Once upon a Smile approached Pixel8 Manchester about a logo design for their charity along with an icon character style/illustration which would represent their charity at fundraising events. Once upon a Smile wanted a fun character that would appeal to everyone, so we created a cuddly bear called Sidley. The charity will be featured on this Saturday night’s Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire by Emmerdale actor Danny Miller.

Almost 12 months ago Warner Estate Holdings PLC (managers of almost 1.5 billion of property around the UK),  selected Pixel8 to provide complete graphic design and marketing services for five of their shopping centres around the North West, as follows:

Market Place Shopping Centre, Bolton, Fishergate Shopping Centre, Preston, Middleton Shopping Centre, North Manchester and The Grange and Pyramids Shopping Centres in Birkenhead, Wirral.

Pixel8 provided each shopping centre with design and marketing services for 9 major advertising campaigns running throughout the year, including the overarching seasonal campaigns.  We created the ‘Great Days Out’ Summer campaign to enable shoppers to pick up a voucher (designed by Pixel8) which entitles them to ‘2 for 1’ entry into any of the following attractions in the North West:

Alton Towers, The York Dungeon, Sea Life Blackpool, Madame Tussauds Blackpool, Blackpool Tower Ballroom and Legoland Discovery Centre Manchester.

On the reverse of the vouchers shoppers are presented with the opportunity to win a Merlin Annual Pass for a family of four. All they have to do is visit the shopping centre website, follow the Facebook link and enter the code printed on the back. These free vouchers and prizes act as incentives to increase the footfall at each centre.

For more information about Pixel8’s Design, Branding and Marketing services please visit Pixel8ltd.com or call us in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail.

Last week at Pixel8, we continued our global brand design consistency program for Hotel Indigo, the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) boutique brand. We created a range of new graphic designs and completed all the artwork for new food and drink menus for 13 hotels.

Food and drink menus express the personality of an organization. They’re an open invitation to examine brand imagery and are often the branding collateral that customers spend the most time looking at.

At the Pixel8 Design and Branding Agency, we knew that the Hotel Indigo menus had to be constant in their appeal to customers worldwide. We also had to encourage customer appreciation of the boutique hotels’ feel, whilst providing the consistency expected from a global brand.

So, Pixel8 created a portfolio of on brand imagery for 13 different hotels across the Americas and in the UK. We developed a range of creative images that reflect Hotel Indigos’ values, reiterating the local, neighborhood story and inspired service that lie at the core of the Hotel Indigo brand design refresh.

For more information watch our animated video of our Hotel Indigo brand development journal or contact Pixel8 today. From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489, in the UK call 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail.

Also see our ‘Powered by Smart Pixels’ animation at www.Pixel8ltd.com

As part of Pixel8’s continuing graphic design and corporate branding for Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust we have completed new advertising designs that will appear in the Manchester City match day programme on Sunday 1^st May.

As Manchester City play host to West Ham United in the Barclays Premier League club tie, fans will see that football pitch facilities at Eastlands, on the same complex as the City of Manchester Stadium, are available to them, the local community.

The recently refurbished centre has three brand new 5-a-side football pitches, and four new outdoor tennis courts, alongside the six indoor tennis courts. On a pay and play basis these pitches and courts are open to local residents and the wider community 7 days a week.

Pixel8 are proud to be involved in helping to promote these facilities at a word class venue to the people of Manchester.

For more information please visit Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust

The world’s largest hotel group has once again selected the Pixel8 Design Agency in Manchester to provide corporate branding and design services.

In 2010, Pixel8 refreshed the Hotel Indigo brand for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), beating a pitch list which included three US branding giants.

Pixel8 is now carrying out a brand refresh for Crowne Plaza, the world’s fourth largest upscale hotel brand. The contract win has led to Pixel8 taking on five new members of staff at its northern quarter offices.

Pixel8 will once again report to Ed Thorne, Director Global Brand Management, Upscale Brands based at IHG in Atlanta. On selecting Pixel8 for a second time, Ed said, “Pixel8 did a fantastic job and really helped to define and create consistency across the Hotel Indigo brand. Having proved they can really push the boundaries, they were the obvious choice for our next major refresh.”

Pixel8 Director Jamie Watson said, “Once again our corporate branding and graphic design services have been picked ahead of our international competitors. This is great news for Manchester and of course for Pixel8.  Our relationship with IHG continues to go from strength to strength.”

Nigel Daws, Pixel8’s Creative Director added, “Making brands work is at the heart of what we do.  We’ve been able to demonstrate that we can develop an effective and consistent brand and create meaningful marketing collateral that works.”

Originally branded as Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, the first US hotel opened in Rockville, Maryland, in 1983. Today, there are over 400 Crowne Plaza hotels in 52 countries. In July 2009, Crowne Plaza was recognised by US magazine Lodging Hospitality as one of the industry’s top growing brands.

IHG is the world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms with over 4,500 hotels, more than 650,000 guest rooms in over 100 countries and territories worldwide. IHG Brands include InterContinental Hotels, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

IHG also operates the world’s largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club Rewards, with over 52 million members worldwide.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit www.Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489, in the UK call 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

The Pixel8 Design and Marketing Agency in Manchester, UK is proud to present “Powered by Smarter Pixels”, a short animated video showcase of our services.

See Powered by Smarter Pixels now on our home page at www.pixel8ltd.com

If you like our animation, please visit YouTube and click on the “Like” button to vote for us at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kl4Dwz9lmY or tell us what you think by contacting us.

The animation was originally hand designed on storyboards by Pixel8’s creative team to showcase our top level service categories, called WOMGE…

	Web Design
	Online Marketing
	Multimedia
	Graphic Design
	Exhibition Services

Powered by Smarter Pixels also shows the high levels of creativity that Pixel8 consistently delivers.

