euro boxes on dolly

Euro Boxes and Their Use in The Automotive Industry

The automotive industry is one which relies heavily upon effective storage solutions. When you are responsible for the manufacturing of cars one of the biggest challenges you face is having versatile and flexible storage. Euro boxes have been a reliable storage solution for all types of goods for many industries, but more so the automotive industry.

euro boxes

Euro boxes were initially used in the automotive industry but people quickly began to see how the reliability of euro stacking containers could benefit their business. This has led to these containers being used in most industries across the world. Euro boxes have been specifically designed to fit onto a European pallet – another item which is absolutely necessary for any business within the automotive industry that stores and moves a large amount of goods. If your business is already involved in the automotive industry you are probably already using euro boxes of some sort. It is absolutely essential that these are stackable to ensure that you can fit a sufficient amount on top of each pallet, to maximise efficiency.

 

Why Euro Boxes Are Ideal for The Automotive Industry

The main reason these storage containers have been so popular within automation is because of their durability and versatility. As an automotive business you are heavily focused on productivity and efficiency. Euro stacking containers are known worldwide for their versatility and reliability. They provide a flexible storage solution for many in the automotive industry. Some of the main reasons euro stacking containers are used within automation are:

  • Easily Cleaned – Euro boxes feature smooth walls which makes them easy to clean after each use. This means that if you simply hose them down and disin
  • fect them after each use they will remain hygienic. This is something which can take only a matter of minutes each day.
  • Resistant – They are manufactured using food grade polypropylene, meaning that they are resistant to oil, acid and alkali… Making them perfect for the automotive industry as there is frequently oil used in these environments.
  • Easily Stacked – Euro stacking containers can be easily sat on top of one another when used. This means that you are able to fit a much larger capacity onto a pallet when grey euro containerused.
  • Large Capacity – Euro boxes come in a whole range of capacities and the larger sizes can fit an incredible amount of items within. This is great for the storage of small parts.
  • Durability – Euro stacking containers are hard wearing, this means that you may find they only need replaced once in their lifetime, if not less. This will save you money in the long term, which is why it is worth investing in high quality euro stacking containers.

If you work in the automotive industry and are seeking a new storage solution for your business, euro stacking containers could be a good investment. They can provide a complete storage solution and work towards improving the overall efficiency and productivity of your business. Invest in euro boxes for a storage solution to last a lifetime.

 

Image Source : https://www.exportaglobal.co.uk

Best Places to Stay in Scotland

Scotland is a treasure trove, full of hidden getaways that you will not find anywhere else in the UK. There are fantastic places in Scotland that you need to see. From the hill of the highlands to the bustling capital city, there is something for everyone. Do not let the weather deter you, here in Scotland, there are plenty of indoor places to visit. Come and explore the beautiful country of Scotland, and explore places that you could only dream of.

Knockinaam Lodge

 

If your idea of luxury is staying at beautiful hotel surrounded in stunning scenery, then Knockinaam lodge would make the perfect getaway. This amazing hotel is situated at the South West of Scotland. it is only 20 miles from the most Southerly point in Scotland, but yet only two hours away from Glasgow. the Knockinaam lodge is one of Scotland’s finest small hotels.

The views from this magnificent hotel are breath-taking.  You will be welcomed to the hotel by amazing views of Northern Ireland. As well as this, the hotel grounds make up 30 acres of garden that run down to a private beach. Enjoy this stunning hotel and all its glory while visiting Scotland.

Marcliffe Hotel & Spa

 

This elegant five-star country hotel is a relaxing and luxurious location, perfect for any getaways. The Marcliffe hotel and spa is located the North-East of Scotland, on the outskirts of Aberdeen. This picturesque hotel and spa was opened in 1993 by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. It has since become Aberdeen’s only five-star hotel. This is the perfect place to explore what Scotland has to offer.

This hotel is situated in eleven acres of wooden grounds. The Marcliffe hotel and spa also offers world class salmon fishing, executive golf and a historic castle. This splendid landscape will let you delve into the wonder world of Scotland. if you love indulgence, this stunning hotel and spa would make the perfect location for a Scottish getaway.

Belmond Royal Scotsman

 

For effortless luxury visit the Belmond Royal Scotsman. Known as the most luxurious and prestigious train in the world, it is worth a visit. It is a small train, only carrying 36 guests at a time. you will travel through Scotland’s breath-taking countryside in private cabins.

The train travels straight into the heart of the highlands, where you will get to enjoy stunning Scottish mountains and sleepy lochs. You will be indulged and relaxed as you enjoy a gastronomic dining experience with friends. Luxury Scottish food will be served at five-star rate. Once the dinning is over, you will enjoy a Scottish dram while listening to Scottish history. Guests are made to feel like honoured guests at a private party.

The exclusive party continues as you get off the train and visit stunning castles and private homes. As well as this, you can add a private tour of the many Scottish distilleries that we have to offer.

 

outdoor adventure

Fort William Activities: The Best in Scotland

Whether you are looking for a quiet day in the countryside or ready to feel a buzz from a fun packed activity, then Fort William is for you. The array of outdoor activities Scotland will keep the whole family entertained all day! There is plenty of things to do in Fort William, from Canyoning UK to stag do Scotland activities. You will be provided with brand new experiences while enjoying any activity in Fort William. Enjoy the outdoor adventure Scotland.

