The Brand Surgery - Branding Agency, Graphic Design and Website Design in Worthing, West Sussex

The Brand Surgery website is nominated for the Design Award 2010

The Brand Surgery has been awarded and recommended as a top rated web design and development company by Web Hosting Search who provide some of the best web hosting reviews on the internet.

Ten companies were nominated, but only five went through based on the following  criteria:

• Quality
• Aesthetics
• Design Composition
• Function Response time (for web design)

If we are winning awards like this for our website – imagine what we can do for your website! We also specialise in marketing your website (blogging and Facebooking) so everyone knows about it. All the companies we create blogs for have reach page one of Google for their chosen keywords.

Call Vicky Vaughan at The Brand Surgery – the No. 1 website branding and website development agency in Sussex, on 01903 824229 for a free, informal chat and to find out how we can improve your business website.

The Brand Surgery supports The Community

It’s been nearly two weeks since Worthing Idol 2010 took place for the very first time. My charitable organisation, Talent Within You,  has been inundated with requests to make Worthing Idol an annual event. First of all …. congratulations to Rebecca Buxton who won £250 towards her talent (first prize) courtesy of Worthing Town Centre Initiative. Very well done to Tara Hill (Irish Dancer) and Team Foxy (Paige Latham and Harry Morley) – both teams danced their way to 2nd and 3rd place and received M&S vouchers kindly donated by Cllr Carol Molineaux.

We are very grateful to the local press, The Argus and Herald newspapers for giving this event such excellent publicity. The day was fantastic – Simon Osborne gave his fee up to Pete McIntosh, so he could help us with the running of this event. We have to say – Simon’s immaculate attention to detail meant that Worthing Idol ran like clockwork. Even though our co-founder, Mike Pisko, our co-founder, was away playing golf on the day, he did help with the organising most of the raffle prizes and the auditions – thank you Mike.

The line-up of talent was amazing. Anyone who watched this event will agree that this team of Worthing talent would have definitely got through to the final of Britain’s Got Talent.

Thank you to everyone who helped. Worthing Town Centre Initiative who helped us to fund this event, Foundry Press of Horsham, who printed all the brochures and programmes, Ivy Arch Studios, Barclays Bank, Glue who filmed the event (we’ve yet to see their work, but feel confident it will be excellent), Proto Restaurant Group (Andy Sparsis who gave up his time to judge the event), Tim Loughton MP (who also donated money to Talent Within You and give up him time to judge), Carol Molineaux (who judged and has also been most generous in her kind donations to Talent Within You), not forgetting Amelia Regnante who was our expert judge, and helped us with the auditions.

Last, but by no means least. Thank you to all the volunteers who gave up their time on the day. This includes: Cllrs Paul High and Kevin Skepper, my wonderful family (mum, Bill, Oli, Yvonne & bump), Loraine from Barclays Bank, Lorraine Hawkes from Worthing Town Centre Initiative who played the keyboards wonderfully, and all my staff at The Brand Surgery who worked tirelessly on the website, programme design, blogging, PR and kept me sane through the event planning process.

If you want to set up a charity and run an event, we are now experts in this area too! If you want good PR, we can create  successful press release writing which will give you good results.

Call Vicky Vaughan at The Brand Surgery (also founder of Talent Within You), on 01903 824229 if you would like us to help you with event branding or planning.

Pan Asia group of Thai restaurants, Worthing and Lancing

Wow! Carabao’s new website is here. You need to visit this Thai Restaurant and Steak House in Worthing, West Sussex to experience the best Thai ever!

Do you know what Carabao means?

Wait for it … Carabao is a domesticated subspecies of the water buffalo found in Thailand. You can sample some organic buffalo on Carabao‘s main menu.

The Pan Asia group is a brand new chain of Thai restaurants in Worthing and Lancing consisting of: Carabao Thai Restaurant and Steak House, Mr Toy’s Flying Wok (opening soon), and Tuk Tuk Kitchen.

So why have we used an elephant for the Pan Asia logo?

Well … This stylish restaurant has a room upstairs called The King’s Room. You get to The King’s Room via the funky spiral staircase which runs up from the middle of the ground floor restaurant. In The King’s Room, you will find an elephant statue. We created the logo from a photo of the elephant which is up in The King’s room. Clever hey!