As a small agency our clients get immediate access to our senior creative, technical and management staff. Our in-house design, development and production teams regularly deliver fast turnarounds because we’re not a 9 to 5 agency. We don’t clock off till your work is done.

Pixel8 is working smarter so your company can get all your design, branding and advertising requirements from one agency. We manage the complete process from concept to completion.

Whether you’re a small business that needs a new logo design or an international hotel chain that’s looking for creative corporate branding, call Pixel8 in Manchester because we’re Powered by Smarter Pixels!

Pixel8’s WOMGE services:

Web Design: Website design and development of SME and PLC websites, eCommerce and CMS websites, database development, blog designs, online brand guides and mobile websites

Online Marketing: Search engine optimisation, SEO copywriting, online press release distribution, social media marketing, email marketing, mobile website marketing and Smartphone applications

Multimedia: Animation, video, virtual tours, 3D page turning magazines, Adobe Director and Flash presentations and recyclable corporate PowerPoint presentations

Graphic Design: Logo design, corporate Branding, brand guide design and development, graphic designs for calendars, sales collateral, leaflets, brochures, business stationary, packaging design and product mock ups, t-shirt design and printing

Exhibition Services: Exhibition stand design, build and removal, light boxes, pop up and pull up banner, in-house large format printing for exhibition stands, vehicles and building exteriors.

If you want your advertising and marketing to work smarter in 2010 and beyond, call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by email today.

Sorrymate are specialist “bikers for bikers” solicitors that handle motor bike accident claims. They’re all too familiar with accidents caused by motorists who say “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you” after their car has collided with a motor bike.

Sorrymate wanted to inject some vitality into their brand, but to keep elements of their existing logo design. Pixel8 immediately understood that the client wanted the brand refreshed, and not completely changed.

Initial branding design concepts were quickly developed, and Pixel8’s logo design team created a new version of the Sorrymate logo featuring a biker’s helmet with a cracked visor. The new logo and brand design concepts were shown on storyboards to the client who was really pleased with the look and feel of their new branding.

The new logo was then applied as a stand-alone icon across all other print advertising, marketing materials and business stationary. Pixel8 also developed a credit card style SMIDSY (Sorry mate, I didn’t see you) card for bikers to carry in case of an accident.

Pixel8’s exhibition design team got to work creating a 16 panel exhibition stand for a Sorrymate exhibit at the NEC in Birmingham, this included wraparound artwork for the exhibitions’ stand counters. The exhibition graphics were printing in-house on Pixel8’s large format printers.

To complete the new branding, Pixel8’s web designers developed a new website for Sorrymate which is now live at www.sorrymate.com

To see all the final branding designs please visit the Sorrymate design portfolio.

If your company is looking at rebranding, you may find our branding questions answered blog helpful. For more information, please call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by email

Each year the Pixel8 design agency in Manchester creates an invitation to a day at Chester races for our client, Vodat International Limited.

Last years invite was an email invitation designed and distributed by our email marketing team. The 2010 invitation was created by our graphic design team, and the invites have now been printed and posted to 50 lucky recipients.

The A5 size invitations were designed with an upmarket look and feel to suit the prestigious sporting occasion, but kept in line with Vodat International’s brand guidelines. To emphasise this we included a spot UV varnish on the front of the invites over the Vodat logo.

The invitations were digitally printed double sided, full colour, on a 300gsm gloss art board.

To see more examples of Pixel8’s designs, please visit our graphic design portfolio.

This week, our graphic design team in Manchester created a new brochure design for 2ergo – the global provider of mobile enabling technology for marketing, business, entertainment and media.

Brands including O2, Orange, Vodafone and AT&T to name a few, have all benefited from working with 2ergo. So naturally we were thrilled when they asked us to help out with our graphic design services.

Our designers took the existing 2ergo brand guide and pushed it to new limits by developing a series of simple, modern icons to fit in with the brands established style.

These were then introduced into the design of a new 12 page brochure, which was printed full colour. The new brochures are for 2ergo staff to hand out at the 2010 Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

Having established the logo design for the Starters Orders café at Sportscity in Manchester, the next step was for our graphic design team was to create the look and feel for the new canteen area, which is situated in the National Squash Centre in Manchester. This was visualised at the proposal stage as an illustration.

Once this was approved, our first task was printing out a selection of deep red swatches, so that decorators could colour match for the paint for the walls, to tie in with the brand identity.

After this was completed, work began with the Pixel8 design team creating artwork for a larger Starters Orders logo. The logo was digitally printed in colour directly onto a 10mm Foamcor panel, measuring 700mm wide by 430mm high. It was then fitted to the wall using 20mm stand off fixings.

As with any canteen, an essential requirement is menu panels! Our graphic design team were supplied with items to be featured on double-sided panels. One side with a regular menu for non-event days, and the reverse side was a meal deal menu for Manchester City match days.

There are 5 menu panels altogether, all designed to be in keeping with the Starters Orders brand identity – using elements like the star, stripes and fonts. Each panel measured 700mm wide by 920mm high, digitally printed full colour onto 10mm black Foamcor panels, complete with holes and hooks for attaching to the wall. This made it easy for staff members to turn the menu over for the relevant days.

The canteen is now almost complete. Furnishings are in place and we have just been asked to create artwork to ‘brand up’ the tabletops.

To see more of Pixel8’s design and branding work for the Starters Orders café including our graphic designs for the café interior, embroidery designs for uniforms, printed logo cups and confectionary bags, please visit our Starters Orders design portfolio.