I have been slightly traumatised lately since I read an article call The Plastic Beach in Resurgence Magazine. The article discussed the amount of debris now in our oceans. It is estimated that at least a million sea creatures have been killed by plastic debris such as plastic bags, bottle tops and cigarette lighters. Since reading this I have asked myself what can I do reduce my use of plastic both at home and at work and how can I change and become less wasteful.

I have always liked the idea of nomadic tribes who only take from the land what they need. It shows a great respect for the natural order of things. This however is a rather large ask for a girl from Epsom who has spent most of her life living on the urban fringes of suburbia. I can’t see the hunter gatherer in me gulumphing across the Surrey Hills trying to hunt rabbits and live off berries. A tad too far from my comfort zone I think!

Some might even say that taking only what you need is relative. What we feel we need as basics in the western world is huge and hardly basic at all!

So how do I appease the trauma of feeling guilty every time I look at any piece of plastic. Could I never use another piece of plastic again or eliminate it from the home and office? Unfortunately highly unlikely!

We are surrounded by so much plastic its rather scary. I can however do as much damage control as possible. At Squiggle we are already a reasonably green lot, with the majority or us either walking to work or cycling. We try to source all our supplies locally. We go to meetings in our cute little IQ which has a low petrol consumption.

We have a less in landfill policy. We recycle our food waste. cardboard, paper, plastic, bottles, cans and aluminium foil. However, although seeing the recycling bins filling more than the rubbish bin, gives us a warm green glow of delight; it is not only recycling what we have used which is important, but also looking to use less.

We re-use as much as we can. We have reduced our job sheets and paperwork in size so we use up less paper and we reuse our plastic job bags and CD and DVD cases which were sourced well over 10 years ago and have not been purchased since. Other paperwork is now used electronically. Unfortunately we cannot un buy the plastic we already have, but we are trying to find inventive and creative ways or re-using items around the office.

So what about the plastic we have to buy. In terms of food we are trying not to buy over packaged foods. I am scrutinizing packaging for their green credentials and trying to change my reliance on processed foods. I have found local suppliers of foods and are using them for meat, eggs, some bread and veg and I am continuing to find other sources for local food. If we have to buy plastic, for instance bin bags, we use 100% biodegradable ones. All our cleaning items are from Ecover.

This year the girl from suburbia is also going to attempt to grow some food. All this is not perfect but it is a start. We have a lot more to learn and understand, but we will continue to try and what we learn on the way, we will share. I’ll keep you posted on how our little campaign is going.

Loving your customers makes positive economic sense. By giving great service they in turn will tell others. This is a powerful way to organically grow your business.

Customer service can be conveyed with a positive and helpful attitude which should start from the very first contact with your client, whether a phone call, a visit or an email.

It should hug them gently all the way through the project and even when completed it can extend to after sales contact and a thank you. Remember it is much easier and more cost effective to sell more services to existing happy customers than to go out and look for new ones.

Giving a solution not a problem
Even with the best practices in place, sometimes things can go wrong. The measure of you as a business will be how you then put it right. Always turn a negative situation to a positive one by giving your clients solutions not problems.

Don’t forget human nature. We are more likely to tell up to 10 other people when we receive bad or poor service. Good service can be transparent, until something goes wrong. Your company can employ the best logo, the most seductive advertising, the most convincing marketing, and wiliest PR, but if you supply shoddy goods or give poor quality service, then you will be counteracting all this good sales activity and fighting twice as hard to get work.

At the end of the day, your customers are human too, if something goes wrong, firstly, put it right as quick as possible. Don’t spend time apportioning blame but look to re-establish credibility without delay. After the solution if found, analyse what went wrong, so you can learn and prevent it happening again. Goodwill goes a long way!

In the current challenging economic climate you will be required to have one eye looking forward to new business opportunities with the other peeper positively focused behind you on your current customers and the service they are receiving. It makes strong economic sense to keep your customers loyal. It’s much cheaper to get further business from them than it is to go out and find new business.

With the internet offering deals aplenty, and strong competition in every business sector your customers may be fickle, showing you love your customers makes financial sense. After all great customer service positively adds value to your business.

Go on, show them you care.

Sometimes a client might get a bit nervous when presented with a visual if it is not quite what they wanted. They do not wish to offend or upset, especially when the designer has gone to a lot of effort.

I have on occasion had a new client tell me they were unhappy with a previous piece of work done by another designer, but did not like to say anything. I would personally be mortified if I was that designer. A client should never shy away from telling a designer if it is not quite what they envisaged. It should never be a problem as it is all part of the creative process. It is not like saying you either like or hate marmite, creativity is objective so challenging, then refining is good.

At Squiggle we want our clients to be honest with us. We promise our lip will not quiver nor we will stomp around or have, as a friend terms it, a ‘hissy fit’. We will simply sit down with you, have a cup of tea and a biccy and find out what you like and dislike about the idea. We will defend our rational, in the nicest of ways, but at the end of the day our prime aim is that you get a satisfactory solution that you are delighted with and gets the right results.

Should Microsoft Word ever be used as a design tool? I would say definitely not. This does not however prevent the majority of the world trying to do so. But lets look at some of the facts.

Microsoft Word was designed initially as a word processor, cleverer and more correctable that the old manual typewriter. Year on year new additions have made it more powerful and more precise. However it still essentially remains a word processor.

So can it be made into a Design Tool?

