Hatch Mansfield 2009 Wine Fair Stand

I have been involved with the production of the London International Wine Fair exhibition stand for Hatch Mansfield Agencies for what must be a decade? This year's stand retains the design we've worked with for some years, as it is very 'Hatch', echoing their stationery design (also created by myself over a decade ago), yet the stand this year has one or two small improvements as we always do every year just to add a little something.


I have worked on this stand design principally on the graphics design and production with Roger Eastwood of Cheltenham, since it first arrived at the wine fair when it was in Olympia, Kensington before moving to ExCel in docklands several year's ago. Once was a time when Roger and I worked on if i recall right 9? stands one year in Olympia - BRL Hardy (pre-Constellation days), Southcorp, Pernod Ricard, The Port Wine Institute, Bibendum plus the one's i cannot recall right now! A decent portfolio of exhibition design work. My involvement on the stand structure design is at the discussions/ideas stage. Rarely i get involved in plans (not that i couldn't do them). My involvement has always been in the design and artworking, and ordering, of the graphics that adorn the stands. And then the application on site.


And so, it remains with Hatch Mansfield, and another successful year at the London International Wine Fair 2009 at ExCel.

Swine flu irrational panic

The media have a new champion. Swine flu.

The public, are irrationally panicking around the world, without first checking some facts, and getting perspective.

What could happen is panic and mass hysteria about something that is no more than a particular strain of viral flu that has crossed to other countries from its original source - in the words of the World Health Organisation - a 'pandemic'.

Flu happens every winter. In the UK it kills up to 4000 people a year. In the USA it kills 30,000 to 40,000 a year. So far, the only deaths from Swine Flu have been 8 confirmed in Mexico (of the 168 suspected) and one in the USA.

Bear in mind people of the world, that other mitigating factors often play their part in causing death in some people who catch a flu virus, of any kind. Factors such as other underlying illnesses, malnutrition, social situation etc. Only 9 global confirmed Swine Flu deaths, in the grand scheme of things seems minimal. Remember that normal seasonal flu kills thousands around the world every year.... Let's keep some perspective.

The World Health Organisation (WHO)

advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities.

And as to the global price and demand of pork meat dropping see Marketing Magazine the irrational panic and ignorance of humanity worries me. As the WHO also say:

There is also no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products.

Keep it real, carry on as normal, and take normal good practice for personal hygiene and you reduce your risk of catching and transmitting any cold or flu. Cover your mouth/nose when you cough/sneeze - do so into a tissue or sleeve if you can. Wash your hands regularly, keep door handles, work tops clean. Take care with personal hygiene and we will all be better off.

And in the immortal words of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - DON'T PANIC!

That is all ;)

Online competition web site success!

Two wine brands - Vidal from New Zealand, and Errazuriz from Chile - are running promotions this Spring through specially collared bottles in shops in the UK.

Mark Lawson Design has designed and organised the competition web sites to support the promotions, and handling the entries for the clients once the competitions close.

Mark Lawson Design can provide you with web sites to capture your competition entries, and handle the whole process from start to finish, including the production of in-store promotional materials if you need.
Call 0845 226 5874 to find out more.

www.vidalcompetition.co.uk
www.errazuriz-brightideas.co.uk

Statistics can be misleading

GO FIGURE : Different ways of seeing stats

Michael Blastland at the BBC says:

"What are we to make of all those stories that warn of lifestyle dangers and slap a giant "%" sign in the headline?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7937382.stm

It's an interesting way to look at things, and i'd say good news if you had any worries about what you can eat and drink, or those latest crazy scientist scare stories!

And i have to say i am increasingly of the view that so long as you think of everything in moderation, keep the sugars and saturated fats low, healthy balanced diet, bit of regular exercise (even walking the dog counts), really you can eat what you like.

Ultimately, we are biologically programmed to be the size we are thanks to our metabolism and body fat / size we started out with as a teenager (see BBC Horizon : "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?" broadcast BBC2 on 26 Jan 2009). Why fight it?! It can only be 'controlled' by not over-eating and getting enough exercise. ;-)

Secure yourself online for FREE - no excuse not to!

