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Growing your brand

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:15:27 GMT

Growing Your Brand with Piston: Speak, Build, Engage

In today’s digital-first landscape, your brand is more than just a logo or a website, it’s how people feel when they land on your page, interact with your posts, or remember your service. At Piston , we believe the strongest brands grow through meaningful communication and an unwavering understanding of their goals. Let’s break down how we help bring that to life.

Start with Understanding

Everything begins with a conversation. We don’t just build pretty things—we listen. Whether you're a start-up finding your voice or an established business in need of a refresh, we begin by asking the right questions. What drives your business? Who are your ideal customers? What’s your long-term vision? This clarity fuels our creativity and ensures everything we craft aligns with your objectives and audience.

Build Powerful Digital Assets

From that initial spark of insight, we translate strategy into standout visuals. At Piston, we design with intention—your brand identity is carried through every touchpoint, from logos and colour palettes to graphics and website interfaces. Our in-house team crafts bespoke websites that don’t just exist—they shine. Mobile-responsive layouts, clean navigation, SEO-optimisation—ready to work for you 24/7. And if you’re looking for more, we layer in content solutions like email, social media, and even aerial videography to truly elevate your presence.

Engage Your Audience

A brand isn’t static—it's a conversation. We help you spark that interaction. Whether it’s through social media packages that bring your feed to life, engaging video content, smart email campaigns, or high-quality SEO strategies that elevate your visibility, we craft tools to convert interest into engagement, and engagement into loyalty.

Visual Design That Connects

Every design decision matters—fonts that speak your tone, colours that convey your energy, layouts that guide attention just where it needs to be. Our graphic design studio is built on the belief that strong visuals build stronger connections. Whether printed collateral or digital assets, we bring creativity that supports clarity and connection.

Real, Lasting Growth

Since the early days, Piston has remained small but mighty. Our roots—spanning nearly two decades—give us the freedom to adapt, innovate, and deliver without the fluff. From local SMEs to global brands, our strength comes from building tools that work, support you, and grow with you.

Why Choose Piston?

We listen first. Understanding your goals isn’t a step, it’s our foundation.
We build with purpose. Every design, every campaign, every tool is fit for your brand’s growth.
We deliver impact. Our toolkit—web, graphic, video, social, SEO, brings engagement that counts.
We keep it real. We’re a lean, creative agency that cares deeply about your success.

Ready to build a brand that speaks clearly, connects genuinely, and grows meaningfully? That’s what we do best.

Let’s make your brand felt, are you ready to start your brand journey with us.

Our home, our heritage

blp@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Thu, 18 May 2023 07:29:39 GMT

Our new space is connected to our family heritage.

At Piston Design, our connection to the BASE Innovation Centre in Bordon, Hampshire goes beyond just our physical location. It is deeply personal and intertwined with our founder Barry Parker's family history. Barry's grandfather, Roy Barry Parker, proudly served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), the very organisation that once occupied Broxhead House as its Officers Mess.

Knowing that this historic site held such significance for his grandfather and the REME, Barry feels a profound sense of pride and responsibility in making Piston Design a part of its legacy. We honour the memory of Roy Barry Parker and the countless individuals who gathered, dined, and found solace within these walls after the war.

As we walk through the grand and spacious business lounge, we imagine the conversations and camaraderie that took place in the past, paying homage to the elegance and heritage of Broxhead House. The gable wall of our tranquil Secret Garden serves as a poignant reminder of the tranquility that once enveloped these grounds, including the moments of respite Roy Barry Parker and his comrades experienced.

Piston Design draws inspiration from this extraordinary blend of history and innovation, carrying forward the spirit of excellence and pushing the boundaries of design. We embrace the opportunity to thrive within this inspiring environment, where the past merges with the present, allowing us to create groundbreaking solutions that honoUr the remarkable heritage of BASE Innovation Centre.

With BASE as our foundation and the proud connection to Roy Barry Parker, Piston Design embarks on a journey to leave our mark on the future while cherishing the legacy of this remarkable heritage site. We are driven by a shared commitment to excellence, growth, and success for businesses in the East Hampshire area and beyond, just as the REME and BASE Innovation Centre have embodied throughout their history.

The importance of Branding

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:11:40 GMT

Piston are obsessed with strong branding.

Why branding is your biggest tool in business?

