06 Nov Website, Print and Design: A Collaborative Refresh for Moss Hall Playcentre
Sometimes a project needs more than one pair of hands.
When Moss Hall Playcentre wanted to refresh how it presented its After School Club and Holiday Club to local families, the project involved several different elements, from website content and printed materials to graphic design and finding the right suppliers.
Rather than trying to make one person do everything, we brought together the right people for the different parts of the project.
The result was a coordinated refresh that gave Moss Hall Playcentre clearer, more professional materials to promote its services, while keeping the friendly personality of the organisation at the heart of everything.
The starting point: what did Moss Hall Playcentre need?
Moss Hall Playcentre provides After School Club and Holiday Club childcare for local families in North London.
With competition from other childcare providers, the team wanted to make sure its marketing materials clearly communicated what made the Playcentre different and gave parents the information they needed.
Part of this involved updating the website, but there was also a need for printed materials that could be used to promote both the After School Club and Holiday Club.
This is where Red Desk became involved.
Turning the ideas into a brief
Before you can start thinking about colours, fonts and finished designs, you need to know what you actually want to say.
My first job was therefore to look at the information that needed to go into the leaflets and create an initial draft.
I wrote and sketched out the first version of the content, considering the information parents would be looking for, how it could be broken down and how the After School Club and Holiday Club could each be presented clearly.
Once we had that starting point, we needed someone with the graphic design expertise to turn the ideas into professionally designed materials.
And this is an important part of the way I work at Red Desk. Being a Virtual Assistant doesn’t mean pretending I can do absolutely everything myself.
Sometimes my role is to identify what needs doing, get the project started and then bring in someone with the specialist skills needed for the next stage.
Separate leaflets were created for the Holiday Club and After School Club, giving parents clear information about each service.
Bringing in graphic designer Clare Barker
I contacted graphic designer Clare Barker and provided her with the brief for the project.
Clare then took the initial content and ideas and developed them into the finished visual materials, creating a folder and leaflets for the After School Club and Holiday Club.
During the early stages, I acted as the liaison between Clare and Moss Hall Playcentre, coordinating the first rounds of amendments and proofreading the drafts.
Once that stage of my involvement was complete, Moss Hall Playcentre and Clare were able to continue working directly together on the final edits.
Making print and digital work together
The printed materials weren’t being created in isolation.
At the same time, Moss Hall Playcentre’s website and wider visual branding were also being refreshed, with Lucy Hall (Lucy’s Web Designs) working on the website side of the project.
That meant the different elements could complement one another rather than the website, leaflets and other materials feeling like completely separate pieces of marketing.
This is something that can easily be overlooked by small organisations.
Your website might be the place people go to find out more about you, but they may initially discover you through a leaflet, social media post, recommendation, Google search or something they pick up locally.
Keeping those different touchpoints consistent helps people recognise that they’re dealing with the same organisation wherever they encounter it.
The finished print materials were designed to complement Moss Hall Playcentre’s refreshed website and branding.
What happens after the design is finished?
Of course, designing a leaflet doesn’t get several hundred copies into your hands!
Another part of my role was helping Moss Hall Playcentre look at the practicalities of getting the materials printed.
I researched several printing companies and obtained quotes, giving the team different options to consider rather than leaving them to start the search from scratch.
It’s a relatively small part of a project like this, but it’s a good example of the practical support a VA can provide.
Often there are lots of these smaller jobs sitting between an idea and the finished result: finding suppliers, requesting quotes, proofreading, chasing information, passing feedback between people and keeping things moving.
A collaborative project rather than a one-person job
Looking back at this project, I think it’s a good example of what collaboration between small businesses can look like.
Red Desk helped develop the initial content, created the brief, coordinated the early stages of the project, proofread the materials and researched print suppliers.
Clare brought the specialist graphic design skills needed to turn that information into attractive, professional printed materials.
Lucy worked on the website and wider branding.
And, of course, Moss Hall Playcentre remained involved throughout, providing its knowledge of the organisation, its families and what it wanted the finished materials to achieve.
Sometimes the VA’s job is to bring everything together
VA project coordination isn’t always about managing a huge project from start to finish. Sometimes it’s simply about bringing the right people and different pieces of work together.
There’s a tendency to think of outsourcing as finding one person who can take an entire job off your hands.
Sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed.
But other projects benefit from several people doing the things they’re best at.
A VA can sit at the centre of that, helping to turn the initial idea into something more concrete, finding the right people, coordinating communication, dealing with the admin and keeping the project moving.
You don’t necessarily need to know who you need before you start.
Sometimes you just need someone who can look at what you’re trying to achieve and help work out what needs to happen next.
That’s exactly what happened with Moss Hall Playcentre.
Need help getting a project off the ground?
If you’ve got a marketing, website or business project that’s been sitting on your to-do list because you’re not quite sure where to start, Red Desk can help you break it down, coordinate the different elements and bring in additional expertise where it’s needed.
Get in touch with Red Desk to have a chat about your project.
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