Monthly Archive for January, 2010

ClearlyBusiness – focus on expansion

Published on January 29, 2010 in Web. 0 Comments Tags: ABN-Amro, Absa, award winner, Barclays, business services, Deloitte technology fast 500, Dunn and Bradstreet, Experian, Financial Innovation Award, High tech, Intuit, Iron Mountain, Marketing, National Business Award, Sage, SME, Web, web site.

The new website for ClearlyBusiness will be a focus for future expansion

ClearlyBusiness is a company that was inspired by a number of good ideas. Getting important and market-leading products and services into the hands of small and medium enterprises, through trusted intermediaries was just one of them.

Now, the company’s ground-breaking (and multi award-winning!) ideas are helping to establish it abroad as well as in the UK. More suppliers are interested in having their products distributed, and potential routes to market are opening up as others see the value of this distinct delivery channel.

ClearlyBusiness already works with a number of very recognisable companies including ABN-Amro, Absa, Barclays, Intuit, Sage, Experian, Iron Mountain and Dunn and Bradstreet. The company expects that list to grow over the coming months, especially as their new web site (designed by Wild West) is now on line. (Go to www.clearlybusiness.com)

You’ll see there some of the important business accolades the company has already received – among them National Business and Financial Innovation awards. Clearly Business is also one of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.

Now the company’s new website is showcasing its services in a manner that reflects the quality and imagination powering its growth in Britain and beyond.

All or nothing – start-up businesses

Published on January 22, 2010 in Finance and investment. 0 Comments Tags: branding, design resources, ecommerce, hi tech, identity, investment, logo, new look, real estate, Secerno, SME, start up companies, start-up, technology, Vintage Wine Gifts, web resources, website.

Our work for Secerno included their name, logo and animated web site

Because of our links with venture investors and others in the finance industry, we’re regularly asked to provide the design work that is essential to giving start-up companies the design impetus, and the web facilities, that they need.

Sometimes, they have to emerge like a swan, with a graceful new logo, a web site, product literature and many other kinds of design and web resources. When a company spinning itself out from Cambridge University, previously and awkwardly known as ‘Safetalk IT’, emerged into the commercial daylight as Secerno, Wild West was very proud to be the catalyst in that complete process, including the development of the new name.

When Vintage Wine Gifts emerged, from an entrepreneurial idea rather than some blistering new technology, we helped them too, with a smart and appropriate logo, stationery and packaging and of course, their new ecommerce website.

Our new identity for Vintage Wine Gifts

Putting these companies on the path to success is something we’re proud to do, but it’s difficult to manage in a commercial sense. Emerging companies just don’t have fortunes to lavish on marketing – if they do, they usually crash and burn before they get to us!

While we can’t play fairy godmother to companies like these, we can often find ways for them to reward us based on their own later success, a formula which everyone seems to appreciate.

Just this month, we have been appointed by a real estate investment company who need an identity and accompanying design and web work. Their establishment is still a little uncertain (and what’s not uncertain in these times), but when the recovery gains momentum, our new design work will be there, ready and waiting for these new entrepreneurs to catch the wave.

Short-term contract? You need Carrington!

Published on January 21, 2010 in Web. 0 Comments Tags: accountancy, business services, Carrington, contractors, health service contractors, identity, investment advice, IT contractors, logo, umbrella services, Web, www.carringtonaccountancy.com.

Carrington Group consists of Carrington Accountancy and Carrington Investments, both important advisory companies with an approachable style and award-winning performance, which we hope is reflected in the web sites which we built (and still maintain for them) at www.carringtonaccountancy.com and at www.carringtoninvestments.com. Their smart, colourful logos are also our work.

Carrington offer some special services for contractors, people employed to provide specific services on a temporary basis. Once, it was fairly common for IT specialists to work this way, but now its common for all kinds of people, from health service workers to engineers.

Carrington Accountancy’s umbrella products keep the financial rain off the heads of contractors, helping them to predict payments and where possible, avoid unnecessary tax payments. Carrington are fully HMRC compliant and offer a great level of service.

We’re very pleased to be working with Carrington.

Satya Capital invests in Nigeria

Published on January 20, 2010 in Finance and investment, International and Web. 0 Comments Tags: Africa, finance, Hygeia, investment, Mo Ibrahim, Nigeria, Satya Capital, web site, website, www.satyacapital.com.

Satya are an investment company, targeting opportunities in Africa

Satya Capital, the private equity group which focuses exclusively on Africa, has chosen Hygeia for its first significant investment in healthcare in the continent.

Satya, whose Wild West designed website went live in 2009, is one of a new breed of specialist investors, determined to use their capital to develop the potential of this vast continent.

Satya, founded through the efforts of African entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, is making an equity investment of $18 million, alongside a total of $8 million in new debt facilities from other sources, to allow Hygeia to expand both its hospital group (Lagoon Hospitals), and its health maintenance organisation (Hygeia HMO). These investments join the existing debt and equity provided by IFC and the Investment Fund for Health in Africa (IFHA) respectively.