When we speak about brands or branding, the temptation is always to think very big. To think that brand focus is a practice reserved for globally recognised entities. The Coca-Cola Brand, Brand Beckham, Apple branded products. The very term can conjure up visions of unattainable recognition and grandeur. This may be the reason why many small business owners do not see the importance branding, and do not invest their time and efforts into getting it right.

However, this should not be the case. Effective branding is absolutely crucial for businesses at every level of the pyramid. From the aforementioned global powerhouses to the smallest of sole traders.

Speaking to your audience.

A brand is what identifies your business to consumers and distinguishes you from your competition. This includes visual elements such as the colour tone, logo, social media pages and your website. However, brand is so much more. Your brand can help guide and bring focus to all of your business’s activities.

Once translated into one dynamic package, branding speaks to your audience and communicates exactly what you represent as an organisation. This is an important factor when building credibility, engagement and aligning your business model with how you and your business operate/ perform.

Using Piston as your branding professional, we ensure the suggestions in this article are are included in your project build. The below are key elements we believe we can implement to your brand//

Trust

Having strong branding with clear and consistent messaging is the first step towards gaining the trust of the consumer. If consumers can easily understand your offering and feel like you are being honest with them, this drastically increases the likelihood of them conducting business with you.

Trust in your branding works two-fold. Not only does a trustworthy brand put first-time customers at ease, also, consumers who go on to have a positive experience with your brand will be far more likely to repeat business and become regular customers. A brand is effectively a promise to customers that they can know what to expect every time.

Our modern content management systems (CMS) uses SEO-friendly URLs, so implements easy to navigate pages and in a language that is understood by the major search engines..

Association

Customers enjoying a positive experience with your product or service is great, but this has to be married with recognisable branding. If your branding does not effectively differentiate your business from the competition, highlights what makes your business amazing and capture the minds of the audience, then your hard work delivering an experience can be undone. You need to be memorable - for all the right reasons!

Culture

Strong branding is key for small businesses when building and growing a culture. A clear and consistent brand allows a workforce to understand just what it means to represent that organisation. It creates a focal point for emotional investment and something staff can really get behind, believe in and be proud to associate with - they will help sell the business through its positive culture.

Consistency

Your brand influences every action taken by the organisation. No matter the size or scale of the business.

A strong brand has to be consistent. This goes back to the “trust” we mentioned earlier. Consistent brands are far more trustworthy to consumers. If a brand is inconsistent with its messaging then this will confuse the audience, leaving them uncertain of your offering.

Profitability

If you walk into a local supermarket and head for pharmaceuticals section - You would see that a standard pack of 200mg Nurofen would cost roughly £2, whereas the basic home brand equivalent Ibuprofen would come in at around the 40p mark - stay with us...

... This is to be expected though, Nurofen is far more effective than your bog-standard Ibuprofen, it 'targets your pain directly', 'gets to work faster' and 'lasts for longer right? The answer is no. In tablet form, Nurofen is chemically identical to its Ibuprofen counterpart. There is no difference between the two, in all likelihood they are probably made in the same factory!

So why is it that Nurofen are able to charge over 400% more than standard home brands? Quite simply, this is the power of branding.

In summary

Branding is extremely important for businesses of any size. It helps to build trust in what you are offering. Brand is the source of emotional investment for both your customers and employees.

Your brand represents all that you stand for as a business, it makes a promise to the consumer, celebrating what makes you different from and better than your competition. Brand influences all actions carried out by your business, it guides your activities and ensures that a consistent message is conveyed to all audiences.

It can add a huge amount of value to your product or service which vastly effects profitability. So, any small business owner concerned about their bottom line (which in reality is probably everyone) should without a doubt be thinking about investing in their brand. As investing in your brand is investing in your future.

Piston can provide a full turn-key solution for branding. From Logo design, Slogans and Videography to Ground up website design, hosting, apparel print/ design and social media management!

Get in touch and see how we can accelerate you and your business.

studio@ pistondesign .co.uk

What the SEO?

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 09:35:28 GMT

A full insight to Piston's SEO Programme

What is SEO and what does Piston do?

Search engine optimisation ( SEO ) is a technique that allows search engines to understand your website content. By implementing best-practice SEO across your site your content will have a better chance of ranking well in relevant search engine results.

