TIMES HAVE CHANGED! Thanks for reading our

first newsletter as Stunn Ltd. It’s been a huge

couple of months for us both internally and with

client work. We’re very much looking forward to

showing you what we’ve been up to in a bit more

detail than a web site like ours allows.

Stunn was officially born in June of this year

after a lengthy process of internal consulting,

design and redesign. We felt that our forward

face needed to be more representative of what

we actually do. We understood that TVS Media

was very much viewed as a web design company

and that we were undifferentiated in a busy

market place. It was time for a change and while

TVS has been good to us, we we’re pleased to

say t’ra and move on to pastures new.

We decided that the brand had run its course.

A new web site was needed to fully represent

us and our name had become problematic.

Almost fifteen years have passed since we first

introduced TVS Media. The meaning of which

had been lost in time. When we started the

business, “media” was a by-word for new media

and all that came with it. Over time, it became

a word associated with half baked degrees and

eventually, we’ve come full circle, back to the

80s and we’re back into media meaning the

homogeny dominated by the press and telly..

which isn’t really us either.

So here we are, new name, new look and a

streamlined proposition. We’ve bitten the

bullet taken a piece of our own advice and we

are looking forward to the next fifteen years

growing into the new brand.

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE US...

In other news, our lead developer and company

Stalwart Matthew Bruce has joined Ben and I

on the board to bring an extra dimension to the

management team and to allow each of us to

concentrate more on our strengths. Matthew

has worked with us for over a decade and

we’re delighted that the relationship has been

cemented in this way.

In a final piece of internal news, we’ve also been

refitting the studio - there’ll be some photos of

that soon, once the finishing pieces arrive, but

with everything else changing, it seemed daft

not to make things more compliocated than they

had to be.

We hope you enjoy the new look us!

Karl

Karl Baxter, Managing Director

karl@stunn.co.uk

DDI: 0121 616 0093

@WEARESTUNN

2

Orginal Factory Shop

The identities and abstracts from the design

boards produced for Original Factory Shop

in store AW2102.

3

It’s been a fantastic period for us working with

some fantastic new clients; none moreso than

Original Factory Shop.

We were instructed as part of a complete

repositioning of the instore clothing offering

at OFS to refresh the existing Tendresse &

Originals brands and to provide graphics,

branding and artworking for three further lines

as the buying team at the ever growing retail

powerhouse now have the opportunity to flex

their muscles with a more comprehensive in

house offering.

Our remit was to provide new logos for each of

the five brands and to carry wider contextual

design through swing tickets, hangers, back

neck labels, bra cards, purse cards and general

packaging.

The brands were required to stand in their own

right, each targeting a different demographic,

ranging from young “fast fashion” through

to a more discerning, yet price conscious

core audience. Alongside the three distinct

clothing brands, Originals (wardrobe basics)

and Tendresse (lingerie and nightwear) were

expected to have a broad based appeal to as

many customers as possible.

The process began with mood boards to set

type styles and colour pallettes which could

be viewed independently and collectively to set

the general mood for the labels. From there

we moved through the design process into logo

design, supporting typography and graphic

ornaments and finally into artworking of the

STUNN REPOSITIONS WOMENSWEAR FOR ORIGINAL FACTORY SHOP

swing tags and labels.

The designs were signed off in early July and

are currently in production ready for an autumn

/ winter launch this year.

The process was complicated by the supply

/ buying chain; much of the production is

undertaken in China and as such, the creative

and artwork had to be made with absolute

clarity of instruction to prevent errors and slip

ups, as there is simply no time to get it wrong.

We’re very much looking forward to seeing the

results in store and we’ll post a blog with some

photographs as soon as they are available.

Our Remit

› Research and exploratory reporting

› Typography

› Corporate Identity

› Graphic Design

› Technical Artworking

› Visualisation

› Pre-production

For more information on our creative and design

services, call Karl Baxter directly on 0121 616 0093.

4

Late May saw Stunn installed on the creative

roster for Performances Birmingham,

operators of the iconic Birmingham Town Hall

and Symphony Hall venues.

