Pickle Jar Communications

I promised in a blog post the other day that I would update you all on what we’ve been up to lately and what has been keeping us too busy to blog (not that there’s ever really any excuse not to blog of course!).

Firstly, we were called up about six weeks ago by the University of Warwick asking us to write and oversee the design process for two of their new induction publications for the students arriving in September. Your First Weeks is a guide that takes the students through what they need to do before and after they arrive at Warwick, and what’s available to them once they arrive in terms of events and induction sessions, societies and clubs, etc. The challenge with this document was to, for the first time, provide concise information to students in an engaging way with consistent tone and style throughout. The second document is the Student Handbook, a less exciting document by its very nature but a necessity. The challenge with this one was to produce something that the students would actually read and something that they would keep with them throughout the year. We prepared the copy for both documents, liaising with key contacts at the University to pull it all together, and then worked with Paul Dibbens of Mustard Design to oversee the design process and get the documents ready for print. Anyone following us on Twitter will have seen all the different phases we were at with this. Both documents are now at the printers and are being sent out to students next week.

That’s not all. We were also called in to Alexon International (a large ladies-wear retailer) to help them announce the appointment of their new CEO to 5,000 staff. We proposed conducting an interview with their new CEO Jane McNally to ensure that staff could see she was motivated, keen to drive the business forward with a clear vision, but also personable and human! Again working with Mustard Design, we produced a 2-page document that is now being sent out to all staff. In truth, my preference for a communication like this, given how personable Jane actually is, would have been to record a podcast so that staff could also hear her tone of voice and hear her enthusiasm directly. However, access to technology can’t be guaranteed with this company and we didn’t want to alienate staff who didn’t have PC access.

Finally (not all our work but our next big project) we were asked by the Open University to work with them to produce a video for staff. The video is to help staff who are not based at the headquarters in Milton Keynes to understand what happens on that campus, and also for new starters who will be working at the Walton Hall (HQ) campus to understand what is available there to them. Working with @Warblefly Productions, we filmed this project this week and are now in the post-production phase.