My brother got nasties on his computer that locked him out of the internet. As a result of this, i have been looking at PC security, and the following FREE bits of software are worth everyone knowing about:-


Antivirus

There's no excuse for not having an anti-virus. AVG Free (for home use) has been rated in the computer and tech press as a great piece of software. Just because it is free doesn't negate its effectiveness. If you actually pay for it, you can get extra protection above anti-virus:-

http://free.avg.com/ (not for Apple Mac)

APPLE MACs generally don't see viruses, and its only usually in your mail messages that you may receive them. You probably won't get 'infected' if you open a mail message but unwittingly you can pass it on. Have a look through the Apple web site for a free anti-virus for that ‘just in case’ moment:-

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/


Firewall

For free, generally accepted best (for now) is the Sunbelt-Kerio Personal Firewall. Causes few problems on the system and manages reasonable protection. Only annoyance is the message you will get after 30 days asking you to buy it. The Free version does keep working.

You need to uninstall any other Firewall first, otherwise it will conflict. (True of any Firewall)

Note: the well known ZoneAlarm Free although widely available, is considered a poor performer.

http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Home-Home-Office/Sunbelt-Personal-Firewall/

APPLE MACs come with decent in-built Firewall settings. Make sure they are on, and refer to the Apple web site for more information. For instance for Mac OS X 10.5:-

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/11783.html


Email protection

If you don’t recognize who the message is from, don’t open it! It could be a spammer looking to see if your email is valid (by opening your message you send a hidden response message that confirms your existence) or worse, it could have a virus / trojan / worm nasty malware attached to it that could infect your system. So never open mail from people you don’t trust!

Your bank will NEVER email you to ask for any kind of security or account confirmation, nor will they send you links to click to access your account, or confirm your details. No matter how convincing the email that appears to be from your bank, you bank will NEVER ask for your security or personal details on email. So never click banking links. If in any doubt telephone your bank to ask about the email you receive.

Browsing Protection

When web browsing, many sites track where you go and what you like. It's ‘harmless’ but does allow them to potentially target advertising you see when you visit web sites, based on your viewing habits. You could set a home-page on your browser to open up the following site, that if you 'Select all' and Submit, you can opt out of all these tracking 'cookies', making your web browsing a bit more secure:-

http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

- PC Users should try setting their security levels to avoid trouble. Advice from Microsoft.com web site:-

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/advanced/browsing.mspx

- Set up your browser so it blocks pop-up windows. Pop-ups can be used to install nasties on your PC.

- Web downloads & applications that may be downloaded and run via your web browser should be preference set to NOT run automatically. You want the choice whether to run something you download. If you choose to download something, SAVE to your disk, check it and run from there. This will stop malware from getting into your system.

- To be honest, it is worth clearing cookies when you close your web browser just to clear up any possible bad ones that might have got installed while browsing. Its up to you if you also want to clear the cache and history when you finish browsing.

Use Firefox Web Browser!

Apart from being web standard compliant (much more so than Internet Explorer), it is award winning, and offers some great add-ons that you can use to guard what happens when you are web browsing. Check out the Add-ons on the Firefox site:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

A couple of key Add-Ons that are worth installing:-

The 'NoScript' Add-on gives you control of what runs on your Firefox browser. You do have to teach it "Allow" for every new site you visit that you want to run, and you will find that sites will have all sorts of scripts that need to run to make the page display properly (can be annoying at first). The point is that it puts you in control of what happens when you visit a web page, and all-but eliminates your risk of malware getting into your computer, because you choose what can run and allow it to run every time you visit the site, or you can just temporarily turn it on if you wish.

NOTE: It is worth checking the 'NoScript' icon on your web browser as you do online shopping because you will need to allow a variety of scripts and sites associated with payment processing (ideally permanently) in order to complete transactions.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

The 'WOT' Add-on watches web sites and helps protect you from browsing scamming sites, malware, spam etc.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3456

The 'AdBlock' Add-On which stops lots of annoying ads and banners on web pages.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865


Do YOU have spyware or viruses on your computer?

