Looking back at 2016 – No Grey Creative turns 10

2017 marks 10 years for No Grey Creative. As part of the celebration I’ll be bringing you a series of blog posts with the purpose of sharing my unique business story and also with the hope that you can relate to, learn from and have a laugh at (along with me) my experiences. 
Here’s a look back at 2016…

Let’s get the sad news out of the way: This year I bid farewell to the best friend I’ve ever had. My companion in all facets of my life. My little black Chihuahua, Pippi. Pippi was a friend of many clients of No Grey Creative. She welcomed visitors to the office and often accompanied me to meetings off site at clients’ offices. She truly was an icon of No Grey Creative and probably more famous and recognisable than any other aspect of the brand. When the news spread I was completely overwhelmed by the messages and sympathy that came pouring in from clients. I received countless cards, a modest shrine of flowers and even cakes and macarons! I was so touched and humbled by these gestures and it really made me realise how genuine and caring clients can be and we are all human at the end of the day. It was a beautiful thing to come out of something that was so difficult for me.

Awesome new client for 2016: 2 days after I said goodbye to Pippi, I had a meeting scheduled with a potential new client who was a corporate Christmas Card supplier. Their name was Auscard and I was due to meet Rob and Marg the business owners at 10am. I was an emotional mess due to the events of the last few weeks but I held it together. Luckily Rob and Marg are probably two of the loveliest people you could ever meet and they were very sympathetic and had there own stories of K9 loss to share with me. I don’t know if it was the bond we formed or they were impressed with my creative abilities (or both!) but I won the job to design their next edition of the Auscard catalogue, which was really exciting. The 8 page roll fold catalogue and brochure is distributed to their Australia wide database, New Zealand database and via SNAP and Kwik Kopy stores Australia wide. A huge job that not only involved the design but also styling and co-ordinating the photoshoot of the card range. Below is the covers from 2016 and 2017.

People are actually watching: I had made and uploaded a video about the services of No Grey Creative and a bit of show and tell of folio pieces. To my complete surprise the video clocked 6.6k views within the first 12 months! Which is really incredible, it’s just little old me. If you haven’t seen it yet here it is.

Long term clients start to re-brand: Re-branding is an important aspect of keeping your business fresh and attracting new and old clients attention. Two clients that I signed very early on Danielle Lundberg, Psychologist and Warren Howard of Howardco were looking to rebrand. I had originally designed both their logos and all their marketing collateral. It was an interesting angle for me as I had only ever re-branded a business with the originally being another designers work. It is interesting to see what a difference 5-7 years makes to a business and working on the design for it a second time round. Below are the before and afters.

A new pup joins the No Grey Creative team! It was time to fill the enormous void that Pippi left. We started looking for a new dog. I am a huge advocate for adopting animals rather than going to a breeder and would certainly NEVER buy a pet from the likes of Gumtree, PetStore or backyard breeder. If you aren’t sure why you should explore adoption first then please educate yourself at the Oscars Law website here. To cute a very long story short we found and adopted a wee pup Tenterfield Terrier from the RSPCA shelter in Broken Hill, yes Broken Hill (no where near Melbourne). He was booked on a flight from Broken Hill to Sydney then Sydney to Melbourne with Jet Pets travel service and arrived on 30th June 2016. It was love at first site and we names him Nelson. He is now the office dog and if you’ve met him you’ll know he is a bit more vocal and energetic than Pippi was and brings a whole new element to No Grey Creative. Here’s a pic of him at his first annual RSPCA Cupcake Day fundraising event for No Grey Creative. 

Stand out clients of 2016: