Bungalow Blog

Back in July of this year when we launched the marketing campaign for the private sale of our bungalow, we were thrilled and flattered to be approached by Tabitha and Tom, Editor and Aficionado behind Midcentury Magazine — the only UK-based publication for fans and followers of the midcentury movement. It was a real honour when they asked if they could run a feature on our ranch-style, Renway 'Type 60a' bungalow… and of course, we agreed like a shot!

It wasn’t long before they came to interview us at home, seeing the bungalow for themselves, taking a leisurely stroll around the tree-lined roads in Edgcumbe Park, and hearing some of the anecdotes about the estate’s eclectic residents, past and present — not to mention the parties of the ‘swinging sixties’ in the early days of the development!

The issue's launch coincided with this November's Modern Show in Dulwich where we caught up with Tabitha & Tom busily subscribing new readers on their stand. We were delighted to see a generous nine full pages had been given over to featuring the bungalow, illustrated by David's lovely photographs, along with a separate focus on the Renway Construction Company's vision behind Edgcumbe Park co-authored by Scott. In addition, there’s a useful ‘get the look’ section with information on where we obtained our key pieces. In all, a very special memento of our time at the property, and hopefully something to inspire others to remodel their homes, midcentury-style!

Why not subscribe and read all about it?!

Each issue is packed with interesting and information-rich articles all with a midcentury flavour; the current issue no exception with some fascinating reads about furniture designers & manufacturers past and present; where to source the best midcentury finds (and what to look for —great article by Antiques Roadshow expert Mark Hill), and the best in midcentury media & arts (including author David Christopher's appreciation of midcentury hi-fi equipment, and a lovely background insight into Hergé and his Tintin by Charlotte Luxford).

If you can't wait for your copy to arrive in the post, click to see a preview of ‘Single Storey: An American Ranch Home in Berkshire’.

Once again, big thanks to Tabitha & Tom at Midcentury Magazine!

This is just a quick change-of-address blog post to let you all know that we've moved! Our own property marketing campaign has proved a resounding success and we’ve sold our bungalow privately!

We're still amazed at how the bungalow and its online marketing have been tweeted about, shared on Facebook and featured on property, design and style blogs around the world — and look out for it in the next issue of Midcentury Magazine too! It's particularly rewarding that our combined talents have not only brought deserved attention to the Edgcumbe Park Development... but also saved us over £10,000 in Estate Agency fees.

December 2011: ISSUU, the world's leading online publishing platform, has just awarded us the accolade of best application of their product and we'll soon be featured on their blog! (Very chuffed!)

Once we're settled in we'll be blogging properly about how we put our property know-how and marketing expertise into practise to achieve this thrilling result.

Although sad to leave the bungalow, our super neighbours and the lovely locality behind, we were in need of more space — and the next challenge...

...We’re now settling in to an even quirkier property by the sea near Whitstable, Kent! Keep an eye here on our blog to see more about our new home: an architect-designed, 1970's curiosity called ‘Cambria’, and our ongoing explorations of the local area — famed for its oysters and creative pursuits. We're very excited and are looking forward to sharing it with you!

Meanwhile, do please update your address books with our new details:

click to download our vCard

Bungalow Industries
Cambria
47 Hazlemere Road
Seasalter
Whitstable
Kent CT5 4AW

If you’d like our help in expertly presenting your property for sale to achieve the best possible price — perhaps even selling privately like us, you know where we are, or call us on 0845 601 1470.

With house-warmed wishes,

David & Scott

P.S. Even though our new home has an upstairs, we’ll always be ‘Bungalow’ ;-)

As we head into autumn there are two things looming large on the horizon: Strictly Come Dancing… and Christmas. How better to combine the two, than with our professional dancers' calendars!

Following on from the success of Ian Waite's 'Man for All Seasons' calendar last year, he commissioned us to create a follow-up calendar using photographs from his summer shoot in Majorca.

