Day-Ellison Associates

Blog Focus

2010-05-27T13:57:00.000+01:00

We have come to the conclusion that Great Women Blog and the Design Blog probably have rather different audiences. Maybe some are the same, and that would be nice. But we have decided to tease them apart.

So, if you wish to see all the Great Women together (We are adding to them monthly) please subscribe/follow: http://twosandies.posterous.com.

If you wish to follow tales of design, where we kicked off with Douglas Adams (on Towel Day) please subscribe/follow: http://day-ellison.posterous.com.

We hope to see you there!

Great Women No.4

2010-05-12T15:02:00.000+01:00

The collaboration continues apace between our very own illustraor, Sandy Nightingale and Sandi Toksvig (Star of TV, Radio, Writer, Performer and National Treasure). The Great Women series to date has celebrated Emily Post, Elizabeth Woodville and Dame Ethel Smythe. They are published in The Lady magazine.

We are proud to introduce a very controversial figure. Combining Religion, Power and beards we bring you . . .

Pope Joan

Pope Joan is a rather clear figure in history – either she was the only woman ever to be Pope or some anti-Pope person made up a load of Papal bull. Thus her title was either Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God or she didn’t have one.

As she may have been made up we can be a little cavalier with the facts. Obviously she would need to live in Rome (the Vatican has rarely moved house) but exactly when is unclear. This not surprising because it was most likely in the ninth century which was also known as the very Dark Ages when hardly anything was clear.

Fact or fiction she is quite a girl. If she did exist then she was the only Pope to wreck a Vatican ceremony by giving birth. If she was a legend then she was a strong enough a story for someone to spend a lot of seventeenth century man hours shredding references to her in history books.

If Joan existed then she was probably originally called Agnes or possibly Gilberta or maybe Jutta (OK, I’m not sure) when she was born in Germany of English missionary parents. Annoyingly for a girl in the ninth century she was very bright which was, of course, unnatural and dangerous. This was a girl who wanted to break the glass ceiling before most people had glass. They say (you will note I am starting to get vague here) that at the age of twelve she was taken in ‘masculine attire’ to Athens by a ‘learned man’, a monk described as her teacher and lover which even today is a poor combination.

Anyway she was very clever and Martin of Troppau (who was Polish and wrote the history of the world in the ninth century which must have taken less time than it would now) wrote that ‘there was nobody equal to her’ when it came to studying science. Eventually, her knowledge of the scriptures led to her election as Pope John Anglicus where Martin reckons she ruled for two years, seven months, and four days before giving the game away by giving birth on the Via Sacra during a Papal procession.

According to most versions, tourists and passers by were somewhat surprised when Pope John Anglicus tried to mount a horse, went into labour and gave birth to a son. At this point one of two things happened –

The crowd tied her feet to the horse’s tail, and stoned her to death.

She was banished to a convent where her son grew up to follow in the family business and become a bishop.

The case for Pope Joan includes the fact that there used to be a statue of Joan alongside all the other Popes in the Cathedral of Siena until Pope Clement VIII, commanded the sculpture be ‘metamorphosed’ into Pope Zacharias. The Church also brought in the ‘chair exam’ after her supposed reign which compelled each newly elected Pope to sit naked on a chair with a hole in the middle while others had a look and declared ‘Mas nobis nominus est’ - Our nominee is a man. This was surely an embarrassing addition to an otherwise joyous day.

The case against is . . . uhm . . . there are no tea towels for sale with her face on in St Peter’s Square.

Great Women No. 3

2010-04-22T17:41:00.000+01:00

The third in the Great Women series has appeared in The Lady. They ignored our layout suggestion (!) but the illustration are no longer enlarged which is good. And they seem to have got control over the rather over-vivid colour, which is good. Illustration by Sandy Nightingale and text by our dear chum Sandi Toksvig. So here she is . . .

Dame Ethel Smythe

Have your heard of her? Probably not. Should you have? Absolutely. She was a fabulous composer to whom George Bernard Shaw once wrote “It was your music that cured me for ever of the old delusion that women could not do man's work in art and all other things ...your Mass (in D) will stand up in the biggest company! Magnificent!” She was famous in her own time (4/4 and 3/4) partly because she was eccentric, often conducting (especially at winter afternoon concerts) in tweeds and never being the least bit interested in whether her hat was on straight. So – great with a tune, less clever at fashion.

