Diverzion... refocusing 11-17yr olds in Reading with responsible citizen skills

I'm helping Gary Small on his Diverzion Initiative by designing and developing their website. The picture above gives some idea of the look and feel the site will have.

Driven by Gary's unceasing energy and dedication, Diverzion is a Reading based not for-profit organisation set-up to work with and refocus 11-17yr olds with responsible citizen skills. Through them, key organisations such as local police and drug and alcohol awareness and anti-bullying initiatives are able to deliver their message at secondary schools and entertainment events.

Diversion depends on the support and sponsorship of other local businesses and industries including Oracle, Haslams and Sainsbury's along with performers and celebrities such as N-Dubz and Simon Webbe to appear and perform; drawing in youngsters to messaging events where they are proven to be more receptive.

Expect to hear more about Diversion soon, but in the meantime, your help would be appreciated. Contact them at info@diverzion.org or 0118 902 8928.

Caricature used by Pilot Pen UK on homepage

Alex Sinclair, a client at Pilot Pen UK, was part of a team of 19 co-workers including the MD Don Skelton, who successfully completed this year’s London to Brighton Bike Ride 2008, in support of the British Heart Foundation.

The 54-mile challenge from the capital to the coast is the largest charity cycle event of its kind in Europe, raising over £42 million, since 1980, for the British Heart Foundation.

To show support, I'd done a caricature of him and emailed it in advance of the cycle run and was flattered to find that it had been featured on Pilot Pen UK's homepage.

If you feel inspired by their efforts it’s not too late to make a donation – simply click on the following link: www.justgiving.com/alexsinclair.

Beautiful pens from Namiki

Pilot Pen's premium line of writing instruments is sold under the Namiki brand. The barrels of fountain pens, rolling ball pens, ball point pens and mechanical pencils are embellished with intricate lacquered designs adorned with gold, silver and jewel tones.

Maki-e (pronounced mah-KEE-ay) is the centuries-old Japanese art of adorning lacquer ware by applying multiple layers of lacquer decorated with powders and flakes of gold, silver and colored pigments as well as thin slivers of abalone shell. The maki-e craftsman starts his work with a drawing of the intended composition. The design is transferred onto the prepared lacquer surface. The task of transforming an outline drawing into a complex decoration of sprinkled powders is complex, lengthy and requires years of study and practice.

For the Namiki Collections, skilled Japanese artisans use the finest materials to create a line of writing instruments that look beautiful and perform flawlessly. They introduce Maki-e lacquering, a centuries-old technique in which multi-layered patterns are drawn on the barrel and cap with urushi - sap from Japanese lacquer trees. The hand-painted designs richly interpret scenes of nature in precious metals and lavishly colored pigments.

Countdown to launch

The countdown to the launching of creatorii on 1st July 2008 continues. I’ve not shown it to many people as I am still fine tuning the layout, content, formatting the blog and coding it to send subscribers emails when new postings are made.

I will next have the interesting task of letting clients, old, new and prospects about creatorii and how and why it differs from what I had been doing previously.

The iimage brand served well for a few years, however it was conceived at at time when integrating online and offline marketing was a relatively new thing. Marketing has moved on and the iimage brand has become obsolete. I explored the possibility of salvaging or re-energising its name, but a new start was the best solution.

In addition, my core strengths have always been creativity and production. I am a one-man one stop-shop and creatorii has been set up to reflect this.