There are several subsets of SEO:

Technical SEO
On-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO

In this article, Piston is going to focus on Technical SEO, as it is the one that is vital to include when building your website , as it needs to be weaved into the foundations. However, you will need to think about On- and Off-Page as the site must support them also.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO covers the structure of your website, and a lot of it needs to be implemented when your site is being built, as it can be difficult to retrofit it afterwards.

Using Piston as your professional web developer, we ensure the suggestions in this article are are included in your project build.

URL

The web address of your web page has a part to play in your SEO. The address of a page needs to reflect the content within it. For example:

A URL that was yoursite.com/3486/54585484 would give the search engines no information about your page
You should use descriptive text such as yoursite.com/how-to-wire-a-plug, or yoursite.com/how-to/wire-a-plug

Our modern content management systems (CMS) uses SEO-friendly URLs, so implements easy to navigate pages and in a language that is understood by the major search engines..

Site Speed

Google is particularly vigilant on ranking fast loading sites well. This is because users do not like slow sites. The longer a site takes to load, the more likely a website visitor will hit that ‘back’ button, rather than wait for a site to load. Bounce rates increase significantly the longer your site takes to load.

Ways we make your site load quicker:

Ensuring you have a good web hosting (AWS) - this is Google's own speedy servers.
We make sure your website code is optimised and streamlined (we avoid too much javascript code).
All your images are optimised so their file size isn’t too large.
Piston use webpage and image cache. This is a technique where a server stores a snapshot of your site which it can serve to the website visitor much quicker than loading it from scratch each time.

Mobile Friendly

Since Google launched its mobile-first indexing, it has become more important than ever to ensure your mobile site offers a great user experience and loads fast.

There are few things you must do, to help your site offer a great mobile experience:

We ensure the mobile version of your site is quick loading (especially on 3G and 4G networks)
We ensure content on your mobile and desktop sites is the same (just re-formatted). Google will often use the mobile version of the site to rank, if you’re missing content for mobile users then Google then you may struggle to get that content to rank
We optimise the user interface for the mobile experience – text, links and visibility are all easy to click on with a finger.
Piston use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) by Google. This is a special framework that allows your pages to be stored in a Google cache so that they display lightning fast to website visitors that come via the search engine. AMP is quite tricky to implement and does have pros and cons, as a web developer we will discuss if the technology is suitable for you.

Canonical Tags

These tags are essential for making sure the search engines don’t think you have duplicate content. Many content management systems (CMS) allow you to have pages and blog posts in multiple categories, which search engines will see as duplicate content.

For example, if you were a gardener, you may have written a blog on your site called “Top tips for beautiful roses”. In your CMS, you have multiple blog categories you’ve created called ‘top tips’, ‘roses’, ‘evergreens’, ‘garden maintenance’, and ‘lawn care’. Your new blog could easily fit into three of these categories, so you choose to add it to: ‘top tips’, ‘roses’, and ‘garden maintenance’. You usually need to decide which will be the main category, so in this example, we’ll select ‘top tips’.

With a lot of content management systems, when you add a blog to multiple categories, website visitors and search engines will be able to access it through various URLs (one for each category):

yoursite.com/top-tips/top-tips-for-beautiful-roses (main category)
yoursite.com/roses/top-tips-for-beautiful-roses
yoursite.com/garden-maintenance/top-tips-for-beautiful-roses

The problem is that search engines will see these and think that the page is duplicate content, as the blog appears the same under each of the three URLs. This is where canonical tags come in. They are small pieces of code that will tell the search engine that the content is duplicated and show it where the original content lies. The original blog will be the one that you chose to be the ‘main’ category.

Structured Data

We love Google Scheme.

Schema makeup ( schema.org ) is a way of categorising content so that the search engines can understand the information on your site and what it means. There is schema markup available for all sorts of things, including events, people, recipes, products, books, movies etc

Schema also has a bonus; it will also allow portions of your site to appear in Google’s Rich Results, where they serve up extra information straight into the search engine results such as product prices or if something is in stock. Usually, content that appears in the Rich Results is displayed near the top of Google, so it’ll give you a chance to secure one of the higher placements on search engine results pages.

Schema has to be implemented into the coding of your website, and it can be a bit complex to understand if you’re not a web developer. Some CMS systems have some schema built-in. You can get add-ons and plugins to help with other schemas.

