Northfield Arts Trail Self Portrait Success

In March Homer Creative were involved in the Northfield Arts Trail, an initiative of the Northfield Arts Forum. Brian Homer is a member of the Forum and lives in the Northfield constituency, and he was asked to run some Self Portrait sessions as part of a drive to encourage participation in the arts across the constituency area. Sessions were held at Weoley Castle Library and the Visit Northfield Shop in the Northfield Town Centre.

And to kick the proceedings off we spent a day at Paganel Primary School, where they are running a Faces and Places archive project in collaboration with the Local History department of the Central Library. This school session, which included an exhibition at the end of the day, was a great success with the Headteacher saying that it had made him rethink the whole way they do school photography. And the parents got involved too. In fact again Self Portrait worked its magic and produced better than usual parental engagement.

So if you’d like a Self Portrait event in your organisation or school get in touch. We’d love to be involved.

A platform at the TUC

Homer Creative has a long track record of working with and supporting the communications of trade unions. And the Midlands TUC is a client we have worked with for many years. On February 25th we had a chance to talk to a wide range of trade unionists while exhibiting at the West Midlands TUC’s Annual Conference in Derby’s spectacular Roundhouse venue.

The Roundhouse used to be a key part of the extensive railway works in Derby and has now been refurbished by Derby College as a library and conference venue. It seemed entirely appropriate that today’s trade union activists should be meeting in a place where railway workers had previously toiled to build Britain’s trains. Discussion was as lively as ever and as well as talking politics and given the proximity of Derby County’s Pride Park ground, we even had time to talk football.

If you're a trade union looking for some extra support to get your ideas across Homer Creative is the reliable and experienced option. Contact Brian Homer or Sue Race on 0121 551 5544.

A class act on Apprenticeships

Promoting learning and skills and working with trade unions are both things we specialise in, so we were pleased to be asked by Get Better Skills to design a report and leaflet on Apprenticeships and trade unions. Both the report and the leaflet had to get over quite complex issues in an attractive and readable way and we used a clear structure, classic design and great photographs to meet the brief.

Tony Chandler from Get Better Skills is very happy with the result: “The work Brian and the team at Homer Creative did on my report and leaflet on Trade Unions and Apprenticeships was spot on. The design is excellent with great layout and strong images. All in all a class act and everybody who sees it loves it.” We’ve worked with Tony before and we hope to collaborate with him on further work promoting apprenticeships in the health sector.

And if you need to communicate information clearly we can support and enhance your efforts. Call Brian Homer or Sue Race on 0121 551 5544.

Vaarwel Kirsten

Our design intern Kirsten Bangert, from Deltion College , Zwolle, in the Netherlands, is leaving us to go back home and finish her studies. She feels like one of the team after five months and has been a real asset here in Studio 3, so we're all sad at Homer Creative and Twelve20. We hope that after June when she completes her course at Deltion, there will be opportunities to work with her again.

The silver lining is that we are getting a new intern, also from Deltion, very soon. So wishing you all the best and great success for the future, what can we say? Vaarwel Kirsten, we zullen je missen! Maar wij verwelkomen Nathalie.

Dyke House Responsive

It’s been confirmed that Homer Creative are to design and implement an exciting new school website for Dyke House Sports and Technology College in Hartlepool.

Dyke House is an Ofsted Outstanding school and has just moved back into its partly new and partly refurbished building. It is a very progressive school and as part of the rebuild programme they have installed 600 Apple Mac computers including iPads.

We are looking forward to reflecting the ethos and success of the school in the new website. And this is a great opportunity to roll out our new web responsive design package plus an added game element. Parents, students, prospective students and all the community’s stakeholders will soon be able to engage with the site from any device they have: desktop computer, tablet or smart phone. Responding to client need and responding to new trends in communication – that’s Homer Creative. You can read more about responsive web design in our blog here.

Call Brian, Sue or Matt on 0121 551 5544 or email us here and we’ll respond immediately!

A candle for Christmas

With all the upheavals in the world this looks like being the century of the stranger and we are supporting the work Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre are doing to assist all who find themselves strangers in a new land this winter. Our student designer, Kirsten, who has come to us via Bournville College from Deltion College, Zwolle in the Netherlands, has produced a candle design for one of their Christmas cards this year. Using design and illustration skills she produced a typographical image using words taken from the Declaration of Human Rights. We think it's modern, fresh and can be used as a greetings card for all the festivals being celebrated in this mid-winter season. One of four designs on offer, it can be purchased from Coventry Refugee website by clicking here. Proceeds go to their HOPE destitution fund.

Acorn Schools' Annual Reports Impress

Homer Creative have just completed eleven annual reports for member schools of Acorn Care and Education, one of England's foremost providers of education and care for the most vulnerable and hardest to place young people. The challenge, for our creative consultant and senior designer Sue, was to fit 17 tables into six pages and thus keep costs down, but ensure that the readers' toes don't curl. And then to do this eleven times ensuring there was appropriate individualisation in each school's communications while keeping an overall look and feel for the Acorn group.

She met this challenge in her usual, elegant way. The variety of table designs were changed and streamlined and easily understood bar charts were introduced. Areas were sectioned off with boxes, allowing the eye to navigate easily through the information. Each report has key elements from that school's brand identity but all housed in the same clean, simple design style. We also edited information where necessary to fit the space we had.

So a great success down to Sue's design skills and a good working relationship with our client. In fact the style was developed with the first report done for Waterloo Lodge School, and they were so pleased with the look of it that the design has now influenced the look of their new prospectus. Acorn's Marketing Manager has commented on all eleven: "Very impressive when together. Paper quality is spot on. Design works really well for all brands. Brilliant job!!" And according to our creative consultant as well as looking good and feeling nice, they even smell great!

Self Portrait Birmingham: latest update

Our new Self Portrait Birmingham project, commissioned by Birmingham City Council as part of the Library of Birmingham project, was launched at this year’s Artsfest on Saturday 10 September. Over the weeks that followed we set up photographic studios at different locations around the city and, using the latest digital technology, local people were invited to take self-portraits of themselves. And it's gone very well. Brian Homer and Timm Sonnenschein are now editing the images and just amazed at the breadth and diversity of the people who have taken part so far. It is intended that the resulting photographs will form a major installation in the Library of Birmingham, which opens in 2013. But we also hope to be doing more sessions before then. For more information go to www.selfportrait.org.uk.

New breathing workshops can transform your life

Valerie Jenner of Homer Creative is one of three partners in a new venture called Birmingham Breathes.

Her aim is to enable people in Birmingham and the West Midlands to discover and experience Transformational Breath® - a specific breath technique that can bring great benefits in well being and vitality. And we could all do with some of that. There's a chance to experience this for yourself in two linked breathing workshops, on Saturday afternoon 29th October or all day Sunday 30th October. For more information see www.birminghambreathes.co.uk

Bedankt Kirsten

In September Homer Creative welcomed Kirsten Bangert from Deltion College, Zwolle, in the Netherlands on a placement.

Students at Deltion get the choice of work experience at home or abroad, and Kirsten, who has an English grandmother, chose Birmingham because of the links between her college and Bournville College's International Student Placement Scheme. She says, "I've always liked the UK and have picked up English pretty easily." Kirsten will be with us until February. She has already proved extremely useful helping out on our Self-Portrait project and on design work including images for our library section on this web site. Bedankt Kirsten, we hopen dat je een leuke tijd krijgt in Birmingham.