Posted by Charlotte Lamb.

I to Eye had never undertaken a survey before when we decided to find out what our existing customers thought of us. We intended to reinvent our marketing materials and we wanted to discover our customer’s perceptions of our service. We thought that through understanding what we are good at, or not so good at, then we could improve our services and promote the things we’re already getting right on our materials.

We set up an online survey, designed the layout and set up the questions and spaces for the responses. Then we emailed the link to our customers to ask them to fill in the blanks with their opinions. The survey software would collate all the information and present it to us when we logged in.

Our first job was to work out what we wanted to know. We decided to start with a general question about what service we had provided so we could also measure which jobs made up what percentage of our work as well as helping put subsequent comments into perspective. We then asked how we were doing on several aspects of our work and asked respondents to rate us over a 5-point scale. We also gave our customers a space to put any specific comments or complaints they would like to bring to our attention.

Another space on the form enabled customers to tell us if there was a service they needed but we don’t currently provide. This speculative question was not filled-in by most customers but the ones who did have given us three ideas for new services that we are going to use in our new materials.

We also wanted to find out if we would be able to count on our customers coming back to us with more work, and if they would recommend us to anyone else they knew or worked with. Were we doing well enough to count on our customers becoming our advocates to others? Lucky for us 100% of respondents said they would use us again and they would recommend us to others they knew.

The results have made us much clearer about our strengths and the areas we need to improve but the important thing is that until we asked we were in the dark. Now we intend to go away and come up with plans to improve our service for all our customers.

If you were one of those who responded to our pleas for information, thanks so much for filling it in. We promise we are going to be even better from now on.

Would you like us to design and build a survey for you? We can also help you put the results into action. Get in touch, we are sure the results will help your understanding of your business and eventually, help you make more money! Call I to Eye on 01962 737989 and speak to David Woodroofe about your survey today.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb, Designer for Create Design Studio

Action Eyewear are a business successfully selling fashion sunglasses suitable for sports activities and they came to I to Eye with a plan for a website with on-line shopping facilities that would make taking and dispatching orders easier.

When I began I saw some samples that included lenses with fantastic bright colours of blue, purple and even pink that helped to inspire the coloured stripes on the header. I wanted to keep the mood of the design colourful, clean and sporty because many of the models are designed for wear whilst skiing, snowboarding and so on. There is also a suggestion of light and shade on the header as the colours fade-in and fade-out, helping to produce a background with interest but also suitable to place the thumbnail images of the glasses themselves on top.

The site is flexible and easy to update so that as the ranges change and are replaced with new designs they can be uploaded quickly to the site for customers to buy. The fashion angle of the site is backed up by images of the glasses in use with photos of sports activities and models wearing the glasses to liven up areas of text.

If you would like to visit the Action Eyewear site please click here.

Do you want to sell online and streamline order processes? Call Create Design Studio on 01962 737989 to benefit from our expertise using the web to help your business make money.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb, Designer at Create Design Studio

Our client, the owner of a clothing shop located in Odiham village in Hampshire, wanted a clean and attractive website to show off the products stocked and encourage people to visit the shop. The shop already had a colour theme from the soft blue paintwork used on the exterior as well as an attractive logo with a striking typeface and leaf motif. These elements were my starting point for the design of the site header and creating a framework for the site content: text and photographs.

Because the aim is to encourage visits to the shop itself I used some exterior shots of the store on the home page so passers-by would recognise it as well as prominently displaying the shop address and opening hours, making sure people know when to visit as well as where to visit.

The site has pages dedicated to products stocked for women, men and children and these pages have a series of small photos to illustrate the product types, these can be updated as new product photos are taken. As the nature of fashion is ever-changing it was important to allow the site photos to be updated regularly as styles change.

To visit the site click here.

I to Eye take the effort out of planning, designing and building your website, enabling your business to get on with making money. If you would like to talk to Create Design Studio about your website project call 01962 737989 or contact us.

Many presenters make the mistake of believing that their PowerPoint is their presentation.

The truth is that people buy from people and not from PowerPoint presentations, this holds true if you are selling a product, service or ideas to colleagues.

A strange thing for PowerPoint presentation designers to say you may think, surely we should be encouraging presenters to have bigger and more flashy presentations.

A PowerPoint presentation should be used as an aid to support a presenter not as a presentation.

So why use PowerPoint?

Used correctly PowerPoint will help a presenter communicate information and ideas, it is brilliant at explaining figures and trends, as well as focusing attention and giving emphasis to topics and points.

Include still photographs of products, facilities or offices, but be careful how you use video. Don’t use it as a substitute presenter. 

If your pitch is your PowerPoint

Then do your audience a favour and just email them your slides, the out come will be the same.

Posted by Create Design Studio designer Charlotte Lamb. 

It’s not everyday that you get a visit from a top garden designer who runs a spectacular country garden set in the Hampshire countryside but the day that Marylyn Abbot walked into the I to Eye office and asked us to design a website for West Green House Gardens, near Hartley Wintney, was certainly a surprise.

I have visited the gardens at West Green many times and the beautiful views and flowers certainly helped make the design process an enjoyable one, even if the timescale was short. West Green House Gardens already had a series of leaflets designed and it was decided that these should form the basis of the website design so that a sense of unity was kept between all their communications with the public.

There was a classical typeface to set the menus and headlines for the website pages from the leaflet artwork and I used photographs of the many garden features as a frame for the information on how to visit the garden, its facilities and features about special events held at the garden. These photographs show potential visitors the beauty of the gardens and help introduce them to the special atmosphere created by the designs Marylyn has made there to encourage them to visit in person.

The site also helps visitors to find and download information on special events like classical music and opera concerts as well as opportunities to learn flower arranging from practical demonstrations. Marylyn also showcases her series of books on the subject of garden design on the site.

Visit the West Green House Gardens site by clicking here.

A new online tool to help you choose the right keyword search terms for your website. 

The problem with using the standard research tools is that the website owner still has to think up the keywords to test. However using www.seedkeywords.com you can create a ’scenario’ which you can email to friends and customers etc and ask them what keywords they would use to find your website.