As you’re probably already aware, 2012 is a leap year. And according to some bizarre tradition, this is the year when February 29th is traditionally the one day when the typical order of proposals is reversed and women can pop the question!
In light of the romantic theme and especially after Valentine’s Day this week, we’d like to share this brilliant business idea with you – Shoot it Yourself – who have created some fantastic and novel wedding videos. The idea is quite unique, in that they provide wedding guests with video cameras and ask them to record everything throughout the day. They then pick up the cameras and edit the footage into a fun-packed video, capturing all the best (and usually the funniest) parts of the day. You might recognise them from Dragon’s Den last year, when after pitching their business idea Hilary was keen to invest – and the rest is history!
Here at Lightbulb we’re very excited to see how well the owners have developed such a fabulous brand, and have made their business look fun and accessible to everyone. Also, like us, they understand the power of Social Media, and for Valentines Day this year they set up a Twitter account on behalf of Lionel and Ellen – Britain’s longest married couple. The tweets were heartwarming, and the whole exercise added more depth to their business.
It’s also interesting to see how the wedding video has developed over the years, and now having the not-so-perfect wedding video of ‘behind the scenes’ footage is thought to be pretty trendy. Of course you might want some sensible photos as well, which is what the photographer is for!
Take a look at their promo video – it’s fab!
NEW Shoot It Yourself Promo!! from Shoot It Yourself on Vimeo.
Here at Lightbulb we like to nurture our creativity at every opportunity. As a Brand Design Agency, it’s our job to come up with ideas for our client’s projects, artworking logos, designing websites, creating print material and marketing creatively and effectively within budget.
It’s really important to us that we take time out to feed our creativity, as it helps greatly in contributing to our design projects…
Our most recent team trip out was to Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa exhibition before it closed. We were lucky enough to chose a beautiful frosty day, which only added to the experience of viewing a magnificent collection of pieces set in the beautiful grounds of YSP.
Plensa’s sculpture gives physical form to the intangible, using the body as a way of exploring what it means to be human and engaging with universal themes: love, memory, language and despair.
A reflective wall of prose formed from individual cut steel letters that chime as you pass gently between the suspended strands. Serene carved alabaster heads that appear to glow from within. Resin casts of lit heads embellished with poetry. Life-size body casts of the artist hugging cherry tree’s. Huge copper gongs marked with beautiful text that you were encouraged to touch and interact with.
The entire exhibition was breathtaking and we left feeling inspired. If you didn’t get the chance to see this fantastic exhibition, here’s a video by YSP featuring Jaume Plensa‘s time at the sculpture park. We’ve also added some images to our Facebook page if you’d like to see for yourselves.
Last week, Sophie and Amy attended a Freedom Personal Safety Workshop run by Julie and Elaine in Huddersfield. They are a non-profit-making social enterprise dedicated to giving women and children the skills, knowledge and confidence to keep themselves safe.
The Workshop was fantastic; very insightful, empowering, informative, moving and engaging. To be honest, before the workshop they didn’t quite know what to expect. Amy was hoping we would learn how to drop-kick a six foot man. It wasn’t quite like that, but instead the tips we learnt were simple but effective ways to physically defend ourselves, should we ever be faced with a threatening situation.
“We are now able to understand that we are able to defend ourselves both physically and mentally, and we know how to take control of our own personal safety.”
The session featured various aspects of personal safety, such as;
To download an information flyer for Freedom Personal Safety click here.
We really recommend that you try one of the Freedom Personal Safety Workshops, we definitely benefitted from the knowledge we gained, and cannot recommend them highly enough.
Forthcoming workshops are:
Saturday 18th February at 0930-1100 | Tuesday 13th March at 1800-1930.
They are held at 90 New North Road, Huddersfield HD1 5NE, and cost just £25 per person or £40 for two places.
To book your place please contact Julie on admin@freedompersonalsafety.co.uk
And so a new technological era is upon is – yes, it’s the year of the tablet. And as we’re huge Apple fans here at Lightbulb, we’ve chosen the iPad. Mobile internet usage is set to overtake desktop internet usage by 2014 and, with that in mind, we need to make sure that our client’s websites work just as well on these popular mobile devices.
Then came the big question…when viewing a website on a tablet or smart phone, should it be just a smaller, more condensed version of the original site, or a completely stripped down version which focuses on usability alone? Well after much research, geek reading and conversations on Twitter, we’ve gone with the latter. The way people are using mobile internet is very different to the way they use desktop internet; shorter search terms will be used, we’re dealing with touch-screen devices rather than a mouse, screen resolution is smaller, and users want to get to the information they need as fast as possible rather than casually browsing.
So, after conducting this research project, Lightbulb would like to add a new string to our bow, in the form of LightTouch: the new one-click mobile and iPad service for WordPress installations. This is a highly configurable addition for self-hosted WordPress websites that shows a powerful, well-designed mobile themed version of your website when visitors are using popular touch mobile devices. Once applied, the service works by automatically detecting these devices and serves it’s mobile or tablet-friendly themes.
With the LightTouch service you won’t have to sacrifice on functionality: things like complex menus, social sharing, photos, audio and video, commenting, search, archives and more. And while LightTouch enables all these things, it loads fast and has been optimized heavily for mobile devices, making sure that your rich content is served quickly, whether a visitor is on EDGE, 3G or 4G, or on a Wi-Fi connection.