Once your site has been built, you can test your schema is working correctly and that Google will recognise it using the handy Rich Results Test tool.

Redirects

If you are moving from an old site onto a newly built website with Piston, we need to redirect any URLs that have changed. This will ensure that any SEO value you’ve built up will carry on over to your new site. If you’ve moved your site over to a brand new domain name, you’ll have to redirect the entire site.

No redirect needed:
Old site: yoursite.com/services/plumbing
New site: yoursite.com/services/plumbing
Redirect needed:
Old site: yoursite.com/services/plumbing
New site: yoursite.com/services/plumbing-and-boiler-repair

The best way of redirecting is with 301 redirects. These tell the search engines that your pages have permanently moved to a new URL. To do this, you can help us by listing all the URLs on your old site and what they will be on the new site. We can then develop and implement the redirects.

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a map of your site in a code format called Extensible Markup Language (XML). It helps to make sure search engines can see all of the pages on your site and understand the hierarchy.

Don’t worry, we do the hard work – the easiest way to create a sitemap is to use an add-on or plugin for your CMS. Ideally, you want the sitemap to self-update when you add or remove pages, so that the search engines always have the most up-to-date view of your site.

Once we have your XML sitemap created we will submit them to Google . We use Google Search Console to submit your site map. Once you’ve created an account and added your sitemap you can then keep an eye on it using the Sitemaps Report . You can learn more about sitemaps at sitemaps.org .

Technical SEO may seem a little complex, but Piston provide this built-in already. There are usually several useful plugins and add-ons that can also help and are available from our APP store.

In summary

Piston work hard to ensure your site is as search-engine-friendly as possible :)

Slogans and Taglines

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 19:13:27 GMT

Create a powerful slogan and tagline to really sell your brand and engage with consumers, fans and to help build a community.

Coming up with a catchy slogan, or crafting the right tagline that defines your brand and really solidifies it in the minds of your customers, is difficult to assign a true value to.

However, it’s impossible to deny that some of these most memorable brand slogans and taglines can claim responsibility for millions of dollars in comparable advertising spend (or possibly more) because of how effective they’ve been at capturing the attention of new consumers over the years.

That’s not to mention the positive impact a catchy slogan or tagline can have in terms of driving more consistent repeat business from the customers who’ve already experienced your brand.

Either way you look at it, there’s an undeniable value to be claimed if you can create a memorable slogan that people want to share, can’t forget—or that they mentally connect to a specific need in their lives.

What is a tagline?

In the context of branding, a tagline is a memorable motto or phrase that’s designed to serve as a permanent expression of your company’s greater purpose and mission. Taglines are long-lasting, instantly recognizable with your brand and have the goal of both attracting customers & remaining top of mind with your existing audience.

How is a slogan different?

Similar in form to a tagline, typically a few words or a short sentence, a slogan is most often used to represent a specific product line or individual marketing campaign. Slogans are designed to be less long-lasting than a brand’s tagline as they can adapt over time, but still serve the purpose of bringing your company to mind with consumers.

Nike: “Just do it.”

Coined by one of the company’s advertising agencies back in 1988, this slogan is extremely action-oriented and does a great job of communicating one of the core messages of Nike’s brand—to give people the tools to be active and perform better.

BMW: “The ultimate driving machine.”

The famed German automaker had immediate success with this catchy slogan when it was introduced through a wide-reaching series of marketing campaigns beginning in 1973, targeted at a generation of Americans looking for a car they could feel proud of.

Airbnb: “Belong anywhere.”

This brand slogan came along in 2014 after the billion-dollar, short-term rental platform realized their customers were using their service as more than just a tool to make travel easier. Before adopting this slogan, their primary tagline was, “travel like a human,” but the reimagination of the brand with their new tagline included a big visual refresh and a steady push into new

How to Write Your Own Catchy Slogans & Taglines

If you want to craft a memorable slogan for your upcoming campaign—or connect a new tagline to your greater brand, you’ll want to start by first digging deep into your company’s values and overall mission. Through that vehicle, strive to incorporate these four characteristics into your work.

Make it memorable.

If your tagline or slogan doesn’t have at least a somewhat catchy ring to it, then you’re already starting off on the wrong foot. Seek to answer these questions:

Is your slogan quickly recognizable?
Will people be able to easily comprehend what it means?
Is there an obvious connection to your brand that can forge a link between the two?