Dame Ethel’s dad was a General (JH Smyth) while her mum Nina was not. She was born on April 23,1858. Everyone argues about exactly where she was born but it might have been in Sidcup, Kent. This would be good for Sidcup as it might be the most famous thing about the place. From her earliest years Ethel appalled her father by wanting to study music. General Smyth was having none of it so the teenaged Ethel went on strike. Like all youthful protest this mainly consisted of locking herself in her room. Unlike any similar protest of teenagers today it ended by her father allowing her, aged 19, to go to Leipzig to study.

Leipzig has the world's largest facilities for primates but Ethel ignored this and instead made friends with Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Clara Schumann, Joachim, and Brahms, all of whom she was able to name drop later in life. Having had a taste of sorting her own life out Ethel returned to England where she joined the militant suffragist movement and wrote March of the Women, the rallying theme of the suffragettes. She was a vigorous supporter of the movement, so vigorous in fact, that she served two months in Holloway prison for throwing stones at a conservative politician’s windows. The legendary conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, visited her in prison and wrote “I arrived in the main courtyard of the prison to find the noble company of martyrs marching round it and singing lustily their war-chart (March of the Women) while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush.”

Smyth never married but ...how can I put this? ...she had many ‘devoted friendships’ with famous and infamous folk like Emmeline Pankhurst, Edith Somerville, and Virginia Woolf. Bearing that in mind it won’t surprise anyone that she was a sporty girl - a keen rider and, before anyone thought it a good idea for women, terribly fond of mountaineering, cycling and golf.

She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1922, was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University and the first female composer to have her work performed at the Metropolitan opera in New York. She died on May 8th in 1944 and her obituary in The Times quoted a friend as saying “I cherish a picture of her, sitting bolt upright in the corner of a first-class carriage between Surbiton and Woking; she was armed with a great bundle of weeklies, which she examined rapidly, crumpled into balls, and hurled recklessly aside with snorts of disapproval, while the rest of the compartment submitted meekly to this astonishing bombardment.” Glorious.

Michael Foot

2010-03-16T11:48:00.001Z

The recent passing of Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour Pary, reminded us fondly a day photographing him, for Victor Gollancz, in his garden in Hampstead. The photo was subsequently used by The Daily Telegraph.

At six o'clock out came Michael's wife Jill with a tray of TUC mugs containing Scotch. I swear it was not the strong liquor at this very early hour but things got decidedly stranger . . .

As our hosts entertained with tales of political life in the kitchen, a visitor arrived. She was welcomed and then left to the task that was the purpose of her visit. She was Michael Foot's chiropodist. And, I kid you not, we all sipped the whiskey while toenails pinged like shrapnel off our TUC crockery and most other things in the room. And the bizarre thing was that nobody made any reference to it at all!

Thank you, Mr Foot, for a memorable afternoon. And a barely resistible store of puns.

Like Minds

2010-03-03T12:00:00.000Z

Let's be frank, I thought Twitter/MySpace/Facebook/Narcissism.com et al was just dumb. Not for me. Do I care about the minutiae of other people's lives? No. Do I think anyone should be interested in mine? No.

So when Richard Carpenter of Enterprise Assist suggested attend Like Minds Social Media Conference in Exeter, I was sceptical. But it is always worth listening to Richard. He's is a smart cookie. So I booked in, scrubbed up and turned out.

There was a definite buzz in the queue at the venue. Everybody, and I mean everybody, had a nailed on, maximum battery-drainage, iPhone/PDA. Was it a press launch for a new Apple iTeacup? A rumour that the next-best-thing band might turn up? Bit geeky for me surely? This Social Media gig has to be a blizzard of personal trivia meeting an avalanche of marketeers digital junk-mail? Sign-up bandits . . . bullshit detectors on stun.

Wrong! This is one class act.

At every stage the LikeMinds event was slick, organised, fast-paced, informative, highly professional and very good-humoured. I sat up and just listened- and listened. Blimey! Great speakers, lively panels and open floors to lively participants. Heard how the NHS was effectively reaching out to youth advising on STDs. How information could outpace the bad guys. Why everybody loses when big business tries to coat-tails youth vibes. How major corporates can engage with, and respond to, customers as multiple-individuals. How SMEs can communicate with some character and personality. How ideas can light a wild-fire. Hang on, that's where I live!

