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July19th

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World Vision – Our newest family member.

Posted in: Articles, Avalanche Creative, Inspiration

In response to ‘World Visions’ call for 10,000 sponsorships by 16th July, we decided to add another child to our Avalanche family.
The hardest part of the sponsorship process is choosing one child over another, we wish we could have helped them all. With thousands of children to pick from, we refined our search by picking a child who shared the same date of birth as Avalanche Creative Solutions (22nd December). By luck only one child shared this date and her name is ‘Angie’.

Angie was born in 2002 and comes from Honduras, her favourite subject at school is Mathematics. We would love to post her photo up on our blog, but for privacy and security reasons ‘World Vision’ don’t allow it. So you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you how pretty and bright she is.

We plan to keep updating this post with her progress as and when we get information from her village. Sponsoring a ‘World Vision’ child is easy and hugely rewarding for everyone involved.

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July7th

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Seniors Coach Tours

Posted in: Avalanche Creative, Web design

Seniors Coach Tours specialise in Australian coach tours for the over 60s, and organise tours from North to South of Australia as well as to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. With a growing clientele base and everchanging tour guide, Seniors Coach Tours needed a fresh new website that made it easy and simple for their clients to browse potential tours.

We started by recreating their logo, making it simpler and more flexible across different mediums. Then we redesigned the website from bottom up, making sure that each step was as simple and clear as possible.

Features:
– Calls to action are visible on every page encouraging clients to get in touch.
- Online Booking Form and Enquiry Form
- Interactive Tour Finder Map
- Online Tour Brochure (as a flip-book)
- Intergrated WordPress Blog

Check it out here!

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July2nd

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What’s In It For Me?

Posted in: Avalanche Creative

A client’s perspective of first contact with Avalanche Creative….

The world of marketing and branding can be so, so daunting if it is not your “thing”. You know your product inside out, you know exactly who your market is, but you get stuck on how to bring the two together.

This was exactly my conundrum when I happened to come across Pete and Andy from Avalanche Creative. Apart from being a couple of pretty nice likeable guys, they actually seemed to have a clue!

They actually listened!!

After listening (and I mean LISTENING, not listening) intently to my summary of what bought me to Avalanche, Pete & Andy immediately showed their clear understanding of my brand and what I wanted to achieve. They were also able to make some intelligent deductions about several other issues related to the achievement of my goals (which I hadn’t thought of..).

So far so good, Pete & Andy were tracking well. But the next bit took even me by surprise…

Ideas, ideas, ideas…

The creative ideas that they came up with in just the space of that 40 minute free consultation were impressive to say the least. Their ideas demonstrated their complete understanding of everything I had been saying, and they came up with unique, clever and cost-effective ideas. By this stage I was more excited about the future possibilities for my brand than I had been in a long time.

It was refreshing to have the ears (and minds!) of two objective professionals who gained an excellent insight into my marketing challenge.

Where to from here?

Of course no budget is unlimited so without any awkwardness we discussed my available budget and Pete & Andy went away to come up with a marketing communication plan filled with brilliant ideas that fit into my budget.

“If you need help with your branding or marketing communications strategy, I urge you to take up the opportunity of a free 40 minute consultation with Avalanche. Apart from 40 minutes of your time, you have nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. I certainly did….”
- Linda Ball – Cocolime

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July2nd

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Growing a fertile partnership

Posted in: Articles, Avalanche Creative, Print Design

Avalanche has been building a great relationship with Plants Australia, a non-profit nursery affiliation headquartered in Knoxfield, Victoria. Plants Australia came to the Avalanche team with a brief to develop their product catalogue, and for more than a year Avalanche has helped them produce an attractive and usable publication design. Avalanche and Plants Australia have developed a complimentary working relationship, combining effective design ideas with an informed perspective regarding product and industry knowledge. The Avalanche team has learnt a great deal about the nursery industry whilst being able to advise and educate Plants Australia on quality creative solutions.

A number of key principles were brought into play with the catalogue design. Consistency of design and brand prominence were achieved with a consistent look to banner headings as well as judicious placement of rich colour images of product items and clearly defined text denoting product names and prices. High quality images and logical layout of colour highlighted text represent a great improvement upon the design Plants Australia had been using originally.