Carabao is great for a romantic evening out, an office party, and even a spot of business networking in The Kings Room. Carabao Thai Restaurant and Steak House are taking Christmas party bookings now. The Christmas menu will soon be published on the website.

You can view the full menu online and see the different food available. From Grilled Prime Sirloin Wrapped with Betel Nut Leaf to the vegetarian menu and the lunch time express menu.

In the meantime, if you need to market your business or your business website needs a rebrand, give us a call on 01903 824229 now for a free informal discussion. The Carabao website uses our CMS (content management system) admin system so our customer can update his menus himself, Wordpress blog setup for excellent SEO and Google rankings, e-marketing setup to encourage visitors to the Carabao website, and of course all our websites are W3C tested which means our website pages are of the highest quality.

© The Brand Surgery, website design and web development based in Worthing, Sussex. Serving the south east including Arundel, Billingshurst, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Chichester, Littlehampton, Shoreham by Sea, Steyning, Storrington and Worthing.

Richy Moss graduating at Sussex University

Meet Richy. Our clever, but non-geeky web developer. Richy joined our branding agency a few weeks ago. As you can see he recently graduated and is sporting a Computer Science BSc certificate in the photo above. Richy lives in Worthing, and when he is not working, he loves playing football at County level for Worthing United.

Naturally, we grilled Richy to find out his loves and hates, and here are his replies:

VV: So Richy, when you’re not working on websites or playing football, what do you like to do?
RM: Going to gigs – The last one we went to was Greendays.

VV: What kind of music do you like?
RM: I love anything really. Rock. Anything. Eclectic I suppose.

VV: So what is your food?
RM: Roast Lamb and mint sauce. Yummmmmmmm.

VV: So what is this Computer Science degree all about?
RM: I was on a cutting-edge course at the University of Sussex which was rated in the top 15 of UK universities for the quality and volume of our research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). UoS taught us core skills such as Java programming and teamwork, SQL and relational database management, as well as professional issues and career development, with a focus on employability.

VV: So what will you bring to our customers?
RM: Fresh ideas, innovative approach – although I know you have oodles of that already. My work will compliment your award-winning branding agency.
VV: Oooh. Richy. Keep it coming!!

VV: Do you have any bug bears?
RM: Yes, bad functionality makes my blood boil. I hate it when things don’t make sense – like when you click somewhere on a website and what you expect to happen just doesn’t happen! Usability is key to website success. I am not a lover of flash websites and I detest seeing frames.

VV: What is your favourite website?
RM: The BBC site is excellent. I love the polished design and good functionality. It is very easy to use.

VV: While researching for this blog, Richie, look at these awful websites we spotted! They need help!
• http://havenworks.com/people/a-z/b/biden-joseph-robinette-jr/
• http://yvettesbridalformal.com
RM: Yuk. They are vile! They should come with a health warning – could seriously damage your eyesight. Are these for real?

VV: So what about website design then? Funky backgrounds seem to be fashionable right now. Do you think it will last?
RM: Yes probably because screens are getting larger all the time, so now there is more room for visual impact.

VV: Any last words?
RM: All the website development projects I work on are naturally W3C standard compliant, paying special attention to semantic mark-up to ensure our customers websites make more sales.

VV: Welcome to our team Richy!

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. The Brand Surgery’s speciality is branding websites combined with good functionality. So if your website is letting you down, don’t fear. Call us on 01903 824229 to have a no-obligation chat about your website. The Brand Surgery, branding agency in West Sussex serves Brighton, Portslade, Shoreham, Worthing, Littlehampton, Arundel, Chichester, Portsmouth, Horsham, Crawley and the Gatwick Diamond area.

DO A MADONNA

The day has finally come. DO A MADONNA!™ has been printed! Hoorah!

The book should be available on Amazon.co.uk within the next two weeks. However, you can pre-order the book on the website by clicking here.

Writing a book has been a steep learning curve. The writing was the easy part! The proofing, liaising with the print company and pre-press was the main challenge – and we deal with pre-press departments every day! I can’t imagine what it would be like dealing with these book printing companies if you had no experience whatsoever.

With the above said, we are looking forward to marketing DO A MADONNA and I am looking for speaking opportunities to launch it. So if you know of a venue or organisation who would like to book an interesting talk, this is the one for them. Guaranteed to stimulate people, even during the graveyard shift!