Still percolating my thoughts, but in kernel-form it comes down to this for me. Content and quality tops my list. And yup, you can Tweet "Starbucks, 11, cool!" but "E=MC2" fits in 140 characters too. Social Media may be in need of a better name (?) but a lot of smarter people than me are finding a gazillion ways to use this phenomena for good, for profit, for better communications, and still evolving . . .

So now I am a Week Two Newbie on Twitter @GaryDayEllison and learning how to engage with people online while living and working somewhere beautiful. And present ourselves and our skills in a way we can feel comfortable with.

More than just a Thank You, these are smart people you should check-out. LikeMinds, JonAkwue, Kevin Anderson, John Bell, Olivier Blanchard, Trey Pennington, Steve Bridger, Heléna Holt, OK, too many to list - Follow the LikeMinds link. There is not a dull one there. Chris Brogan - come and live in Devon!

Special thank to ScottGould & Drew Ellis for conceiving LikeMinds and making it run a hell of a lot better than clockwork.

Great Women No. 2

2010-02-23T12:35:00.003Z

The second in the Great Women series has appeared in The Lady. We had a bit of a grumble about the layout especially as the portrait miniature by Sandy Nightingale was enlarged! But being constructive we sent in a suggested layout for the series to the magazine. Sandi Toksvig likes it too, as does her splendid agent Carol MacArthur, so we wait to see if they thought it was helpful.

Great Women No.2 - Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth was born in 1437 to a noble family who were good at most things apart from spelling. Today we write Woodville but in her own time anything from Wydeville to Widvile would have been just fine which suggest a pleasing medieval disinterest in identity theft.

Elizabeth was said to be the most beautiful woman in Britain with ‘heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon’ – not a compliment you hear much these days. When she was about 19 she married Sir John Grey of Groby, a Lancastrian, who history books say ‘fell at St. Albans’ in 1461. Many have fallen at St Albans during parky weather but sadly, John was killed in battle and left Elizabeth with two sons. By now Edward IV, a Yorkist, was King of England (hold on tight as we race through some parts of history). As a Lancastrian Elizabeth was on the other side of a dispute over the correct colour for roses that had managed to rage with the Yorkists for about 100 years. Liz, however, was bold. She wanted land for her sons so she went to see King Ed and, after one of those romantic meetings in the woods you normally only get in films, she and the king plighted their troth and married secretly.

It’s fair to say no one was pleased and things got worse when Elizabeth, who I think has been dead long enough for me to get away with calling her greedy and unscrupulous, kept getting the King to give land and money to her relations.Liz and Ed had ten kids of whom the ‘Princes in the Tower,’ Edward V and his brother, Richard, did least well. When Liz’s husband Edward IV died a heady game of numbers followed where, trust me, I can only scratch the surface. Ed V was only twelve so his uncle Richard of Gloucester (the hunchback one in Shakespeare) took the throne as Richard III, imprisoning Ed V and young Richard. Richard III then demanded that Elizabeth also turn over to his custody her daughters so she did. Eventually Richard III was killed by Henry Tudor (Bosworth Field but there isn’t the time). Henry became Henry VII and married Elizabeth’s daughter (also called Elizabeth) who followed in the family business and became queen. The Princes were probably murdered in the tower and Elizabeth Woodville retired to a nunnery where she had plenty of time to consider her failure to win Mother of the Year. She died there in June 1492 aged 55.

Abbey Road Revisited

2010-02-22T13:13:00.000Z

A while back we posted about our homage to the Beatles iconic album cover. Click. Well, it just popped up yet again. This time, as we rummage through the archives for material for The Music of the Lord of the Rings. While using the hallowed recording studios, Director, Peter Jackson and Composer, Howard Shore stepped out to get their own snap. Come on English Heritage get the studios listed!

Community Blog

2010-02-21T09:24:00.001Z

We set up a Blog for the village called NB (standing for North Bovey & Notice Board). Easily adopted by a good proportion of the demographic and people are becoming more active in expressing their opinions on village issues using the blog. Democracy in action!

Dick Francis

2010-02-15T10:05:00.003Z

We would like to pay our respects to Dick Francis, who died today at 89. He wrote fast-paced thrillers set in the world of horse-racing following a highly successful career as a champion jockey. We were proud to have designed covers for 20 of his bestselling books.

