When David from Lighting the Landscape introduced Design Aid to Bill Quay Farm I could not believe that without some serious support they could be closing.

I set to work assessing what would be needed to get the Farm noticed and promote the Bill Quay Community Farm with vital and immediate short term results supporting the campaign and petition. I also looked to use solutions that would keep peoples interest and continue to raise awareness for the project in the longer term.

I could see we needed to get a mass of people and media personalities behind the project and raise awareness of the Farm and this new threat that it faced.

The Farm’s current website looked fine but was not easy to find unless that very site was exactly what you were looking for. No casual visitors here, no one just passing by that might be attracted to the Farm and what they do.

Having explained that what they had was a little like printing some fantastic posters and keeping them in a draw for only your best friends to see, Design Aid was asked to make things happen. At the same time Lighting the Landscape stepped forward with some financial support to get the ball rolling.

Design Aid went into Action

Here is how I got Bill Quay Farm noticed and in the News Media spotlight.

Day one: we had a new domain name an “org.uk” as it always should have been not a “co.uk” this is a UK Registered Charity not a business, people need to see at a glance before they even click a link that they are – “org” or “org.uk” tells people you are a charity, not for profit or for the community in some way. The Website template was designed with accessibility in mind as specified and approved by the accessibility auditor at the Sponsors project “Lighting the Landscape”.

Day two: Content was copy and pasted into the new site and work went on to optimise the site for search engines. I Created Twitter and FaceBook accounts and pages and linked all these together so when we post a Blog entry on the site it is tweeted and all the tweets are posted on FaceBook and so it go’s on. We started to post on the Blog and Tweet and tapped into all of Design Aid’s own social network resources and followers on Twitter, FaceBook, Stumble, Digg, etc. to get the news out there.

Day Three: Bill Quay Farm has arrived, the new site is already ranking better than the old one and some keywords are starting to show on page one and two. The site has well over 1oo unique visitors before anyone even gets home from work and every hour sees more follows on Twitter.

Twitter has worked so well that by lunch time on day three the Bill Quay Community Farm has had local newspapers, BBC radio and Sky in touch and running stories.

Day Four: As I hand the details and access of the social network accounts over to staff at the Farm, the first tweets they make are “listen to us on the Radio” while more and more followers are tweeting that they read about them in the Paper.

While the very generous sponsorship/donation that funded my work on this project kind of ran out days ago, I’m still happily working on the site and social network accounts for Bill Quay Farm. I will finish the project with a Poster Design for them, (supporters have asked for them – just a PDF to download, so people can print it and post it up at work etc.). I do However, look forward to an imminent visit to the Bill Quay Farm when I can further support this fantastic organisation with the training they will need to manage the web site content and keep the social networking active.

It has been an absolute delight to support this brilliant project and organisation and I hope I get to work with them again.

Could your Cause use a Design Hero?

If you have a Good Cause or Charitable Project that could benefit from the skills and services Design Aid has to offer I’d love to hear from you and help out in anyway that I can. Get in touch, I’d love to help and helping with creative skills is what I do best.

The North East Motorcycle Racing Club (NEMCRC) a Non Profit company and members club that has brought top class club racing to the North East for 50 years. So here it is the very first Poster design of 2012 from the Design Aid project.

These posters are used extensively by volunteers, supporters, members and riders. A short print run of A3 posters are put up in local motorcycle dealers and biker cafes etc. by volunteers while others print out a poster or two on their own inkjet printers at home to put up on notice boards at work etc. And of course, many supporters and kind individuals will re-post, tweet, like, share, email or post on forums and blogs this and other digital versions of the poster.

Please do get in touch if your project or organisation would benefit from a professionally designed poster or flyer to promote it’s events or cause. We would love to Design, help or advise in a professional capacity to support your Good Cause.

Click on the image to see full size A4 poster design.

If you are local or in the Scottish borders please do download and distribute the poster on local notice boards, shops, motorcycle dealers or just across your online forums and social networks. These really are top class club race meetings, put on by a dedicated group of volunteers and they will appreciate any additional support that helps to promote and back these spectacular motorcycle race meetings.

More details about the NEMCRC can be found on their website at www.nemcrc.co.uk (also designed and hosted by Design Aid) and you can follow them on Twitter or like them on FaceBook.

A professional website design for your project All you need for just £250

Each and every month throughout 2012 the “Websites Twelve Project” will provide one complete bespoke professionally designed website for just £250. This fantastic project begins now with the first website to be built and launched in January 2012.

Every website provided will include, (usual value shown in brackets) the following services;

• SEO search to establish a suitable SEO domain name (£100)
• domain name reg (£5 – £15)
• one years web hosting (£56)
• professional design of your website (£350 – £1200)
• Optimise (SEO) website content (£300)
• Control panel with unlimited space and emails

Please help us support good causes by sharing this very special promotion with others in the sector and share, email, or tweet this post.

I’m sure all twelve 2012 design and builds will be be gone soon enough, as you can see, (from the usual costs in brackets above) this would normally cost on average £1000 or more.

The Website Twelve project is a great deal for your good cause. A fantastic way to get your message out there for an all in price of just £250 including domain name registration and the first years web hosting. Contact Bruce today to book your website build with him a small £50 deposit will secure the studio time for your website design. Please help us support good causes by sharing this very special promotion with others in the sector and share, email, or tweet this post.

In it was it this simple little illustration of a Capercaillie and it got me thinking of my very first charity sector job.

A guidebook for the Highland Wildlife Park, (HWP)

This little sketch, among other things, ended up in a guidebook I created for them and though it is not much to look at by today’s standards, it won an award for the best holiday attraction guidebook in Scotland.

