Provide Design are proud to announce we are teaming up with Marketing Agency BigBird Marketing. BigBird differs from most marketing agencies by pooling the very best resources from Milton Keynes, Luton, Aylesbury, Northampton and the surrounding area and combining them into one super group.

We are surrounded by great talent in this area and BigBird have collected up the best; the cream of the crop of independent writers, designers, SEO experts, photographers, event organisers and more.

Here at Provide Design we stick to what we do best - Designing brand identities, printed materials and websites. Being part of the BigBird network has expanded our expertise enabling delivery of whole marketing solutions that can make our clients really fly.

Find out all about BigBird at www.bigbirdmarketing.co.uk (their rather special website we just recently designed and built).

Things have been crazy the past couple of months but we are now finally fully settled in our new home. We already have some room mates to share the space and the creative buzz here is certainly beginning to grow.

The local paparazzi even turned up to take a look around.

Desk spaces are still available to rent for a measly £200 per month, (depending upon requirements), in this most creative of environments and don’t forget about the free broadband, free parking and it’s über cool historical location.

Oh did I mention the option to use funkbunk as your virtual office too?

If you would like to be a FunkBunker check out www.funkbunk.com for the information you need or call us on + 44 (0) 845 003 9559.

Design and development of a comprehensive news, information and video site for www.businessawardseurope.com.

The website includes a full content management system allowing the users to have full control to add and update news stories, photos and other information relating to the European Business Awards whilst also having the capability of steaming video via blip.tv.

We would like to wish Sam, Provide Designs head honcho, a very happy 30th birthday!

Congratulations!

Now where is the cake?

We need bigger boots than the ones we currently have. Provide Design will shortly be moving to our new, freshly refurbished studio - FunkBunk.

We were seeking new premises to expand into when the perfect oppurtunity arose. Concieved by Provide Design FunkBunk is located in 2500sq ft of converted World War 2 Women’s Airforce base just 15 minutes from Milton Keynes.

As all of this space is beyond our needs, Provide Design and FunkBunk are looking for like minded creative roommates to share FunkBunk with.

Desk spaces are available to rent in this enthusiastic, creative, environment with free broadband, free parking and a very cool location.

If this sounds interesting and you fancy becoming a FunkBunker check out www.funkbunk.com

Provide Design’s über talented photographer Martin BouMansour has a very talented brother; Carl. In fact, if you flick through the pages of July’s Illustrator Magazine to pages 16 -19 you can see just how talented he is…

Carl’s illustrative style has been billed by the magazine as “Bold and intensely realistic without being photographic” and we think you will agree. Carl’s graphical style and use of high contrast lighting in his work make for very dramatic collectors pieces of art.

Provide Design are proud to be able to offer Carl’s amazing work as in intergral part of what we do adding an additonal style to our illustration services. Or if you would like to commision Carl privately please visit www.carlboumansour.co.uk

You can view a PDF of the full magazine article here: Carl BouMansour - Illustrator Magazine

You can view examples of Carl’s work on our Illustration page.

Provide Design are proud to announce that our racing team Forge Racing are back on the Dunlop TVR Challenge podium with a fantastic 2nd place at Brands Hatch on Sunday 15th June.

After a problematic start to the season this was the first race with a trouble free TVR (now set up by Top Cats Racing) and Sam made us proud.

It was an exciting race with a couple of spills and the lead car losing his entire front nose on the pit straight. Sam progressively increased his speed throughout the race, overtaking more experienced drivers, showing massive speed through the corners and moving from his grid position of 5th to an impressive 2nd place on the podium.

More images and an in car video (coming soon) of the race are on www.forgeracing.co.uk

In a small quiet village just outside of Milton Keynes lives a very, very fast car….

… This car belongs to Sam Head - owner of Forge Racing - a TVR Racing team on mission to make their mark on the 2008 Dunlop TVR Tuscan Challenge.

