On the 9th of August, the Top Left Design team (and guests, but sadly minus Amy) were privileged enough to attend the red carpet Premiere of the new Blockbuster film “The Expendables“, starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the voice of Justin Bieber. Ok well maybe not that last one, but pretty much every big action movie star of the last 20 years!

How you might ask? Well Keren’s (@topleftdesign’s) father just happens to be Avi Lerner, Producer of the movie. He has also produced such Hollywood hits as Rambo IV (Stallone), Righteous Kill (Pacino / De Niro), and The Black Dahlia (Hartnett / Johansson).

Team TLD walked the red carpet into the Odeon, Leicester Square, getting “papped” along the way (didn’t stop to do autographs) – and were seated amongst the rich and famous in the prestigious cinema.

The film itself does exactly what it says on the tin – it truly is The Most Awesome Action Cast Ever Assembled… and it has more guns, fights, gunfights, explosions and general mayhem than any other film I’ve seen. Don’t expect any twist-endings or crazy sub-plots from this flick – there’s no time to fit any of that inbetween the 100 mins of start-to-finish action. I even saw Jason Statham clean kick some poor bloke’s head off in this film.

Luckily he was much more well-mannered at the after-party, held in the Planet Hollywood in Haymarket. Much to my disbelief, we were ushered into the VIP section, which was packed to the brim with familiar faces. Some were hard to put a name to (the open bar may have had a part to play), and at one point I had to ask who tough-man actor Craig Fairbrass was… To his face.. Maybe one of the most uncomfortable and scary moments of my life!

Though my celebrity approaching adventures weren’t completely un-fruitful, I managed to get a picture with Dolph Lundgren (Ivan Drago from Rocky IV), Avram Grant (ex-Chelsea FC Manager), and that weird guy from Bo Selecta’. I even got a picture of Tina and Tamlyn with Jason Statham!

Stallone hung out in the corner eating a pizza with Alice Cooper, which was rather surreal. Boxers Amir Khan and David Haye are much more imposing in real life, especially when you have to tap them on the shoulder to get past. Also, Jordan wears too much perfume for my liking (and apparently the liking of the VIP bouncers also).

Tamlyn didn’t waste any time in networking, and managed to wrangle us an invite to the after-after party in Cirque du Soir members club, with Statham and Amir Khan. Which was where I met the manager of the band Kasabian. I think. Open bar, like I said.

Needless to say, it was an amazing night, and judging by my headache the next day, I have no idea how the cast and crew managed to fly to Las Vegas for the following premiere.

They truly are The Most Awesome Action Cast Ever Assembled…

Thinking of starting starting a blog? Maybe you already have a blog but aren’t 100% sure of those little dos and don’ts that somehow you’re just EXPECTED to know! Well, help is on the way! We like to think we’ve had a bit of experience with blogging, so we have come up with 3 Golden Rules to think about when taking a step into the wonderful world of blogging!

Images, images, images!

Always use images in your post – people are attracted to images and are far more likely to read a post that has bright, eye-catching images in it than one that is just a ream of mind-numbing text. While we’re on the topic of pictures, make sure your images are always the same width as your text – big bold images will draw people in!

Heading, meet Sub-headings

People often make this mistake – they write a lovely blog, and forget to add sub-headings. Sub-headings break the text up into sizeable, easily digestible chunks, and also give people an indication of what is to come. Many people don’t realise just how much clearer a blog is with sub-headings

Variety is the spice of life

When writing blogs don’t always follow the same format. Many people tend to think that blogging is purely about writing an article or story, whereas in reality there are many different types of blogs than one can write. A few examples of these are:

• Best-of lists
• List of tips (this post is an example of this!)
• Things you have found
• Interviews
• Inspirational Stories
• Reviews
• How-tos

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking! There are many other ideas out there to write about.

Hopefully this has inspired you to look at blogging in a new light and to see the endless possibilities  of things you can do! Most importantly you should have fun and enjoy what you are writing about. Who knows, you may unearth a hidden passion for writing you never knew about!

Public Speaking.
A term that can strike fear into the hearts of most people, myself included. One person who does not seem to share this view is Keren. She believes that Public Speaking is an essential skill and excels at it. Unlike the rest of us. Ask us to meet with a client, chat to each other, argue over who gets the coldest coke or biggest ice cream, no problem, but place us in front of a room full of people and we turn to gibbering wrecks (some of us more than others.. *note to self!)