Provided with the disk of unedited images, we all got to work whittling them down — Ian choosing his favourites, which we then retouched and laid into our new format design. This year we upped the size to A3 to provide more space for fans to write, still including a couple of bonus pages as per last year's. Striking white-suited images provided the front and back covers, and with the summery shots within, we coined the title the 'Whitehot Calendar' with straplines referencing the 'smouldering looks and year-round heat' on offer — all adding another dimension to the product.

Again in wall and desk formats, Ian approved the artwork and we set about preparing print-ready files and creating the renders for his online shop and HTML emailshot to his mailing list. Like last year, each calendar will be signed by Ian nearer to Christmas — in another mammoth session!

Visit Ian Waite’s online shop here.

More top billing Strictly clients of ours, Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag were also keen to be there for their fans over '366 days of dance' — and using the images from their 2010 'Puttin' On The Ritz' tour, we created their 2012 calendar with the suitably music-hall title, 'Night and Day'. Their beautiful portraits were used to great effect at A3, showing the exquisite detail in Erin's dresses and we added the starry backdrops from the new website we created for them earlier this year to keep everything on brand and suitably sparkling. Extra pages were added, including a year-to-view planner and full-page print for the Nation's Favourite Ballroom Couple to hand sign.

With Anton and Erin's approval on the design and layout, we prepped the file for print, created the marketing renders and set the product live on their online shop to coincide with the Strictly Launch Show on the 10th September… simultaneously sending out a beautifully styled HTML email to their mailing list.

When it comes to marketing, like dancing, it's all in the timing!

Visit Anton & Erin’s online shop here.

Leading light in the provision of Risk Assessment software and systems to businesses nationwide, RiskBase approached Bungalow Industries to rethink the presentation of data and results in their report documents. Not the most glamorous of fields, granted, but certainly of relevance to us (being property-minded) and an interesting opportunity nonetheless with great industry-wide potential.

We began with Asbestos. RiskBase have devised a unique system for assessors to capture their survey data on tablet devices — such as the iPad — which syncs with their office database from which a report can be automatically compiled and prepared. Experts in user interface (UI) design themselves, their online polish wasn't reflected in their printed materials and they duly commissioned Bungalow to find a new way of reporting the information.

We took the report to task, firstly having to understand the survey's scope and important legal and technical requirements so we could work out how to present the information in the best possible way. We wanted to give a cleaner, stronger format to the layout, including more visual signals for the key levels of hazard. We even worked hard to understand the algorithms used in the calculations so we could clearly show their customers how raw data translates into risk, hazard… and crucial action lists. Clarity, communication and comprehension were key to turning dry, word-processed documents into engaging, understandable reports.

RiskBase were delighted with our approach, the format and design we presented and were quick to set us off reformatting their reports for Fire Safety. We went back to basics again, understanding the complexities of the assessments and how to interpret them in order to present the results.

Again, the layouts were met with approval — and not just by our client RiskBase… but also by the Fire Protection Association, the national regulatory body who will in fact be implementing our formatting into their reports. They requested some subtle customisation to work with their specific datasets, resulting in not just a delighted client but also a step change for risk reporting with Bungalow able to help raise the industry-standard bar.

Bungalow Industries’ design consultancy talents were recruited by two leading London firms to take their online presences to the next level in brand positioning and engagement.

Having previously worked with premier brand Perrett Laver on their corporate literature, we were called in again this time to redesign their website and reposition their brand, asserting the firm as a leader in executive search globally. Understanding their needs and requirements was vital and a full-on day of back-to-back meetings with the Directors and lead Consultants from each Practice Group was organised to provide a fuller insight into their operation and business goals.

Fully briefed, we set about devising the new site architecture and design, providing each Practice Group with its own identity derived from the original brand mark — and blueprinting a new site within which the Consultants can come to the fore with their news, views and success stories.

