Rural Broadband - an innovation

The latest in pigeon carrier technology competes with the best of rural broadband. 2Tb delivered to your doorstep! Funny video

#superfast #fibre #ruralbroadband #rural #broadband #pigeon #highspeedinternet #Cumbria #TheLakeDistrict #Internet

https://youtu.be/zlhyuXQNCoc

Beatrix Potter 150 years

A quick update about the latest programme on Beatrix Potter one of our most famous children's author who lived and worked in The Lake District. You need to be quick - or find it on-line if you can...

We bid farewell to the snowdrop for another year, Cumbria

Bid farewell to the snowdrop for another year #Cumbriaisopen #Cumbriacrack #lucyruralandcreative

Spring lambs, walkers and rare birds - it must be Cumbria!

Back by popular demand, we have some more spring lambs. There's a demoiselle crane at Mockerkin Tarn (20/03/16) and a charity walk from Workington to Keswick comes calling.

Enjoy. Visit and Subscribe at YouTube ScientificArtsImages.

#lucyruralandcreative, #whitestuff, #cumbriaisopen, #cumbria, #thelakedistrict, #rurallife, #demoisellecrane, #lambs, charity walk, #rarebirdalert

A hectic morning in The Lake District - Lapwings

If you think nothing happens in The Lake District, think again. A typical Sunday morning, horses, cyclists and wild life. Lapwings, our first attempt at filming. We will be back with more sound and camera equipment.

#lucyruralandcreative, #lapwing, #Cumbria, #thelakedistrict, #rurallife, #cumrbiaisopen

I just love a log fire on a cold and wintry night. Here's how...to light a log fire.

#lucyruralandcreative #rurallife #Cumbria #thelakedistrict #scan #logfire #lightingalogfire

Cheers everyone!

Spring Lambs Alert! Springtime in Cumbria

We just find new born spring lambs the cutest things. This is part of a video blog which is all about living and working in a rural environment. By rural we mean in deepest Cumbria in a small village with only a telephone box and a mail box.

There’s lots to test you in the countryside and lots of rewards too.

For more updates subscribe to the ScientificArtsImages YouTube channel.

The Lake Artists Society, Grasmere Village Hall 2015 Summer exhibition

We were pleased and delighted to be asked to do a Google Tour for The Lake Artists Society Summer Exhibition in Grasmere. This is a very prestigious art society featuring art in many styles and media. It is a very exclusive group.

Doing the tour is rather special for us too, since this is a time bound live event - an exhibition. It is easy to forget that Google Tours can also be used for live events. In fact in our opinion it just doesn't happen enough for promotional purposes.

This exhibition is opening in the next couple of days (from the date of this post). It's been running here for more than one hundred years and is only available to view in person for 6 weeks. By contrast, this Google tour will continue to share the artists work with the world and has the potential for enquiries and on-line sales.

Established in 1904 The Lake Artists Society was always at the forefront of its art and is now jumping into the world of virtual reality still at the cutting edge.

Delightful and exciting! Below there’s a taster of some of the great shots taken at the show - If you want to see more of them then simply - Google ‘Grasmere Village Hall‘ and see all the photos for yourself by clicking on ‘See photos’.

Enjoy.

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

'Kate Moss' Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

Shown at The Lake Artists Society summer exhibition 2015 Grasmere

www.sciarts.co.uk

Before and after a Google Virtual Tour on the web

Now I’m going to show you the search results BEFORE and AFTER a Google Virtual Tour and Photos are added. This is for a business called Number Fifteen. Number Fifteen is a delightful arts, crafts and gift shop in Cockermouth.

On the left hand side (below), is how Number Fifteen USED TO APPEAR on an iPad when searching for the shop.

On the right hand side – this is how it NOW appears after we have completed a Google Tour and included our professional photos.

You can see that there is a tremendous improvement in the business presence and presentation.  Which one do you think your customers would prefer, I know which one I prefer!

In addition to the map, you can see See Inside (the Google Tour), you can go to Street View and you can take a look at the Photos that we produced.

Try Googling ‘Number Fifteen Cockermouth’ now and see what you see.

It will look slightly different on mobile and pc, but the key elements will all be there.

This is one of my favourite tours. You can see it here, why not take a virtual tour?

Other Virtual Tours

There are other virtual tours, that can feature separately or alongside Google Tours. Of course you lose the enhanced web presence that you would get with a Google Tour if you do this, but sometimes people want a different kind of tour.

So here is an example of a non Google tour that we did a little while ago now. The tour incorporates an on screen map. You can click on the map to move from room to room, or click on the points in the image. Scroll around, zoom and have a go. 

Click HERE to open the tour.