Even just a few strong words that your target customers will identify with and learn to associate with your brand, can dramatically help in their recall of your advertisements, social content and products at large.

Communicate clear benefits.

Ever notice that the most successful weight loss programs focus on selling the future results you’ll experience as a result of choosing their system to shed some unwanted weight?

They don’t spend nearly as much time selling the individual details of how their programs work—compared to how much effort they invest into communicating the benefits you stand to gain. This is a textbook example of selling the benefits, not the features.

This same advice applies directly to creating your tagline or slogans. A great one can make your company (or product) benefits extremely clear to consumers.

Differentiate your brand.

What exactly makes your product different from competitors?

Using your slogan to signal a strong, differentiating message about your brand is a key objective as you go about structuring a catchy slogan for an upcoming campaign. Seek to use persuasive emotion words that convey a greater message about your products.

If you hand make men’s watches for a high net worth audience with luxurious taste, then you’ll likely want to lean heavily on words that differentiate your brand as being the absolute highest quality, coveted by successful business people and a status symbol.

On the other hand, if your competitive advantage is a quality product at an affordable price and a level of customer service that goes far beyond the industry standard, then consider choosing words that humanize your brand, make your products feel very approachable and give customers the reassurance that they’ll be taken care of for years to come.

Design your slogan and logo together

It’s important to think about how your slogan and logo will work together across your marketing collateral. Does it work for on the ads, flyers , and other marketing materials you need to create? It can be helpful to see your slogan and logo together to help you make decisions.

Let Piston test drive your slogans and logos with our Adobe Creative Cloud Exp erience. Here at Piston we can design multiple options to see how your slogan looks across your marketing collateral or digital artwork like posters and flyer designs .

Leave a positive feeling about your brand.

While some marketers will advocate for the use of urgency or stoking fear within their ad campaigns, research suggests that the best slogans use words that are positive and leave people feeling upbeat.

For example, the tagline by haircare brand L’Oréal Paris, “Because you’re worth it,” gives you an uplifting feeling about the product—whereas a 2015 slogan by Dr. Pepper, “It’s not for women,” is intentionally divisive and uses a slightly negative tone.

Which slogan leaves you with a better impression of the brand?

If you take these four components into account when crafting your brand’s new tagline or campaign slogan—and add a healthy dose of creativity, you’ll be headed in the right direction. Just be sure to gain feedback from your customers and learn as you go.

Looking for a logo, brand design or creative slogan?

Check out OUR SERVICES.

Marketing Style

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 14:35:20 GMT

Taking good photos is a great start!

Since Instagram’s creation, it has grown into the ultimate platform for sharing photos.

Over 800 million monthly users are active on the site. More than 60 million photos are posted each day, and 1.6 billion daily “likes” are given.

There’s also a large number of influencers on the site with a massive amount of followers. And with the right plan, you can become an influential brand, too.

You need to post the right kind of content to stay relevant to current followers while also bringing in new ones.

But it can be hard to know which kinds of posts work best for growing your audience.

Here are some powerful Instagram marketing tips (that actually work) that you can use to milk the popular platform for all that it’s worth.

Switch to a business profile ASAP

First, you need to switch to a business profile.

Before you start thinking about your Instagram marketing plan, be sure that you have an Instagram Business Account. It’s easy to switch your current profile to a business account.

Open your account; Click little Gear > Click 'Switch to business account'. It is that easy. You have now unlocked some cool business features.

Post product teasers that will (gently) urge people to buy

What if you could sell more products just by posting product teasers on Instagram?

Well, you can.

Instagram is a great place to advertise your products. And if you play your cards right, you won’t annoy users or scare them off with advertisements, either.

If you’re too pushy, followers will drop like flies. But product teaser posts are a simple way to talk about your product and increase excitement without looking like you’re trying too hard.

Use Instagram Stories

If you want to generate leads, Instagram Stories are here to help.

Instagram stories differ from regular Instagram posts because they come in a “slideshow” format.

They’re only live for 24 hours, but Stories can be saved to any of your devices and reused at a later point.

Eh.... take good photos....

