You could argue third party applications such as TwitPic and YFrog allowed us to add images to our profiles but it was never really as simple as uploading directly from your Twitter account and the images never appeared as saved galleries on your profile.

How?

Twitter has now added a new image gallery feature which loads a strip of thumbnails of your recently uploaded pictures into the sidebar. When you view a person’s homepage directly, you get a larger image. When you view a profile by clicking on a person in your stream, you get a smaller set. Both allow you to click and enlarge the photos in a very similar way to Facebook!

A typical Twitter slider view

Why?

So why have Twitter added this feature?

Adding new features like this keeps people on the site longer and adds interest to the general text based tweets. It also means people won’t miss images that are uploaded by people they follow as they would usually be buried under a stream of updates as they are a constant feature on a profile.

So?

More interestingly for us at Cloud 9 it allows us to market ourselves and our clients in a better way on Twitter that we could only before do using Facebook. We can brand ourselves in a better fashion and ‘tweet’ with images rather than text and images. As well as text, tweets can ‘retweeted’ to allow them maximum interest. It may seem like double the work but we look at it being double the exposure to a normally out of reach audience.

We’re excited about this new feature and will be sure to be using it! Keep an eye on what we’re doing on https://twitter.com/c9dd or https://www.facebook.com/cloud9digitaldesign

 Facebook launched in 2004 and was originally restricted to Harvard College attendees only. Since then it has rapidly grown into a way of life for people. It now has more than 750 million active users, there are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events etc) and people spend over spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

If you are not yet convinced of why your brand should be on Facebook, check out these stats from Experian Hitwise.

1. Facebook is the second most visited website in the UK after Google, accounting for 6.89% of all visits from UK Internet users in September.
2. Facebook is by far the biggest website in the UK for page views. In total, 16.40% of all page views during September went to a Facebook page.
3. Facebook now accounts for 1 in 6 page views in the UK, that’s twice the number of page views received by Google.
4. Facebook is the most popular social network in the UK, accounting for 55% of all visits to social networks.
5. Facebook is the number one search term in the UK. 3.69% of all searches typed into Google, Yahoo! and Bing are for ‘facebook’.
6. Taking into account variations of Facebook with misspellings and abbreviations such as ‘facbook’, ‘fb’ or ‘facebok’ – Facebook accounts for approximately 6% of all searches in search engines.
7. Facebook accounts for 9.58% of all upstream traffic to other websites in the UK.
8. Nearly 10% of Internet visits come immediately after a visit to Facebook, second only to Google in traffic generation.
9. Visits to Facebook have quadrupled in the last three years. In the last year Facebook has grown by 17% in terms of UK Internet visits.
10. In the last year, Facebook has increased its downstream traffic to online retail sites by 12%.

We love Social Media at Cloud 9 and see the huge potential for any Brand to be part of this ever growing social religion. Why not give us a call to see how we can help you grow and give you the opportunity to open new doors.

The great April weather helped make the visits more enjoyable but more than anything it was good to get out and see something new and discover some gems amongst our countryside and unwind somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life.

I have included some photos that I took on the visits, hopefully you will enjoy looking and will be inspired to venture out somewhere new. Whether it be a stroll through the hills, dipping into local history, something more energetic or just visit to a garden somewhere relaxing!

There’s something for everyone in The Great Outdoors!

Biddulph Grange Garden

[Show as slideshow]

More info on Biddulph Grange Garden

Packwood House

[Show as slideshow]

More info on Packwood House

Snowshill Manor & Hailes Abbey

[Show as slideshow]

More info on Snowshill Manor

Stowe Landscape Gardens

[Show as slideshow]

More info on Stowe Landscape Gardens

Waddesdon Manor & Gardens

[Show as slideshow]

More info on Waddeson Manor & Gardens

Make the most of 2011 and plan a ‘daycation’ with the National Trust here: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Both breaks contrasted heavily but both equally enjoyable. In Morocco I stayed in Marrakech and visited most of the main tourist hot-spots including: Djemaa El-Fna, The Souks & Medinas, Koutoubia Mosque, Saadian Tombs, Majorelle Gardens, Ben Youssef Medersa and the Menara gardens.

I will definitely remember the magic of Marrakech, Morocco with its souqs, snake charmers, acrobats, musicians, and all the other enchantments of the Djemaa El-Fna Square and surrounding streets, I just wish the monkeys I met could have come home with me!