So, every Friday, almost without fail, Keren drags us, kicking and screaming, from the office, using the term ‘screen break’ as an excuse for us to brush up on our public speaking skills. This is affectionately (and I use that term VERY loosely) known as PSP, and, unfortunately, does not involve any hand held game consoles.

In the beginning was a word

The first time I ever had to do this in front of the TLD team it felt as if my heart was clawing it’s way out of my neck, I had a severe case of clammy hands, shaky knees, and I’m pretty sure I went from white to red within 0.2 seconds of standing up. It’s ridiculous really when you think about it. We socialise with each other on a daily basis, talking, laughing, joking, but yet having to standing up and give my 2 pence about a predetermined topic to these same people causes me to age about 10 years from the stress of it all!

Public Speaking has a few issues in my eyes. Not only do you have to speak in coherent sentences, you have to do it in a way that will keep your audience captivated, hanging on your every word. And this has to be done whilst speaking slowly and clearly.

Trials…

So you master speaking at 2 miles an hour, thinking that if you can do this you’ll be fine. But no. No sooner than you’ve accomplished this you’re then told to throw in some hand gestures, speak with feeling! And to use the space around you! Try that when if feels like you have ten arms that all seem to have doubled in length, your finger tips dragging along the floor like some deranged ape.

.. and Tribulations

And then, just as you think things can’t get any worse, you’re expected to walk. Walk and talk. And make it look natural. As if talking by itself isn’t difficult enough! Someone once told me to imagine every body in the room naked. I don’t know who came up with that idea, but when I do Public Speaking I can assure you naked people are the last thing on my mind!

Now, don’t let me be the one to put you off Public Speaking! It’s not all bad! Once yours is over with you get to sit and listen to others who are undoubtedly going through the same process that you’ve just gone through. And I have to admit it the more we practice, the easier it gets, which means that there might be some truth in the phrase “practice makes perfect… one day!”

So, you have a website, but you feel it needs a bit of freshening up? A bit of an update? But you don’t want to spend shed loads of money giving it a complete overhaul right now?

We here at Top left Design have complied a short list of a few tips and pointers that might help you put that little “pop” back into your website! It might be that you just need something really simple,  like updating a few images, changing a link or a new logo! It’s all in the details!

A few simple things worth considering :

• Update your copyright date – this immediately makes the site look relevant and up-to-date
• Keep your blog update regularly – this is one of the easiest ways to make your website look fresh.
• If you don’t have a blog, consider adding one – a seamless integration which fits into your navigation works best – ask us if you need advice!
• Try not to use cheesy images, people will judge you on the cheese scale, 1 being non existent, 10 being downright cheesy! This is a bit of a hairy topic, as some people like cheese. So use your initiative! If in any doubt ask us – we’re pretty good at the cheesy vs non-cheesy game!
• Make sure your logo is professional. A bad logo can bring down the whole look of your website, so if you feel your logo is looking a little out dated it might be time for a freshen up!
• Consider maybe updating your copy to make you seem more approachable. People are far more likely going to want to read well written, interesting client focused copy aimed at THEM, than copy that is tedious and hard to read.
• Lastly, keep an eye out for the little details – people do pick up on small things out of place, and keeping an eye out for these things can make a world of difference!

We have an internal policy here in the office. A very good internal policy. One that involves food, and people making it for you!

Every couple of weeks (or sooner, depending on our organisational skills) one member of the team sweats over a hot stove (or shopping basket), slaving away to produce a meal for the rest of the team that won’t cause others to recoil back with the horrors. So far so good!

The first MML experience for me was a terrifying ordeal. I stressed for about a week, being the newbie, not wanting to disappoint (Cue Keren in true Alan Sugar style: “WHAT! You made THAT.. You’re FIRED!) Of course, that never happened, Keren’s far too wonderful! And the meal wasn’t a total flop. And having been here for a while now the experience of cooking for others is nowhere near as bad as what I first made it out to be in my head.

Recipe for success

A quick breakdown of the latest meals (bear in mind this has been going on for a while, but as I have the glorious task of writing this, we’ll start from when I arrived! Writer’s prerogative!):

First up was me, with cheesy stuffed baked potatoes and a warm rocket salad, followed by custom-made TLD cupcakes (for those that don’t know, cupcakes are a sure-fire winner in the office here – sneaky tactics if the meal flopped!)

Then came Michael, with a summery Mediterranean spread perfect for a warm day. Pita bread, hoummus, fresh salad, rocket, olives, cheese.. yum! Can’t go wrong there! Followed by Banoffee Pie (my first ever – sad, I know, but am now a convert!).

