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 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!

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.

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!

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

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.

It will form part of a package of learning resources for members and activists that looks at the reasons for the economic crash and at the value of public services. As we were all state educated here at Homer, all use the NHS and will all hopefully grow old, this is something close to our own hearts. We've interviewed Larry Elliott the economics editor of the Guardian and a whole range of people, some UNISON members, some not, all working as experts in the field, many on the front line of service provision. And we think their arguments are very strong. So watch out for more news about this later.

Our latest web site, for nationally acclaimed educational consultancy Northern Education, went live recently and is proving a great success.

The site is designed to show the benefits of Northern Education's wide-ranging services and to allow the client to manage their own content. It's the first to use the latest version of FineTune CMS, co-developed with our associates Twelve20. Like all our site designs it's easy to navigate with clear signposting from the Home Page. There has been a lot of positive feedback so far with staff at Northern Education finding it much easier to update and change their content. So if you're interested in clean, modern design, clear navigation and a user-friendly content management system, and think your system is in need of an upgrade, talk to us today.

See the Northern Education site here