From ideas to ink:
An inside look
There’s only so far a Teams call can take you.
Don’t get us wrong, they do the job. But when it comes to sparking ideas, challenging thinking and uncovering new opportunities, nothing quite beats being in the room together and seeing how things actually come to life.
That’s exactly why we always encourage our clients to visit us.
We recently welcomed Nottingham Community Housing Association for a day of creative thinking and a behind the scenes look at their tenant magazine being produced. The day was all about sharing ideas, opening up conversations and showing what is possible when creativity and production work hand in hand.
We kicked things off with a workshop led by our senior designer and account manager. We provided the NCHA team with an overview of all the ways we can continue to support their external and internal comms:
- Tenant magazines that people actually want to read
- Brand identities that bring newly merged organisations together
- Social campaigns that connect with communities
- Corporate reports that feel clear and human
- Campaigns that work across multiple channels
- Events and conferences that have real lasting impact
As the conversation flows in creative workshops, ideas start to build. Someone spots an opportunity. Someone else challenges it. Before you know it, you are shaping something new together. That is where the real value lies when clients visit, not in us talking at our clients, but in working alongside them to figure out what could be next.
Then we head to the place that usually sparks the biggest reaction. The production area.
Seeing a project move from concept to finished piece changes perspective completely. Watching digital and litho presses in action, seeing how finishing brings everything together, understanding the craft that sits behind every final product. It gives context to decisions made in the creative and logistics planning.
And for housing associations in particular, that matters. You are communicating with diverse audiences, balancing clarity with creativity, and making every budget work harder. Having everything under one roof means we can support that from start to finish. Strategy, creative, print and mail, all connected, all working towards the same goal.
The feedback from the team at Nottingham Community Housing Association summed the day up perfectly:
“Thank you all so much for arranging such an engaging and positive day at your amazing offices! We all had a genuinely beautiful time, and seeing the life journey of the magazine printing was extraordinary. What a brilliant insight into the level of skill and hard work that goes into every project you create. Incredible!”
For us, that is what these visits are all about. And usually a few moments where people stop, watch a press in action and just go, “that’s actually pretty cool.”