Is YOUR website ready for mobile internet? Contact Lightbulb Brand Design today, and together we can assess how well your site is currently optimised for viewing on mobile devices. Make sure your business remains one step ahead of the game.
Big thanks to @rachaelkearney, @danieleastweb and @RossWiddows who all contributed to this research.
Email us on ideas@lightbulb-moment.com or call us on 01484 665 707.
We stumbled across an interesting article in The Sunday Times Magazine last weekend, it’s an endearing story about a young man inheriting his Grandfather’s war memorabilia. In the collection was a book of short, sharp dairy entries which documented Private Ross Taylor’s experiences throughout this testing period of time. Intriguingly, they never exceeded 140 characters, and we all know the relevance of that don’t we.
His Grandson Chris Ayres is retelling his story on Twitter, as Chris explained in the article, “It’s fascinating to think that my Grandfather essentially tweeted the first year of the war.”
At Lightbulb stories like this about social media really excite us. As you already know we are huge Twitter fans and this is just another example of how it’s being used – and in this instance, it’s reliving history from one man’s point of view, for all the world to see.
Find out more about the wonders of social media on our website, and you simply must follow @DriverRoss on Twitter – the story is simply fascinating.
Yep, another amazing story about the power of Twitter, and this one’s for a very good cause.
Lightbulb are proud to be involved with project 3hundredand65 – a graphic story which will span the whole of 2012. The basic idea is to create a story on Twitter by having a different contributor every day. Lightbulb are scheduled to add to the story via Twitter on October 31st 2012 (We realise that’s quite far away, but so many dates were already booked up!) Trying desperately to keep up with the fast moving story is David Kirkwood, who’s providing illustrations to the story.
And the whole aim behind this project is to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity devoted t0 improving the lives of teenagers and young adults living with cancer. When complete, the project will fill at least six notebooks, and the work is to be auctioned off to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, with bidding now starting at £120. If you don’t want to bid for the story books you can make a donation at any time throughout the year to support this wonderful project and life-changing charity.
So there you have it; no databases, no hassle, no spam, just a story made from 366 tweets and 366 drawings.
And all for a very – very – good cause.
Hello to all our lovely clients, business associates, friends, neighbours and blog readers. We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! Did you all have a lovely winter holiday?
So, we’re back in the office. Ready to rock. The kettle is constantly on and the biscuit jar has been filled. Bring on 2012.
We’re already excited for the new client projects we have lined up for this year; we’re talking about video, mobile websites, social media campaigns, password protected workshops, business networking events and making lots of new friends along the way.
We hope 2012 proves to be a successful year for your business, and we look forward to working with our existing clients, and new clients throughout the year.
If you might need our services this year, you can reach us on 01484 665 707 or drop us an email to ideas@lightbulb-moment.com. For more information about our brand design services click here.
When it gets to this festive time of year you can’t help but think about those less fortunate than ourselves. Whilst for most, Christmas is a time for family, for others it is stressful and difficult.
The NSPCC‘s was founded in 1884 and their vision is still to end cruelty to children in the UK. They campaign to change the law, provide ChildLine and the NSPCC Helpline, offer advice for adults, and much more.
Lightbulb proudly sponsors the NSPCC and their work on a monthly basis in appreciation of this valuable cause. The NSPCC relies upon donations from companies, donations that help to continue their work protecting children and young people. If you would like to make a donation to support this fantastic charity you can do so on their website.
2011 is most definitely the year of the tablet, and mobile internet usage is set to overtake desktop internet by 2014. Here at Lightbulb we’ve been researching into mobile internet trends and how this will effect our client’s online presence.
There’s been a rapid worldwide adoption and innovation of mobile devices, and the market is recognising the shift in consumer usage. Now’s the time to seriously consider developing your website into a mobile friendly format, to focus on user-experience and functionality.
As a starting point, here’s three things to consider for mobile websites;
1. Simplify: Figure out what your mobile users will be most likely looking for when they arrive at your mobile website. What’s the key information?
2. Divide and Conquer: Figure out how to divide your standard content and features into smaller pieces.
3. Limit: Dedicated pages for easy navigation, a simple header, and context that isn’t too lengthy.
The travel and hospitality sector is one area where growth in mobile internet is increasing at a rapid pace. Stats from ebooker.com find that 70% of mobile hotel bookings were same-day check in – this clearly shows an immediate-requirement trend in mobile usage.
Whatever market sector you operate in, it’s essential that your website maintains its functionality when viewed on mobile devices, with focus remaining on user-experience and your product / service. Contact us today to see how your existing website can be converted in a mobile-friendly site.
Here at Lightbulb we do love Social Media, and we love telling people all about it. This year, we’ve seen lots of our clients embrace Social Media as part of their business marketing strategy – and they’re already seeing results.
The popularity of Social Media has seen a huge increase, as it’s now the number one activity on the internet. Facebook generated over 200 millions users in one year, and You Tube is now the 2nd largest search engine in the world. Basically, we could talk about the power of Social Media all day. But we’ve found a much more effective way of communicating this – in the form of video, of course…
“We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the questions is how WELL we do it.” Erik Qualman
Why not start 2012 with a Social Media marketing strategy? Contact us today to see how it can be used to help your business, and to see how are clients are already using social media click here.
Love is in the air
February 17, 2012
Feeding Our Creativity
February 10, 2012
No-one has the right to hurt us.
February 3, 2012
Is your website ready for mobile internet?
January 27, 2012
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