PHd Raised Over £800 for Free@Last

27th May 2022

You may not have heard of ‘The Oddball Run’ – but it’s something that’s very close to our hearts here at PHd Design.

What is ‘The Oddball Run’?

The Oddball Run is a fundraising event with a difference… And an absurd amount of character – which is probably why we feel so at home taking part. This exhilarating 2-day long social motoring event is packed with unique and exciting challenges. The aim of all this mayhem is to raise awareness and funds for ‘Free@Last’, a charity that provides support and opportunities to inner city children.

April 2022 marked the fourth event and our third year of fundraising. And as expected it was our favourite so far!

Welcome to Jurassic Park

We knew that we needed to really grab people’s attention with our rally car this year, and after purchasing a ’97 Land Rover Freelander that had seen better days, we knew that only one design would do it justice…..Jurassic Park!
Not only did the team painstakingly recreate the iconic design by hand painting the car– but in true PHd style – they brought the design to life by focusing on the little details. Every item in the car was styled and designed to fit the Jurassic theme.  Fire extinguishers were given custom sleeves turning them into ‘Dinosaur Repellant’, crates and enclosures were installed for the dinosaurs, and more.

Sabotage and a Traffic Stop

Peter, Neil and Max donned their dino themed attire and were ready to rally and successfully completed a number of challenges to raise awareness for the cause. But there were a few bumps in the road – literally! Sabotage is highly encouraged as part of the rally and after a brief rest break, they found the locks on the drivers side door…and the exhaust fell off.

The team also fell foul of the law – when the car attracted the attention of the police. We spent quite some time explaining that we hadn’t escaped from Isla Nublar, and faced stern questioning from the officer.  After checking the team’s insurance and ID documents several times, they were given the all clear to continue their fundraising quest. And so they finished their journey to the rally centre for the final stage of the event.

And the Winner is….

After a gruelling final day of racing and rallying we came away as winners of ‘Fastest Lap‘, ‘Worst Off Road Driving‘ and ‘Most Stupid Activity‘ for being pulled over and questioned by the police…

But the biggest win, is that this years event was a huge success! Our team at Phd Design raised a total of £820 for Free@Last.  Which combined with the funds raised by the other participants was enough to hit their fundraising target to buy a minibus.

We can’t wait for the next event!

The Oddball Run 2022!

23rd March 2022

Neil here, studio lead at PHd Design and I wanted to let you know about something great we’ve got coming up…

In a few weeks we’ll be taking part in the Oddball Run 2022, this is an awesome weekend were teams compete
to race up and down the country doing all sorts of challenges all in aid of a cracking Birmingham Charity, Free@Last.

As each teams gets to turn their car into whatever they want to, we’ve been busy turning our 1997 Land Rover Freelander
into the dino car from Jurrasic Park, a clear winner!

About Free@Last

Free@Last has been helping the kids and families of Nechells for 20 years now, and they need all our help to meet the
needs of the community. This years event is hoping to help buy them a new minibus so the families can have days out to see
something other than the concrete jungle.

Please sponsor us and donate to this great cause… Or even join in, and register your own car!

Oh and big news… You could even have your company logo on our beast of a car…
£50 gets your logo on the car, £100 gets mentions in social media too, and £250 will see your logo plastered on the back windows…
which is all the other racers will ever see.

Thanks all!

Watch the video: YouTube

Donate now: Just Giving

Join in / Learn more: Oddball website

How could we say no to chocolate?

Our Work • 17th December 2020

We’re really pleased to announce the winner of the PHd Design Competition we ran last month,
Naturally Heavenly Chocolates, a great little chocolate company based in Lichfield, Staffordshire
that approached us hoping to win a rebrand to give their start-up a kick start!

We’ve been working together these last couple of weeks to make sure everything is just right for them
(with some of obvious taste testing included!), take a look at the great work we’ve done for
them including the new branding & packaging!

Osbourne House logo breakdown

Our work • 26th August 2021

It’s Pete here, Managing Directer at PHd design.

Today I want to focus on the structure of a recent logo we created for a property development,
this is to demonstrate some of the thinking that goes into a logo and branding.

Osborne House takes it’s name from the architect who created the look of the frontage and style as it is today,
His name was John Osborne. He started working on this in 1896, which had a hallmark year stamp of the letter ‘W’, which
we added to the logo. Then we included 2 letters of ‘O’ and ‘H’ for Osborne House. This is all designed in a formation which is
using squares with 45 degree corners cut off which is the shape of hallmarks in the late 1800s, The anchor is a jewellery mark
which identifies anything manufactured in Birmingham.

The location address completes the circle which contains the whole logo. This can be used in many
different ways and has a story embedded in it’s structure… So this is the reasoning behind the logo,
and the next slide shows how we can make it shine!

Sink a few beers!

Our work • 9th August 2021

It’s Pete here, Managing Directer at PHd design. I just wanted to share a quick note about a great
project we worked on not too long ago…

Long standing client Titanic brewery ‘had a go’ at creating mini kegs for their ranges of beers, originally having a go at creating
the keg labels themselves, they felt the design could be a lot better as the current design was letting down the brand and possibly impacting sales.
Titanic then asked PHd to get to work, we created various keg designs for all of their different beers, incorporating the main elements from their cans
(that we also designed!). With the new designs complete they ended up selling twice as many as they previously did.

Clever thinking

Collaboration from a strong relationship

Fabulous results

Design made a difference to their bottom line, we would love to do the same thing for your business.

PHd design         Marketing… redesigned

PHd’s Guide to Website Design

Website design can be a tricky process to get your head around, whether it’s
technical jargon that’s difficult to understand or knowing who is responsible for
what tasks. That’s why we’ve put together this guide, in the hope that we can try
and make the whole process just a little bit simpler!

New brand for a local sexual violence
& abuse support organisation

Our Work • 10th July 2020

If you’re suffering at the hands of a violent or sexual abuser, ‘Gina’ offer unique support,
counselling and social activities to help those in need. However, it’s a huge leap of faith for
individuals to contact Gina. Their new branding helped to reassure individuals that Gina
were friendly, professional and really could help, giving suffering men and women
the courage to confide in them.