Next up was Keren, who, after telling us that she doesn’t cook, produced a delicious stack of quesadillas AND home made guacamole. She has officially ruined guacamole for me – have not been able to find a decent shop bought replacement since. It was that good. This was accompanied by a tomato and garlic salad (loads of garlic, apparently it’s good for you!) – felt rather sorry for any clients we had to meet that day! This was all followed by a Swedish dessert. The name evades me but I know it was REALLY good!

Fourth on the list was me again, with a Thai Malay curry type thingy (don’t ask) and basmati rice, topped with fresh coriander, and accompanied by a rocket salad. Curry wasn’t too shabby, can’t say much for the rice though! Dessert was a quick dash to Lola’s in Selfridges for some Red Velvet cupcakes (they come highly recommended!).

Tina was next in the kitchen, making us bowlfuls of really yummy nachos, proper finger food. Was all hands in, no FHB in this office (For those of you not in the know, FHB means ‘Family Hold Back’ – when everyone is being too polite to get properly stuck in). Although we did observe some form of civility and use a spoon to dish up! We were then treated to strawberry and marshmallow kebabs that had been smothered in chocolate. If you have never tried this do yourself a favour and do so! So simple yet sooo good (drool).

Michael then stepped up to the plate (haha…) with a Veggie Pasta Bake (packed with all the good stuff, and positively oozing melted cheese!) This was served with a side of fresh crusty bread and butter. Real proper comfort food! We could smell fresh basil wafting through from the kitchen whilst it was cooking – pure torture when your stomach is grumbling for food!

That, folks, is a full run down of our meals up until now (the last meal was on Monday June 14th). Sadly, we have yet to diarise more dates for MML, but I am working on it as we speak! Keren.. Oh KE-E-ERENNNNN…?

We all know that web browsers are getting faster. So what can you do to keep up with them?

There used to be a time when you might have waited 3 minutes for a webpage to open.

Then we got broadband.

Then we only had to wait an average 10 seconds for a page to load.

Then we got Firefox.

Now our new browsers such as Google’s ‘Chrome’ not only load the page in a split-second, but the programs themselves open almost instantaneously. Plus they can handle a metric ton of ‘tabs’ and not slow your computer down in the process!

Here’s 8 tips to give your web-surfing a steroid boost

1. Upgrade Your Browser

You might still be experiencing some waiting periods, but that’s probably because you’re still using Internet Explorer 6/7/8. Excuse me while I spit on the ground in disgust.
My first 2 tips are going to be Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome. If you haven’t yet tried these two browsers, then you’re in for a real treat! Although, Internet Explorer Version 9 might be one to watch out for…

Have a look at This infograph comparing browser performance and speed.
At Top Left Design, we only ever use IE to test that websites we create actually work in the browser.

2. Bookmarks Bar

You know those sites that you visit every day? Like Gmail, Hotmail, Google, Twitter, Digg, etc? Wouldn’t it be great if you could access them in one click? Well good news; you can.

The bookmarks bar is one step better than your bookmarks menu. Dragging a link from the address bar of the site you are on will add a handy link to this line of icons in your browser window. You can edit the name of the link, or remove the name completely if you are familiar enough with the site’s ‘favicon’.
You can Ctrl+Click on a bunch of links to open up a few at a time in separate tabs.

When using normal bookmarks, make sure you name them relevantly, and put them into sub-folders, or you might end up with a mile-long, hard to use list – I only recently got out of that bad habit.

3. Search in the Address Bar

One thing that Firefox does great (and Chrome to a lesser extent), is its intuitive address bar. I can’t fathom how much time I’ve saved using this feature.

Let’s say that you wanted to look up a film on www.imdb.com – try typing into your address bar: “IMDB usual suspects”
Chrome and IE will probably give you a handy Google search result – but Firefox will actually open the film’s page on imdb.com!
Typing “wiki movember” will bring up this page straight away. You’re basically cutting out the middle man (Mr. Google Search).

If you know what you’re looking for, you can bypass search forms on websites completely.

4. Tabbed Browsing

Tabs gave Firefox it’s initial edge over Internet Explorer – the option to have multiple websites open in one instance of the browser application. Meaning that your windows bar at the bottom doesn’t get clogged up with every page you have open!

Since their conception, they have become standard in new browsers, and thankfully have some universal shortcut keys.
Using tabs when browsing the internet not only means that you can quickly hop to the other 15 pages you have open, but without the headache on your CPU as a bonus.

