The eagerly-awaited who’s who of the design industry has been revealed by Design Week, the magazine of choice for over 35,000 design professionals and marketers.

Derbyshire-based RJ Design Associates are celebrating 47 reasons to be cheerful after polling some impressive debut stats:

5th highest new entry, 8th place in the most bullish top 100 groups for predicted growth and 47th overall on the Top 100 design consultancy list.

The combination of careful planning, and the launch of a new range of tactile marketing collateral has given Stancliffe an edge within the stone industry, something which Marketing and Communications Manager, Beverley Hill reflects on with a great deal of positivity.

“Working closely with RJDA’s creative team our Box of Stone branding was born”

“Packaging and distributing natural stone samples can present its own unique challenges. RJDA’s creative team, through their expertise and sheer perseverance delivered a winning formula.

The box of stone brand is both practical and versatile and has proved an overwhelming success.”

Fortunately for RJDA their latest creative brief for Derbyshire County Council, entitled Smart Rider, did not end with the infamous Norman Tebbit colloquialism ‘On your bike!’.

Instead DCC’s Road Safety Team were a lot more glowing in their assessment of RJDA’s creative delivery, which featured a brand identity and hand drawn illustrations with a digital twist.

Improving road safety is a top priority for DCC and RJDA have certainly played an important role by project managing the design and digital print of a new suite of training literature to help shape the future of cycle proficiency in Derbyshire.

If you would like RJDA to review your company branding, illustration requirements, or simply explore print management opportunities why not get in touch with our creatives. Email studio@rj-da.co.uk

If you would like to find out more about Smart Rider email roadsafety@derbyshire.gov.uk or click on www.derbyshire.gov.uk

Luxury salon The Hairdressers proprietor Billie Ragosta approached RJDA to look for ideas of how to launch her new Beauty Salon.

When the builders started work on the premises on Castle Boulevard two boxes of letters were found under the floor boards. The correspondence dated back to the 1870′s and many were in Russian, and seemed to indicate a love affair that crossed between Nottingham, France and Russia. The letters and envelopes had an lovely aged patina to them and the handwriting was immaculate.

RJDA used visual elements from letters and rippled this across the new corporate branding to give a sophisticated and bespoke feel to all the marketing elements.

RJDA designed and printed a beautiful brochure with some special finishing techniques employed to give it very high quality feel, along with a new website, photography, copywriting and eshot campaigns.

View The Hairdressers & Beauty Salon website

RJDA are delighted to announce their recent success in a 3 way creative pitch to Warrington based Environmental Protection Group (EPG) for a new logo, corporate ID and content managed website.

The combination of a clean design, classic typeface, revitalised colour palette and a bit of web WOW formed the basis of RJDA’s pitch winning proposition. EPG’s corporate rebrand will be finalised with the launch of their new look website www.epg-ltd.co.uk, which goes live later this month complete with a content managed news section.

The pitch marks the second success in as many months for RJDA, following the East Midlands Agencies appointment to manage the marketing and PR activity for Carbon Composites Manufacturer Atlas Composites.

Minimising your carbon footprint with www.rjdisplay.co.uk

LARGE FORMAT PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS

Following the appointment of Damon Piall as Visual Communications Director RJDA are delighted to announce the launch of www.rjdisplay.co.uk – a product driven website to help maximise your large format print output whilst minimising your carbon footprint.

“With environmental print and green printing very much to the fore www.rjdisplay.co.uk represents a perfect combination for clients as RJ-DA’s marketing experts are perfectly placed to ensure campaigns achieve maximum impact from concept through to print. Add into the mix exhibition print, vehicle graphics, vehicle wrapping, portable displays and rolla banners and the brand new RJ Display.co.uk site delivers a powerful blend of eco friendly solutions for large format print in Derby, Nottingham and the East Midlands.” enthused Damon.

If you have been tasked with improving the sustainability of your large format print make sure you visit www.rjdisplay.co.uk.

Alternatively pop in and check out our new environmentally friendly product range, we are located just off junction 25 of the M1 near Derby and Nottingham.

View our range of Green Products

View our range of Niche Products

View our range of Standard Products

View our Green Machines

Sunday 25th July at 15:26 signalled the end of a tantalising wait for RJDA’s skydiving quintet.

The moment had come for Andy, Ben, Chris, Lee & Ross to finally climb aboard Langar Airways, a true no frills airline, destination 13,000 feet with no seats or landing card!

It was time to put up or shut up and it seems most of the team, notably Rocket Renner, did just that. With barely a word spoken the in flight entertainment was severely lacking and the required altitude was reached all too quickly.

A tap of the shoulder and with rolla shutter doors up there was no backing out now…awaiting our Guys in the Skies the first part of their jump, a 45 sec, 120 mph adrenaline fuelled freefall. Gasping for breath, pulses racing and with ice particles in their beards from a band of thick grey cloud (well Ross at least!) the first 7,000 feet was negotiated with dignity mostly still intact.

With parachutes safely deployed things got a little more sedate and the majority of the team (sorry Renner you did look to be suffering there) could savour the remainder of the experience as they wound their way down over the Nottinghamshire countryside.

