Our Newest
Member Of Staff              

We would like to introduce our new Office Manager, Sharon Milner to our ever expanding team.

Sharon comes from a printing background with managing a design studio over in Milton Keynes and has come highly recommended. She has now been with us for over 3 months and has settled in well to the Fresh philosophy of 'design & print the way it should be '

Im sure you'll hear more about Sharon over the next few months and wish her all the best in her new role.


If you want to talk to Sharon then give her a call on 01296 489998


If you want to find out how Fresh can help your business then give us a call on 01296 489998 or 01442 345088 or email us at hello@freshdps.co.uk or visit us at http://www.freshdps.co.uk/

QR Codes

What are they and how will they be used? 

  
You may have seen random signs like a bar code getting onto your breakfast cereal packaging or on a leaflet that comes through your door, this unique symbol is called a QR code (short for Quick Response) and is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background.

QR codes store addresses and URLS and appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network or open a web page in the phone's browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks

Over the next year we predict that more businesses will be adopting these codes as part of their marketing brand to promote themselves as an ingenious new way to attract a younger digital generation to buy their products.

Try scanning the above QR code and see where it takes you, you will need to download the free app for your phone first, browse your app store under QR readers then scan it, its easy and you will see how useful they will be.

If you want to find out how QR Codes can help your business then give us a call on 01296 489998 or 01442 345088 or email us at hello@freshdps.co.uk or visit us at http://www.freshdps.co.uk/


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Twitter helps investors

predict the stock market

The millions of messages sent daily via Twitter can help predict moves in the Dow Jones by signalling sentiment, researchers at Indiana University and the University of Manchester have found. 




By scouring tweets for key words and analyzing them using an algorithm they developed to define the mood of Twitterers, Johan Bollen, Huina Mao and Xiao-Jun Zeng said they were able to predict the daily up and down movements of the Dow during a period in 2008 with 87 percent accuracy. Now they are testing whether their results can be applied to real-time data.


“So far we have observed that some of the parameters may change over time but that our conclusion that Twitter mood data can predict fluctuations in the stock market will stand,” said Indiana University’s Bollen in an e-mail interview. “We feel that we have merely uncovered the tip of the proverbial iceberg.”


The research suggests that Twitter analysis could provide a cheap way to improve results of other computer models that use news events and other publicly available data to anticipate how investors will act. The data may even predict to some extent the magnitude of stock market moves, Bollen said.

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Our Chosen Charity

Of The Year                                     

                               

We have always liked to help local charities as much as possible and this year is no exception, as designers and  printers we are in an ideal position to help, so when we were asked to help support local charity Wheelpower to help raise awareness and funds we thought this would be a great way to show how we could help and save Wheelpower some money as well.

We are always inundated with appeals but we have always said that we can only support one charity per year and after some careful thought it was Wheelpower that we wanted to support the most.

For our part we will be supporting the Tour De Vale Bike Ride event which will be happening in June, with all the promotional material which includes 50,000 leaflets, vinyl banners, race numbers, route signs, posters and flags.

                                                    

We will have a strong contingent at the event on the day to help support the event, so please help support a great charity and have some fun at the same time as well, click on the link below to find out more about the event.

http://www.wheelpower.org.uk/WPower/index.cfm/featured/mix-96-tour-de-vale-bike-ride/

If you would like to find out how Fresh can help your business then email us at hello@freshdps.co.uk or visit us at www.freshdps.co.uk or call us on 01296 489998 or 01442 345088

Fresh launches its

2 New Radio Adverts






After months of creative input into our new radio adverts they will now be aired starting Wednesday 30th March, if you want a sneak preview then click on the links below.

We are launching a campaign on Mix 96 to drive home our message of 'Design & Print The Way It Should Be'.

Have a listen and see what you think and let us know any feedback.

http://www.freshdps.co.uk/mix_96_adverts/fresh_design_and_print_car_654.mp3

 http://www.freshdps.co.uk/mix_96_adverts/fresh_design_and_print_generic_remake.mp3



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'Licence To Print Money'

Ever wondered where some of the popular sayings come from and what they mean? Well over the next few weeks we thought we would explore some of our industries sayings and meanings and where they come from.

