“It’s a Trade, not a Profession. It’s Decoration, with Engineered Precision. It’s Shakespeare meets Toulouse Lautrec without the Plague or Absinth; and only the occasional Dancing Girl.”
Dave
WELCOME TO BOX NUMBER 4!
IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
This should be straightforward.
This is exactly where you might have been drawn to if you clicked on our “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT” pathway.
Let’s circle back to our Approach for a second—just in case you didn’t quite manage to read all 4,400 words (we promised you there is no “Thin Copy” on this website).
Strictly speaking, many small businesses looking for “Design Services” think they just need a quick fix, such as:
- Graphic Design
- Advertisement Artwork
- Website Design
- Print Collateral
- Promotional Gifts
But while those are common requests, they are actually just small fragments of a much greater panoply of work…
Read More
THINK YOU NEED A QUICK FIX?
True design services are comprehensive, deeply integrated, and entirely interconnected:
- Creative Marketing & Branding Strategy: Uncovering the exact market positioning that makes you stand out.
- Copywriting & Message Development: Precision human words that engage minds, establish tone, and win sales.
- Graphic Design & Visual Identity: The structural and artistic foundation of your corporate face.
- Advertising: High-impact, multi-channel concepts designed to command attention.
- Animation, Videography & Photography: High-end moving media built to tell your story dynamically.
- Filmed Presentations: Comprehensive storyboards, scriptwriting, speech coaching, art direction, styling, post-production editing, and motion graphics.
- Website Design & Social Media Content: Fully branded digital platforms, responsive architectures, and consistent online assets.
- Physical Media & Environments: Exhibitions, interior branding, external signs, wayfinding, pre-manufacture/design surveys, quality control, logistics, installation oversight, and structural reporting.
- Print Collateral: Press-ready brochures, detailed catalogues, sales literature, and meticulous book formatting.
If you study that list for a moment, you will see that whichever individual service you think you need, they are almost always co-dependent on each other to achieve the commercial Return on Investment (ROI) you are actually looking for.
But not always.
WARNING - GREAT DESIGN IS ADDICTIVE!
THEY THOUGHT they were just trying it out.
JUST dipping a toe in the Blue Strawberry Elephant watering hole.
A PRACTICAL, PRAGMATIC choice;
JUST because it was urgent.
- A fresh Christmas menu for their hotel restaurant.
- A standalone logo to front their latest trade catalogue.
- Fixing a complex file that an uninspired freelancer left half-finished before walking out for good.
- The emergency expo stand where they suddenly remembered (on show day minus 16) they needed finished artwork 21 days before the show – but it takes 14 days to manufacture and print.
THEN Because Blue Strawberry Elephant created those small jobs to such an incredibly high standard, they just had to keep coming back for more.
Eventually, they avail themselves of most, if not all, of the creative resources we possess – it’s an addiction – there can be NO GOING BACK to substandard.
AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS...
…But clients sometimes do.
Every now and then, someone thinks they can get their fix elsewhere.
They take our original design assets and disappear for a year or more.
Sometimes it is because they simply don’t know the full scope of what else we can do (our bad).
Sometimes it is because they don’t understand what it takes to do the work as well as we do, they assume that a non-designer with a computer can reproduce what a professional designer can do,
They are convinced that the office junior who is handy in Canva, or the quick-print shop on the street corner can cheaply reproduce our original vector artwork (their bad).
Usually, they eventually come trundling back through our door, or another pro designer’s door with armfuls of marketing “stuff.”
FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED
They present us with horribly stretched or squashed logos, or brand marks that have been crudely re-drawn with soup-ladle precision.
That is when we have to sort it all out.
We have to painstakingly recreate, clean up, and realign their print, advertising, and web presence to bring them back to consistency.
Ultimately, fixing a bad hand-off we knew nothing about creates a significantly bigger financial cost for the client than if they had just let us manage the whole chain for them in the first place.
BUT IF YOU DO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT...
Give us a bell on 0114 255 9993
Arrange to come along to the studio and tell us all about it.
We are exceptionally easy to get on with, and we brew the absolute best tea (Yorkshire, naturally) in the whole wide web of a world.
LOVE A LIST?
ORIGINAL GRAPHIC DESIGN for
- Print Collateral
- Business Cards / E-Cards
- Letterheads / E-Letterheads
- Email Footers
- Email Banners
- Catalogues / E-Catalogues
- Brochures / E-Brochures
- Direct Mail / E-Shots
- Newsletters / E-Newsletters
- Web Presence Websites
- Catalogue Websites
- E-Commerce Websites
- Club Calendar Websites
- Auto Messaging Websites
- Technical Data Websites
- Downloadable Data Sheets
- Downloadable Manuals
- Social Media Online Stores
- Social Media Graphics
- Outdoor Advertising
- Posters
- Public Transport Advertising
- Panel and Curtain HGV Livery
- Commercial Vehicle Liveries
- Sponsorship Liveries
- Custom Built Exhibition Stands
- Portable Stands
- Pop Up Stands
- Roller Banners
- Pedestals
- Visitor Environments
- Playbook – Presentations
- Seminar Collateral
- Retail / Trade Counter Roll Out Packs
- POS (Point of Sale)
- POP (Point of Purchase)
- Packaging – Retail Products
- Packaging – Postal (Letterbox)
- Packaging – Industrial / Commercial
- Packaging – Luxury Products
- Large Format Displays
- Custom Wallpapers
- Pre-Fabricated Displays
- Pre-Fabricated Architectural Features
- Facias
- Permanent Illuminated Signs
- Directional Signage
- Way Finding Directories
- Location Signs (You are Here)
Harry said:
“Videoing bits around the place to fill a space instead of creating individual images that are appropriate for the six parts of this page, is just lazy.”
Reet mardi bum when he’s not included.