THSH decided to move away from a traditional

ad agency model, retaing a single supplier and

instead have instructed a small pool of local

creative agencies to supply the marketing

output, utilising a newly created marketing tool

kit.

We’re mostly producing display advertising and

large format graphics for bannerstands and in

venue graphics.

We won the contract via an open tendering

process, completed in May, which involved a

series of creative exercises and a process and

cost scoping exercise. The pitch team of Karl

& Annie are now taking a lead on servicing the

creative and key account management.

We were invited to a meet and greet with the

marketing and programming teams along

with the other agencies on the roster for a

performance by The Imagined Village at the

Town Hall.

We believe that the new set up is not only an

excellent strategy on the part of Performances

Birmingham, but that it also encourages close

peer interaction between local creatives and

digital practitioners. We’re looking forward to a

long and happy working partnership.

PERFORMANCESBIRMINGHAM

5

Page by page

The image on page eight is a pull up banner

graphic. The images on this page are a

variety of display ads produced for a range

of local and national magazines.

6

KARMAN LAUNCH

Pictures by Karl Baxter

Nilima Devi

Director and Founder of the Centre for

Classical Indian Dance, Leicester takes

to the stage to talk about the Karman

Project, the exhibition, book and supporting

literature for the tour was designed here at

Stunn

7

8

Karman Launches

Thursday 14th June saw the launch of the

Karman living archive project at LCB Depot,

Leicester.

Karman - The Living Archive is an oral history

project and growing archive with touring

exhibition, documenting the history of classical

Indian dance, with particular focus on its UK

reach, and key stakeholders such as Nilima

Devi, of the Centre for Classical Indian Dance

in Leicester.

Introduced to the project by long term co-

conspirator and project curator, Simon

Redgrave, our brief was a simple one.. to provide

movement. We were commissioned to produce

a touring exhibition, a book and the supporting

literature for the exhibition itself.

The exhibition has now left the LCB and is

touring public buildings around Leicestershire

Hamilton Library, 0 3 – 17 July

St Barnabas Library, 17 – 3 0 July

South Fields Library, 31 July – 15 August

Belgrave Library, 0 3 – 17 September

BBC Radio Leicester, 01 – 17 October

Curve Theatre, 0 8 – 19 November

Highfields Library, 19 – 3 0 November

You can read more about our involvement and

approach on our web site www.stunn.co.uk

9

From left to right

Enjoying a drink folowing the formal launch

Dance Performance a highlight of the event

Dawinder Bansal, Project Manager

Simon Redgrave, Project Curator

10

Cash Genie recently instructed us to help

with page and form design to improve user

experience and conversion rates on their web

site.

While it’s never an exact science, best practice

goes a long way when bringing a new usability,

or conversion strategy in. There’s a hit list of

CONVERSION, CONVERSION, CONVERSION“must do” tasks that have to be actioned before

any of the really clever stuff can begin. Doing it

first means that any money you’re spending on

the clever stuff is being bought with additional

profits so there’s real benefits to getting the

simple stuff right from the off.

We say simple, but it’s definitely an “easy when

you know how” situation and you see the same

11

inherent issues with almost every project. The

problem comes when branding takes priority

over goals. The alternative is something that

bricks and mortar business has long understood;

when you work customer first and your primary

aim is to provide exceptional customer service,

with your brand messages fitting around

that customer experience - balance between

customer needs and secondary business goals

are improved.

In this specific example, we compiled a list of

known issues and a number of softer advisories

to address both calls to action and obvious

points of abandonment. To be clear on this,

Cash Genie got a lot of stuff right, and we saw

our job as very much a spit and polish.. the valet

before the showroom.

Our Work

We redesigned the home page and application

forms with a no nonsense business first

approach. Calls to action were made far clearer

and more immediate - any graphical and

copy elements that were not essential to the

application process, or trust building were given

far lower priority and what was a 3 step form

was amalgamated into a one page application,

with progress bars and simple explanantions of

why information was being asked for to guide the

process and give the customer a firm indication

of where they were in the user journey.

The updated UX is currently in production and

will be live late July.