You'd be surprised what gets in... If you have the above security, you should already have limited your risk, and if you do a 'spyware' scan using one of the below, some 'spyware' it detects is nothing more than a 'harmless' web browsing tracking 'cookie' used by web sites to log your visit.
For more about cookies read this from Microsoft.com :-

http://www.microsoft.com/info/cookies.mspx

If you think your system has malware nasties, and you want to scan it, the free online scanner service from F-Secure is recommended by a number of leading banks:-

http://www.f-secure.com/security_center/ (not for Apple Mac)

You can also use the Microsoft Malicious Software Tool:-

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx (not for Apple Mac)


CONCLUSION

It may seem the world is out to get you, and to a point, unless your security is good, and your online activities carefully considered, you can unwittingly let in nasty malicious software to your computer. I use an Apple Mac, behind a broadband modem router which also has a Firewall. Although I am not complacent, I have my Firewall on and do occasional anti-virus scans. The only nasties I get are spam emails. And they are rare because of my ISP (plus.net) who filters so effectively now that I see so little in the way of spam.

PCs are more open to attack as they are the most common computer platform. So get yourself safe, adopt the attitude that you are likely to be ‘attacked’ and behave online and with email accordingly, and you should be pretty safe ☺

12 Men in a wine box? Sure!

Although this photo-manipulated image is over a year old now, it still raises a smile. When asked: "would it be possible to put 12 winemakers into a box", i said that i am always up for a challenge!

This was an example shown to the assembled this morning at the Business League breakfast this morning in Saltash, of my belief that "Everything is Possible". Twelve French vignerons in a wine box were well received. I do enjoy a fun photo composition challenge.

One of the assembled breakfasting networkers dared to suggest that my belief in 'honest, accurate, targeted design' was compromised by this image. Honest? Well... For sure, you can't squeeze 12 Frenchmen into a standard-sized wine box without some help from a "Drink Me" bottle* or Adobe Photoshop®, but hey, it's such a crazy illusion you couldn't accuse me of 'faking' it. I mean, you didn't believe we actually put them in that box, did you?

Of course, we photographed the wine box in the UK, with bottles in, ping-pong balls on top marked with eye and centre lines, and sent that shot to our photographer in France, who proceeded up a ladder and took pictures of our winemakers looking up at him, as if stood in the box.

Their photos all back on my desk in the UK, some hours later and Photoshop magic (and skill of course [;-)] ), and 12 winemakers find themselves in a wine box, and a fun campaign followed. And the results are here to be seen.

Everything is possible!

*Alice in Wonderland reference, just in case you didn't get it ;-)

Escape these four walls

Sometimes we get stuck in the same four walls for too long.

Working from home is great. Great for the environment, great for avoiding the rush hour irritation, great for being home so your dog has feet to lie on :)

Sometimes, like this week, which has been very productive yet very long with it, has meant i have not been able to help out as a volunteer so i can concentrate on slogging through the week's tasks.

I did spend most of Saturday being a chippie at my voluntary venue - Livewire in Saltash (www.livewireyouth.com) - and that was great too. Long day mind you, but i did escape these four walls.

Today, Sunday, i woke up early, bleary eyed, slobbed in front of the telly for a couple hours, with a couple of cups of tea, and just felt 'I need to get out of the house' (and my dog Ben would love a walk). We walked several miles along some new paths which we've not walked since being in Saltash almost three years. Both now knackered but feeling refreshed. Well, Ben is collapsed on the sofa next to me, and i've had a huge coffee :)

Where i am leading is to say this: if you find yourself feeling like you can't be bothered, because you've got too much to do, it's all too much, or perhaps you've just collapsed after a hectic time; break it up, snap out of it, and 'escape these four walls' to freshen your head and loosen up those computer-bound muscles with a walk. And if you have a dog, take him or her out too. You know they'll love it.