Plants Australia publishes their sixteen page catalogue five times a year, and the reader notices immediately exactly what horticultural or gardening products are available. Prices are easily recognizable as are product names, aiding the consumer in becoming familiar with stock characteristics and product range; and a seasonal thematic title – such as “Spring”, “Winter, etc – on the front page in large stylized lettering alerts the customer to purchasing opportunities. Brand recognition is reinforced on each page with the brand name signposted at the base of each page, superimposed on a red banner; and on the front of the brochure a clear brand banner is positioned at the top of the page.

The new design aims to give the Plants Australia brand prominence in the market. For brand recognition to work effectively consistency in design is paramount. This has been achieved by applying good design principles, producing an attractive marketing tool in the Plants Australia brochure. Balancing the need to convey relevant information on products with a visually appealing and readable layout was made possible with the joint efforts and complimentary relationship that has been fostered between Avalanche and Plants Australia.

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June23rd

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Coffey Environments in good standing

Posted in: Articles, Avalanche Creative, Marketing

- The aluminium easel for Coffey Environments.

Avalanche aspires to unique solutions with useful and practical applications. Take for example the case of Coffey Environments: their mobile roadshow travels remote regions of Papua New Guinea communities keeping them up-to-date on local developments that impact on their lifestyle. Avalanche was able to provide a solution which greatly enhanced Coffey’s activities.

– Coffey aluminium easel in action.

The requirement was for a durable presentation system, and as Coffey Environments was conducting a two week roadshow moving through the Papua New Guinea highlands, durability was a priority. The two week roadshow would produced a great deal of physical stresses on equipment, and the display unit would need to withstand the harsh climate and other physical conditions of the region. Typical physical challenges included variable transport like four wheel drive vehicles and helicopters, extreme humidity and heavy rainfall. Also the easel would need to be able to handle forty presentations, with up to four presentations a day. The importance of providing this information to highland communities is highlighted in the level of economic interest the natural resources of the region presents.

Coffey’s information campaign focuses on the Frieda River Project, located in Sandaun Province, Western Papua New Guinea. FRP extracts copper and gold and is a large scale metal deposit. An Xstrata Frieda River Ltd study in 2008 estimated that mining would produce 190,000 tonnes of copper and 295,000 ounces of gold per annum. Highlands Pacific and XFRL are two businesses with a strong interest in developing exploration in the Frieda River Project. They expect that by early 2012 a feasibility study must be completed in order to help facilitate project financing. So clearly much rests on the nature of mining development and how it will be managed, including environmental values.

- Coffey presentation to PNG highland community.

To assist Coffey in its information program, Peter from Avalanche Creative conducted research and material acquisition and came up with a heavy duty aluminium easel prototype. The easel met the need of displaying 10 x A0 size posters. The fabrication needed to be durable and user-friendly featuring easy assembly, light weight construction and easy poster page movement.

The easel system was a great success, with Coffey requesting another two units be produced for use on future road shows.

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June9th

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So what’s in a name?

Posted in: Articles, Avalanche Creative, Branding, Marketing, SEO

So what’s in a name: Getting a good descriptive domain name!
Registering or owning a business name does not entitle you to own the same URL.
A recent example in TheAge.com.au

After a Tennessee police department let its website expire, the site was snatched up by Brian McCrary who uses it to gripe about speed cameras. The site shows a smiling cartoon police badge clutching greenbacks. It also posts gripes from those who’ve been caught speeding.

So remember to keep your Domain registration up to date!

In the great 90′s Domain grab, a whole load of Domains were grabbed by web prospectors or Cyber Squatters as we once called them. This has made it much more of a challenge to find ‘Good’ available domain names, but it’s important to know that you spend less to market and brand descriptive URLs. Remember that you need to appeal to both Humans and Web Robots, so a good web address needs to be memorable, easy to spell, simple to say, hear and read, but most importantly your URL should be descriptive and relevant to your product or service.

Just like any post gold rush, there is always a gem laying around if you know where to look.

“I’m often amazed at some of the domain names that still haven’t been taken and equally frustrated by domains that have, but just sit there with a coming soon notice”.

The key is to do a bit of creative thinking and make a mind map of descriptive terms, and then just test the availability on a domain shopping site. If your a location based business, then narrowing down your search by using the location name i.e. (AvalancheBoronia) will inversely widen up your opportunities.

“Brand creation is a big part of what we do at Avalanche Creative Solutions, we go through a long and painstaking process of name creation and then cross referencing with available domain names as well as Business and Trade mark searches. Sometimes we strike gold and sometimes we have to go back to the creative thinking stage”

Sites like www.godaddy.com offer ‘Domain Auctions’ but this can be initially expensive. Look at premium domains – you will pay more initially but thereafter the cost to renew is exactly the same.