Read the full story at www.satyacapital.com

If your website is just a touch neglected…

Published on January 20, 2010 in Unusual and Web. 0 Comments Tags: Alcentra, Duke Street, Indicus Advisors, Inflexion, information hub, investor communications, investor information, website.

Some web sites really don't do the jobs they were designed to do any more

We all know how it goes sometimes; your website just doesn’t get the love and attention that it should. And meanwhile of course, life can be passing it by.

Which would all be okay, if it weren’t so serious.

We have a lot of clients in investment and private equity for example, and their investors need to know what is happening to their money. The web and a properly designed website, can be a focus of this kind of activity – keeping investors informed about more than just the big picture, but maintaining information streams that are relevant (often personalised to) individual investors.

Quite simply, if you haven’t got these facilities, then some very important people might well go elsewhere.

The rusty cars that we at Wild West design are featuring in our new promotional campaigns should help bring more of this functionality to more new Wild West clients in the near future, while clients like Alcentra, Inflexion, Indicus Advisors, Duke Street and others are already taking advantage.

BNY Mellon and Alcentra site goes live

Published on January 19, 2010 in Finance and investment and Web. 0 Comments Tags: Alcentra, BNY Mellon, finance, Indicus Advisors, Inflexion, investment, investment bank, mezzanine finance, Satya Capital, senior debt, subordinated debt, website.

The investment portfolio from the Alcentra and BNY Mellon website

Alcentra are an investment company and, like some other leading investment and finance companies, one who have had a long-standing record of working with Wild West Design. Their new US operation is one which brings together the resources of BNY Mellon with Alcentra’s expertise to provide a new option in mezzanine finance. The new partnership will provide senior and subordinated debt and equity finance to mid-market companies in North America.

Read about the success of Alcentra over the years since its first investment (in 1999) at www.alcentra.com

Alternatively, and especially if you would like to find out more about Alcentra’s new collaborative investment venture with BNY Mellon, go to their brand new web site at the following address:

http://mezzanine.alcentra.com/

Alcentra was one of the first finance and investment companies to work with Wild West. Since then of course, they have been joined by many others, including Inflexion, Indicus Advisors, Satya Capital and Duke Street. They all appreciate our knowledge of this complex market and our ability to keep them in touch with the investors whose funds are so vital.

Barclays salute Frank Lampard

Published on January 18, 2010 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Barclays, Football Writers Award, Frank Lampard, Premier League.

Frank Lampard is the PFA Player of the Year

Frank Lampard wins the Football Writers Tribute Award

He’s pretty much achieved everything in football that you could (although not yet a World Cup or Champions League winners medal). He’s been an integral part of the Chelsea team that has established itself in the Barclays Premier League ‘top four’. Ancelotti wouldn’t part with him. Capello puts down his and Rooney’s names first on any England teamsheet. He scores more goals from midfield than most strikers. Why wouldn’t Frank Lampard win the Football Writers’ Tribute Award?

Only a very few names of current Barclays Premier League players would be mentioned alongside his. Wayne Rooney perhaps, or Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, Stephen Gerrard or Torres at Liverpool, Cesc Fabregas or Robin van Persie at Arsenal. And yet, with Chelsea dominating this year’s Barclays Premier League so far, and still in the running for a League, Cup and Champions League treble, it was fitting that Lamps would get this prestigious award, joining previous winners – Bobby Moore and Alan Shearer among them.

The picture shows the handsome tribute to Frank Lampard, printed in the programme for the Football Writers’ annual dinner and designed (of course) by Wild West.

Management buy-out at Griffin Global

Published on January 15, 2010 in Brand and identity, Finance and investment, Unusual and Web. 0 Comments Tags: Alcentra, financial, Griffin Global, Indicus Advisors, Inflexion, logo, private equity, Satya Capital, web site, www.inflexion.com.

Private equity firm Inflexion lead another important transaction.

Not that their very smart and seemingly ageless logo has anything to do with it, but Inflexion, a Wild West client since they were taken private some years ago, have successfully concluded another important transaction. This time they have facilitated the management buyout of Griffin Global Group, a company that provides specialist travel services to sectors of the marine and energy exploration industries.

Inflexion Private Equity invests in businesses valued between £10 million and £100 million that display clear potential for growth, and operate within a dynamic environment.

Read more about Inflexion’s work in funding enterprise and the new generation of British business at their (Wild West designed) web site: www.inflexion.com

Wild West work for a number of private equity and other investment companies including Satya Capital, Duke Street, Alcentra and Indicus Advisors.

Everyone knows good design these days…

Published on January 14, 2010 in Unusual. 0 Comments Tags: design standards, how not to design.

An album cover. Hope the music's better than the presentation!

Sometimes, just when we’re worried that the market for design is saturated, when we’re concerned that today’s design tools are too easy and cheap to use, something comes along to reassure us that we can (really) do much, much better. This album cover, sent by one of our friends, probably isn’t current, but does remind us that our work still has considerable value!

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our clients and friends a very happy and fulfilling new year, and if anyone would like to suggest a caption for this picture, then please do send it in.