This tour is very effective since it has lots of colour and interesting things going on. The gym had just been renovated and repainted and of course that is the perfect time to do a tour.

Again a tour is really important for anyone who wants to show off ambience, decor or facilities.

The link is also found on the Allerdale Borough Council sports and recreation page. Click Here

The reach of these tours can go a long long way…..

Now back to Google Tours.

Creating a Tourist Trail Map – Part 4, Printing versus Digital Technology

There are some downsides to printed advertising material:

• it’s almost throw away,
• it can’t be updated without reprinting,
• the quantity to be printed can be an issue (how many is too few, how many is too many?)
• it uses resources,
• your customers/target audience have to be sent or be in the area ‘by chance’ to pick up your materials (hence the need to distribute).

The upsides to printed advertising material include:

• In many circumstances it’s a reliable and practicable method of getting your points across,
• It’s nice for people to hold in their hands,
• It’s portable and readily accessible.

So it’s definitely a very useful tool amongst many others for advertising.

More and more people are likely to be holding mobile phones or tablets in their hands – wherever they happen to be. So can you take advantage of that?

Yes. We took the bold decision to put our map on the web and make it interactive – with pop out information and web site links. http://sciarts.co.uk/Art_Map/Cmap.html

Digital technology counterbalances the disadvantages of the print version. And indeed people can plan their visit before they even come to your area and they don’t have to pick up a map. They may even be encouraged to visit, when they would not have done so before.

You will need someone to host the map on the internet of course, and someone to code it up for you. It really is the way to go and we’ve had great feedback on ours.

And finally we also put a QR code on the printed leaflet, so anyone can access the interactive version too on their mobile or tablet.

Happy planning, happy designing and happy trailing!

www.sciarts.co.uk

Creating a Tourist Trail Map – Part 3, The design and visual persuasion

Your graphic design should use visual persuasion to attract the passer-by to your leaflet in the stand and again to attract them to look at it when they finally pick it up off the stand. You need to know what colours and fonts to use for which purpose, and what design to use to match to the people that you want to attract.

When designing your leaflet try to use a variety of visual and psychological devices. For our leaflet we wanted to get away from all the cliched traditional pictures of landscapes and items for sale – we wanted to associate the outdoors with the main subject of the leaflet, to add enthusiasm and fun, and to stand out from the crowd.

Yellow is a bright and happy colour, and any use of red tends to be eye-catching. So in order to be different and eye-catching we used a female walker in a red jacket on our cover which is predominantly yellow. And it’s already having an impact!

We took inspiration from the drawings in a book we found in a second hand shop, called ‘Songs of Near and Far Away’ illustrated and written by E Richardson, and printed in 1900. We used the graphical style but interpreted it in a contemporary way. The style is consistent with the period of the architecture. Here we tried not to over design or over finesse the art work. It’s horses for courses.

Once you have got it altogether for the printers – proof read, proof read and proof read again!

Next up – printing versus modern technology – the future of your advertising.

www.sciarts.co.uk

Creating a Tourist Trail Map - Part 2, How to get started.

Your first question will most likely be ‘Do it all yourself?’ or ‘Do you get someone in to do some or all of it?’.

If you do most of the donkey work, i.e. speaking to the sponsors of your map to get their buy in, collecting their money and proof reading the final version then this will help keep the costs down. However always try to find someone with a track record in this sort of thing to help you out – at least with the graphic art, design, colouring, type setting and marketing style.

You also need to make sure you have enough money from your sponsors to cover the costs of professional printing, your graphic design and the distribution – if you are having it distributed. Take care, since in the UK, distribution costs attract VAT.

Some sponsors may pay for featured adverts and others will be happy with a ‘gazetteer’ entry.

You will need to decide on the type of distribution route – it’s a bit like a bus route. Ask your distributer about this. We used A-Ha as our distributer and they were very helpful.

In terms of printing you need to be careful about allowances for folding, colours and any trim and bleed issues of the colour. We used H&H Reeds for our printing, who were also very helpful. We were there for the final colour selection and the printing.

At this stage it is all about the planning and you may be surprised at how much time this eats up. Be prepared!

Next Up – The art work – Visual Persuasion

Creating a Tourist Trail Map – Part 1, Introduction

If you are a business owner or an individual and you want a tourist trail map for your town or area, what do you need to do? How do you ensure it will be a success and drive people to your area?

To whet your appetite here is a short (10 second) animation of the final print version of a tourist trail that we ourselves put together.

Just how do you overcome the challenges of getting a large group of people together to sponsor the project, how do you get the right graphics, how do you manage the costs? We will tackle all these in our short series of blogs.

Stay tuned.

www.sciarts.co.uk