About
Blue Strawberry Elephant Ltd is an independent branding and creative marketing design company, run by two owner managers who head up an eclectic bunch of complimentary creatives.
We believe successful design is all about collaboration, within our team and with our clients: Clients who range over many industries from healthcare to precision engineering, process plant equipment to historic scissor manufacturers, primary schools to international higher education and professional training companies (to scratch the surface).
We are neither slick advertising guys nor stereotypical "hipster creatives" including our part time book keeper, (once we have a child of the 60's and a school leaver apprentice on board) we would span birthdays in ever decade since WWII - and every one a unique character.
Our aim is no less than using all that experience, talent and skill to help our clients transform how their businesses are seen by both staff and customers - this we know to be the only route to a real return on investment.
We love working with ambitious, brave, business people who can get as excited as we do about what we can achieve together - fully aware that, especially in the case of SMEs, what we do is not "just business" but actually affects the lives of all those involved; from how happy employees are at work to the future prospects of businesses to make more sales, more profit and enable the employment of more people. Not to mention the personal financial wellbeing of company owners.
Everything we know, everything we believe about branding and creativity in business, is poured into every project.
If you are really up for transforming your business and its prospects - we can't wait to meet you!
1 Copy writing
2 Naming
3 Logo Design
4 Graphic Design
5 Consultancy
6 Video Production
7 Photography
8 Animation
9 Illustration
10 Brand Development
11 Branding Guidelines
12 Creative Marketing
13 Campaign Planning / Advertising
14 Installation Management
15 Touch Point Planning
1) COPY WRITING
As a stand-alone item your existing copy may be brilliant! In which case we can use it to inform your Creative Marketing.
However – even if your current text and marketing messages are both good and appropriate, an upgrade or full rebrand of your business in terms of logo and imagery will almost always mean a different emphasis throughout your copy writing.
If copy writing is something you need, we can help create and develop your company’s “voice” – to bring character, clear communication and impact to your website and sales literature – allowing everyone in your company to promote a common consistent message.
2) NAMING
If your name doesn’t make you STAND OUT you will spend more on marketing trying to get attention. NAMING your company or brand is a skill – it should follow a defined process and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Just for starters – your name can be an inspirational well of ideas you can keep going back to for marketing concepts while differentiating your company or product in your market place – It can be remarkable – people may remark on your name in a positive way before even meeting you…
There are so many benefits to getting it right you should probably talk to us about a naming proposal before anything else!
3) LOGO DESIGN
If you are a serious business, a professionally crafted logo will give your audience a feeling of quality, reassurance and just the right level of impact.
If you are NOT a serious business a free pitched or home made logo will be just fine, so long as you don’t mind being another “Me Too!” firm in your sector.
Well designed, your Logo will be a beacon in your industry, with adjusted versions to work at any size and any medium without loss of consistency: A Logo worth Registering as a Trade Mark to give your brand further protection.
If your current logo can’t be changed for legal reasons or the cost of rolling a new logo out across all current manifestations (not an issue for most businesses) we can work with your current branding, updating it to make it usable for all mediums, upgrading it with a fresh impetus.
4) GRAPHIC DESIGN
The definition of Graphic Design is:
“the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.”
Or
“the art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with visual and textual content. The form of the communication can be physical or virtual, and may include images, words, or graphic forms.”
Or
“The Core Business of Blue Strawberry Elephant Ltd”
5) CONSULTANCY
A whole range of scenarios might be imagined where your company needs specific support through consultancy.
It is a good investment as a starting point, if you don’t have a clear line of sight on how a project will pan out, or if you have concerns that time restrictions and lack of day to day experience in your team (branding and creative marketing roll outs are most likely not what you employ them for) might mean you aren’t seeing potential pitfalls – but – at the same time employing someone to fill that role isn’t a cost commitment you can justify.
Some of the factors that lead to a separate consultancy proposal include:
Time – a sudden realisation that there isn’t enough available and a hands on full service management role may need to be filled over the days where a project is conceived, created, produced and delivered by a short deadline.