Well you could use it as a design tool but if you are a serious designer the design software available to you is so much more superior that you really would be foolish to choose Word over the likes of Adobe Indesign.

So why is it people try to use Word for design?

Well mainly because they have it on their computer and so its appears cheaper to knock up something in Word.

There are of course two issues here the software and then the skills of the person behind the software. In this scenario the person behind the computer is likely not to be a designer and they are definately not using design software. So the ultimate result will be hours spent fighting with the software to produce a mediocre result.

So is it really cost effective? I would say not.

However it is true that more and more businesses want to have the control of a lot of their marketing materials in-house. The ultimate answer to this is to employ a designer.

But is there a middle ground? What if you could get a designer to do the first bit, that is design then give you the finished design in such a way that you could then use it in-house. This way you could get the best of both worlds. A designed branded creative piece of marketing collateral you could use and control yourself.

Yes this can be done. We call it templating. At Squiggle we have worked with many clients to achieve branded in-house items whilst supplimenting this with more designed and focussed communications for them. Not only using word but a host of other tools. But this is not the complete story. To make the whole process work properly a co-ordinated approach is required coupled with some training/education. In this was you get a very cost effective solution and a polished consistent corporate look without breaking the bank.

Check out one of our most recent projects http://www.squiggle.co.uk/beta/portfolio-print-page_6.php

I have noticed lately that the typeface Rockwell appears to be making a comeback. Rockwell with its traditional slab serif was one of the stalwarts of the old Monotype catalogues of the early eighties. Monotype still exists today although it has gone through quite a change since I first proudly took charge of my first set of green Monotype typeface books as a student.

The slab serif has been relegated to the font twilight for sometime. Rockwell’s hefty slabs have been out of kilter with most designers preference for the simplicity of a sans face. Perhaps it is now time for Rockwell in all its ‘in your face’ magnificence and geometric boldness to again take centre stage.

Have some fun check out Rockwell

In 2011 I will be seeing if I can exploit Rockwell yet again for the right client!

The single most common inquiry we receive via our website is, I would like a website, how much. This in it’s self does not stir much reaction but what does get me animated is where they elaborate by informing me they are a new business with limited resources and it’s important for their website to be easily found by Google!

No problem, I will create such an amazing website, it will be graphically rich, exciting and will hold the attention of all the visitors that are privileged enough to see it. The website will be of course, be on the first page of any Google search because I will weave the online presence out of magic pixels, all for the modest sum of £99 (Inc vat) payable in tiny little installments with free hosting forever.

Most requests come in via email with no telephone contact details, their method of contact is to keep me at a distance, they just want the cheapest price. Sometimes, if I am fortunate, I get some information about their business, I usually have to wheedle it out over several emails.

Not too long ago I would have supplied a full design estimate, with a staged breakdown of costs, not any more. I treat this type or request with the respect it deserves, a few lines of text with a price. You never know, one day I might even get a job out it. I suppose, I should in reality, be grateful for the exposure, the world wide web has made casual shopping and looking for bargains exceedingly easy.

If the dark side of the force is represented by email requests for costs, then, there is a brighter more righteous side, the phone inquiry. I take this type of request very seriously, they have taken the trouble to talk to us, and almost with exception they mention that they saw our website. Many of these potential customers received a referral from one of our clients or network links. Visiting our website reinforced the good things they had heard, this crystallised an action to call us.

Any way, back to the reason for this blog, I believe all businesses benefit from some form of online presence. But, and it’s a big but, think of it as a huge multiplex cinema complex showing BUT on every screen and advertising this fact in multi-coloured lights 10 feet tall. Picture that and you will be halfway there. Any businesses web presence needs to be part of a marketing strategy or business plan. In essence you need a sound idea of how you will direct visitors to your web presence and how will it benefit them or convert them into customers. Even if it’s a simple as putting up a huge billboard advert at then end of the road with the web address displayed proudly in your corporate typeface (not Comic Sans), your company logo along with a witty or clever bit of copy to encourage the target audience of the advert to visit the website.

Here is a real life scenario. Squiggle where approached by a business start-up, they required a website to publicise a gardening business. The enquirer had taken voluntary redundancy and had decided that a serious hobby could be an effective new career. Nothing wrong with that, a very sound idea, unfortunately that where the short stroll of a business concept ran out of decorative well laid terracotta path. The business would be gardening and customers would find there ‘not to be missed’ services by searching Google, simples. Even better, this amazing feat would be achieved with very little money. The expectation was, if we build it, they will come. No no no no, the customers will probably not. SEO, that’s another topic for a blog. Anyway, I gave the Gardener a very good price, so good I dare not publish it for fear or retribution from Wendy, my business partner. This was the 4th request for such a site, so I felt a little test was in order, just to see how low I would have to go to get the business. It was not low enough, I was surprised, the price I volunteered would have only run to 2 small adverts in the local press, then oblivion.

What I should have done at the start of this process was ask for a budget. I would have suggested they spend what money they did have on a nice glossy postcard designed and printed then drop it through the letterboxes of houses in the areas they feel could benefit from the offered services. But alas, I didn’t.

The moral of the story is, if you are going to commission a website be realistic about what you need to spend (return on investment) and be clear about what it will achieve for your business and how it fits in with your marketing strategy. At the end of the day it’s all about waving your flag, with tougher times ahead for all, if you don’t, your competitors will.