Finally, here we are with the long promised new website!
When the business amalgamated with International Ceramic Printing late in 2018 to have its own workshop, it became even more apparent that the business needed a bigger and better on-line presence to support the developing business. Having come to this realisation, the decision was taken in February to begin the planning of a new website suitable to support our growing business.
Susan as always has been at the hub of her business and her key role is always deciding which of her unique lines could do with further development and a “revamp” to be fit for today’s market, which new lines from an ever changing market place would enhance the business by allowing her to add her own twist on things giving them that unique Susan “flavour “– and of course which designs having done their job over the years in getting the business to this level which now need to discarded – never an easy task. So in the planning of this website, we have been through all the products with a fine toothcomb and the amount of work this has generated has been unprecedented! So we really hope you like what you see!
Susan was particularly keen that a new website should showcase some new designs and as part of this push, Susan is introducing her spectacular new Flamingo range – based as so many of her designs are on her own personal sketches. These brightly coloured birds are always a talking point and we love the phrase on the new teacups and teapot that “Pink is Power”! The range is not yet finished with further suggestions coming in for development from Emily in the workshop as to using this lovely bird on a new Christmas Bauble for launch later in the year – watch this space!
On the development front, our hugely popular racing china has undergone a revamp with the help of Paul Webber racing and this has seen the introduction of our new contemporary teapot and matching Stirling teacups.
Our bookworm range was always popular both here and in America. This too has undergone some revamping with further authors added to our new Balmoral mug and we have also introduced further authors into the complementary Bookworm teapot in this range. We have further plans to develop this range with a similar mug featuring male authors and to produce a further one particularly for the American market.
The countryside has always featured heavily in Susan’s life and our floral range is one of which Susan is justifiably proud. We have further developed this by adding to our “Secrets” range with a beautiful new ½ pint English bone china tankard mug, matching teapot and a large square dish. Perfect for a stunning “secret” gift!
Our children’s range has been greatly pared back for the launch as we are busy working on some exciting new designs for these very important little people and these will be with you by the end of October! We have though given Susan’s hand-painted and hand-drawn Christening Pictures pride of place with a category solely devoted to these unique works of art!
Each of these new projects involves a great deal of work from the initial concept until the design is finally published on our website. Each design is carefully discussed within the team before Susan puts pen to paper and discusses the intricacies of the printing and the reproduction of the design with the workshop team in Stoke-on-Trent. We rely on Andy to decide on the final hand-painted touches that make the products so unique. Once the sample English bone china is made, the pieces are individually photographed by Emily in Stoke using our professional photographic machine before being returned to Susan for her to add her own unique touch by photographing each product in context, so her clients have a very good idea of how the piece of china to be purchased will look in their home. Recognising the importance of Social Media, Susan is in the process of adding animated posts to every product.
For the last 3 years, we have been discussing how best to develop a designated page to show our clients how they might have an individually designed & personalised dinner service. This page will be up and running early in 2020!
We have been indebted to our new website designers, Karen and Richard from Brookstone Creative, who have been fantastic in both their support and their ideas for getting the best out of our products. But the biggest thank you has to go to Christina and all at Green Umbrella Marketing with whom we have worked with for many years now and who gave us the introduction to Brookstone when they could see that we were ready to jump our business to the next level.
We hope you love our new website as much as we do. Watch this space for our forthcoming Special Offers and Discount Vouchers at the end of this month.
Feet up we did it!
