The Pixel8 Design and Branding Agency in Manchester has created two off shoots of The Open University and are currently working on a third.

Shared Solutions is a forum to promote academic partnerships, and Back On Course is a service for people that have withdrawn from higher education before completing their studies, and offers support for returning into education.

Pixel8 provided logo design, web design and content management systems for both projects.

The websites are now live at www.sharedsolutions.ac.uk and www.backoncourse.ac.uk

Jamie Watson, Account Director at Pixel8 said, “It’s great to be working with such a progressive organisation on these exciting projects. We look forward to opening up this relationship further in the future”.

Manchester design and branding agency Pixel8 has helped to bring premiership footballers including Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes closer to their young fans.

football4football.com is an educational website aimed at players and fans of all ages and offers exclusive video footage of interviews with top stars, who talk personally about their lives in football.

Pixel8, which has two former members of the Manchester United Merchandising creative team amongst its personnel, was appointed to create the football4football logo and branding, then to design and build a fully content managed website featuring media rich content.

Video clips on the website include Ryan Giggs talking about football boots and supplements, Manchester City’s Nigel de Jong encouraging kids to finish school and revealing his love of pasta, and Manchester United’s Darren Fletcher talking about the importance of his dad’s support.

The website will regularly be updated with new video content from big name footballers, coaches, sports dieticians and physios. football4football.com also features sections on nutrition, training, injuries and equipment.

Jamie Watson, joint managing director of Pixel8 said, “football4football.com offers young players, parents and fans a real insight into the professional sport. We have created a brand and built a website that is easily accessible to everyone from the six-year-old who plays for his primary school, up to parents and grandparents of footie mad teenagers.”

Former Ajax and Feyenoord midfielder Dean Gorré, who has been involved from the start of the website’s development, added, “football4football.com offers a unique platform for top players and other participants in the game to give something back. Visitors to the site will see the top names in football talking candidly in exclusive interviews about subjects important to young fans, players and their parents.”

football4football.com was launched at a star studded party at Hanson Hall in the footballer belt of Nether Alderley in Cheshire. In attendance were Everton forward Louis Saha, Stoke City midfielder Salif Diao, Gabriel Obertan from Manchester United along with Manchester United first team coach René Meulensteen and retired players Steve Watson (Newcastle United, Everton, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion) and David Thompson (Liverpool, Wigan Athletic, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers etc).

Visit the new website now at www.football4football.com

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.

Having successfully redesigned the new website for Atlanta based Pregnancy & Newborn magazine, the Pixel8 design and marketing agency in Manchester, UK is very pleased to have received this recommendation:

“Pregnancy & Newborn is the leading pre- and post-natal publication in the US.  Late 2009 we undertook the challenge of refining our web channel in hopes of delivering a more engaging web presence for our readers and advertisers.

In our RFP process we received several great proposals – but a key piece we were looking for in our web designers was the ability to create something fresh for the US market.  That is why we ultimately chose Pixel8 to redesign our website – their track record demonstrated their design skills and we knew a UK based company would dare to be a little more innovative.

Throughout the Pregnancy & Newborn website redesign project it has been a great pleasure working with Pixel8.  They were able to take minimal requirements, relayed in layman’s terms, and translate them into a fabulous new web presence for us.

They understood what we were looking for – something upscale and stylish for our readers to enjoy in conjunction with their print magazine.  Pixel8 delivered an engaging, easy to navigate website for us.  In addition it has also been designed with the editors in mind and it has proven to be extremely user friendly for P&N staff.  We particularly like how easy it is to configure content for our surveys and polls, and also add articles in our Baby Buzz section.

The project proved how easy it is to work in a global environment – given that we are in Atlanta and Pixel8 are in Manchester – it was remarkably easy to communicate and get things done.

I have also been extremely impressed by how much was delivered for the fixed fee.  I feel we got great value for money and Pixel8 has continued to be very responsive throughout the launch period.

I would not hesitate to recommend Pixel8 in Manchester, and I would absolutely engage them again in work for Pregnancy & Newborn as we further enhance the website.

It’s great to have great partners who are professional and fun to work with.”

Joanna Pritchard, Ph.D.

Marketing and Insight

Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine

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

The web design and corporate branding teams at Pixel8 in Manchester have launched a new brand and a new website for a UK business locations portal.

locations4business provides comprehensive and comparable information on all potential business locations in the UK. It’s a one-stop-shop for companies within and outside the UK looking to establish new business operations.

The website helps existing companies, start ups and investors to find the best locations for their organisation and provides detailed information required to make an initial evaluation.

Pixel8 created the brand identity, a new logo design, the website design and web development of a CMS system and an integrated database.

The new website be found at www.locations4business.com

As part of our ongoing web support services for our client, the Expert Patients Programme, our web design and online marketing teams provided them with access to our easy-to-use email marketing system.

First, we designed and developed an HTML email template for their Self Management Division and integrated it into the content management system (CMS) of our email broadcasting system.

After an initial email marketing training session with the client, they were able to insert the text into the email campaign using the content management system which features a simple to use WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor with the ability to edit text and images, insert banners and links to their website or to other organisations such as the NHS.

When the email content had been added, it was a simple case of uploading the mailing list as a CSV file and using our email broadcasting system to send the email out to members of the Expert Patients Programme and the Self Management Division associates.

Once the email campaign had been broadcast, the client used our live email reporting system to browse through analytics and statistics including the number of times the email had been opened, which links had been clicked on and which email addresses caused a bounce back.

Pixel8 recently provided website redesign and web development services for the Expert Patients Programme website, to find out more please click here.

For more information visit our web design or our email marketing portfolio pages, or call the Pixel8 design and marketing agency in Manchester on 0161 228 6489, 0845 230 1336 or contact us today by e-mail

In addition to providing web design services for the Tullis Russell Group, we also provide web hosting and website support services.

Part of this work has recently involved updating their website with additional product information and stockist information. We also carry out routine maintenance on their Linux web server including downloading and installing the latest server software updates and patches. We now also provide Google analytics consultancy.

We look forward to our continuing our web support services for Tullis Russell in 2010 and to increasing visitors to their website through our search engine optimisation (SEO) and SEO copywriting services.

This week we had something to really smile about, as we will once again be working with one of the UK’s top dental experts Dr. Paul Tipton.

Tipton Training have asked us to design a new logo, create a new website design with search engine optimisation (SEO) and to design new print materials including business stationery and marketing leaflets.

Based on our previous successful creative graphic design work we carried out for Paul whilst at St. Ann’s Dental, it’s a job we’re really looking forward to sinking our teeth in to!

The problem with a lot of website contact forms which then email the contents, is the problem of SPAMBOTS which crawl through the web, looking for forms and filling in the fields with junk before sending them to the recipient.

One way of battling this problem is with form validation one form of which is the CAPTCHA method whereby the user has to fill in the image shown to them at the end of the form. SPAMBOTS cannot “read” this image so the contents of the spam is not forwarded on and only human responses are received.

So to reduce SPAM for our telecom client Vodat International, we have just implemented the CAPTCHA form validation which should dramatically reduce their SPAM and wasted time. This has been undertaken as part of our ongoing website maintenance, online marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) services for Vodat.