Wow, what a fun prize was on the cards today for Day 8 of Twitmas12! Well in my opinion anyway.

It was the cutest little Cardboard Radio and MP3 Speaker.

The radio’s design is simple, environmentally-friendly and I think it has great appeal.

Tune into your favourite radio station or simply plug your iplayer/ MP3 in and enjoy.

Love the concept of this one.

We thank Maia Gifts for providing one of these to  give away on Day 8.

We’d like to congratulate @grahamorriss for scoring this cool, simple gadget.

Now don’t forget, we’ve still have four more days of #Twitmas12…and I can’t say too much just now, but I can tell you that you’ll have some good chances to win some goodies on the final day. Thanks to some kindness of others, we’ve outdone ourselves this year!

Keep an eye on @nsdesign on Twitter to be in with a chance of some of our final yuletide goodies.

For the second year running, we were delighted with the results from our “Work for Free” day, which we carried out just before Christmas (December 21st 2009).

Following on from last year, the NSDesign team enjoyed a great day helping just over 20 small businesses, with free consultancy on the likes of SEO, Social Media, and web design.    Like last year, we weren’t without our detractors for the initiative, with the DBA again giving us a little “dig” on twitter… (although thankfully, nothing on the scale of last year!)… and a few industry players that like to moan about “de-valuing” design, without truly understanding what the day is actually about.

However, like last year, all we really care about is the feedback from clients, which has been 100% positive.

We were also lucky enough to get some great publicity on the day, mainly from a BBC Radio Scotland interview which went on to look at the value and benefit of providing free time and consultancy, and the history of working for free!  Listen to the full radio interview here.

Will we repeat the work for free initiative next year?  What do you think…

I’d like to apologise to anyone upset by our current Radio Advert which features sleigh bells and festive overtones.  The fact that we started running it on September 1st (some 116 days before Christmas) has prompted a few people to question what we’re playing at…  “It can’t be Christmas already??”….

Listen to the advert

There is however a serious business message behind the advert -it’s not just a case of us wanting to be the first house in the street with fairy lights round the windows.

The fact is, billions are made by online retailers over the festive period, so anyone wishing to take a slice of that pie needs to plan well in advance….  Experienced online shoppers are already browsing their favourite ecommerce sites, and bookmarking (if not buying) their shopping list of gifts…  Leave it until the last minute before launching your new Christmas shop, and it’s unlikely your virtual tills will be ringing…  Get online now, and there’s still time to do some marketing, grab a few Google adwords, and actually generate some decent turnover… 

So what are you waiting for…  only 83 days left……..

3 of the NSDesign team were interviewed earlier for a special radio Clyde 1 feature to be aired on Saturday at 1pm.

Now, you might think that (given our expertise) we’d be interviewed about web standards, design, domains or something remotely connected to the internet or of a technical nature.  No.  We were interviewed about Madonna !!

Don’t ask..  and if you want a laugh – tune in to listen.  Remind me why we do these things again?….

On Saturday, NSDesign took Clyde 1 DJ Colin Kelly to the Bon Jovi gig at Hampden in Glasgow.  Kind of….  Check out our dedicated site – www.ColinKellyatBonJoviwithNSDesign.com which explains all (and has the photos to prove it).

Starting next week, we’re running an intensive Radio advert campaign on Rock Radio 96.3FM and as a wee incentive to listen out for the ads, we’re giving away a Free NSDesign T-shirt to the first person who calls the office immediately after every advert has played for the week. 

Admit it….  you want one!! 

With 30 adverts running from Monday – Friday, there’s plenty chances to phone up and win.  Just call 0141 585 6390 and ask for Gary.