I had a meeting last week with one of my favorite clients ‘Active Dental’. Active Dental is a relatively newish business for them, but I’ve been designing for them for other ventures for over four years now. There are other arms to the business also such as Active Smile for instance.

I was really pleased at our meeting to observe that the Active Dental logo I designed for them over a year ago has stood one of the ultimate tests of a quality design - can it be embroidered!??
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Businesses may question how an illustration service could be used in marketing literature or marketing campaigns and struggle to visualise the benefits of using an illustration over and above stock photography for instance.

One reason alone could be to set yourself apart from the crowd of other businesses using stock photography - which has become very popular of recent years compared to for instance in the 1950’s when illustrations were extremely popular by comparison.
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So what’s the down low on the situation with the graphic design industry and the economic climate we find ourselves in at the moment?

Personally for Truly Ace I’d say that although I’ve been busy as usual over the last 12 months (pretty much as busy as I have been over the last 6yrs) I feel that I’ve probably had to work harder than previous years to ensure that ‘busyness’. For instance in Spring of 2008 I experienced an extreme dip in workload (50% reduction in monthly projects won) and spent between Spring and Summer of that year working extensively on my search engine optimisation and literally doubled my already fairly high levels of website traffic in that period of time.
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One of my blog readers (a designer who wants to move into freelancing at home) had some questions for me, their questions and my answers are below. I think would be freelancers will find my responses interesting and perhaps even useful.

How many hours, on average, do you work per week?
Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to (because I really enjoy my work/business) I don’t work crazy hours because I have a family to look after and spend time with also, so I’d say I work about 45hours a week.
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That’s right, when this came in the post a few days ago, I got really excited

Three months of waiting and close to £300 spent …. all so I can put a little R next to the logo … … want to pay £200 for a little R of your own?

It’s worth it for peace of mind and extra brand protection if you’ve been trading under your name for a length of time and feel that a change of name and/or image (or domain name) could be damaging to your business.

Read more at my guide to trademarking you business >>

I’ve created a brand identity design recently that I think is a well designed piece … memorable and appealing as well as being original for it’s industry. Its modern and yet should stand the test of time in it’s simplicity.

What is very strange though, is considering myself and the client are so happy with the design, as to why the concept was preceded by about 3 days of hellish creative block - in fact the worst creative block I’ve experienced in 7yrs.
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The very most ‘interesting’ website I’ve ever been to in terms of marketing/branding is HERE

Visit it, it won’t disappoint and hammers home some scary points about ‘your brand’ and it’s place in the world, lol Watch it all!

I visited Fortnum & Mason today looking for a birthday gift for my brother in a law and I’m loving their stylish mix of ‘traditional heritage business’ with a modern twist.
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I’ve recently heard of Yudu, which is a very easy way to turn your PDF documents into online publications…. slick turning pages and all.
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I’m proud to announce that another business branded by Truly Ace has achieved the attention of international media - this time fabulous vintage fashion brand Love In The Afternoon has received extensive full page coverage in the March issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine as their ‘Nomad inspirational woman’ business winner.

Strangely enough, I recently discovered this particular issue sitting in Bristol Museum (whether Banksy put it there as part of his recent exhibition or not I’m not sure)

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