Blue Strawberry Elephant has vast experience in this kind of “hell for leather” situation, never failing to hit a deadline.
Research – justifying an investment in branding across a group of people to gain consensus is not the easiest of prospects, and is often the reason re-brandings never get off the ground – (or are so watered down as to not be worth doing).
A quick assessment of your company dynamic and current opinions can save you a lot of stress down the line – a paid for report and initial visualising of options with thinking behind each is both a good investment to gain agreement before a full project commences, incurring greater costs, and is doubly warranted because not only do you gain agreement; saving time in unnecessary debate, but the initial visualisations can be used immediately in what would normally be the first stage of a branding project anyway.
Logistics – whether the intention is to roll out a brand across all media from one location or instigate and install branding across multiple locations – a properly constituted plan – together with assessment of materials, manufacturing methods and resources which may be more efficient or cost effective, can make huge savings both up front and through savings in ongoing maintained projects – this is an ideal service for facilities management and operations management support.
Talk to us about your specific situation, at the earliest point possible in your deliberations, for the best outcome over the life of your project.
6) VIDEO PRODUCTION
Increasingly, our clients are turning to us for video to help explain, promote or entertain.
We can provide anything from a 5 second animation to a full video production for You Tube / Vimeo transmission on social media and through your website to HD Broadcast Quality advertisements.
7) PHOTOGRAPHY
In an era when everyone has a smart phone or digital camera it can be easy to be sucked into thinking photography is “easy” – and to an extent – when you are wanting to get something up on Instagram or your Facebook page, DIY happy snaps can be ideal.
But quality products, corporate image and people portraits can only be properly presented and protected by quality Professionally taken images – for clarity and description where needed and style that both compliments your brand and differentiates you from other companies selling similar products and services.
Having a camera doesn’t make anyone a “Photographer” just as having a two inch decorators brush doesn’t make anyone an “Artist”. Even amongst those who make a living out of photography there are horses for courses. The guy who is perfect for your wedding and baby shots isn’t going to be great on a commercial shoot – even for portraiture.
We have directed and worked with professional photographers for a very long time, ensuring the best results for our clients across all sectors.
Blue Strawberry Elephant specialise in providing on and off site creative and art direction; whether the project calls for product shots, location /service images or Personality branding.
Our involvement at every stage means that your images will complement and add impact to your branded items and marketing tools.
8) ANIMATION
Want to explain a difficult concept? Or simply want to make it quick and easy for your customers to get on board?
Simple animated flat graphic (2D) infographics to full blown 3D characters and short animated films can shorten that all important sales decision.
You could have your own animated mascot character to add to your brand portfolio … now I wonder if anyone else has found that to be successful?
9) ILLUSTRATION
Illustration is as broad a field as anything else we do –
– From technical, medical and engineering illustrations for items that cannot be photographed, or made clear by a photograph, to 3D renderings of products and buildings still on the drawing board.
At the lighter end we’ve created characters to appear in advertising campaigns and images to use for info graphics.
If you feel an Illustration would be more effective for your sales and marketing tools than photography or alongside photographic images, we can create a brief and take care of it for you.
10) BRAND DEVELOPMENT
We’ve covered some of the scenarios where a separate Consultancy Contract might be used under “Talents”.
Brand Development is another.
The process is one of managed stages taking you from naming to logo to branding guidelines (see below) to rolling out into marketing tools and campaigns – wherever the process starts for you it will, or should, never end.
Your new brand will naturally lead to new opportunities for ways and places it can be used.
Two things to keep in mind here:
One is not letting your brand be diluted by new versions of logos or branding elements being created outside the set guidelines – if this is unavoidable they should follow as closely as possible the guidelines without changing the dynamic, and then the guidelines are updated to take new versions into account – this itself is “brand development”.
The second scenario is when planning the next period’s marketing – whether that’s monthly, quarterly or annually.
Ensuring your marketeers keep in line with the brand you have invested in doesn’t mean restricting where they might look for business or how that (new) market should be attacked.
