The Gannochy trust is a Scottish charity with a preference for projects in Perth and Kinross. The trust was founded in 1937 by influential Perth business man Arthur Kinmond Bell, known as A. K. Bell

The Trust funds many activities in Scotland, with a preference for Perth and Kinross, through awarding grants to what it feels are worthwhile causes. It has four over-arching themes with grant applications expected to meet at least one of the following aims, although the third and fourth will only be accepted for projects within Perth and Kinross:

• Inspiring young people
• Improving the quality of life for disadvantaged and vulnerable people
• Supporting and developing amenities for communities
• Caring for the natural and man made environments

The Gannochy trust particularly provides many grants for the improvement of sports provision and participation.

“After a lengthy evaluation process, we are delighted to appoint Shine to redevelop our website. Craig and his team took the time to understand us an organisation and have clearly set out their approach for modernising the site and improving the user experience. We very much look forward to working with Shine over the coming months.”

– Carol Downie, Chief Executive, The Gannochy Trust

We are really looking forward to what this year brings with Gannochy Trust .

‘The Lovat, Loch Ness‘ is a hotel located on the shores of, you guessed it, Loch Ness. Being a 4-star, 3-Rosette, eco-conscious hotel, they have quite a bit to shout about and want our help to do this. Of course, we are delighted to get to be a part of it.

In fact, we were so keen to get started, we decided a wee trip up to Loch Ness was needed. It’s a hard life!

Craig, Jennifer and Karen left the yellowness of the SHINE studio for the blue skies of the Highlands (didn’t stay blue for long though!)

It was quite a long journey, getting stuck behind a few campervans here and there. We also had to make way for trees being felled on the road, didn’t really want a tree through the roof of our hired car!
We arrived safely (with no trees through our car!) and settled into our rooms. The views were really quite stunning, looking out towards Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal.

Despite what you might think, we do actually do work when we go on our Highland adventures. This trip was all about getting a feel for the hotel, meeting the owners and getting some photography done – courtesy of Ralph Nisbet.

Soon it was time for a well-earned rest and some food. Not just any food though, unbelievably good food! This is the Salmon and fish pie.

The next day, we woke up to have some breakfast. Karen was just a little bit enamoured with the Eggs Royale… Direct quote: “The best scrambled egg I’ve ever tasted!!”

Now, you might not have noticed, but we are quite keen on the old yellow. So of course, when we see a bright yellow book, we are going to have to share it with you! Fantastic colour choice by Edinburgh International Festival.

After getting some more snaps, the girls took a wander down to the Locks and got to see the bridge move to let a barge into the first lock.

Then… the snow started! We took this as our cue to head ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ i.e. back to Glasgow.

“The Houlden Group is the UK and Ireland’s longest established jewellery & watch buying organisation, founded to provide business support to independent fine jewellers.”

It’s always exciting to get to work with new clients. Not only do we get to meet new people and immerse ourselves in the brand, we also get to put our creative hats on and come up with some new ideas to help them take their business forward!

Having come to us through a recommendation by one of our existing clients, Houlden were keen to take their website and styling to a new level. Of course, we love what we do and the thought of a new project got us excited and we were ready to get involved.

After some initial research and a biscuit-meeting or two, we have already started work on their new website, and we are excited to see where this project will take us.

If you would like to know more about Houlden, then have a look at their website here.

Well, January is off to a flying start and we have lots of new work & new clients on the horizon! One such client, who we are very excited to be working with, is Enchanted Forest & Friends. They came to us when their photographer, Gerardo, recommended us (we’ve worked with Gerardo quite a few times now on various photo shoots for Princes Square, the last might have caused a bit too much hilarity…)

Enchanted Forest & Friends are currently focused on high-quality children’s clothes, but will soon be expanding their product range to cover gifts, knick-knacks and other things.

We’ll be creating an umbrella brand that will encompass every aspect of the business and bring uniformity to their product offering, while allowing future expansion.

This will be a fairly major project with a full rebrand including a new name and creation of sub-brands and even a SHINY new website. Naturally, the first step was to start a Pinterest board where ideas can be shared between designer and client…

Of course, the relentless ‘Pinning’ is getting Karen very excited and plenty of Pinterest meetings will have to be held to discuss all the ideas that come from them.

