At the end of next week the Mangoes new residence will be the stunning Clevedon Hall in Clevedon! We are super excited!

We look forward to all of our clients coming to visit and check out our new posh headquarters! See you soon!

Clevedon Hall

The Mangoes are hard at work designing gorgeous bespoke Christmas cards for various clients – some are going to be printed cards and other are e-cards sent out by email. It really is time to be thinking about getting your corporate Christmas cards sorted.

Can’t really be bothered? Well just remember a Christmas card is like a ‘poke’ – it reminds your customers, suppliers and prospective clients who you are, and what you do and it’s also a great excuse to educate them on other services you might offer that they don’t know about (just think about all that white space on the back of the card!!)!

So if you’ve been looking for a reason to get in touch with customers you haven’t heard from in a while now is the perfect time!!

Email us for a quote and make sure it’s before the end of November or it might be too late!

http://www.facebook.com/MangoInkCreative

We had a lovely phone call this morning from Forward to tell us they loved our proposal, would like to go ahead with their new website and that they are really excited about working with us! We can’t wait to get cracking – check back soon to see the final site!

All you need to do is choose from a template, select some images, colours and fonts and Bob’s your uncle – a ready-to-go logo.

Some online companies don’t purely offer automated designs, either – they have real people using Photoshop who will read your brief and send you a few suggestions in next to no time. Some of these people are even based in Europe.

Just a few words of caution

It’s worth spending time (if the online company will let you) trying to get to the bottom of the additional charges you will inevitably pay when you ask for your logo in a different format. You may not realise it at the outset but you will almost certainly need your logo in several formats, several file sizes and potentially with and without your strapline. You may also need different colour combinations, for example when using your logo on a light or a dark background. You may not need all this immediately so you’ll need to think ahead…

Oh, you also need to make sure your design will fit a range of applications, from simple stationery and your website to, say, display panels or corporate gifts.

One more thing … try out their customer service line before you buy in case you have problems or questions at a later date. Don’t try the pre-sales Freephone number, try the after-sales one (if there is one it’s likely to be premium rate). You’ll be surprised at how they differ!

After all, your logo’s just an extremely important business identifier…

…so why would you want it done properly?

You’ve probably guessed by now that we’re not actually advocates of DIY logos at all. Quite the opposite. We’ve met scores of people who’ve gone down this route and then come to us to clear up the mess. Unless you’re an exceptionally skilled amateur graphic artist, DIY logos shout ‘cheapskate’ and, frustratingly, cause heartache and unnecessary expense further down the line, creating more problems than they initially solve.

For sure, DIY is great in its place – for example you might research a number of IT options for your business but it’s highly unlikely you’d build your own computers and networks. Chances are you don’t have the right skills and anyway, IT’s too important to get wrong.

Similarly, your logo is one of the most important identifiers of your business – often the first introduction a potential new customer has to your company. It’s not just an image, it’s a story. It needs to be unique, contemporary without being faddy, and powerful.

A professional designer (let’s assume Mango Ink Creative, for example) will take time to understand what your company represents and the brand image you want to portray. Unless you’re hell-bent on a particular idea, chances are we’ll offer you a small selection of completely different logo options for you to compare and contrast. Then we’ll work up your favoured one using a number of colours, fonts, ratios and styles until we reach exactly the right design which will speak volumes to your customers and prospects

It goes without saying that you’ll get your logo in all the necessary formats, too…and if you decide later you need a different option, we’re right here for you.

We’d urge you to invest the aforementioned four minutes (or less) allowing us to make you a drink at our studio in Paintworks, Bristol. Or we’re very happy to come to you and let you brew. Then we can sit down and discuss your logo story. One thing’s for sure – it will have a happy ending.

They say a picture paints a thousand words. It’s a concept we at Mango Ink Creative fully subscribe to, perhaps unsurprisingly as we’re passionate about graphic design.

But we Mangoes also know that just one or two words can conjure up very powerful images.

It’s not just about what you write (although we work with some amazing copywriters). No, it’s also what font you use to write it.

That’s why we’ve come out in a rash of fun bumps over Google’s new suite of web fonts. They’re really opening up the online design world because at last we have a real choice in fonts which take account of search engine optimisation, or SEO.

A font is a typeface – so, how each letter looks (its face) and how it interacts with its neighbours in a word.

Why are fonts so important to a graphic designer and therefore to you? Because the way in which even a single word is written can immediately speak volumes. It tells you something about the subject matter, the approach, the personality behind it.

Cue scary laugh
Picture for a moment the jagged black fonts often used to depict scary things such as horror movies or books. Even the names of the fonts are unnerving – examples include Frankenstein and Gypsy Curse. Whatever the word it’s used to write, such a font immediately tells you that the subject matter is likely to be full of suspense and you should be prepared for a fright.

Other examples include fonts used to depict children’s writing, watery themes, the mediaeval era … even Emma’s old favourite Comic Sans which some people select on email to convey a modern, jaunty air. These typefaces create visual imagery ‘from the word go’ (pardon the pun).

The same goes for people’s handwriting. You don’t need to have met them but the way in which they write – rightly or wrongly – can often give you an involuntary impression of that person: meticulous, slapdash, educated, considered, male, female, young, old…

So this is why we’re really excited on your behalf about Google web fonts. Until now we’ve had only a handful of SEO-friendly fonts to choose from when designing your website and conveying your brand. Now we can select from a huge range of really expressive fonts which the search engines recognise (not only Google, by the way). There’s yet another batch due early next year, too. We can use these fonts for your logo as well as for main content and links. It’s all really fab.

Want the other good news? Google web fonts are free! Yep, and immediate, too – we simply download them to use on your site. Good, eh?

Pop in to Mango Ink Creative at Paintworks in Bristol and we’ll show you what we mean, perhaps by demonstrating your existing web page in different fonts. Or we can come to you, or meet for a coffee. Just like web fonts, the choice is now yours…

We’ve been working with Steve Harris, managing director of Clifton’s Abode Property Management, since November 2010. He and his team had selected three Bristol graphic design agencies to pitch for a large portfolio of work. When asked about our pitch this week by a third party Steve was kind enough to comment:

“Mango Ink Creative were so well prepared they hit the nail on the head before they even won the work! They seemed to have an outstandingly good feel for what we wanted – so much so that we eventually opted for pretty much what they’d suggested at the outset. They’ve carried on in that vein ever since.”

Thanks, Steve!

It’s fair to say that the initial pitch brief wasn’t tremendously detailed, but we did appreciate that Abode wanted ‘evolution rather than revolution’. Our job was to show how we could build on the stronger elements of their existing brand while introducing some new, eye-catching designs and images.

Since winning the work we’ve become very close to Abode. They’re a fantastic letting agency with something for everyone wanting to rent in Bristol. They specialise within a five-mile radius of Clifton – which takes in the whole gambit from one-bedroom flats to airy waterfront apartments and 10-bedroomed luxury family homes! So there are all sorts of people (tenants and landlords) who we have to consider when we’re designing for Abode.

So far we’ve redesigned Abode’s logo, stationery, adverts, brochures – and we created a new interactive website for them, with regular email blasts to help drive traffic to it. There’s a host of other development work in the pipeline, which we can’t wait to get going on, and we’re especially looking forward to seeing our new design on letting boards around our fair city.

Oh, and of course we redesigned their shop front. Sneak a peek at it next time you’re on Whiteladies Road in Clifton. If you can, take time to view it by daylight and at night…

The Abode Website, Exterior Signage and the Team