Growing our own stories

Having created the identity for the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Growth campaign last year, we’ve designed a range of marketing materials, both print and digital, to promote the campaign, including an iPad/iPhone app, microsite, concertina brochure and A5 postcards.

The aim of the Growth Stories campaign is to highlight the ways in which the EPSRC is promoting economic growth within the UK through its funding of research projects to as wide an audience as possible. These stories range from an award winning, wireless heartbeat monitor for premature babies to the invention of new, flexible organic solar panels.

To bring the stories to life across the different media and grab people’s attention, we used large, bright and colourful photography that represented each story whilst short, snappy copy explained the background to each story. Each image is featured in all its hi res glory on the custom designed and built iPad/iPhone app, which takes advantage of its ‘retina' screen. We also designed a promotional microsite to showcase these stories to a wider audience through editorial and social media. This ensured the content is accessible to everyone, whether viewed on a mobile, tablet or desktop.

EPSRC used its stand at The Big Bang Fair in London this month to create interest in the app and website, with a pocket sized concertina brochure featuring some of the stories and A5 teaser postcards given to school children. The app and website were launched a few days later with the first batch of 20 stories and a further story will be added each week for the rest of the year.

EPSRC was delighted with the app, and Communications Manager Gemma Hulkes had this to say:

"We worked with TTP to create EPSRC’s first app, the contributions from them were invaluable and it was great to have their digital communications knowledge and expertise."

You can get hold of the free 'GrowthStories' app for both iPhone and iPad from the App Store. You can also see some of these stories on the custom microsite created to promote the app: www.epsrc.ac.uk/growth/ - look out for new stories being added each week throughout the year.