We are only looking for the best freelancers in Leeds and West Yorkshire. You will need a proven track record of delivering high-quality live projects. You must be a perfectionist who puts the customer first and be fully capable of producing exceptional work within concrete deadlines and budgets.

Placements may be offered on a project by project basis, or on fixed term contracts depending on our schedule. We would therefore prefer individuals who can be flexible.

If you are freelance designer, or web developer looking for work in the Leeds area, then please email us with your details. Please include some samples or links to your work, references, technical proficiency, availability and hourly rates.

Strictly no agencies.

Gateways School

+ Location

Harewood, Leeds, West Yorkshire

+ Market Sector

Independent Education

+ Project Outline

Following a successful pitch against some top regional design agencies, BML Creative were selected to design and produce a new prospectus for Gateways School in Harewood.

Gateways is one of the areas leading independent schools offering an exceptional education in glorious country surroundings. It was vital that the quality of their prospectus reflected the quality of the establishment. So, we set about creating a design centred around high-end materials and understated beauty.

The cover of the prospectus is created by using a clear foil, debossed into a Mirri Silk paper stock, creating a truly elegant front cover.

The interior of the prospectus is printed in 5 colours on a highly tactile Howard Smith Think4 uncoated stock. This was selected for its brilliant image quality and for the close colour match to the reverse of the Mirri cover. The design also features delicate translucent end papers which lead into the main prospectus content.

PHOTO CREDITS: School photos by Roger V Moody, prospectus pack shots by Joel Skingle.

+ Deliverables

• School prospectus design
• Print management

+ Links

Joel Skingle Photography
Roger V Moody

+ Related Projects

Droitwich School Prospectus Design

Firstly I must impress that in general, I am a staunch fan of the BBC. I think that they provide an exceptional service and they constantly lead the way in innovation and quality of media broadcasting. The BBC homepage has been the home page of my work and personal computer for at least the last five years purely because it is the simplest, most attractive and most user friendly way to digest the major information of the day.

Unfortunately the new beta BBC homepage  is not.

I can understand why the BBC feel that they constantly need to innovate. There is exceptional pressure on them to push the boundaries of media communication and constantly deliver a higher level of service to their users. They are also at the forefront of web technology with an incredible team of technicians and experts on hand to take advantage of the constant leaps foeward within the industry. All this offers the BBC teams an ever-expanding array of new techniques to try out and experiment with. However, just because all this technology is available does not mean that anyone should pursue a policy of innovation for the sake of innovation. Unfortunately, that is just what the BBC appear to have done with the latest beta homepage release.

The ‘success’ of the new home page can only be compared to the existing site and that is what we will use for our comparison. The new site, whilst undeniably an attractive static page, is a big step backwards in usability. The beauty of the current BBC homepage is that it allows you to digest a huge quantity of information easily and simply. The page hierarchy is excellent and the eye flows through the information on the screen in a logical and intelligent way. The new beta homepage is incredibly cluttered. The boundaries between all types of information blur into one, so instead of being able to quickly grasp the latest headlines or sports results, information is lost in a melee of images and ever-competing headlines.

Without doubt there far more advanced features on the new beta site compared with the current version… AJAX windows built upon AJAX windows, advanced rollovers, collapsible menus, in-page loaded content, silky smooth animations… all of this inevitably designed to make using the site a more pleasurable experience and offer the user more in-page choice. Whilst these are admirable goals, there is such a thing as overkill and the new design seems to have forgotten all the elements that make the current BBC homepage such a success – Namely user-led design, intelligent organisation of data, intuitive customisation and superb usability. No-one is saying that the job the BBC web team have is easy, but surely there must be someone else who realises that this beta version just doesn’t cut it?

In short, the new beta BBC homepage is a fail. It’s a disappointing example of evolution for the sake of it and certainly not the kind of homepage that will be held up by millions of users around the world as a bastion of good web design as the current one is. The only positive I can see is that the homepage is a beta version so there is still time to rethink. If this does get rolled out, then I will certainly be visiting the BBC a lot less often, because the first thing I will do is change the homepage on every computer I own to iGoogle – the same goes for the rest of the BML office. I can’t say any more than that…

Please add your comments below and let us know what you think…

New beta BBC homepage:

Existing BBC homepage:

There is little information to be found about the 24 year old American – Her Facebook page, MySpace page and even her own website lack any sort of bio. What is clear is that she values the integrity of her work and certainly doesn’t want to be bracketed into the typical ‘pop’ mould. There is a thoughtfulness in her lyrics and a fragility in her voice that gives every impression of a genuine star in the making.

Video Games a brilliant single and from a design and marketing point of view, Lana’s website that just features her videos and links to social media sites is a bold and effective step in building interest around her music. The video below is also a lovely, retro-filled piece of editing and works brilliantly with the track.

Her double a-side single ‘Video Games’ and ‘Blue Jeans’ is available in the UK from Oct 16th 2011. I think we’re going to be hearing a lot more from this young lady in the future.