It all started with a holiday visit to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) HWP where I was handed a very shoddy “100th” generation photocopy for a guidebook. While I did think that perhaps as a registered charity they might have better things to spend money on than my guidebook I had just handed over a not unsubstantial amount of money to visit the park and expected a little more for my money.

I decided that, instead of complaining, it might be better to try and help out. So, on my return to the studio I looked to see what could be done. Working on the assumption that printing was beyond their current budget I set about creating a design with more contrast that would photocopy well. With the artwork ready for a 12 pp guidebook I sent them a high quality reproduction master designed specifically to give good results when used on a photocopy machine.

The Park Manager was so pleased with this that when it came to designing a new guidebook they asked if I would step in and design a whole new guidebook for the park.

With the PhotoShop we have today I can hardly believe how much things have changed and the amount of photo manipulation work I had to put into this publications very simple front cover cover.

Back then Adobe was yet to buy Aldus and develop Aldus PhotoStyler into the Adobe PhotoShop we know and love today.

I was given the photograph of the roaring stag by the HWP and of course their logo depicting Przewalski’s Horse a European Bison and Red Deer. The education and conservation thinking behind the Parks collection of animals was natures history in Scotland with animals that were or still are indigenous to the Scottish Highlands.

As some of the species were pre historic I decided to montage the HWP logo with another image, a wall of natural sandstone in Jesmond Dene (I shot specifically for this) to give the impression of a cave painting before finally montaging the resulting image with that of the stag.

While much of this was simple with some of the transparency tools available, not having layers, a good cut tool and a decent amount of computing power (despite having 4 processors when everyone else only had one) made it all very difficult and time consuming.

Having no layers meant me saving every single version I created along with every intermediate version I made along the way because once you had saved it that was it. As artwork it was flattened and nothing could be moved or changed without opening the previous version. On top of all this there was the colour balance and lighting from three images to consider  and match up to make it look like they all had the same original light source.

I’m sure I remember this taking the best part of a week or maybe more (the dye sub print output alone would take all night to print one photographic quality A4 on a £6k printer). Today the whole thing would take me just a few hours not days. That said the work can’t be too bad as I’m still very happy to put my name to it.

Bruce Allinson

Good Design will help communicate the appropriate positioning of your organisation or project and be a positive force within your organisations branding, values and structure.

• Good design . . .
  plays a key role in creating a positive relationship between an organisation it’s beneficiaries, supporters, volunteers, staff and funders.
• Ideas are what we work in . . .
  ideas that engage your beneficiaries and target audience, ideas that provide solutions. Clear direct thinking is how we help you communicate your message.
• Graphic Design is what we do . . .
  Many solutions require design, a well designed flyer, ad, document, website or brochure can really create a public perception that works in harmony with an organisations public image and philosophy.

Good design conveys a positive impression of your cause before a single word is read. It is essential that the visual impact of your publications, materials and marketing tools are positive and strike a chord with its audience to reinforce your written word, cause and brand.

You should contact us now for an informal chat about your project and how you can improve the brand, image and communications of your cause

See this great video and news report from Sky News

Staff and volunteers at a popular community farm in Gateshead are waiting to hear if it will be shut down.

Bill Quay Community Farm, which is home to a number of rare breed animals, faces possible closure following a council spending review.

With £70m less in Government funding this year, Gateshead council are considering scrapping the farm to help reduce their outgoings.

Campaigners have started an online petition to prevent the closure of the farm, which already has over 500 signatures.

Gateshead council’s Ann Borthwick said they are still debating the farm’s future.

Read the rest of this item via Bill Quay Farm in Gateshead Threatened With Closure - Tyne and Wear.

The team is currently looking at possible donations from organizations across the North East including opportunities to sponsor the Pride Stage and March. There are also opportunities for volunteers to help raise funds through collections through the city’s Tuesday night gay scene.

Volunteers are also currently being recruited for their involvement on the day on Sunday 23rd September and roles include Stage Hands, to help with the running of the Pride Stage, and Stewards, who are needed throughout the day.

Sunderland Pride 2011

Last year’s event saw thousands of people flood Sunderland city centre to celebrate LGBT life in the city and organisers hope to make this year’s event even bigger with the support from the community.

Volunteer for Sunderland Pride 2012

Anyone wishing to get involved in volunteering can request an application form via the following ways:
Email – Info@sunderlandpride.co.uk
Call – 0191 447 2131
Follow on Twitter; @SunderlandPride

Like on FaceBook

A site full of pictures of wildlife and nature. Many of the illustrations can be seen on outdoor interpretation panels countrywide. Many are featured on interpretation leaflets and brochures. They represent over 20 years of drawing by Steve Pardue. The subjects cover all British Wildlife subjects including mammals, birds, insects and plants.

via British Wildlife Illustration.

While a lot of this item is guess work, (what else can predictions be) it has to be an item of interest to anyone who wants to continue driving traffic to their website.

When the biggest internet search business moves into the social network business you have to start wondering what will work best for your organisation, business or project. We can already see the lines between search and social being washed away before us and it stands to reason that once the biggest player in search engines gets involved in social networks the two will most likely come together. Good news is I think this will make it easier for Non SEO experts to drive traffic, the flip side of that is if anyone can drive traffic we will be swamped with spam.

Design Aid can build the best SEO into any site we build for you and advise on all aspects of website traffic from backlinks to SEO research and reports to pay per click.

Here is the conclusion to the post, if you have time the rest is worth a look just use the link at the bottom of this post.