5. Shortcut Keys

I’m slowly working on phasing out my mouse completely:

Ctrl + T = New Tab
Ctrl + Click Link On Page = Open link in new tab
Ctrl + Tab = Next Tab
Ctrl + Shift + Tab = Previous Tab
Ctrl + W = Close tab
Ctrl + Shift + W = Close ALL tabs
Ctrl + Shift + T = Open last closed tab
Ctrl + J = Downloads
Ctrl + F = Find
F5 = Refresh
F6 = Jump to type in the address bar
Space bar = Page down
Home = Top of the page
End = Bottom of the page
Tab = next field/link on the page

And of course, Ctrl + [C = Copy / V = Paste / A = Select All / X = Cut] for links and bodies of text.

6. Browser Launch Page

Chrome has a handy landing page when you open the program which shows your most viewed sites, for easy access. Note from the screenshot below, my Facebook page isn’t showing as a tile. That’s because we WORK here at TLD. (Twitter is part of work of course!)

Though in most browsers, you can even go a step further, and have your most viewed sites open in separate tabs once your launch your browser.

I have Chrome open Google & Gmail on launch, as I know that I am going to have those 2 sites open whatever I’m doing!

7. Extensions / Addons

Addons are a great way of streamlining and customising your browsing experience.

Google Chrome Extensions
Firefox Addons

Aviary Screen Capture allows you to capture, crop and save a section or all of the website you are viewing.

Do you still see adverts? Adblock stops 90% of ads from loading, both pop-ups and ads built into the pages themselves. This includes ads on the videos which appear on YouTube.

Gmail for Chrome alerts you when you get new mail in your account.

Check out this page to see 17 Google Chrome Extensions for Web Designers and Developers.

8. Spyware Scan

Of course, non of the above will help speed up your surfing if your computer is riddled with resource and connection hogging spyware.
If you are waiting over 3 seconds for a website to load, and you have a fast internet conenction with a fast browser, chances are that you’re being slowed down by a virus.
Run a scan using the free scanner AdAware on a regular basis to avoid having your browsing stunted.

Hopefully now you should be 8x faster when surfing the internet, leaving you with more time to look at videos of cats falling off things, or whatever it is you do!

Let us know if you have any tips to add to the mix!

Bonus link – as a reward for reading this far! 9 more insanely useful firefox add-ons that will save your time

First, a little bit of background about me – My name is Tom Andrews, and I work for a company called Successful Businesses. We provide SEO solutions for many companies, including Top Left Design. We work with our clients to make sure that their amazing websites are seen by as many people across the internet as possible!

Welcome to my first guest Internet Marketing blog!

In this post I will attempt to explain how to ensure that your PPC campaign is well optimised. I’m notorious for going into far too much detail so I will try to be as brief as possible!

Based on PPC re optimisation for a Top Left Design client:

http://www.topleftdesign.com/portfolio/richard-casson.htm

The first thing to ascertain is most profitable areas / most potentially profitable areas of the business; these are the areas to target using PPC. PPC is generally more expensive per click than SEO, so it is important to ensure that paid visits will send potentially profitable enquiries.

If the aim of your site is purely to give people information as opposed to sales, selling a service, etc – I would advise sticking to SEO as it is more cost effective long-term.

As a former PPC sceptic myself, there is a lot more to PPC than meets the eye. It can be very effective when all of it’s features are utilised, although very time consuming, it can also be good fun and get very addictive!

Fortunately, (without being biased!), Richards Casson’s site has been very well designed and developed initially. This makes the life of an Internet Marketing Optimiser a lot easier.

NOTE: I would advise pre-pay billing so that you don’t get any unpleasant surprises if mistakes are made.

Break the site down into microsites, for example:

Dental Hygiene – richardcasson.com/services_dental-hygiene.htm

Teeth Straightening – richardcasson.com/services_teeth-straightening.htm

Etc…

This makes campaigns much easier to manage when possible.

Edit settings for all online campaigns, at this stage have general settings encompassing all microsite ad groups.

Name: richardcasson.com

Locations: If based in a particular area its best to target just the local area for relevant visits, this would be appropriate for a dentist.

Networks and devices: Test on all initially for first week or month and then edit accordingly based on those that perform well.

NOTE: There are potential issues with click-fraud, where competitors click your links to waste your budget. If suspect this could be a problem, best to set just to Google search.

Bidding and budget: Use manual max bidding so that you can control yourself and adjust accordingly – remember that you can decrease as well as increase max bids to find optimum position on page.