This weeks it is the saying 'Licence To Print Money', read below and learn about its origin and impress your friends next time you go out for a drink.

Roy Herbert Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet GBE

(June 5, 1894 – August 4, 1976) was a Canadian newspaper

proprietor and media entrepreneur.


Roy Herbert Thomson was born in Toronto, Ontario.
           
During World War I, Roy Thomson attended a business college, and owing to bad eyesight he was rejected by the army. He went to Manitoba after the war to become a farmer, but was unsuccessful. Thomson travelled to Toronto again, where he held several jobs at different times; one of which was selling radios.

 In 1934, Thomson acquired his first newspaper. With a down payment of $200 he purchased the Timmins Daily Press, in Timmins, Ontario. He would begin an expansion of both radio stations and newspapers in various Ontario locations in partnership with fellow Canadian, Jack Kent Cooke.By the early 1950s, he owned 19 newspapers and was president of the Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Association, and then began his first foray into the British newspaper business by starting up the Canadian Weekly Review to cater to expatriate Canadians living in Britain.


Thomson’s ancestors were small tenant farmers on the estates of the Dukes of Buccleuch at Bo'ness, in the parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, Scotland.Thomson himself made the decision to move to Edinburgh where in 1952 he purchased The Scotsman newspaper.


In 1957, he launched a successful bid for the commercial television franchise for Central Scotland, named Scottish Television, which he was to describe as a "licence to print money". In 1959 he purchased the Kemsley group of newspapers, the largest in Britain, which included The Sunday Times. Over the years, he would expand his media empire to include more than 200 newspapers in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His Thomson Organization became a multinational corporation, with interests in publishing, printing, television, and travel. In 1966, Thomson bought The Times newspaper from members of the Astor family.


In 1964 he was made Baron Thomson of Fleet.In order to receive this title, it was necessary for Thomson to acquire British citizenship, as the Canadian government had made it common practice since 1919 to disallow the conference of titular honours from the Canadian Monarch on Canadians. However, the Canadian Citizenship Act between 1947 and 1977 stated that any Canadian who became a citizen of another country through means other than marriage would cease to be a Canadian citizen. Thus, Thomson lost his Canadian citizenship in the process.


In the 1970s, Thomson joined with J. Paul Getty in a consortium that successfully explored for oil in the North Sea.


A modest man, who had little time for pretentious displays of wealth, in Britain he got by virtually unnoticed, riding the London Underground to his office each day. Nonetheless, he made his son Kenneth promise to use the hereditary title that he had received in 1964, if only in the London offices of the firm.


Thomson died in London in 1976. At the time of his death, his son Kenneth Thomson became chair of Thomson Corporation and inherited the baronial title becoming the 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet. With the Thomson operations now principally again in Canada, the younger Thomson did not use his title in Canada though he did so in Britain, and used two sets of stationery reflecting this dichotomy. In any case, as the peerage title he had was inherited, it did not debar him from retaining his Canadian citizenship, and he never bothered to take up his right to a seat in the pre-1999 House of Lords.


Thomson died in London and a plaque was placed in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.

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Cinram - The Rebrand -
Fast, Effective Solutions

With time running out to get their rebranded marketing material produced, Cinram turned to Fresh for help. With only days to spare before launching their new brand identity at an exhibition, Fresh had to produce Pop Up Banners, Full colour brochures, data sheets, business cards and other literature in 2 days.

With the artwork coming from Canada and timeline difference of 5 hours, proofing wasnt easy but with only minutes to spare Fresh delivered it all into Central London as well.

The point to this story is who else in the area could produce all the these different solutions in-house, ontime and to a high spec.

Andy Gerlack from Fresh stated 'It was a bit hairy at times and the whole team sweated a lot to make it achievable, but we managed it, we co-ordinated it brilliantly but it helps that we can do all of these different print solutions all in-house and that we have total control over the job as there are still a lot of design & print companys out there saying they are producing it in-house when in fact they have not got the equipment or expertise  and sending it out.'

So if your looking for fast effective design & print solutions for your business that are all produced in-house the call Fresh on 01296 489998 or 01442 345088 or email us at hello@freshdps.co.uk or visit us at www.freshdps.co.uk/