Please let us know what you think about this article

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May13th

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Surface Interiors Website

Posted in: Avalanche Creative, Web design

As promised, the new and improved Surface Interiors website by Avalanche Creative

Features an easy Content Management System with a great section of images that really show off all the work that Surface Interiors have done over the past years – from pharmacies to retail outlets even down to custom built desks like the one in our office.

The website is also SEO (search engine optimisation) friendly, meaning it is easily picked up by all the major search engines (google, etc).

If you would like a website that is easy to update and custom made just for you, give us a call on 03 9761 0122!

Avalanche Creative have used Dandenong-based Surface Interiors to build a custom-designed desk in our office. We were highly impressed with their knowledge, skills and creative flair when it came to building a desk that we wanted. After hearing our idea, they gave material recommendations, ideas for improvements and helped us keep to a budget. They also stuck to agreed deadlines and everything fit perfectly when they put it together. We’d definitely recommend them to you!!

Please tell us what you think of this post

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April28th

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The new Tardis design

Posted in: Avalanche Creative

The great guys at Surface Interiors helped us design and build an awesome tabe for the studio. Working in conjunction with Andy at Avalanche, Tony and the team from Surface Interiors created a custom piece for us in record time!

I was inspired by ‘The TARDIS’ from that great TV series ‘Doctor Who’. I was brought up with the likes of John Pertwee running around the TARDIS work station, saving toe world from the Dalek invasion. The shape and form seem to work for him, so I based the studio desk arrangement around the same central communication hub concept.

Built in our corporate colours (orange of course), the table is designed to be communal and makes it so much easier for us to communicate to each other about projects. It’s so easy to share ideas and notes in this setup, it’s great! It also allows the studio to grow in size as we can now fit in more people into the same space.

It looks really impressive in real life, so why not pop down and check it out (and get to know us!)

** We’re also recreating the Surface Interiors site to make it SEO compatible and friendly, as well as building in a CMS system for the guys so they can easily update their website whenever they complete a new project. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated.

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March4th

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Avalanche on ice!

Posted in: Random

We love having a bit of fun at Avalanche. Last week we randomly decided to go rollerskating at the roller rink after various conversations about roller blading, using your dog to pull you along while skateboarding, skating backwards, and pushing our boundaries this year.

We looked it up, and for only $7, you can head down to Carribean Rollerama to have two hours of fun – or in Pete’s case, 2 hours of bruising and battering! Going during the day is nice as the rink isn’t crowded so it’s a good time to learn..

Commendations to Pete and Elvira of Avalanche who have never skated in their life!! They did really well!

Pictures below.

Elvira gives rollerblading a go!

Pete's hanging on to the wall for dear life!

Avalanche Group Shot - Check out Ernie's lightining tights!

Rollerskates on the Rack

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March2nd

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Roll up, roll up…. come and see the Worlds first Hybrid Bus!

Posted in: Avalanche Creative, Marketing

When Avalanche got involved with the ‘Hybrid electric bus’ project via the ‘Department of Sustainability’ early 2009, where we were asked to produce an awareness campaign for the first trials of the technology in Australia.
Ventura, who were pioneering this new green, clean innovation, loved the promotional material so much that they contacted us to produce an exclusive marketing campaign for Ventura Buses.

The Worlds first Hybrid Bus

The working title ‘The Worlds first Hybrid Bus’ was our creative starting point, and although we were going to be recycling the battery image, the overall style of communication or voice, had to be more exciting and prompt the imagination.

On a creative level, the word ‘Hybrid’ conjures up an image of a strange cross breeding experiment. An exciting chimera from a sideshow tent.

“Roll up, roll up…. come and see the Worlds first Hybrid Bus. Wonder at it amazing electric powers. Be the first to ride this fantastic breakthrough in technology and the environment…”

Visually we went with the image of a weathered sideshow advertising poster, using dynamic Victorian poster typography. Creating an A3 poster and internal cabin decal posters to encourage passengers to ride the ‘The Worlds first Hybrid Bus’ and a call to action to come and visit the website to discover more.
We created an online virtual book using a Flash based flip book with great page turning transitions. The book explained how the technology worked in a very visually interesting way. Our recommendation has been to produce a printed version for secondary schools, so watch this space.

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