[Show as slideshow]

Crete in contrast was more relaxed and laid back apart from one energetic day when I trekked the Samaria Gorge! The Gorge is sixteen kilometres long, thirteen of which stagger down over rugged terrain, through pine forests and mountain streams. The last three kilometres are more of a gentle stroll which was a welcome relief in 35 °C heat!

Some of the other places I visited included: Chania, Suda Bay War Memorial, a Minoan palace at Knossos and many villages and off the beaten track beaches.

I have attached a selection of my favourite photos from both trips which was probably a harder task than writing this post as I took just over 1000 pictures over the two and selecting favourites was a major headache!

[Show as slideshow]

The festival is run jointly by Lapworth’s Pre-School and Primary School and raises money for both organisations, along with a number of other local good causes.

My personal favourites included The Gruffalo, Buzz Lightyear and Jesus himself, but my top Scarecrow had to be the life-size Zorro!

I’ve attached some pictures of my favourites to this blog post, if you didn’t get down to this year’s event make sure you do in 2011!

[Show as slideshow]

Do you have a favourite colour?

Many individual have strong preferences for specific colours, however understanding why and what these colours mean is critically important when designing for a specific audience.

Colours and their meanings

Colours have hidden meanings. For example, blue is the colour from sky and water and is most often associated with a business, as it is perceived to be a calming, reliable colour. Green is the most common colour in nature and we perceive this colour to be the second ‘favourite colour’. It often provides a backdrop colour for design, and this is often used when an image of ‘natural goodness’ or sustainability is to be suggested. Every colour has a very specific psychological meaning and it is certainly important to understand the underlying meaning.

Don’t miss a design trick

A good designer will be able to advise you on the meaning of colour and should produce design with this in mind. Every aspect of design carries a deep-rooted physiological response; if you do not consider these within the design process, you are missing a trick!

Getting hung on a colour

The worst thing you can do is to start the design process with a specific colour as a prerequisite for the design. Many companies have corporate colours, which are fine as long as they have been well thought out, and this should be clearly understood.

Just remember

It’s worth considering that not all colours are perceived the same across each culture. It’s a classic one but in the west, black is the colour most often associated with death, however, in Japan it’s white. If you are developing a brand that has an international reach, remember to think how the colour is going to be received in all markets!

Ash is obviously brimming full of web type geekery but it does spread over to me on the Design & Print side of things here at Cloud 9 too.

I’m Simon and this is the first part of my ‘Print Geek Talk’ posts.
I could have included all things technical to this post but I wouldn’t want you to be all geeked out straight away!

The aim of these posts is to give you understanding of those jabbery words we use without even thinking about it, that you might well wonder what we are actually going on about!

So keep your eyes peeled for more Geek related posts.

Although a totally new brand, many of the existing clients were to be retained therefore the same excellent brand values had to be quickly established.

Cloud 9 beat-off stiff competition from 3 other Midlands agencies to win the account and turn the complete project around in record time.

The Brief: To create a brand for Hill Hofstetter that reflects the attitude, ethics and reputation of a niche City of London firm with a personal touch, and design and build a website that was search engine optimised to be found easily, quick to load and easy to navigate.

Our solution: The majority of our work involved developing the brand identity, business stationery and corporate website.

Law firms get through a lot of stationery so it had to ooze quality without breaking the bank. A 2-colour design incorporating a pinstripe effect gives the City of London feel, whilst being easy to reproduce in print and online.

The website has great visitor-tracking analytics and is is fully content managed – meaning the client can easily update the site themselves too. Other work included , photography, portable exhibition stand and signage, sourcing and supply of promotional items including umbrellas, mugs, pens, lanyards, binders and notepads. -

The website – www.hillhofstetter.com

Customer entrance signage

Reception

As well as the above, we also completed the branding of Hill Hofstetter with various promotional items to be used in house and for client giveaways.

This initially started with a re-design of the original crest to a re-worked version we felt suited the new look and feel of a modern private school. This then progressed onto a new logo and stationery.

Keen to retain the heritage and strength of the original crest, but modernise and simplify it we suggested ‘evolution’, rather than ‘revolution’ thus preserving both tradition and the look and feel of a progressive school.

Crest development

New Crest

New Logo and Colour Scheme

Hallfield Stationery

Hallfield Stationery

Hallfield Stationery Detail

Hallfield School is a privately owned school located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. We also worked on new signage too!