Homer Creative Ltdenquiries@homercreative.com Homer Creative - Clear communication with creative design blog 2012-03-01T12:10:00Q http://www.homercreative.com/blog/feed/atom Homer Creative - Clear communication with creative design blog feed running on finetune cms We're a highly experienced creative communications agency based in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. We believe that getting to know you and your business and building positive relationships is the best way to provide you with the service you need. Our unique approach combines strategic thinking with innovative creativity. We are committed to providing first-class service for clients across the UK in the voluntary and public sectors, publishing, education and business. Homer Creative is about putting plans into action. In other words, consultancy must always be accompanied by a practical solution that delivers results. With our brand development we go further than simply designing a logo and you'll find real-world creative solutions elsewhere on this website in the shape of innovative web development and many aspects of graphic design produced for our diverse list of clients. And we provide lots of further support to help you in engaging people at many different levels. Problem solving is second nature to everyone on our team, so come and talk to us, and together we will find a solution. The Dutch Connection http://www.homercreative.com/blog/permalink/6 2012-03-01T12:10:00Q thebull.jpg There is something about Dutch graphics and design that we’ve always liked. On our shelves you will find books about Theo van Doesburg and the De Stijl movement and a more recent volume called False Flat: Why Dutch Design is so Good. Our own logo uses Jigsaw one of the fonts designed by Den Haag based foundry Typotheque.

So we were intrigued when Katie Finch from Bournville College asked us if we wanted to take a Dutch graphic design placement student. Now we are very careful about placements. With a few honourable exceptions, it has been our experience that work experience at school age seems an afterthought and is often not that well planned. And even at college level it is patchy with placements not always matching students and companies well.

And post-graduation there has grown up a culture of unpaid internships that many companies seem to use to get cheap labour, but which we have always been very doubtful about. So we needed to learn more about the Dutch graphic education system and found out that work placements and developing practical skills is an integral part of the way they train – so we decided to give it a go.

Kirsten Bangert from Deltion College in Zwolle joined us in September 2011 and the experience was very positive. Her technical skills were ahead of what we have come to expect from UK students at both College and Degree level. We found that she was able to contribute a lot to live work with supervision. The Dutch graphic design education system certainly seems to provide students with much better appreciation of technical skills and the world of work than here in the UK, through structured and lengthy work placements.

Kirsten left us in early February 2012 to finish her course and do her exams. We think she will be back! You can download and read her quirky story about her time here in Birmingham and about how she found Homer Creative below together with a set of her photographs.

Meet The Bull download Kirsten’s story here

Kirsten’s photographs download here

And now Nathalie Hop also from Deltion College has joined us and we are looking forward to another good work placement experience.

]]> Introducing Responsive Web http://www.homercreative.com/blog/permalink/5 2012-01-19T13:21:00Q Here at Homer Creative we aim to be very responsive to our clients needs but now we are going to be even more responsive with our website and digital work.

We are introducing Responsive Web design into our client offer. Responsive Web means that your website is designed to look good on any device whether it’s a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone all at little or no extra cost.

This is revolutionising the web. Mobile devices are already used for 7% of web browsing and is growing fast – it’s up from less than 1% only three years ago. So making sure your website not only looks good on mobile devices but works well with any special features like the gestures you can use on an iPad is very important.

And even better it means that in most situations it saves the money needed to develop special Apps for lots of different mobile devices and their different operating systems. This is because with Responsive Web design we can build style sheets specially for each device very easily so on a mobile device your website will look as though its been customized specially and it will look like an App!

We are currently working hard to make our own website responsive so we can demonstrate how it works. We’ll then be rolling it out to our new website work so that our clients can get all the benefits.

To find out more about how Responsive Web can benefit you give Matt here at Homer Creative a call on 0121 551 5544 or email him here

]]> Are we putting our teachers' voices at risk? http://www.homercreative.com/blog/permalink/3 2011-10-04T17:14:00Q As budgets in education are being paired down or completely cut, a worrying trend seems to be emerging. Voice workshops for teachers are being cut. It may seem like an expendable option, but a 2001 government report recognised that teachers could experience long term voice disorders as a result of their work. The worst case scenario in the past has been teachers who could no longer practise their chosen profession because of vocal damage. What a waste! Especially as the evidence suggests that teachers who have voice training will experience fewer voice problems during their careers than teachers who receive no voice training. Professional voice users need support and for teachers I believe it should still be viewed as part of CPD and as a Health and Safety issue.

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