As part of our sweeping revision, we employed a module-based page template which is being implemented phase by phase as their blogging, library of media-bytes and catalogue of global appointments grows. All artwork files and a walk-through site were given to their long-standing developer, Mark Ingman at Valhalla Software who set about building the front end and bolting it onto a bespoke, user-friendly, Content Management System (CMS) for the Consultants to upload positions, track and manage applications, and keep their Practice Group news up to date.

With Phase 1 in place, Perrett Laver are successfully presenting themselves to a wider audience and being commissioned to seek out new talent for positions at the highest levels in companies, institutions and organisations worldwide.

After crafting the identity for Society in 2009, this progressive search firm came back to Bungalow Industries to commission us to redesign their website's homepage to bring it more up-to-date and inline with their growing client base, charitable activities and social media presence.

Having not been involved in the original website design, we were eager and excited to be able to roll-out our identity work and vision to create a new dynamic, engaging and social media-savvy interface. Our proposed design was approved without amends, offering a much more customisable layout with hero banners, trailers to content within the site and greater potential for keeping Society's homepage as fresh and current as the team themselves.

As with the Perrett Laver website, changes are being implemented in phases, many in place already and Society have been excitedly tweeting about their site’s relaunch to their growing following!

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Headhunted again, and hot on the heels of our work with Perrett Laver and Society, we were asked to create the identity and website design for a new global recruitment brand soon to enter the market. Keep your eyes on our blog - we'll keep you posted!

Household names, national treasures and dance icons, Anton & Erin are one of the most renowned ballroom dancing partnerships since Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers. As high profile entertainers, the couple are never far from the media spotlight and Bungalow Industries were duly thrilled and honoured to be commissioned by this illustrious couple to give them a brand refresh and website makeover.

Starting with a beautiful set of studio-based images from Greg King capturing the couple in some lyrical poses, we set to work compiling and editing text, images and video content to ensure the site was rich in fresh media and an authoritative archive of the old. Using Greg's photographs as large as possible to give the fans a real treat, combined with some subtle spotlighting, silvered logotype and starry backdrop, the concept for the site was born.

Followed by an already extensive – and active – fanbase, the site had to provide greater functionality than our previous sites to date and so we integrated a messageboard coined the 'Speakeasy' as a forum for fans to engage with the site, each other, and Anton & Erin too. Complete with a blog, gallery, bookings & events pages, and a print-and-poster-stocked online shop it was developing into a showbiz site of apt style and class!

We're particularly proud of the 'Strictly' section. From a splash page of its own introducing the couple in a 'presenterly' manner, you then get to enjoy their celebrity pairings, dances and videos from every series on dancecards portrayed in a cheekily 'Play Your Cards Right' format! No small feat of collation, but the interface certainly kept us amused throughout!

A pre-launch countdown and sign-up period amassed a mailing list of fans who received a lovely email invitation from Anton & Erin to visit the site when it went live on schedule, 1st June.

Complimentary comments flooded in to the inaugural blog post – and over twitter too with both @theAntonDuBeke and @ErinBoag having over 15,000 followers apiece and receiving countless tweets of approval. The Speakeasy opened its doors to eager fans posting their thoughts and comments and starting dance topics of their own... and the hits haven't abated.

We don't mind admitting that it's been particularly exciting to watch the site take on a life of its own!

With 'Strictly' season soon upon us we have our fingers and toes crossed that Anton & Erin will once again appear as professional dancers – for their 9th series, no less – and that their new website will grow into a lively meeting place for current fans, and help them become fast friends with new followers.

Keeeeeep Dancing!

2011 started apace with a call from three-times world Salsa champion and choreographer to the stars, Chris Marques. Hot on the heels of his successes in choreographing many of the routines seen on the BBC hit show 'Strictly Come Dancing', French-born Chris had been appointed Artistic Director and Head Judge on TF1's 'Danse Avec Les Stars' – France's equivalent to 'Strictly' – and needed a website up and running in time for the show's press launch.