Great Woman/Emily Post

2010-01-22T12:16:00.004Z

The very first of the Great Women series by Sandy Nightingale & Sandi Toksvig has been published in The Lady magazine. They will appear in the first issue every month, with the next on February 2nd. 2010. Image and text are © Copyright of the artist & author respectively and pilferers will be pursued relentlessly!

EMILY POST

Emily Post was the doyenne of American Etiquette, a title which some Europeans might have the poor manners to suspect of not being hotly contested. Emily was awash with good manners. There was nothing she didn’t know about tea gowns or the rather complex rules governing which kind of lifts require a man to take his hat off or indeed, the answer to the rather vexing question - Should damask be hemmed or hem stitched? (hemmed by hand, of course. I’m surprised you had to ask.)

Emily began her journey towards social grace from the beginning by not being clear about her birthday. She may have been born on October 27,1872 but it could just as easily have been October 3, 27 or 30th 1873. It is not a subject a woman of breeding should dwell on. Emily also knew enough about etiquette to realise it is easier to have all the right place settings for any event if you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth in the first place.

She was born into a wealthy, socialite family in Baltimore, Maryland and led a heady life of chaperones and cotillions. (Curiously ‘cotillion’ is the old French word for petticoat yet the Americans used it to describe a ball where showing your underwear would not go well.) Educated at home Emily was then polished off at Miss Graham's finishing school in New York. She married a society banker, Edwin Main Post. Sadly Edwin liked society rather too much and they divorced after he banked in the wrong places. Finding herself financially embarrassed Emily began writing.

In 1922 she published Etiquette - The Blue Book of Social Usage, a book to help the nouveau riche and became pleasingly riche herself. The publication went on to hold the distinction of being second only to the Bible as the book most often not returned or stolen from libraries. Clearly people read her work but didn’t entirely follow the rules. In 1945 USO clubs for American troops reported Emily Post as the most requested book after the Rand McNally Atlas. This suggests many soldiers didn’t know where they were going or what to say when they got there.

The Blue Book in a nutshell –

1. Be nice to others

2. Don’t go on overnight automobile trips with a man.

3. Never wear light stockings on a heavy ankle.

4. Remember - a woman is ready to meet most emergencies if she has a hair-pin and a visiting card.

The book went through ten editions and nine reprints but good manners forbids me to tell you how much money she made. It seems that people across America were desperate for advice, so she also had a radio show and a daily column on good taste syndicated in more than 200 newspapers from which she received more than 5,000 letters a week.

The Chicago News reported 'While Betty Grable is the armies Pin Up Girl, Emily Post is their Look Up Girl'.

Season's Greetings to all.

2009-12-24T10:42:00.003Z

A few years ago, Sandy was commissioned to create a series of 6 pastiche Victorian Christmas cards – and the client wanted them ‘aged’ so they looked as if found in the attic. Beautifully executed, exactly to the brief, half the printed cards were returned to the client as ‘damaged!’

Sandy's cards have started to go online and can be found here.

Here's to a great 2010 . . .

The Music of The Lord of the Rings

2009-11-28T12:35:00.003Z

Visitors to the studio website will know of earlier projects in connection with The Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy. TOLKIEN: The Lord of the Rings 2007 Calendar, TOLKIEN: The Children of Húrin Calendar 2008 and The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook were all a true delight to design. Especially as they meant working creatively with Alan Lee. These days Alan is incredibly busy in New Zealand with The Hobbit Movies but he will soon be home, in Devon, for Christmas and we can't wait too see him again.

Well, more pleasure yet! We had a call from a very nice man in Chicago, called Doug Adams. Doug is the author and driving force behind the book The Music of The Lord of the Rings. For two years he has overcome every obstacle to bring his project to this point.

We love the power music has to bring emotion to movies. Naturally we are thrilled with great visuals, given our chosen crafts, but imagine Hitchcock's Psycho without Bernard Herrmann's score. Sergio Leone's Dollar movies without Ennio Morricone's wild talent. Southern Comfort sans Ry Cooder.

Just imagine the vast sweep of a project it was composing music to all three The Lord of the Rings movies . . . and then producing a score to join that musical elite. Howard Shore accomplished just that.

Doug Adams brings both his art as a musicologist, his boundless enthusiasm and scholarship together to create a diligent analysis of the composer, music, musicians, themes, instrumentation and recording process. Just fascinating.

And we are proud to be appointed for Creative Direction & Design of the book which hopes to debut at a concert at The Albert Hall next autumn.