Budget: Ensure that you set max daily budget based on no conversions initially. It is important to test the campaign initially to get best long term results however it can take some fine tuning before leads to conversions.

Position preference: Display ads in any position at this stage.

Delivery method: Display ads evenly over time.

Ad extensions: Use address from local business centre and add phone number.

Advance settings: It might be best initially to test the campaign for 1 month, so set an end date.

Ad scheduling: Set to appropriate times of day for site. In case of dentist example, we discussed with client and agreed 7am to 10pm at night would be appropriate.

Ad rotation: Display better performing ads more often!

Frequency capping: No cap on impressions.

Demographics unless obvious, too advanced for this stage.

Create a new ad group: Dental hygiene.

Add content to your ad.

Destination URL: richardcasson.com/services_dental-hygiene.htm

Research your keywords.

For example: Dental hygienist.

Test using:

Broad match – Higher impressions but less specific.

[Exact match] – Exact phrase only.

“Phrase match” – Terms used anywhere in a phrase.

For example:

Dental hygienist

[Dental hygienist]

“Dental hygienist”

Initially for at least a week, but ideally a month. This will give you an idea of which terms bring the most visits, impressions, best CTR, and you can then edit accordingly to those search terms which perform the best as the project progresses.

Select a default bid.

Start low: 30p for example. Once ads start running you’ll soon be able to check status for potential minimum bid to get on page 1 of results.

Save ad group.

Select the ad group just created.

If you have the time create a new ad, this means that you can test each ad against one another and select which performs best.

It can be an ongoing process – the level of detail to go into depends your time and budget.

Select keywords – negative keywords:

You can edit for each ad group or campaign in general.

Arguably one of the best things about PPC is that you can select keywords which will not trigger your ad – something that is not possible using SEO when your site can appear for all kinds of bizarre search queries!

For a dentist, quite a few which could bring the wrong impressions, for example:

Crowns – could apply to dental crowns but also to terms such as Royal, Royalty, King, Queens, etc.

Have a think about possible negative keywords, using the top 30 results of search engines as a guide.

Once campaign is running, you can run reports to test the quality score.

It will show under status if very poor, however it is best to check for all. The higher the quality score the lower each click will cost.

Quality score links into landing page optimisation which links to SEO. If you follow the principles above, the relevance of keywords to page content should be good.

However, it might also be search terms which could bring conversions but are not included on the site – this is where quality score could be lower and site’s content would need to be edited.

Also as paid advertising, PPC companies such as Google Adwords can object if you use claims which although can be true, are not referenced and backed up by fact.

For example, positive psychological effects of Cosmetic Dentistry.

As your project progresses, check the status of each ad group and keyword. A top 10 – 30 position in SEO can often lead to visits. However with PPC, it is often best to aim for the top 5, although this can mean a higher max bid, if high quality score does not necessarily equate to the amount each click will cost.

PPC optimisation is a surprisingly large topic. I hope that this post helps but I would advise further reading to improve your knowledge.

From a former PPC sceptic and champion of SEO, I have now been well and truly converted! As long as the campaign has been thoroughly optimised, it is potentially money very well spent!

Further reading:

Google Books : http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=SEO+PPC&btnG=Search+Books

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Numerous sites to have a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adwords

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing

http://www.successful-businesses.co.uk

Welcome to my first tutorial!

In this post, I’ll be showing you how to make your very own custom 404 error page!

Time needed: 30 mins + any time spent designing the page itself
Necessary resources: Notepad, Site FTP access, coffee
Optional programs: Photoshop/Illustrator (for design of the page), FTP Client (for easier uploading)

A custom 404 page is not only a way to expand accessibility on your website, but it also shows that you (or your company) has attention to detail, and can be a way to inject some humour into a website!

A 404 occurs when someone visits a part of your website that doesn’t exist. The default 404 page is ugly and not very user-friendly at all. We’ll soon take care of that!

We recently made a 404 page for Top Left Design’s website, which you can view here:

http://www.topleftdesign.com/404

Here’s how you can create the same effect for your very own website.
(If you get stuck anywhere along the way, get in touch or leave a comment and we’ll help you out!)

Step 1. Design your page

The first step (and the most fun part of the whole process), is to come up with an idea for your 404 page!

You might want to reference pop-culture, or an in-joke. Maybe you just want a simple page explaining the error, but matches your existing sleek website design.

A 404 page can take the form of a striking placeholder, and integrated page in your website’s exisiting design, or a mixture of the two.