Sam was unbeaten in last year’s series, and had a 100% win record. This year he is back and Provide Design are proud to be supporting him in his efforts to take home some more trophies.

It has not been the smoothest of starts though. There has been mechanical dramas a plenty and one small incident involving a crash barrier but overall things are looking very likely that Sam will be teaching a few other TVR Racing veterans a new trick or two.

Provide Design Milton Keynes have been helping Sam out for 2 years now and 2008 sees Forge Racing furnished with a brand new website, new car graphics (waiting to be fitted) and even the beginnings of their own custom clothing line. We are very excited as if things go to plan Sam will be racing at the televised Silverstone event; PowerNights on June 19th 2008.

Sam Head is now keeping his race diary updated online and has all the details of the season so far:

http://www.forgeracing.co.uk/reports.php

When it comes to web design and development there is always two paths to take - the bespoke service or the ‘off-the-shelf’ package. Personally I feel there is always the right option for the right job.

Take our new site for example, have a look around, poke a stick at it, kick its tyres and click a few links. On the face of it it looks like a fairly simple site but to achieve this it has taken a lot of hard work. However, a lot of this hard work had already been done for us by courtesy of the kind folks at the WordPress camp and its steadfast community.

Started in 2003, WordPress has since grown to become one of the most popular Open Source publishing/blogging platforms who’s developers are entirely focused on aesthetics whilst achieving web standards and accessibility. Its user friendly experience - you don’t need to be a ‘php guru’ use its content management system, built in Search Engine Optimisiation and the ability to entirely customise pretty much everything, make it extremely flexible for the designer, the developer and ultimately the client.

Their ethos towards web development is comparable to ours and when it came to re-developing our site there really was no option but to construct it on the WordPress platform. Sure, a bespoke, personal option would perhaps make us feel a little more special and all warm inside but put up against WordPress and its 5 years of development, its community of developers and constant security and functionality updates, it would seem a little over the top and a waste of resources to fulfill our requirements.

To utilise established, Open Source platforms such as WordPress, CubeCart, Joomla, Vanilla as well as other applications and frameworks such as MooTools, Script.aculo.us and jQuery is like having someone lay down the foundations for a building for you. The hard, messy, yet hidden parts are done and so, as web designers, we are able to focus upon the form and the function of the rest of the “building”. Afterall, we like making things look pretty, that’s why we became designers.

Open Source applications are becoming more and more accepted as viable, cost effective, alternatives to commercial software. We, as many others, now think of it as our 24Hour, One-Stop web development team. They have given us more tools to produce the desired results and meet the demands of our clients.

Our such recent examples include www.shipmanagementinternational.com and www.forgeracing.co.uk. Both sites have different demands but both began as a basic WordPress site. With WordPress anything is possible, that’s why I think it rocks!

However, I must add that with all this talk it probably makes me sound like I am dissmissing a bespoke service, I am not. Yes, I won’t deny we like and regularly build sites on WordPress but there are a lot of benefits of commissioning a bespoke site that shouldn’t be ignored. I am mearly pointing out that today’s web developers and designers need to assess each job on its own requirements and restrictions to choose the most practical solution.

After all, we still go all warm and fuzzy over custom sites.

Welcome to Provide Design’s brand new website. We have been working hard into the wee hours under the Milton Keynes gloam to put together a comprehensive collection of our work and all the information you could want to know about us and what our capabilities are.

This website is based on the WordPress platform allowing us to keep it regularly updated at the drop of hat, no matter where we are. As such, make sure you check back on a regular basis as we will be posting new projects hot of the press, fresh to your screens.

As well as posting new work we will be regularly posting new photographs, helpful hints and tips on web design, development and seo, design industy musings, service reviews and much more (maybe even the odd competition). Be sure to sign up to our newsletter or the rss feed before your leave to stay ahead of the rest.

Enjoy our website - and if you have any questions - please drop us a line.

Sam & Rob - Provide Design