More over the coming months, but for now we would like to thank Doug and Joe Augustine at Howe Records for this juicy commission. And thank the follower's of Doug Adams' Blog for their kind welcome to their community. Now we roll up our sleeves for work in the hope of meeting the challenge and justifying their generous praise for our work.

The Two Sandies

2009-11-28T11:17:00.002Z

Good news for the Great Women project. The Lady magazine, best known for au pair ads and country cottages, has a new Editor. The new broom is Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, Mayor of London. She knows a good thing when she sees one!

Great Women celebrates the famous, the curious and, the frankly very peculiar, women in history. Joyfully written by Sandy Toksvig and gleefully illustrated by Sandy Nightingale, the spot will appear monthly starting December/January. We will announce the date when it is confirmed. Our thanks to Carol Macarthur for her skill in steering Sandy & Sandi to the start line.

Opening Time

2009-11-04T16:34:00.001Z

Aficionados of Real Ale love the small, independent breweries that are enjoying a healthy revival these days. So we were delighted to take on an interesting commission from the new owners of Blackawton Brewery this summer. Keen to re-establish the profile of some very fine beers, the enthusiastic Dartmoor team set us the challenge of breaking away from the conventional heraldry of beer in favour of something clean and striking. All of their products were re-branded in their new livery. All under this fresh new banner logo. One highly recommended pub to visit and sample their beers (and food) is The Rugglestone Inn, Widecombe in the Moor. Cheers!

When Art Worked

2009-10-21T08:49:00.009+01:00

A fine new book created by a great friend of our studio, David Larkin.
When Art Worked focuses on the consequences of the art and architecture created and its efficacy in enhancing the nation’s sense of itself during this debilitating time. The text is accompanied by approximately 450 rarely seen or published color and black-and-white illustrations and newly commissioned photographs of some of the incredible works produced.
A very timely account of of how an enlightened government can engage creative energies, the unemployed and the national infra-structure in harsh economic times . . .

New Commission

2009-10-19T15:06:00.001+01:00

Mike Cosby, Director of Protelligent, has commissioned us to create the brand for his new Financial Planning software. Already buzzing with ideas. Details under wraps for now so "Watch this space . . ."

Heavenly Bodies for sale . . .

2009-09-28T15:17:00.009+01:00

From today Sandy Nightingale's first four cards under the banner of Heavenly Bodies are available for sale online. The cards are blank inside and cover a range of scenes: Marie Antoinette, Egyptian Temple Dancers, Eve and a group of jolly ladies collapsing with the giggles.

There will be more cards to follow. All your comments and suggestions are welcome. In the mean time please visit the shop and share with your friends . . .

Every Little Helps . . .

2009-09-27T10:46:00.001+01:00

We have joined the 10:10 Climate Change Campaign. The aim is to reduce our carbon emission by 10% in 2010.

When we were Art Students this was known to be a vital issue, especially to post-hippies. But whereas back then it exposed us to ridicule (weave your own flip-flops out of tofu do you?) - today it is seen as not only sensible and desirable, but essential for our survival. We already urge our clients to use low-carbon alternatives and recycled materials wherever possible and hope for positive responses in future. No lecturing or hectoring, just pointing out the alternatives for clients to decide.

We want to do our bit.

Heavenly Bodies Take Off

2009-09-18T14:23:00.004+01:00

Heavenly Bodies is the series name for Sandy Nightingale's new line in greetings cards. We chose Abacus, in The Lake District for the repro and print. The proofs have been given the OK by the artist (our thanks to Danny at Abacus). And the first print run is happening this week.

They will be on sale online and at discerning West Country retail outlets soon. Watch this space as we will be revealing the details soon.

Peter Williams - the man who captured calm

2009-09-15T16:21:00.003+01:00

In the Abbey Road post we acknowledged the contribution of photographer, Peter Williams. An uncharacteristic shot for Peter who was, as ever, being helpful and responsive to the brief.

It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of this talented, beautiful and kind man. A fine craftsman with a faultless eye and rock-steady hand, he created some of the most beautiful still life compositions and natural history images to be found anywhere. In his obituary in the Guardian the authors note, "Many fledgling art directors learned from him never to accept second best." I know this to be true as I was one of those learning early lessons with a true master. Many very happy, hard-working hours were spent in Rossetti Studios, Chelsea with Peter. We worked with celebrities such as Clive James and Ester Rantzen, classy models, food and even a couple of parrots. One stuffed for Julian Barnes' novel Flaubert's Parrot and the other, very much alive, for Raymond Chandler's Playback. So alive in fact that we grew to believe it was not only overhearing but anticipating our requirements of it's pose. We ended up discussing it in the privacy of the studio kitchen and collapsing in giggles.