Chris had a clear direction in mind from the outset: he wanted his site to look and feel very magazine-like, loving the approach we took with fellow Strictly professional Erin Boag's website last year. His brief was to take design cues from top gentlemen's style publications and team them up with shots from his latest photoshoot by the fabulous Snooty Fox Images to create magazine-style pages with attitude and impact. As a relative newcomer front-of-camera, the site was to present Chris as a personable expert and authority in his field — the natural choice for the role of Head Judge on this primetime show.

With a striking bilingual 'coverpage' linking through to a media-packed contents page, interview-style spreads (translation to be supplied) and a blog, gallery and contact page, the result is a punchy site that's smart and chic whilst still capturing Chris' quirky personality and latin spirit.

Known industry-wide as being a perfectionist in his field, we held our breath when we sent the site over to Chris for him to explore... and were thrilled when we received his marks: a full 10 points!

"The site is AMAZING!!!! Thanks so much for all your hard work!! Everything from the way it looks to the way it's written, just fantastic!"

Hot-step over to www.chrismarques.com to learn more about Chris Marques and his winning debut on 'Danse Avec Les Stars'!

2010 Season’s Greetings from the Bungalow!

After such a cracker of a year here at the Bungalow, we wanted to share some original Christmas cheer with our readers and followers! We so enjoyed our yuletide poetry last year that it would have been quite remiss not to have a reprise this year... And, being ones for traditional values, classic tunes and crafty wordplay... we'd like to invite you to have a go at our very own Crossword of 25 Festive Numbers that we've created especially for you this Christmas!

With a few seasonal verses by way of introduction, our PDF download should provide much musical merriment. We've had great fun listing to our (somewhat extensive!) library of Christmas tunes, selecting favourites old and new, and devising a good mix of clues both quick and cryptic. If you get stuck, there’s a tracklist of hints which we'll release closer to Christmas — but watch out... two of them are red herrings... extra points if you catch them out!

So download your copy of 25 Festive Numbers... grab yourself a mince pie and some mulled wine... and get sleuthing! We’ll be posting the solution here on our blog on New Year’s Day, and would love it if you'd stop by and add a comment to let us know how you got on!

{September 2011: Sadly, with a number of cases of our work being plagiarised this year, we've disabled the crossword downloads... we may reactivate them closer to Christmas 2011.}

...And for those of you near & dear, look out for our extra special 2010 Christmas Card popping through your letterboxes soon!

Wishing you all the merriest of Christmasses, and a truly crackerjack New Year!

Ever keen to give back to his fans and push his brand and materials that step further, 'Strictly' professional dancer Ian Waite understands the value in maintaining a sharp, polished image. And as 2010 draws to a close, what better next step than a bespoke 2011 Calendar?! Not just a timely gift idea... but also a great marketing & PR opportunity: placing him in everyday line-of-sight of fans and media figures alike for the year ahead. With a vision from the outset of a Calendar that would be stylish, premium and very much on-brand, appealing to his broad demographic and showing versatility beyond his repute as a dancer, Ian commissioned Bungalow to present him as a 'Man For All Seasons'.

The first step was to organise a new photoshoot and we were all in agreement that Leo at Snooty Fox Images was the natural choice, with his eye for location and visual narrative. We sketched out some initial ideas which Leo developed, refined, and proposed to set against the stunning backdrop of Moor Park, a beautiful stately home in Hertfordshire with opportunities aplenty for some great shots. David accompanied Ian as his stylist and behind-the-scenes photographer, and along with hairstylist Caterina Maiolini, makeup artist Carlo di Caterino, and Leo's assistant, Meriet, the team staged Ian in a storyboard of settings, outfits and scenarios.

Much fun was had on the shoot - and we were incredibly lucky with the weather which enabled Leo to shoot some impromptu shots in the grounds of the property as well as using its magnificent interior. A beautiful classic Aston Martin was also sourced for the shoot, adding cinematographic panache and reflecting an era of suave sophistication to which Ian is perfectly tailored.