It may seem obvious, but good photographs make the world of difference for your feed and your followers. Invest in a good photographer/ videographer that can assist you (we do this here at piston). Pictures win prizes on social media. Create engagement, start a conversation and reap the benefits. Check out some images below from some products we have worked with;

Piston Support System

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 20:02:07 GMT

Easy access to the support Piston Design Web Builder

RESPONSIVE WEBSITE BUILDE R

To get the most from your Piston Website, its important you take the time to digest and understand the working components of your website front end editor.

We offer support with all of our website packages, but if you are looking to be pro-active and get the best from your new business tool, check out our comprehesnive digital support manual.

You can access the support manual by clicking here.

ACCESS THE FRONT END WEBSITE EDITO R

So your website is live, you now want to login and start playing with all the cool features? Piston have to set you up, to do this, please email us directly studio@pistondesign.co.uk - If we have already and you just want access, that's easy, simply click the link below and use your login credentials to access the dashboard panel. Here, you can also access all of your site statistics and analytics including visitors, my popular pages and what devices are being used to access your website.

EMAIL ACCESS PANE L

If you have a domain with Piston, its likely we have setup a standalone email account on your desktop pc, laptop, iPad or iPhone. If you have lost access to the device and still need access to your email (you need your primary email account and password), you can access the email 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by clicking the link below and entering your details;

Access emails by clicking here

SUPPORT CONTACT INF O

Need help with any of the above? No problem.

Call. 07759065108

Email. blp@pistondesign.co.uk

Why Videography works!

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 21:43:02 GMT

Modern methods to engage with clients on every level.

We live our lives through a lens. Whether it's the lens in our eye, the lens of a camera, our phone, video or TV camera and for those of us that are fortunate to see, we make our decisions, big and small, on a daily basis based on what we see through all those different types of lenses.

If the vision through the lens is funny, we laugh.. If it’s sad we cry … If it’s profound, we give it a lot of thought. So we live in a world where the lens plays a big part in our decision making … Now let's look at that in context of your business.

I want you to think about your favourite / most powerful piece of marketing. Is it a written piece? A picture? Or is it a video? Think about it. What would happen if, instead of seeing the things in everyday life that you make judgements and decisions on, you could only read about them or see a still picture about them?

You couldn’t really make the sort of informed decision or judgement you do at the moment when you can see it in motion. This is what happens with a large percentage of businesses who still use mainly written and static images for their marketing and don’t use video in their marketing campaigns. Recent studies showed that videos accounted for 69% of all internet traffic in 2017.

These are just some of the benefits of using video content to promote your business as opposed to print or static digital campaigns. Video and, in particular, online video content is more effective and accessible than ever before and its impact is set to grow even stronger over the next few years. I used video content many years ago (obviously setting the trend as it was before the internet marketing took off!) to help sell services for the company I was working for and I have to tell you, it helped me outsell every other sales person in my area, smashing the targets I had been set. Something I am still proud of today, as I didn’t consider myself to be a natural sales person, so just tried using the video to assist my efforts. It wasn’t me who did the selling , it was the video I made!

Let’s look at some important stats about using video content:

An initial email with a video receives an increase click-through rate by 96%.
Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more
Before reading any text, 60% of site visitors will watch a video if available.
One minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.
56% of consumers believe if a company has a website, it should have video content.
The Average user spends 16 minutes and 49 seconds a month watching online video ads.
80% of consumers say a video showing how a product or service works is important when learning about the company.
51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
Video search results have a 41% higher click-through than plain text results.
50% of marketers consider customer testimonials, explainer tutorial videos, and demonstration videos the most effective types of video content used.

What story can you tell in 90 seconds? What results could you achieve?

That’s all it takes. Less than two minutes of creativity to engage with and sell to potential new clients. Video offers a more interactive experience for consumers by educating, informing and entertaining them and when watched leaves a more lasting impression than a static ad. It allows you to tap into consumer emotions, provoking a response that will influence their opinions, choices and ultimately their buying decisions.

It’s time to start getting inspired, and if you are not already doing so, invest in some vibrant creative and a professional editor to produce something that gives you some real competitive edge! It could be the best 2 minutes you’ve ever committed to. If your competitor already does video, watch it and analyse it… then do something different and more imaginative.

John Lewis is the perfect example of doing it differently. Their ‘Monty the Penguin’ Christmas ad was shared over 202,000 times in the first 24 hours and has been viewed more than 23 million times. What has a penguin got to do with a department store? Nothing! But it got the John Lewis brand talked about by millions of people.

