard on our newsletter, as we always do. And it’s ready to send! In this one the illustration was done by Tina and Amy worked on the graphics for the rest of the newsletter. Other newsletters often feature illustration work by Tamlyn – who drew our owls! Those of you who dont subscribe, you’re missing out! We almost always do special offers, games and prizes. Our latest creation involves a theme – “Make Do and Mend” which goes with the whole “January Austerity” feeling. No point in being frivolous and overly extravagent – it’s just not the done thing! So, in our newsletter we have listed “8 free or almost free ways to improve your presence online.” We do like the number 8!

We also like the number 3 – so watch out for the 3 offers within the newsletter.

Read it here and let us know in the comments below what you think!

Tina Webster Illustration blog’s about our “Owls” Pinterest board

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Tina Webster Illustration blog's about our "Owls" Pinterest board

You may have seen Keren’s blog post about Pinterest last week. Well over the weekend I blogged about her “Owl” board and found some inspiration for my first illustration of 2012.

Here are a few of my favorite “owly” delights from Keren’s Pinterest board.

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Launch of the Thanks and Recognition website

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Thanks and Recognition website

At the beginning of January we launched our very first website of 2012 for Thanks and Recognition.

Thanks and Recognition help to create an environment of trust where people feel empowered to thank one another for good deeds they have done in the day.  It works very simply, if somebody does something that you value and want to recognise, you send an email thanking them for what they have done. Thanks and Recognition can then calculate how many times you say thank you in a period of time. There’s lot of theory around the subject and you can find out more on their website.

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Seminars@38 Timelapse Video

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Following on from the impromptu timelapse video I created at the Top Left Design offices, a client of ours, ‘Seminars at 38′ requested a similar video at one of their events in January.

I filmed for around 3 hours in 4 different locations at the venue, to generate a short 1080P HD video showing the buzz of activity on the night.

To create the video, I used an iPhone 4S, with a timelapse app, GorillaPod stand, Olloclip Fisheye Lens, and Glif+ tripod mount – you don’t need to spend thousands to make professional videos – just a couple of hundred, and add a dash of creativity!

Pinterest – another social network – and why it’s important for you to look at it!

Monday, January 16th, 2012

There is a new social site creeping into our awareness.

Perhaps, if I suggested you look at another social network (which I am about to), you would throw your hands up in exasperation and say “I don’t have time!”

But I promise you, this is worth it. Especially if like us at TLD, you are in the business of being visual and creative. It’s called “Pinterest”.

For Pinterest, you need an invitation, so leave a comment below if you would like one and I can send it to you.

If you can show your work in a visual way – this means designers, illustrators, artists, wedding planners, photographers, interior designers, property developers – all of these businesses are based on visual asthetic. This is not just to say you only put in your portfolio and that’s in. The point of Pinterest is to find and share things you like  and then you can also create your own.

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Hacking or Clever Marketing?

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Jung von Matt

This morning while working on a design I went to grab some ‘dummy text’ also known in our industry as Lorem Ipsum from our trusted friends www.lipsum.com. Lorem Ipsum is described on their site as ‘…simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.’

We use “Lorem ipsum” text in our designs as a placeholder – as a replacement for readable content. It’s written in a similar way to English, in terms of the length of words and sentences – and in a way, it mimics the way real English text looks. This way, clients can pay attention to the design to begin without being distracted by repetitive sentences or meaningful text. From this we can give clients the correct word counts to stick to. They can then follow the word count guides and provide “real” copy after.

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Ever wanted to spend 1 hour at Top Left Design, but really only had 2.5 minutes?

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Today, Michael put up his iPhone 4S with Olloclip fisheye lens up on our office door using a Gorrillapod and Glif+ mount to hold it in place.

Then he took a timelapse movie of us working away like the busy bees that we are. We also wanted to send a special mention to Amy who works in our Cape Town Office and hasn’t physically been in our new London office yet.

We did have time to wave at all you lovely folk. It’s good to be famous! Check out the video. it’s truly awesome!

And here is a picture of the kit!

Fisheye lens

That’s your weekend sorted! 6 “I cant believe you haven’t seen these” epic YouTube videos

Friday, January 6th, 2012

I am sure you have seen, in conversation you inevitably say those words “You know that YouTube video…?” – and then you are surprised when people haven’t seen the ones you have watched over and over!

So I thought I would collect together for you my personal favourites (you will love them! Trust me!), to make sure that you don’t miss out on the wonder and joy of watching them! Have a look and let me know what you think! They all have music too as a bonus!

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