But it was his still life work that stunned us every time. He worked in advertising, for the Observer, the Guardian and Sunday Telegraph. In 2000 he won the Glenfiddich Food & Drink Award and began his work for Kew magazine which he took enormous pleasure in. I think of him as 'The man who photographed calm'. In this noisy, boisterous world his images are a refuge of tranquility that, by their very silence and stillness, speak volumes above the cacophony outside their exquisitely constructed frames. As architects depend upon craftsmen, art directors rely on relationships with the best photographers and illustrators. Peter Williams was one of the finest.

He was a very special man and will be deeply missed. Thank you, Peter, for your art, your skills, your patience and fine company.

Abbey Road revisited

2009-08-31T09:16:00.010+01:00

This summer saw lots of media coverage for the anniversary of The Beatles' Abbey Road. All their albums became iconic and you can often gauge how much album art has been absorbed into popular culture by the number of parodies. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Simpsons, Booker T & the MG's, Lego, and many more have paid homage to Abbey Road.

In 1984 Pan Books published Pete Brown's account of his time with The Beatles. Gary Day-Ellison, then Creative Director for Pan, wanted the cover to show the exact spot with the band now missing. The record label would not permit the re-touching of the original sleeve. So one Sunday morning it was off to St.John's Wood with delightfully gentle photographer Peter Williams and a set of step ladders to shoot from scratch. With a very limited budget for models or props the were some Hitchcock cameos by Gary, Sandy Nightingale, Richard Moon, Creative Director of The British Council at the time, and his VW. We left the 'For Sale' sign in for Beatles' fans to spot.

The zebra crossing itself is an international pilgrimage destination for fans of The Fab Four braving the London traffic to get that souvenir shot of themselves on location.

Visually, we are quite taken by the wit of the tank on The Beatles Bike that puts the motorbike in Abbey Road wherever it is. A shame the airbrush artist went on to pepper (apologies) the machine with so many other references too. Neat tank though.

Great Women

2009-08-23T17:08:00.013+01:00

Sandy Nightingale is busy in the studio on a favourite project she has been developing with Sandi Toksvig. There are quite a few paintings with accompanying text as the project looks for the right home. History is festooned with fabulous females. Sandy and Sandi take unusual slants on the most famous - Elizabeth I and Mata Hari - and relish the marvellously obscure women who deserve to be discovered and celebrated - Pope Joan and the chaos that caused, Domestic Goddess, Fanny Farmer and Dame Ethel Smyth conducting an orchestra of suffragettes with a tooth brush from her prison cell window, to name just a few.

The list of subjects and paintings is always growing while publishers tread water over the potential of a book about half the population with an audience of more.

They are having great fun with lots of women to celebrate but suggestions are always welcome . . .

Introduction

2009-08-21T15:35:00.007+01:00

Sometimes our clients wish to update the content on their sites. We can update or develop the site. More complex sites may need a database CMS (Content Management System). For simple text changes there are a client-side solutions such as Adobe's InContext Editing (rumoured to start charging ongoing fees) or Open Source software such as CushyCMS. Whichever is the right tool for the job, everyone wants to avoid compromising the appearance of the site and the client's brand image.

What about the potential of Posts instead?

Twitter is popular but designed for short messages. We monitored Tweets for some weeks with a tool called Twendz (Exploring Twitter Conversation & Sentiment) we found on Ubercool. The brevity seems to tempt users to more towards reaction rather than reflection. Of course, like the Web itself, the delivery technology does not determine the quality of the content. But then Ubercool is a Blog that includes Tweets. Interesting to see how it develops . . . What do you think?

A Blog is a longer-form option and it can provide a good way to for a site to keep its audience informed, advised with both text/images/relevant links. It too encourages book-marking and mail-links that improve the traffic driven to your site.

We are opting to test the Blog option on ourselves.

What we will do is introduce our new projects, promote selected links, post some of the things that we are finding inspiring, curious or might even suggest to future clients something they hadn't thought of us for. We might even show a little work from our archives if it has a story to it.

Your feedback, opinions and enquiries are very welcome.