The creativity you can produce is only limited by your imagination, so my message to you is: what are you waiting for?

Piston offer a wide range of videography service to promote, enhance and showcase you, your business or personal event.

Piston websites go global.

Sat, 12 May 2018 11:40:02 GMT

Why a Piston website is a quick and easy way to promote your business.

So why are Piston Websites so popular? Let me explain, Piston Design create highly visual, easy to navigate and easy to manage websites. We are freelance, which means one call, one person, one point of contact. General feedback we receive from new clients is that they have struggled to build a comprehensive website as the experience of dealing with multiple-member studio's or multi-national companies means the feeling and passion is lost, usually after the first conversation. What is really important his our ability to build websites quickly and to a very high standard across all device platforms including mobile, tablet and desktop applications. Piston now provide global services and now hold business websites in both Canada and the USA!

Unsure what this would mean for you, your business and your clients? Check out my most frequently asked questions below;

Why do I need a Piston Design's Responsive Website Builder?

Piston Design Responsive Website is a complete multi-screen solution which creates one website that works great on desktop, tablet, and mobile. These sites work together to provide our customers with a great user experience, regardless of the device they're on.

What is a responsive site?

A responsive site is one that changes the way its content displays depending on the size of the device on which it's being viewed. Responsive sites tend to use media queries to ask the viewer's device its size and type, and change content depending on the result they get. They also tend to use variable image sizes and proportion-based element widths to ensure their content is displayed well wherever they're viewed.

What advantages does a responsive site offer?

Responsive sites allow Piston to customise content for each device size and so tailor their visitor's experience based on the device from which the site is viewed.

Are Piston’s websites responsive design?

Yes. Piston Design uses responsive design techniques to present much of the same content differently based on the device on which it's being viewed. It also allows you to determine what content should show on which devices and how that content should be displayed.

Our entry website package 'The Landing Page', costs just £395.00 to build that includes ongoing developments, technical support and that genuine one2one customer service for just £20/month. There is no contact, so you cat stop at anytime!

Get in touch with your project requirements today; studio@pistondesign.co.uk

GDPR - Piston Design Support

studio@pistondesign.co.uk (Barry Parker) — Sat, 12 May 2018 11:24:58 GMT

All you need to know about our actions.

What is the GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in the European Union (EU) designed to strengthen and unify privacy and personal data protections for all individuals within the EU.

Who does the GDPR affect?

The GDPR not only applies to organizations located within the EU, but also organizations located outside of the EU that offer goods or services to, or monitor the behaviour of, individuals within the EU. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of individuals residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location.

What constitutes ‘personal data’? Any information that can be used to directly or indirectly identify a person. It can be anything from a name, a photo, an email address, or bank details to posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer IP address.

Piston Design & the GDPR

Piston takes seriously personal data protection and the right to privacy online and welcomes this latest EU regulation to strengthen and unify these protections for individuals within their jurisdiction. Piston has completed a thorough review of the legal and technical impacts of the GPDR to ensure compliance and make any required adjustments to our products, services, and documentation, and ensure compliance with the GDPR. This will give our customers more control over their personal data and provide the necessary tools to protect the information of visitors to Piston websites.

In addition to our own legal, operational, and technical reviews, we are working with external cybersecurity consultants and legal experts to map the steps Piston is required to take to ensure we are fully compliant with the GDPR before the May 25, 2018 deadline.
We are conducting a security audit to make sure all of our security measures and protocols are fully GDPR-compliant.
We are reviewing Piston's organizational policies, especially our data security and data privacy policies, to ensure they cover what is required by the GDPR. We are also working with to increase awareness of the need for strong data security and privacy practices across the entire company. This is an ongoing process and we see it as a key factor to our success in this project.
Piston is documenting and developing any operational procedures required to support an individual’s right to review any of their private data we store, the right to be forgotten, etc.
We are working with our vendors to learn about their GDPR-readiness plans and updating data processing agreements as needed.
While the deadline for GDPR compliance is May 25, the broader topic of data security is a long-term commitment rather than a one-off project. Piston Design remains committed to data security and privacy and we will ensure our customers are protected in an ever-changing landscape of regulation and real-world threats.

If you should have any questions or concerns regarding your website with Piston or have a questions regarding GDPR, please email me directly, blp@pistondesign.co.uk