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online design

Design Tips Perfect for Boosting Your Online Presence

 

In today’s internet age, the importance of having a successful online presence has never been greater. With more than 45 million people having access to the internet across the UK it is extremely important that your company has an online presence. Although it is vital to be available to the customer online, not everyone gets it right. You need to have a strategy put in place to ensure customers come back and love your site. These website design tips will help boost your online presence and success.

Be Inviting

Customers like to feel that they are welcome when they visit a website. If you successfully design your website to invite customers, then you will ensure customers loyalty.  Designing your website with bright, inviting colours will draw customers in. Colour plays a huge part in phycology. With bright colours representing openness and happiness. Therefore, when you choose the colour for your website, you must ask yourself what you want to achieve. If you want to be an inviting website that will be attractive to your target audience, then you need to choose bright, cheerful colours.

Another way to invite customers to your website using design techniques is to have a staff page that has pictured of the team. This will let the customer feel like they already know and trust you. Before people commit to a business, they like to know who they are buying from or working with. For this reason, designing an ‘our team’ page will be beneficial to your business. 

website design

Be Available

One thing that most companies get wrong is their availability. Although they might have the best-designed website it is pointless unless they put the effort in to be available to their customers. To build customer trust and loyalty you need to accessible and easy to reach. This will show your target audience how much you care and treasure their custom.

To ensure that you are conveying your availability on your website you need to use different design techniques. On your website, it would be beneficial to have a ‘contact us’ page. This page would give your customers a platform to contact you. This page should have a contact form as well as a direct email and phone number on it. Having this information available on your website will give your customers and potential customer alike all the information they need to contract you. Another thing you could add to your website design would be a ‘live chat’ design. This will provide your target audience with the chance to directly contract you in real time.

Website Design

Be Relevant

One of the most common reasons why people visit websites is to find out new information. Designing a ‘what’s new’ section, either filled with up to date information or new products will be extremely beneficial to your customers. to keep your customer’s loyalty and trust it is important to maintain your website. This will ensure that you have relevant, up to date information on it. Keeping the information new and existing will ensure your customers visit your website.

How to Create the Perfect Email Template

OK, so you may not be a graphic designer, but you can still create an email template that your clients or followers will love.

It is vital that you have an email template which stands out from the crowd, why? 205 billion email messages per day means almost 2.4 million emails are sent every second and some 74 trillion emails are sent per year. That’s why! Make sure that your mail isn’t lost in translation.

Adding in some design elements into your email marketing campaign will only enhance it, make sure you are up to speed with the latest email marketing trends. Read More

Book Boxes

How to Store Your Designs with Packing Boxes for Books

We all know that keeping on top of your designs can become a bit of a headache. You’ve tried to fit all your paperwork into drawers and folders but you are drastically running out of space and find yourself looking for places to keep your work. Thankfully, someone has gone and thought of a solution to your problem. Read More

Packaging Design

The Ultimate Top 5 Packaging Designs

There are a lot of moving parts that go into attracting the eye of the customer to your business, service or product. From marketing to development, the list is extensive and can be a tricky formula to pin down. One important aspect is the visual representation that a company puts out there. An issue which stems from this is one of the most crucial aspects of selling a product. That’s right, you guessed it, packaging. Getting the packaging of a product right is essential in creating the right first impression with the customer as often split second decisions will be made based purely on how the product looks. Have a look at a few businesses that got it right when it came to designing their packaging and as a result attracted the attention of the world.

 

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Traditional Islay Whisky bottle range

How To Design Islay Whisky Packaging

They say an image speaks a thousand words. This holds true in product design, where the first influence on a customer’s perception of the brand of product is the design of the packaging. For Islay whisky, part of this packaging is the bottle itself. There are no Islay whiskies in standard looking bottles; each has it’s own style inherited from both the distillery it hails from, and the spirit that inhabits it. Some even argue that the bottle design is in fact the first step in the tasting process, as how a bottle looks creates certain expectations.

This is true. Looks matter. That doesn’t mean that we are being superficial – it means we are being typical, at least in the whisky world. The design doesn’t necessarily have to be breathtaking or award winning. It can be demure, traditional, groundbreaking, or myriad other descriptive terms; as long as it creates a sense of connection from the viewer, it has achieved it’s goal.

Islay Whisky Box Design

Aside from drinking the whisky itself, the closest relationship a customer builds with a whisky brand is through the packaging. Packaging allows brands to represent the ideas and ideals that matter to their business. It has to be aesthetic, communicate all the key information, and conform to all legal requirements. As the brand owner, you have to ask: does the packaging convey our values? Does it create the right feeling in the viewer? Most importantly, does it link to the consumer on an emotional level?

This is a lot to incorporate into the design of  what is, let’s be honest here, a box. Creating the “look” of a new brand is a huge task. This is where the trained professionals come in handy. So what does a Islay whisky brand owner convey to a design agency when they bring them on board?

