ProofReader app

Posted on | February 18, 2010 | No Comments

Our latest iPhone/iPod touch app is now available on the AppStore. This new app is the first stage of collating the international list of copy markup and correction symbols used throughout the world. It’s been an interesting process, because we found slightly different symbols in different parts of the world, even though most countries have a standard, and most of their standards seem to be based on the English BS 5261. For this reason, we have also shown any alternative mark.

With the first version available, the next stage will be to review the entries against the differing standards and make some sense of it all for the next update. Version 1.0 contains about 40 entries, with more to come.

You can read more about the app on its own website:
www.proofreaderapp.co.uk

or on the iTunes web listing:
ProofReader on iTunes

Jamie Oliver stationery

Posted on | December 4, 2009 | No Comments

We recently completed a large set of business templates in both Word and PowerPoint for Jamie Oliver’s management business. These templates, which cover most document types from meeting notes to purchase orders, also come in three colour ways.

Most of the Word templates were reasonably straight-forward, but a few of them had to be a little more helpful. For instance, the purchase order had predefined calculations for subtotals and totals. Yes, calculations in Word. These updated automatically when the document was printed. The PowerPoint is used for all manner of presentations, to both suppliers and clients, and the three colour ways designed allow the business to present a more open style synonymous with the celebrity chef.

It’s always interesting to work on a famous or celebrity brand, but it is equally interesting to be given good design to work with. Some issues are often more complicated than the designer thought, and part of our job is to interpret the design, resolving issues the designer didn’t know they had. Now there’s a skill.

Don’t upset the client!

Posted on | October 29, 2009 | No Comments

We often get to redo templates that haven’t worked out so well. These are mostly from design agencies, done internally for their client, but unfinished or poorly set up. It makes us feel we have a skill afterall.

In most cases, it makes more sense to do them from scratch, as Word does have a very particular method in its structure. If that’s wrong, a few other thing are wrong too. The things people miss out are usually the subtle settings, which make all the difference to the user. Creating them in the Mac versions of Word is usually a bad idea, as they can be incompatible with their Windows counterparts in a number of ways, regardless of what Microsoft tells you.

New templates for National Trust

Posted on | October 29, 2009 | No Comments

We very recently developed a range of Word templates to be used across the organisation along with Wolff Olins, the much regarded design agency. With over 300 historic houses and gardens and 49 industrial monuments and mills, the templates are to be used for general communication, as well as posters and information systems around each site.

The templates, which had to allow for all skill levels, restricted the user to specific details they could edit, and retaining control over the branding they couldn’t. The posters came in a number of specific sizes and colour ways, which allowed for variety and a firm branding application.

Localised letters were also produced, which are used for any local correspondence.

Strutt and Parker proposals

Posted on | October 12, 2009 | No Comments

Strutt and Parker, one of the leading private and commercial estate agents, needed help in formulating their proposals for commercial and land management work. The proposals would need to contain about 80% of the final content, with the agent updating or filling in the remaining parts. All of the design work was completed by Columns Design and their InDesign files were supplied to us. We took all of the measurements and colours from the design files, so there is no need to spend time doing elaborate markups.

The Word template we developed had all of the sections preset, with a custom toolbar that listed all of the available type styles and a number of optional assets, like specific diagrams, tables and charts. Word 2007 does not fully support toolbars, so it is important to clarify the Word versions in use. The user only had to click in a page and select the asset from the toolbar list and the item was added. We also created a set of references from the cover page. This meant that when all of the cover details were filled in, so were around 20 details throughout the proposal. Feedback has been very positive, and we have recently made some minor changes for the better.