With feet firmly back on solid ground the Guys in the Skies would like to say a massive thank you to all of you who have pledged your support and we hope the pictures were worth it.

We’re all agreed Skydiving was an awesome experience but we still have a way to go to hit our sponsorship target of £2,000.

If you haven’t already it’s not too late to sponsor the team…

http://www.justgiving.com/RJDAskydive

RJDA never do anything by halves and on 8^th June we celebrated our 10^th birthday with the biggest all day party we’ve ever hosted.

Clients large and small, old and new, potential clients, local businesses, DNCC members, marketing Derby bond holders, suppliers, friends and the team at Rj joined the party to celebrate a DECADE IN DESIGN.

We kicked off bright & early at 8am by hosting a DNCC breakfast meeting. Visitors were given a tour of the print & production facilities, followed by barbequed bacon & sausage cobs out on our balcony overlooking the golf course. Luckily it’s a covered area so we were protected from the onslaught of the summer rain!

Visitors poured in all day long to join the celebrations, taste the delights from the BBQ and join in the fun, games and competitions in true party style. The skalextric racing challenge with a top gear style leader board was the most popular and a remote controlled car delivery challenge tested the driving skills of our visitors. But it was the old photographs of our team at 10 years of age that provided the best entertainment!

Our welcome plasma screen in reception showcased video footage from our recently launched Creative Sauce Competition and a team building Go Karting evening from last week with commentary by Murray Walker!

Everyone left the party with their own little black party bag filled with goodies and we were left to toast Rob and eat cake!

Fostering good relationships with clients is paramount to RJDA’s success and especially so in the case of Derbyshire County Council.

We recently helped DCC with a FOSTER CARE fortnight, a national campaign aimed at promoting the care of children in ‘private fostering’ arrangements aptly named ‘Someone Else’s Child’.

The brief was to assist the council in raising awareness of the fact they were on hand to provide advice on how to meet the child’s needs and support the carers at the same time and their campaign included TV, newspaper and radio adverts as well as a big stagecoach bus which was a huge moving advert that toured the county for the full fortnight.

RJDA designed and printed leaflets, posters, roller banners, and exhibition stands to support the campaign.
It was hailed as a huge success by the organisers and the stage coach will continue to be used throughout the year….

so keep your eyes open for the big black bus!

The publication of a new Tenants Handbook for Matlock based Dales Housing provided Creative Agency RJDA with the perfect opportunity to substantiate the timely adjective ‘out with the old in with the new…’

A fresh, new 218 page Tenants Handbook was the collaboration and culmination of several months design, print, production and mail fulfillment.

In preference to the previous PVC, ring bound style folders, a paper over board format with magnetic fasteners was chosen – in doing so offering a more eco friendly, modern and contemporary solution – finished to a standard which Tenant Participation Co-Ordinator, Beverley Crowther was delighted with.

“The delivery of the new Tenants Handbook ensures up to date information can be provided to all of Dales Housing’s 3,100 plus tenants on a range of services covering repairs and maintenance to rights, responsibilities and obligations.”

Trusted to deliver just so happens to be the trademark for Babcock International Group and RJDA have taken another step to achieving precisely that with the recent delivery of a range of eye catching exhibition collateral for the Annesley based Networks Division.

Babcock is sponsoring the Technology Zone at the B2B Spring 10 exhibition at Norwich City Football Club as part of their strategy to bring broadband connectivity and internet enabled solutions to towns and rural environments, such as Norfolk.  Babcock has been working with Norwich and Norfolk based digital services application and solution providers to develop new opportunities and services for the business community as well as looking to enhance tourism, retail and local community services through web based hand held devices.

“The first stage of this next generation network is scheduled to be live in summer and will be the first step in ensuring that Norwich is at the forefront of Digital Britain.” commented Chris Turner Executive Director for Strategy and Business Development.

Commenting on RJDA’s involvement Marketing & Communications Manager Emma Attwood added “”RJDA completed the design and print of Babcock’s B2B exhibition collateral well within the timescale agreed and were extremely efficient in responding to last minute changes.  The finished designs were exactly as desired and the quality of the collateral produced was of the usual high standards.  Myself and the Next Generation Networks team are delighted with the end products and would like to thank the RJDA team for their continued efforts”.

February 18th saw Nottingham’s East Midlands Conference Centre play host to Balfour Beatty Rail Safety Challenge Awards 2010.

The annual awards ceremony is a key date in the calendar for Balfour Beatty Rail Operating Companies in recognising and rewarding innovative and creative safety applications across its businesses. The Safety Challenge Awards form an integral part of a group wide goal to make safety personal and achieve Zero Harm by 2012 – values which are now firmly rooted in the mind of RJDA Director Lee Day.

Safety Challenge Awards Event Organisers Sue Sawyer & John Tidyman commented “RJDA have earned a much deserved reputation within Balfour Beatty Rail companies for delivering quality Zero Harm marketing collateral on time, every time, and perhaps more importantly by taking the time to understand the importance of our initiative and the valuable positive impact it is having on all Balfour Beatty stakeholders. RJDA’s work ethic is very much a combination of going the extra mile, taking the time in making things personal which is why RJDA continue to secure referrals and repeat business from key decision makers within Balfour Beatty Rail.”