 

The Stages of Islay Whisky  Design

There are three main stages to creating the packaging – both box and bottle – for an Islay whisky, which are as follows:

  • 2D Conception. Several potential designs will be created in 2D. This usually takes 4 to 6 weeks.
  • 3D Conception. The chosen designs will be advanced to 3D design. No matter how good a design looks in 2D, until you see it on the box of an Islay whisky bottle, you cannot say for certain whether it will work. Again, 4 – 6 weeks is the rough timescale here.
  • Prototypes. A prototpe of the Islay whisky bottle and box designs, including the ability to hold liquid for the bottle, will be created. This allows a mold to be made from which other test bottles can be created, allowing the brand to test the structure, safety, packaging, and a variety of other parameters. This can take several months to complete.

On top of this, the new design and packaging has to be filtered into the marketplace. This means that from concept to shelf, the design process for a new Islay whisky can be upward of 12 months in total.

Traditional Islay whisky bottle design

Islay Whisky Bottle Shape – Does It Matter?

The starting point for the Islay whisky bottle design stage is the style of the bottle, which provides plenty of opportunities to be innovative, traditional, or some combination of the two. Over the past two decades, we have seen a far wider variety of bottle shape and size than what came before. The times have changed, and so have the rules.

As a result, brands have moved away from the “Up and Down” style of bottle design and have looked to non-traditional shapes. Some bottles, such as the Gordan & MacPhail Mortlach, have radical shapes (in this case a teardrop design). This new age of Islay whisky bottle design has allowed for some truly awesome designs to come to the fore. With this in mind, we will hopefully see more interesting and industry changing designs come about over the next few years of Islay whisky bottle design.

 

 

User experience design process

The Best Design For Conversion Optimisation or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love UX

There has been a war raging for decades now, a secret war, a war none of the general public know is going on. It’s rarely talked about outside the relevant circles, yet it affects almost all of us on a daily basis. From when we use our mobile phones to get the next little widget off Amazon Prime to when we settle in on our couches to begin yet another binge of a TV series on Netflix, this war has influenced how we go about these tasks.

The war I’m talking about isn’t a conventional, physical war based around borders (or these days, the lack thereof) and control of raw materials. It’s an online war. A digital war.

It is the war between design and conversion optimisation.

The Varying Views of Web Design

In reality, no one wants this war to be taking place. Ideally, Design and Conversion should work in beautiful harmony together to increase brand representation and promote sales. Sadly, this is rarely the case, as good design does not always make for good conversion, and vice versa.

Designers will have an image in their head of an end aesthetic that is pleasing for the user, easy to navigate, and laid out in a graceful manner. Optimisers want an end UX that drives people down the sales funnel, regardless of looks. These rarely link up, resulting in both sides scrambling in the mud to gain a few metres of ground.

Understanding The Relationship

It is understandable that designers want a good looking website. It’s what they do. They want to produce an end result that is interesting, engaging, beautiful and, most importantly, one that the end user remembers.

They want to win awards for their design. They want their portfolio to look good, as this is their form of a CV. What they don’t necessarily take into account is that other factors exist in the creation of a website – forces, desires, goals and the like – that impact on the design of a successful website.

Essentially, money.

Websites exist to bring in money. They exist to be used. In specific, they are about conversions. Conversions mean that the user does something, interacts in some way with the website to bring them closer to purchasing, becoming a lead, signing up to a newsletter, whatever the end goal of the website is.

That being said, it’s difficult to convert a potential customer if your website does not look the part. Poor layout and low quality design will drive away the public in droves, ultimately making your website a failure.

Resolving The Relationship

There does in fact exist a sweet spot between these two opposing forces. This sweet spot can be viewed as the spots that exist in the yin yang symbol, small parts of the opposing side existing within it’s opponent.

This sweet spot is a new area of design and development called “User Experience Design”, or simply UX Design for short. The principles of the matter is thus:

  • If you design something beneficial for the user, it will be effective in conversion optimisation.
  • If you design something good for the user, it will be effective in search engine optimisation.

Remember, the user is everything. Know the user. Learn the user. Understand the user. Love the user.

As Sun Tzu said (roughly): “Know Thy User, Know Thy Business”

So how does this translate into UX?

web design at work

Less Is Better

The quickest way to make a website worse is to clutter it with more stuff. When talking about “stuff”, I’m talking about anything. Forms, image content, nav bars, you name it.

A now-common means of web design is a wireframe. This is a simple means of laying out the whole of design in such a fashion as to see where each element lies. If the wireframe is not simple, the website will not be simple.

Front And Centre

Whatever the main point of the website is should be instantly recognisable and as in your face as possible. It is, after all, the entire reason your customer base is on your website in the first place.

Contrast your colours. Use borders. Do whatever needs to be done to make sure that it sticks out.

 

White Space Is Key

White space, also known as negative space, is the absence of design elements on the page. The more white space, the better.

This is due to the fact that white space does not let the eye rest on it, forcing it towards points of interest. This, in turn, forces users down a funnel that will hopefully end up in the creation of, you guessed it, money.

Remember, UX Is Your Friend

This article has only touched on the topic of UX, but the point should be clear: Do not forget about or underestimate the power of UX.