This is about doing the next best thing. About being there, even when you’re not there.
Where virtual sermons transformed sofas into pews, estate agents globally have taken to virtual to bring your next home into your existing one. Virtual tours are nothing new and yet perhaps just timely, as people become accustomed to a new way of doing things.
Virtual house tours and 3D walkthroughs have all but seen the end of open houses, at least for the time being, and with no sign of this move being detrimental. Quite the opposite in fact, as the technology supports an unexpected backdrop of record property prices and new home sales. A trend observed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Our very own Nettl studios across the globe have continued to offer virtual meetings throughout the last year. Even when physical stores were forced to stay closed, you could arrange a video chat or call back online.
Adam Whitehouse, studio manager at Nettl of Birmingham in the UK, is happy to vouch for the importance of virtual meetings.
“You can’t underestimate the human factor when working with a business on their marketing or website. Being able to have honest face to face meetings, albeit virtually, has been so important when it comes to maintaining that chemistry. Of course, we look forward to meeting again in person, over a coffee. But the convenience factor of virtual makes me think it’s an option that’s here to stay.”
But Adam believes just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look the business. “We make the most of our fabric backdrops, lanyards and fashion-fit workwear to add some professional whoosh to our Zooms”.
Here are Hailsham Creative, we have made the most of using Streamyard – spending time in advance adding graphics, banners and logos. Animated opening and closing credits with a soundtrack helps to engage viewers.
Ask us if you’d like to discuss some graphics for virtual events or backdrops.
Like many business we have had to re-invent ourselves over the past few weeks. After an initial ‘Lance Corporal Jones’ moment (“Don’t panic!”) and a period of shock, we talked to our franchise operators and were offered an opportunity we couldn’t refuse. To become a Nettl partner, enabling us to deliver better designed and more responsive websites.
Franchise?
You have in the past known us as Hailsham Creative @ Printing.com – printing.com is the franchise that we bought into several years ago, run by Grafenia PLC. This enabled us to offer, alongside our design services, competitively priced, good quality print from printing.com’s main hub while at the same time being able to shop around local suppliers to ensure we got the best price and product for our customers. Brilliant.
So who is Nettl?
Nettl is another arm of Grafenia PLC. It came into being as Grafenia’s response to the changes in the world of print. An increase in the use of websites and in viewing those sites on mobile devices has meant a great change in the design and coding process. Pretty much every business, large or small, that needs printing, also needs a website and, more often than not, signage. Now Nettl can offer it all.
Doesn’t it take years to learn coding and SEO? Don’t you have to keep up to date with fast moving technology?
Yes and yes and the beauty of Nettl is that we are part of a much larger team that includes the ‘Geeks’ – these brain boxes have all of those skills and knowledge and have their fingers firmly on the pulse of the technology world. And they are ours! This leaves us free to do the designing and building of the websites using the latest Nettl software with a wealth of expert support behind us.
So, having made use of the quiet lockdown weeks by doing online training courses, video seminars, test projects and sample sites, we have now gone from offering the very simplest, basic starter websites to being able to offer the best website solution for pretty much any project, with added functionality and integrations, totally responsive for viewing on any platform. See, we’ve even started to talk ‘website’.
Here are some examples of sites created using the Nettl system
inspireplus.org.uk
supportwealden.co.uk
pickhams.com
So where does Accomplice Ltd fit in all of this?
Accomplice Ltd is the name we registered when we became a limited company way back in 2004, having been trading simply as Accomplice before then. When we moved to offices in Hailsham we started the trading name of Hailsham Creative as that better explained what we offered… and where. When we joined printing.com we added that to the name. We now work from a home office in Wilmington, East Sussex and still have close connections with Hailsham so, rather than change name once again when we left Hailsham, we kept the Hailsham Creative name as we’d grown fond of it and our branding was pretty well known. Now we’ve swapped the added printing.com to Nettl and we are offering exactly the same service as before but with with added website ‘wow’.
In a nutshell, we’ve evolved and are pretty excited about it!
So next time you see the name Hailsham Creative or Nettl of Eastbourne North, you’ll know that we are the ones for web… and whatever other design, print and signage needs you may have.
We are delighted with the fabric display range that we can offer to our clients. Here you can see our Mwow! TOTEM pop-up stand, frame and fabric cover. It’s quick and easy to assemble, lightweight and looks and feels great.
Our lovely clients, Experience Holidays were also really pleased with their large curved backdrop:
‘Jim recently suggested, designed and created the Curve banner for us and we’ve just used it for the first time at a consumer show. Not only does it look incredibly professional and eye catching (we even had comments from other exhibitors about it), but I’m sure it will also stand the test of time due to the materials used. It’s easily portable (collapses down into a small carry case), and straightforward to put together. We chose to have a different image on each side of the fabric, so that we can decide which to use at each event and as such it provides excellent value for money too. Thank you Jim – as always your advice and expertise were spot on!’
Angie Watson, Director
Experience Holidays
You can view the full range of fabric displays here: BACKDROPS / BANNERS
In October 2016 we decided to leave our offices in Hailsham High Street and work from a home office. One year on and we are still very much in evidence on the High Street. You can’t turn a corner in the town without seeing something that we have designed or printed.
Once again we were very happy to be on the committee for the annual Hailsham Festival of Arts & Culture and were involved with several of the events. The pop-up-shop in the middle of the High Street had posters, banners, leaflets and programmes, many of which were designed by us. We promoted the Dicker Players productions at Hailsham Pavilion (OK, yes, we performed too!) and helped to organise the 3 Minute Flix movie competition, again at the Hailsham Pavilion.
Some of our local clients include Highcroft Veterinary Group, Hailsham Jewellers, Hailsham Town Council, CMA Karate, What’s On in Hailsham, ESAB, Smythe and Barrie, Ross & Co, Quinnel House, Marlow Ropes, MFC Supplies, Hook & Sons, Hailsham FM, Howdens Joinery, Millies, Firefly Tattoo Company, Experience Holidays, Rare Repro and the Arlington Bluebell Walk, amongst many other small and large businesses, local and national.
So, even though we are working in a small studio surrounded by the trees of Arlington, we are still very much in evidence in the town of Hailsham.
We are delighted with the fabric display range that we can offer to our clients. Here you can see our Mwow! TOTEM pop-up stand, frame and fabric cover. It’s quick and easy to assemble, lightweight and looks and feels great.
