Welcome to the … all NEW…. Cre8iv Edge website and blog!

Hi and welcome to the … all NEW…. Cre8iv Edge website and blog,

I hope everyone is well and that great things have happened in your life since I last posted [which was a while ago now]. Amazing changes have happened in my life over the last few years but that isn't for this article - and no my hair hasn't magical grown back, although my gf is a consultant in the hair restoration business... so you never know [well she does and she told me it's a lost cause lol].

​Moving swiftly on...

A brief update – I had been planning for a few years to sit down and bring some order to my spiralling web footprint. I am sure you’re feeling the strain too, with the social media train gathering speed / accounts [FB, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo, YouTube, blah blah] and with it additional email / website accounts and the dreaded spam. On top of the standard chaos, I had a personal site for my artwork, another version of this site half way through migration to a new design, a blog that wasn’t easy to post to and a new photography Wordpress site. 

I was in the middle of a whirlwind of info and addressing it seemed like a massive task to undertake, while working on client projects – hence it wasn’t undertaken. UNTIL …. I had a revelation, well I listened to some advice from a friend a few weeks ago, which was 'to distance myself from designing and managing my own website / logo / business cards etc'. The reason being that you strive for perfection on these projects [which isn’t achievable, whereas Excellence is, which is what I strive for on all client engagements] and this creates an inertia that drains the passion and energy from the project. 

Coupled with finishing ‘The Art of Getting Things Done – by Dave Allen’ and reworking my personal workflow. I acted on this great advice and engaged a design company that could help me consolidate and turn my ideas quickly to life, while I concentrated on client work & expanding the company. They say once you commit to doing something 'providence moves with you' & through my networks, I was introduced to Matt at ‘Guerilla Tea’ and from our first meeting, I instantly felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. 

You can see from the images above, the initial work, I completed, to convey my vision of my new branding to Matt. The first image is a diagram [based on an article I read in the Economist about Walt Disney and how he drew up his ideas] depicting all of my cre8iv elements and how they could work together. From this I was able to understand my purpose and this allowed me to put my arms around my work & contextualise it for the first time. There are challenges bringing together cre8iv services and setting up a brand that conveys the right messages to potential clients. Having sketched out my new ideas, I was able to discuss and overcome these challenges with Matt. I wanted to embrace change and as I love the way Google have altered the perception of a company logo by reworking theirs, I wanted to be cre8iv with the 'E' for each of the 3 service areas [cre8iv consulting, photography and artwork]. Matt quickly turned these logo sketches into the digital concept logos above.

​I loved my old grey business cards, but felt they were a little too complex and I wanted something fresher and more minimalistic for the new company. Using a booklet of photography backdrop colours and some pantone summer palettes, I got the look I was after. Matt challenged me on the text layout, as I was wedded to the alignment being against the right hand edge and on reflection, I agreed that the simpler layout was the right choice.

The website itself is also a lot simpler and I hope it flows for you as a viewer. The images are the focal points and I have tried to minimise copy. As the changes are still fresh, I would welcome any constructive feedback :) All in all, I hope you like the new look and enjoy the new articles that WILL appear on here ... 'smiley face & thumbs up' <---- btw I am being facetious here & I can include emoji's .. and the use of 'facetious' isn't a pun on a face either.... dam I am in a loop here... lol

Thanks for reading and have a great evening. See you soon.

Regards

Lee