“On behalf of Balfour Beatty Rail we would both like to say thank you to RJDA for all of their help, ideas, effort and support over the Safety Challenge Awards planning and preparation period. The attendees were extremely impressed with the Zero Harm pillars and overall branding of the conference and I would have no hesitation recommending RJDA.”

Fast forward a few months and a select few dare devils amongst the RJDA team will be free falling at 120 mph, 10,000 feet above the Nottinghamshire countryside.

Lee Day, Chris Reynolds, Andy Gilmore, Ross Ballinger and Ben Edwards are our high flyers that have chosen to stand at the edge of an open doorway in an aircraft flying at 10,000 feet with the noise of the wind and the engines ringing in their ears with only the outline of distant fields below. They will then lean forward out of that doorway and fall forwards into the peace and quiet of the clouds, diving down through the air free falling at over 120 miles per hour. Their canopies will then open and they will begin their descent steering themselves back down to the ground below ………. Well, that’s the plan!

For the guys to head to the skies we need your help! Our aim is to raise £2,000 for the national road safety charity BRAKE that campaigns for zero deaths on our roads.

Every week 49 people are killed on Uk roads. Traffic is the biggest killer of 15-24 year-olds, and the third biggest killer of children aged 5-14, after cancer and diseases of the nervous system.

Please help us to help this worthwhile charity. Its very quick and easy to do – Just log onto http://www.justgiving.com/RJDAskydive - your donation will be very gratefully received.

Thanks!

RJDA teamed up with Globalkey Translations for a day with a difference at Loughborough University’s Holywell Park Conference Centre recently.

Russia Day was organised and hosted by East Midlands UK Trade and Investment (uktiem) to showcase Russian culture, business trends and openings and provided the perfect opportunity for companies hoping to tap into one of the worlds fastest growing markets.

A wealth of industry experts and guest speakers were on hand to deliver workshops and advice to companies across many sectors such as transport, energy, engineering, automotive, media and pharmaceutical.

Working in partnership with a linguistic professional certainly broadens RJDA’s offer and Russia Day delegates were impressed by the fact that RJDA can now combine translation with marketing collateral and web solutions to provide multilingual localised marketing material.

Strong and trusting relationships with clients is pivotal to RJDA’s success and this looks like the start of a long and creative relationship.

Stancliffe Stone, a Marshalls Specialist Business, has appointed RJ Design Associates (RJDA) as its preferred agency to launch a new look and feel and attract attention to its brand.

RJDA won the creative pitch after competing with three other agencies.

The design of a new web site for the business is the first phase of the brief and RJDA are perfectly placed to deliver not just a strong new stylish look for the natural stone company but also focus attentions on initiating their digital marketing campaign.

Stancliffe Stone has seven UK quarries and an eclectic mix of both stone and products and to deliver this message effectively to their target market of architects, planners, and contractors was crucial to the pitch. Stancliffe wanted a style that reflected the key values of the business.

The Matlock based company is the UK’s largest producer of British dimensional stone and Debbie Rogers, Marketing Manager for the group wanted a new look and feel to take the brand forward.

“ Up until now, web and collateral have been developed independently with different suppliers, however as part of our marketing strategy we wanted to see the collateral, web and e-marketing becoming integrated activities. RJDA ticked all the boxes for us as well as giving us the confidence that they were more than capable of acting for our brand.”

RJDA have began the new decade in spectacular fashion with the announcement that they have made the shortlist for Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Chamber Business Of The Year 2010 Award.

The event is the showcase for the county’s most talented entrepreneurs, executives and successful business models and provides a widely recognised mark of quality. For those lucky enough to make the awards night there is a platform to celebrate their achievements before an audience of peers and prospective customers.

This years event will take place on Friday 26th February 2010 at Derby College’s newly opened Roundhouse site – a venue the RJDA team are all too familiar with having already worked on the external branding for the site.

The Awards are the liveliest and longest established in the area and the evening promises to be a glittering occasion compéred by a well known figure.

Only the winners will be entitled to proudly display the award emblem on their stationery, packaging and advertising, so RJDA staff wait with eager anticipation and their digital and litho presses at the ready for a possible stationery reprint!

RJDA were delighted to be part of the recent ‘Peep Schuh’ high street store refit for Schuh’s flagship Liverpool store.

A quick turnaround was the order of the day so, taking designs originated by the client, RJDA were able to print and apply die cut self cling window vinyls in just 2 days to deliver this highly original and eye-catching window graphic – complete with Amsterdam style peep holes!

The new graphics succeeded the 15m x 2.5m pin board style hoardings printed direct to substrate on RJDA’s 2.5m wide Large Format HP Scitex Printer.

Similar innovative point of sale campaigns for the Livingston based footwear retailer have seen the RJDA production team produce a die cut ‘freestanding Adam Ant’ and a series of 1m square post it notes for its Dublin store.