Armed with the shots straight off camera, Ian came to the Bungalow to shortlist them down to a series of images that worked not only photographically, but that also gave good narrative to the calendar - capturing the character of the moment, each image a good fit to the month portrayed.

Bungalow then began work on the design: the size, shape, image placement and typography of the calendar - keenly maintaining the sharpness and style of his branding… then working this look into two formats: one sized to hang on the wall and one for the desk. We retouched and polished the images to get the best possible results at the required sizes, and as a final touch included some extra content on bonus pages: a Welcome & New Year message from Ian accompanying another super photo; a photo index with each image entitled to enhance the storytelling for the romantics among his fans; a montage of David's behind-the-scenes shots to share the experience of the shoot; a year-to-view page, and finally a smartly designed back cover with yet another cracking portrait.

The back page also displays the WellChild logo: Ian is an active supporter of this charity and generously pledged to make a donation from the sale of each and every calendar.

Artwork completed and approved by Ian, files were then sent to the printer to produce a set of final proofs. This underway, we set about marketing the Calendars to build buzz, excitement... and demand...

Without having the final products in our hands to photograph, we created 3D digital renders instead. These were deployed across the internet in a number of ways: we prepared the listings on Ian's online shop for which we wrote the detailed descriptions & set the pricing; we then updated his home page with a large promotional graphic to inform every visitor to his site; we designed a HTML email and sent this out to all subscribers on his email list (carefully tracking its impact and responses), and then began plugging it on Twitter to Ian's 12,500+ followers. The influx of orders began immediately!

With proofs signed-off, calendars were literally 'hot' off the press - those summer months in particular! And adding to their value and appeal, Ian signed the cover of each one before they were shrink-wrapped.

We coordinated the signing, print management and packaging of all the orders including arranging international shipping for his overseas sales, and were very grateful to Paul at Print Synergy for pulling out the stops ensuring we could ship the first batch in time for the 'Strictly Come Dancing' semi-final!

Great feedback is already appearing on Twitter as excited fans' parcels are arriving, and those who've opened them (unable to wait until Christmas!) are already tweeting their favourite months directly to Ian. They're generating new sales as a result, too, so much so that demand will soon outstrip supply and another print run will be needed.

We're thrilled with the result: a really stunning, premium product! Ian, too, is delighted, and he's already thinking about locations for shooting his 2012 Calendar! If you'd like to 'Make a date with Ian Waite', visit his online shop here - but be quick... supplies are 'Strictly' limited!

It's been just over a year since we launched Strictly Come Dancing star Ian Waite's much admired website, and with a set of new images from his 2011 calendar photoshoot, countless hours of YouTube footage and stacks of new personal and publicity photographs, it was time for a refresh!

Bungalow set about rebuilding the back-end of the site to better enable more dynamically driven content and to make the site feel fresher to returning visitors. Making full use of the new photographs taken by Leo at Snooty Fox, we set them as full-page backgrounds on random rotation overlaid by news, media and promotional modules: 'Next appearing at...', featured footage, photos, tweets and promos for advertising his services and merchandise to his loyal fans, booking agents and corporate clients alike. We included a frequency controlled pop-over initially plugging Ian's 2011 calendar but which can swap out to spotlight other promotions, and we also included links for Facebook and Twitter to encourage fans to spread Ian's news across key social media networks.

Then, to bring the media sections up to date – and in fact, fuller than any other celebrity website we'd come across in our work – over 140 new photographs were diligently sourced, sized & captioned, plus a whole videography of YouTubes compiled and categorised by Strictly Series, tours, interviews etc. to ensure Ian's site remains the definitive source of information for his fans – and a compelling extended showreel for the press, media and future clients too.

With the updates uploaded, tweets went out to all Ian's 12,500 followers and we designed a lovely HTML email for Ian's mailing list to ring out the changes... and to give yet another gentle plug for his Calendar in good time for the last Christmas post!

...Have you ordered yours?!...

Take a look at Ian Waite's website here, and read more about our work with Ian in our Case Study.