A little bit about DO A MADONNA …

Keeping your brand alive takes much more than plonking a new logo on a new brochure or website. You are your business and this ten-step book will help you on your way to business success. DO A MADONNA!™ is a handy-sized book which will help you discover the ten secrets of successful branding and it also contains tips on colour psychology, plus much more!

You will learn that even well known companies make branding blunders. DO A MADONNA!™ will teach you how to learn from their mistakes

It’s time to get your business into the groove. It’s time to Express Yourself! Soon your business will be good enough to grace the cover of Vogue!

Priced at only £10. Let Your journey to WORLD DOMINATION begin.

5% of all book profits go towards Madonna’s charity: http://www.raisingmalawi.org

Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

We are celebrating here as our blog portfolio is forever expanding. We’ve been blogging for a number of clients for over a couple of years now, and the main healthy slice of feedback is … that our blogs have PERSONALITY. They have even been described as LEGEND! We all know that it is essential that your brand has personality, and blogging is an ideal medium to channel that personality. And what’s more important, is that your blog does its job well. Our blogging works as our customers have seen increase in their sales due to their website being ranked higher in Google.

Question: What have garden decking and Eddie Izzard got in common?

Answer: Decking is tough and durable, just like Eddie Izzard it seems. If you didn’t know this, Eddie Izzard celebrated completing 43 marathons in 52 days! Wow. Eddie raised over £200,000 for Sports Relief. Read the rest of this blog by clicking here.

What is the relevance of this Q&A? Our client wanted us to mention Eddie’s amazing triumph and said if we could link this story successfully, then we were truly amazing!

______________________________________________

So, if you’re having a problem thinking of something to blog about, you know who to call …

Vicky Vaughan, managing director of The Brand Surgery has just published her book, DO A MADONNA!™, and it seems her writing talent is perfect for blogging. So if you are thinking about having a new website, apart from it having an excellent brand image and logo, you will want your shop to be found after all that hard work. Therefore, give us a call on 01903 824229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk to add a blog to your existing website. We can brand it up to look exactly like your current website.

Proto Promotions Team jackets designed by The Brand Surgery. Photography by Studio IV.

It’s official! The Brand Surgery are now designing clothes and teamwear!

Our client, Proto Restaurant Group commissioned us to design some jackets recently. The design brief was: Proto Restaurant Group wanted a Formula One feel for some corporate team wear for their promotions team. The jackets would be worn at events such as the Splash FM Awards 2010, and other sponsored events. They asked us to brand the jackets with their logos and awards. We also designed some hats, t-shirts and chocolate boxes. We are very proud of this latest extension to our design services.

You can read about the Proto promotions team on their website blog, which we also design, develop and write. Click here to read more about the Proto promotions team and to read our blog writing.

When you have a logo designed, why not advantage of promoting your brand. We produce a number promotional products. Do you remember our Beat the Recession, Make an Impression packs? If not, click here to read about them.

If you have a logo that simply needs refreshing, this can easily been done, without breaking the bank. Call Vicky on 01903 824229.

Viking passengers experience 39 hours delay

I don’t know … I’ve been gone for two weeks and the blogging has just stopped. Luckily I came back when I did …

It is actually a major miracle that I made it back after my Egyptian adventures. Drift snorkelling isn’t for Vicky Vaughan. Especially when one’s face mask doesn’t fit. And double-especially when one is extremely short-sighted. Treble-especially when there are twenty identical looking boats which are 200 metres apart, with a strong current and you can’t remember the name of your boat. I have to say that my drift-snorkelling experience was pretty scary, and I am not sure if I still want to swim the channel to raise funds for my charity, Talent within You next year.

Bad Branding Experience

The swimming was just one adventure! The second was my delay coming home. We were delayed by 39 hours and 40 minutes no thanks to Viking Airlines. The worst part about our delay was that Viking couldn’t be bothered to communicate with its 200 passengers in person. They faxed a letter to Sharm airport to tell us the plane had been cancelled. I was travelling alone and if I hadn’t been so well travelled, would have been very frightened. To Viking’s credit, they did provide accommodation for two evenings. If they had of been honest and said we would be staying another two nights, we could of relaxed. Instead, they had us check-in and check-out of the hotel three times. We had four departure times conveyed to us via an Egyptian rep with pigeon English.