Keep your eyes peeled for exciting things yet to come…

For those of you who may know, Karen is a major gin-lover and she couldn’t contain her excitement when we met our new client – Glasgow Distillery.

They approached us after a recommendation from one of our other lovely clients, to design a new advert for their sub-brand, Makar Gin. When we come up with new designs we always start by investigating the brand. Of course while doing this, Karen was happy to get stuck in and sample some of the product.

Yesterday, Craig and Karen headed over to Glasgow’s only gin distillery to get an exclusive and very gin-orientated tour. All in the name of research of course…

After a very tasty tour, Craig and Karen set off through the undergrowth to get a shot of the city screen advert that we created for Makar Gin (It’s on the Clydside Expressway so keep an eye out!). Name in SHINING lights as they say…

Ava Berries was created as a sub-brand of our existing client, Good Natured Fruit. Specialising in pesticide and residue free fruit, Good Natured Fruit were keen to start a new venture selling the finest varieties of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. This is where Ava Berries comes in.
Suppling only the best Scottish berries to customers, Ava Berries loves the natural approach to fresh fruit.
After the concept and business idea were formed, Good Natured Fruit approached SHINE with their new endeavour, asking us to work with them creating a professional website and some well-designed HTML newsletters in keeping with their new brand. Of course, we were delighted!
So, we will be working on this over the coming months, so keep an eye out on social media and we will let you know of any updates and keep you posted on our progress.

Here at SHINE we work with a variety of business in different industries. From accountancy to hotels to veterinary sciences! The latter is where our new client, NewMetrica is placed.

Driven by a research project at the University of Glasgow, NewMetrica was formed by two founding developers. The business provides a scientific method for measuring an animal’s health. Mainly focused on domestic pets such as dogs, cats and pigs (yes pigs!) the founders are keen to grow the business and help animals everywhere. They formed VetMetrica, a sub-brand which provides a questionnaire (to the owner of course) asking questions relating to the animal’s general health. This can also be used in a vet consultation. This information is then stored and a profile is created for the animal. This can then be used to analyse the wellbeing over time or whether clinical treatments have been successful.

So, what are SHINE going to be doing for NewMetrica?

As a creative agency that covers digital projects and brands for clients, we don’t know much about veterinary sciences, but we do know how to design a great website! We will be re-vamping VetMetrica’s website and working closely with them in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned for updates on how our project is progressing and if you sign up to our monthly newsletter we will keep you updated on what we have been up to.

Everyone talks about the importance of networking. It’s a great way to meet new people and build connections that one-day might lead to new clients or sales. We can vouch for this, as this is how we met our new client, VWM Wealth.

Having travelled all the way to St Andrews for the Institute of Directors meeting, we met Ken Welsh from VWM Wealth. We got to chatting and discovered that we are actually neighbours! We are both based on St Vincent Street and as it turns out, VWM Wealth are only two doors down from SHINE. It’s a small world!

Up against two other businesses, we pitched our services to VWM Wealth and they chose us! In the upcoming months we will be working with them on their branding and website. We will also be helping them with all client facing materials.

VWM Wealth provides specialist financial services for their clients, through establishing a strategy and managing financial investments they are able to build their clients’ personal wealth.
Read more about VWM Wealth here.

How does SHINE get new clients? Mostly, it is through recommendations and advice from previous clients. This situation was no different for Kyria, who came to us after a mutual contact recommended SHINE.

Kyria specialise in the Logistics and Energy sectors and are able to provide expert advice and through consultancy and the ability to analyse problems effectively.

After meeting and gaining a deeper insight into the company, SHINE and Kyria discussed the options for moving forward. Deciding upon a website redesign and further development, SHINE have been tasked with enhancing the site for Kyria. This has also opened opportunities for working in partnership together on a further creative project.

At present, we are working on creative ideas for Kyria’s website and how we can maximise this. We are hoping to develop a strong relationship and work well together. With future projects to come, we will keep you updated on how we are progressing.