Once you have your idea, you’ll need to mock up the design using Photoshop, or a similar image editing program.

huwshimi.com

Step 2. Create your HTML page

This tutorial assumes that you already have some basic knowledge of HTML – after all, you wouldn’t need a 404 page unless you already have a website!

If you already have your website, you could incorporate your website’s navigation structure, and a search bar – allowing the unexpecting 404 visitor to find what they were looking for when they shipwrecked upon your error page!
A simple way to construct this would be to take an existing page from your website, and modify it until you are happy – then save it as “404.htm”.
Make sure that you link everything using absolute paths, to avoid broken linkage should the 404 occur in a nested folder on your website.

As far as content goes on your 404 page goes, a good formula in the design industry is considered to be; striking image + witty phrase (depending on the tone of your website of course). See the examples below and the links at the end of this post for examples!

CSSscoop.com

carsonified.com

Here’s a good tutorial to make a “BSOD” custom 404 page in HTML/CSS.

Either way, once you’re done creating the page, you should have a ’404.htm’ file, along with any extra images you may have created for your 404 page.

Step 3. Create your .htaccess file

Open up Notepad for this one. You will want to paste the following text into the blank document:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.htm

Now save this text file, naming it “.htaccess” – making sure that the drop down is set to All Files.

Easy! Who ever said .htaccess was complicated?

Step 4. Upload and test

Now, with your files all ready, connect to your FTP server, and get ready to sample the fruits of your labour..

Upload the .htaccess file to the root directory of your FTP server (it should be in the same folder as your index.htm file)
Upload your 404.htm page to the root also, and any extra images to the relevant folder on your server (depending on how you have linked the image paths in your 404.htm file)

Sidenote: Once uploaded, your .htaccess file may not be visible on your server, unless you turn on the hidden files settings in your FTP program. Files beginning with a full stop are automatically hidden by default.
To turn on hidden files like this in CuteFTP for example, do the following:

Open up the Edit menu and select the Filter option.
Check the box next to Enable Remote Filters.
Enter the two characters “-a” (without the quotes) in the Remote Filter box.
Click OK to confirm the change.
The next time you make an FTP connection to your account, you should be able to see the hidden files which were not visible before.

Done!

Now all you need to do is visit your website, and add: “/anything” after the .com
As long as the page does not exist on your site, your new custom 404 page should appear! Well done!

Further reading:

The best of error 404 pages
Collection of fantastic 404 pages
Tutorial to make a “BSOD” custom 404 page in HTML/CSS.
How to make a custom 404 page in a WordPress theme

Have you seen any great 404 error pages?
Have you made your own? Let us know, we’d love to see them!

Top Left Design is now supporting a charity called Penny On. It’s a simple scheme which allows people to donate 1 penny extra whenever they are out shopping. Within retail outlets, barcodes are setup and the cashier can scan the extra barcode when the customer indicates they would like to participate. The extra penny goes towards good causes.

Penny on is the single most brilliantly simple way of enabling effortless giving at the point of sale. It supports local and lnternational sustainable initiatives that align with The Millennium Development Goals. The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators.

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

By focusing on the retail sector Penny On is maximising its scale and influence with the public as a whole.

As a Business Supporting Penny On, Top Left Design is now playing a role in providing working capital. This will mean that when consumers are invited to add a penny on when making a purchase, this money will go directly to invest in local and international development.

It was very easy to sign up – we invested a small amount of money and we are going to help spread the word via events and social media.

If you would like more information on how you can help out, please Get in touch.

Be sure also to Visit the Penny On Website.

We wanted to show you a set of 4 postcards designed and illustrated by Tina Webster. Tina works for Top Left Design (as you may have noticed on our Team page) and is also a freelance illustrator. She graduated from Kingston University in 2008 and her work has been featured in the Guardian, Supersweet Magazine and on the London Architecture Diary website. She has also taken part in a number of exhibitions in central London including a submission for Shelter House of Cards exhibition for Amelia’s Magazine, and the Coningsby Gallery and 93 Feet East

Her illustration style is mainly collage and paper cuts. She works by painting paper and then creating textures with objects such as folks, tissue paper and sponges. This gives her illustration work as 3D feel. Her work is suited to book illustration, editorial and advertising. The designs above form part of a series of 4 postcards for Top Left Design. They feature animals which we also use on our Twitter page background.  The postcards will be sent to our clients and friends and the cards can be collected and then placed together to created one big image.

If you would like to find out what Tina is up to, you can Find Tina on Twitter!.