More information:
http://www.lanadelrey.com
http://www.facebook.com/lanadelrey
http://www.myspace.com/lanadelrey

Working in the web design industry, it’s hard to forget the trouble, strife and late nights that IE ‘quirks’ have imposed upon us over the years (the hallowed “IE6 fix” memories die hard round here!). So personally, I’m delighted to see Firefox, Chrome and Safari (all far superior browsers in every way in my humble opinion) overtaking the IE users out there. From experience, each of the companies behind these newer browsers have a far greater understanding of usability, web standards and the future of technology than Microsoft, who constantly seem to go against the grain of common sense and mass integration (do not even get me started on the appalling state of Outlook Express!!).

Internet Explorer has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003. There has been a continuing downward trend in IE users due to increased market competition, which now sees them with just 23.2% of the market (as of June 2011). The dominance of Apple and Google in the booming mobile market and continuing reports of security vulnerabilities through IE in a world that is increasingly concerned with online protection, has no doubt been a major cause of its decline.

Over time, with the wider choice of free and increasingly intuitive technology that users have at their disposal, it is inevitable that only the strongest products will survive. So, does this latest discovery finally mark the beginning of the end for IE?…

Let me know your thoughts…

Firstly, we are proud to announce that BML Creative have been appointed by Gateways School to design their new school prospectus. Located in Harewood just outside of Leeds, Gateways is one of the areas leading independent schools and we’re incredibly excited to have been selected following a pitch against some stiff opposition. Without giving too much away, a key feature of the new design will be the involvement of some really fantastic materials which are designed to reflect the quality of the educational standards at Gateways. So, make sure you watch this space in September when the new prospectus rolls off the press.

Our Gateways appointment follows hot on the heels of our successful pitch to Loop Customer Management to design the front end of their new intranet. Loop is part of the Kelda Group who own Yorkshire Water. They handle all of the customer facing issues relating to Yorkshire Water service and employ over 600 people from their state-of-the-art call centre in Bradford. Loop have been named as one of the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Places to Work in the UK seven times since 2003, most recently in March 2011. We’ve incredibly proud to be working with such a high profile organisation and to have made it through the rigorous selection process that accompanies such responsible projects. The new intranet is likely to be completed by the end of the year, so check back in December to see how it unfolds.

A final mention goes to Union Industries in Leeds who have selected BML to design their new corporate brochure pack. Union Industries is the trading name of Ralph Ellerker who were founded in 1795. Based at the fabulous Angel’s Wing building in Leeds, Union Industries are quite possibly the finest bespoke manufacturing company in the world. They specialise in high speed roller doors and work with some of the worlds biggest companies including Tescos and Sainsbury’s. BML were selected because of the strength of our previous work, our attention to detail and our dedication to delivering the finest possible service. We are working on some great ideas for the new pack where their absolutely fabulous hand painted logo plays a prominent role. The pack should be going to press in the next few weeks.

Jacobs Financial Limited

+ Location

Ilkley, West Yorkshire

+ Market Sector

Financial Services

+ Project Outline

BML were asked to look at rebranding a group of financial companies under the heading of Jacobs Financial Limited.

The client wanted to retain a definite link with the previous logos that the company had been using for a number of years. The main motivation behind this was to ensure existing customers were still able to associate with the identity, whilst realising that the new brand marked a step forward in the standard of the company’s image and status in the marketplace.

The new logo uses a clean modern typeface, and a more sophisticated, realistic paint mark to reinforce the quality of service that Jacobs Financial Limited offers to it’s customers.

+ Deliverables

• Logo Evolution
• Brand Positioning

Prospects Marketing Enterprise

+ Location

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

+ Market Sector

Sales and Marketing

+ Project Outline

BML Creative were approached by start-up business Prospects Marketing Enterprise (PME) to help establish their company identity.

PME is essentially a business to business sales consultancy and the client was looking for a dynamic looking corporate identity that would fit well with their highly motivated business approach.

We developed a vibrant, moving ‘p’ symbol to support the clean ‘pme’ acronym which was designed to appeal to corporate markets.

The end result is a striking visual identity that was carried right across the clients stationery, as well as the company website – both of which were designed by BML.

+ Deliverables

• Corporate Identity
• Logo Design
• Business Card Design
• Letterhead Design
• Compliment Slip Design
• Stationery Printing

+ Related Projects

PME Website Design

From next year, Icann will begin taking applications for Internet address names that can end with almost any word and be in any language. Large corporations and cities expected to be among the first applicants.

“Icann has opened the internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination,” said Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive officer for Icann. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us.”

The current roster of 22 TLD’s (Top Level Domains) as well as about 250 country-level domains, will soon be joined several hundred new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD’s), which are likely to include .coke, .google and .nike.

It’s a move that it is open to all, but the cost is likely to be prohibitive to all but the largest organisations, as applicants will need to provide the fee of $185,000 (£114,000) along with evidence to support their claim over a particular name.

This is an enormous decision that is likely to have a lasting impact on the internet market. It might be sometime before the full effects are felt by the average internet user, but there is no doubt the change is coming and it’s going to be big!