The above experience has left me with a bad memory and is what I call BAD branding! Viking should be sitting on the naughty step for a long time. They have broken their brand promise which is (according to their website): Our experienced team has a philosophy of excellent customer service to ensure your flight experience is exemplary.We look forward to being of service to you! LOL!

The last bad experience was with Breo watches. I purchased a Breo Roam watch on the outbound Viking flight, and it was supposed to be water resistant to 10m. Well trust me, Breo watches  are not water resistant. And what’s more, they will not give me my money back because I have no receipt, thanks to Viking Airlines! Answer from Breo to my request for a replacement or refund: Apologies for the experience with the watch. Unfortunately, In accordance with our Returns Policy (http://www.breo.com/customerservices.php) “Returns and exchanges will only be processed if accompanied with proof of purchase. This includes all airline purchases and items bought through resellers”. What an utterly useless response when Viking couldn’t even send a plane to take me home so I could get a receipt!

Good branding experience

Good branding though is the service I received from HSBC holiday insurance, which comes free with HSBC banking. They refunded £25 per 12 hours (OK a bit stingy I know), but they did it by BACs on the phone. It was so easy. Thank you.

So after all of this, I did have a great holiday. We stayed at Three Corners St. George in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The weather was gorgeous. I had great company with my friends who I met at the hotel. I would go to Sharm El Sheikh again – it’s great to be able to trust the weather in March.

While I’ve been away sunning myself, my brand doctors and nurses have been busy working on three websites, brochures, rebrands and adverts. We are also writing a number of press releases for businesses on a national level. Plus the long awaited book, is back from the proof reader, and we are just about to send it to the publisher.  Go to www.doamadonna.com for a sneak preview! Watch this space!

Call Vicky at The Brand Surgery (best branding company in West Sussex) on 01903 824229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk if you would like to give your business some urgent branding medical attention.

Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

Now imagine the situation … You’ve just spoken to a prospective client, and he wants you send him or her some information about your company. This could be the deal of the year. Oh no! You’ve run out of brochures! So you ask your designer to send you a PDF of your brochure – problem is that it’s a massive file and you send it and it clogs up your prospective client’s inbox. Oh dear! You’ve lost the job.

If you want to avoid this happening, look no further. The Brand Surgery, branding and website agency in Worthing, West Sussex have launched a online publication service. This new service is great for allowing your customers to see your brochures and magazines online, which means this can reduce your printing costs. Once your document is online, we will send you a link that you can send to your customers. No more clogged up inboxes – which means a much higher probability of sealing the deal.

You can use the online publication service for almost any document:

• magazines
• newsletters
• brochures
• leaflets

There are more advantages too. Your online publication looks slick and impressive, and look at these extra benefits:

• We can instantly create digital editions of your brochures (unlimited pages)
• We can add links, video, audio and flash overlays quickly and simply – Multimedia is very powerful with high perceived value
• We can send you the code for you to insert a flipbook version of your document (just like the one above) which you can add to your website or blog.

If you would like to see what your document looks like online – send us a PDF of your document – single pages in page order. No crop marks and the PDF must be at least 200dpi. We will send you a link to a preview.

Call Vicky on 01903 824229 to arrange your brochure to go online. If you need help designing your brochure, magazine, newsletter or leaflet we can also help you with this.

The Gate Studio

The Brand Surgery, website designers in Worthing, West Sussex, are proud to announce the launch of a brand new e-commerce website called The Gate Studio. The Gate Studio is part of the AVS Fencing range.

This new colourful ecommerce website is home to a wide range of gates – whether you are looking for driveway gates, garden gates or field gates, there is no doubt that you will find exactly the gate you are looking for. The Gate Studio wooden gates are available in a selection of softwood or hardwood, and their metal gates are supplied in a wrought iron style, with all of these options available in a range of sizes online.

Other website and SEO services by The Brand Surgery, West Sussex

The Brand Surgery also write the blog for AVS Fencing, plus we also design logos for their fencing and mesh range. If this is not enough, we also designed the AVS corporate website back in 2008. If you would like to see other examples of our website services, click here.

If you would like a website, whether it be a static brochure website, or an all-singing, all-dancing e-commerce website, give Vicky a call on 01903 824229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk.