This is our first posts of 2009 so we’d like to take the opportunity to wish you all a happy and successful new year!

We’ve recently added a few more completed projects to our portfolio sections, with other work completing shortly so expect more updates in the coming months. View our portfolio.

An update to a previous post on SEO, shows that our campaign has impacted on our website Alexa ranking. This was previously 2,502,689 (dated 17/11/2008) and is now ranked 1,343,705 (dated 7/01/2009) and in the top three in our desired search terms of ‘design wolverhampton’ and ‘graphic design wolverhampton’.

Our 6 page article on ‘colour and brand’, produced for Computer Arts Magazine will be available from 29 January or via computerarts.co.uk.

We’ve also launched our ‘bod’ section, where you can purchase your very own individually design character. View the gallery for information on how to get your own.

Finally, there is a great collection of effective billboard designs at toxel.com. A few of our favourites are pictured below.

We love the work of Saul Bass, especially the poster designs for the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger. Our personal favourite is ‘Bunny Lake is Missing’, not only does the typography beautifully illustrate the title but the visual is so simple it feels like we all could have thought of it.

We noticed in the last few months there has been a mini surge in movie poster designs that call on the style and designs of Saul. We’re not saying it is a bad thing, infact they all seem to do the style justice, while adding a contemporary edge.

A few of our favourites, ‘Fear[s] of the Dark’, ‘Burn After Reading’, ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ and ‘12′ are shown below.

There are a collection of 10 poster variations for ‘Burn After Reading’ available to view here.

While we are on the subject of movie posters, below are two that caught our eye. The first is for the upcoming ‘Up’ from Disney Pixar, which looks visually amazing. In addition to the poster we love the film title logo. Another great poster design is for the film, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.

A great collection of movie posters can be viewed via impawards.com.

After months of development we’ve finally launched our new look website.

Fortunately, we’ve been too busy with client’s projects to devote any time to our own website but finally a few days of relative calm appeared and we managed to get this live.

We think you’ll find our website full of useful information as well as some examples of our most recent work, which includes work with the University of Wolverhampton and our ongoing work with Language Networks for Excellence.

Alongside our portfolio sections are case studies, information on branding, graphic design and SEO. We’ve also launched an email info shot - encore which we’ll be mailing out during the next few weeks and will include useful design related information.

We’ve also taken the time to launch Marie’s (our Creative Director) personal portfolio. She’s created so much work that she needed her own space. Visit mariecampbell.com to view her portfolio.

Finally, you can also now purchase a ‘bod’, click here for more information and to view our rapidly expanding gallery.

As a design company, early on we took the approach that we wouldn’t undertake speculative work. For whatever reason there seems to be a trend when commissioning design services, to ask companies to produce work before a contract has been agreed to. The No!Spec website highlights all the main reasons why, as creatives, we shouldn’t be undertaking speculative work, as well as detailing what we mean my speculative work.

Aside from all of the reasons highlighted on the No!Spec website, we got to thinking, ‘In what other industry does this practice of creating work, in the hope of getting paid for it, take place?’ - Do we need to start taking our car to 3 separate garages to have it repaired and then only pay the one we thought did a good job?

If you’re part of the Wolverhampton Creative Industries, you’ll no doubt be inundated with offers of support, yes, this is the place to be should you wish to paddle in any one of many funding streams.

There’s a plethora of business advice and guidance on offer, countless training opportunities, a wealth of funding (but if you’re talking about real money, most business grants come with critieria that it would take the most supple of contortionists to slot in to) and if you were to attend every training scheme and networking event that was on offer you’d have little or no time to sit down and actually be creative.

For real, practical support which comes in the form of a desk, phone, Mac/PC and a software (which goes a long way towards keeping your overheads low until you’ve found your feet) the incubator scheme at SP/ARK offers invaluable assistance for fledgling businesses. We’re right up there when it comes to singing both their praises… and the fact that we recently worked on their rebrand.

So you’re good at what you do, you’ve tapped into this funding and you’re well established, you’ve taken onboard sound advice, you’ve had your business plan picked over with critical attention, your diary reflects the perfect home/life balance, you’re motivated and know your target audience better than they know themselves. So now what? You need clients.

Wolverhampton’s creative industries scene is clearly overshadowed by those of the larger cities, and there’s an irritating knee-jerk reaction when it comes to some of the larger Wolverhampton-based corporates sourcing or outsourcing creative services. There are talented creatives, with skills and experience that equal those based in the larger cities, right here in Wolverhampton and there’s no reason to believe otherwise. But that’s the thing about a knee jerk reaction it’s unthinking. Habitual.

The irony of it all is that, not to mention any names, many of the corporates with the knee-jerk ‘big city’ bias when it comes to sourcing creative services are the very people who stream all this funding into developing the creative industries right here in Wolverhampton.

They go to great lengths to develop us, and then they take their business elsewhere.