A thought through process using Blue Strawberry Elephant as Brand Consultants, will not only give them the freedom of thought they need but will back up your marketeers and sales people with consistent branded tools, images and devices which will give them more impact, while protecting your brand in it’s controlled development.
11) BRANDING GUIDELINES
No Brand (or Corporate Identity) can be fully controlled or developed without the solid foundation of a comprehensive branding manual.
These guidelines take three forms – hardback coffee table book – an historic tome that starts as your company “Brand Bible” and becomes an artefact of your company’s journey as it is replaced with the next version. A downloadable password protected PDF for use with suppliers not involved in design and a separate Branding Guidelines Website, ftp link or Dropbox from which logos and branding items can be downloaded for general use.
All of this is part of Blue Strawberry Elephant’s Branding Design and Development Service, which readily adapts to the individual requirements of companies across all sectors.
11) CREATIVE MARKETING
Quick Jargon and Job Description Explanation:
“Marketing” v “Creative Marketing.”
A “Marketeer” a title I am assured is hated by Marketeers – is someone who studies markets, supply and demand, competition and opportunity. These are the guys that, if you’re lucky, don’t only have CiM on their business cards but also have the experience to know what they are on about (we have full respect for our brothers in pure marketing).
Creative Marketing is less about knowing what the “market” wants or is looking for but what visual, textual and graphic design (see definition of Graphic Design under Graphic Design) will push the right button of actual real people in those markets.
In brief:
“Marketing” tells you who to tell about your product and how to get to them. “Creative Marketing” tells you how to tell them your story in words and pictures.
The two disciplines do overlap – just as Marketing and Sales overlap – where we fit in to what you already do, and how much of each you need is
a conversation we can have whenever you are ready.
12) CAMPAIGN PLANNING / ADVERTISING
A three month campaign of full page adverts in four magazines, created so many new bookings for an hotel in East Yorkshire the owners but a 20 bedroom extension to accommodate the new business.
We produced the concepts for the campaign, directed the photography, created the copy, produced the graphics and booked the space.
Every target market is different, every campaign uses different media – but its a good example how advertising can directly affect the growth of your business.
A good Brand Strategy needs promotion – regular campaigns are the only way to do that in a way you can monitor results adjust your approach and develop sales.
Tell em what you’re going to tell em.
Tell em –
then tell em what you told em.
Talk to Blue Strawberry Elephant about talking to them.
13) PROJECT ROLL OUT
Project Roll Out’s are hectic, stressful, full of third party cooks in the kitchen that all need wrangling – and when you wrangle them you soon find they’re actually feral cats, covered in olive oil and filled with cat nip on Guy Fawkes Night!!IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!
Blue Strawberry Elephant are experts in design, co-ordinating manufacture, managing multiple suppliers and installing to deadlines for any kind of launch or a roll out across multiple locations – of branded and peripheral signage, print collateral packs and same day website launches.
Add to this pre launch creative marketing, signalling and countdowns through websites and social media – and…
…you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
14) INSTALLATION MANAGEMENT
It doesn’t have to be a major Roll Out to need good management and coordination – you may have a single new factory being built or an existing school or office block that needs bringing to life.
Blue Strawberry Elephant will handle it all from first concept visual to you walking in the morning after installation to be AMAZED!
No truly – you’ll at least be so pleased you won’t be able to finish a sentan…
15) TOUCH POINT PLANNING
You should have at least a dozen points of contact:
Points where people, customers, potential customers, people who aren’t – but may know a potential customer… come across your company, bump into it, find while browsing, see while driving past, deal with your staff – these are “Touch Points”
Blue Strawberry Elephant will assess where these are for you, if you have enough, what more could be added to this armoury, and the quality and consistency of the brand image and message that comes across at each.
You’re at one of our Touch Points now – How do we feel?
Resulting in "Vehicles" for your message, that Make You More Visible…
Web Sites
Social Media Branding
Printed Collateral
Sales Literature
Stationery / eMail Communications
Branding
Large Format
Point of Sale Displays
Packaging
Exhibition Stands
Signage
Architectural Branding
Permanent Displays
Transport Livery
Show more
