Urban Design and Building Services: editorial and digital marketing support

Urban Design and Building Services (UDBS) is a specialist team of architects, designers, engineers and surveyors, based within Sandwell Council and providing services to internal and external clients in Sandwell and the wider West Midlands. UDBS works on high-profile and multi-million pound projects throughout the year and the team felt they weren't making the most of the promotional opportunities afforded by their many achievements. UDBS brought me in as a consultant, via a tendering process, to address this challenge. I helped UDBS get back on track with sharing its successes, firstly by writing news stories (here’s one!) and project updates (like this one) for its website, while helping to establish a tone of voice and new standards to adopt for future content. I secured local press coverage in partnership with one of UDBS' contractors, wrote social media updates for LinkedIn, and compiled departmental updates for a monthly managers' roundup. I also rewrote the content for UDBS' practice brochure, to ensure it served justice to the team's excellent, one-stop shop service. With my client and I identifying 'blocks' in communication between designers/engineers working on-site on UDBS projects, and the office-based team members with the resources to share updates, I created template questions and standard emails to facilitate easy dialogue between them. Together we encouraged the team to embed the eliciting and sharing of information into their everyday systems. I carried out some design work, including for screensavers within the council building. I also wrote a style guide to help UDBS achieve consistency in its written communications, generated ideas for future promotional activities, and trained a member of staff to feel confident about continuing this work once my contract had ended. I enjoyed working with UDBS and feel glad to have made a difference.