Leads that convert to sales,
are created by design, not by chance
“Simplicity is key! Great design is achieved only when the end user is the designers core focus! My experience designing user focused brand, print and web solutions has led me to the clear understanding that best design practice is the perfect marriage between, clean aesthetics, and direct, unambiguous information delivery. I am passionate about design and its ability to not only change and enhance, but also CREATE the world we live in.”
Keith Byrne | CREATE108
CREATE108.COM is the portfolio website for Keith Byrne, web designer, brand management consultant, and graphic designer.
My Story
Since 2001 I have been designing high impact, sales driven web and graphic design solutions for all levels of businesses across a wide spectrum of industries. In that time I have created websites for 300+ SME businesses, for many of these I have created multiple websites as well as other brand focused graphic design solutions such as logos, catalogues, brochures, packaging, trade stands etc. In essence, if it can be designed I can design it.
Below you can read all about my background and how I got to where I am today…
First Steps
As a teenager I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I did know I wanted to create. After completing my Leaving Cert in 1990 I studied for a year as a mechanical engineer, but this life of numbers just wasn’t for me.
Path To Market
My next educational route brought me to study marketing where I began to discover the many ways a product can be packaged and sold. I was intrigued by the subtle and not so subtle devices and methods that marketers, advertisers and designers used to influence buyers and consumers on a psychological level. I had a new found appreciation of the inventive, artistic methods that these creative disciplines were employing to shape the world around us. I didn’t yet know it but the first digit on the lock to my career path had clicked into place.
Refining the Art
While Marketing had shown me the creativity of the head, the bohemian youth in me craved the expression of the heart. In 1993 I enrolled in the School of Fine Art in Dun Laoighaire College of Art and Design (Now DLIADT). Over the next five years I learned all about the great masters in the arts, and discovered that all art is about selling something, about influencing the mind of the viewer, manipulating them to think and react in a certain way. I had now added the knowledge of the power of imagery to my skill set – the career lock now had two numbers set.. just one to go.
Combining and Employing
In 2000 I moved West to Galway City and in 2001 I began an apprenticeship in Web Design at Proactive Marketing and Design, the cities most highly rated marketing and design agency. Over the next 2 years I honed my skills in their studio which culminated in me designing the website for the Galway Arts Festival in 2002. Having enjoyed my time and learning my trade I sought to take what I had learned and bring it back home. Moving back to Drogheda in 2003 I started my first solo business, Blueink Design Solutions. The lock to my career was now well and truly open…
From 2003 until 2008 I toiled successfully at building up my own local design agency, diversifying into full graphic design solutions as well as web design. The business grew steadily and over time I brought in a couple of employees. Over these five years I completed many successful projects including the design of the first Scotch Hall website, and started many relationships with businesses such as PiuAlto, NVM & Promedicare which have continued right up until today. But clouds were on the horizon, not just for me but for the entire economy.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Seeing the downturn in the economy I knew it was time to pivot and take my career in another direction. In 2008 I had to let my employees go (both are doing very well for themselves these days), and moved out of my prestige town centre offices. Blueink became a part time job, retaining key clients and continuing to service them throughout, while I undertook my next role as Creative Director of 3Play Plus, a great start up Home Tv and Broadband Provider based in Dublin. In this role, as in the Blueink one before, I was responsible for the design of not only their web solutions but all the supporting marketing collateral as well. In this role my entire online and offline skill set where utilised to their full potential, constantly shifting between them both, always delivering the highest quality output, on time and on budget.
No Quick Fix – A Time to Reflect
As we all discovered the economic downturn, kept going down… A year later with budgets tightening my new role ran out of money.
Through the most difficult years of he collapse I took some time to reflect, to look at the world with different eyes and from a different perspective. Yearning for a more spiritual experience I began to meditate and became a practicing Buddhist, not the shaved head robe wearing type (though they do exist in my school) but the modern Western type whose teachings have roots that go the whole way back to the Buddha. From this new way of viewing the world I learned that we can all do our best to influence the world in a positive way, that we are all just looking to be happy, and that what we do to make a living is a reflection of that.
Fresh Start
With this new view I decided to reinvigorate my own creative impact on the world, deciding that I needed a fresh start I knew it was time to let go of the blueink identity and start a new. In 2013 blueink became CREATE108 and a new era had begun.
Retaining a lot of my old clients, I set about adding to these and began actively recruiting new customers from the ranks of the many thousands of SME’s and Start up businesses around Ireland. Since then business has gone from strength to strength bringing in new start ups such as My Little Treasures as well as well established Irish brands such as The Sound Shop and ElectroMaintenance.
Building on a reputation for delivering professional performance driven graphic and web design solutions, for one to one reliable and dependable customer focused services, CREATE108 is now well and truly establishing a foothold in the SME promotions market.
We ARE TEAM
What you get when you work with me… is me.. From start to finish you will deal only with me, I never outsource or bring in temps to work on projects, each of my clients gets my total attention throughout the lifetime of their project.
When I take on your website for you I will plan design, manage and deploy your website, ensuring that once it goes live it stays live and does not fail. I will build it to the highest industry standards ensuring that it has, simple easy to navigate User Interaction, is fully device responsive and essentially that it is Search Engine friendly.
With print design I will work with you to develop a strategic plan for your promotion, give advice on the best route to market and the marketing collateral required to deliver the best impact. I will design all your promotional material, from logos right up to large scale advertising and banners (pretty much anything that can be designed I can design it for you), and deliver the print ready files to you in the format that best suits your chosen print company.
So if it’s all just me, then why do I use term “we” in my own website? Simply because behind everything I do there are a number of third party service providers who I have used and have come to trust over many years. For me these third parties are my essential partners in delivering the services my clients require. As well as these third parties my clients also form part of the team too.. it is with them that I have created this business, and it is with them that I have created the essential tools they require to get their product to market.
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