The Eyeful Story
The Eyeful story starts as most good stories do - with a problem.
Let’s take you back to the golden year of 2004 when Simon Morton, founder of Eyeful Presentations, was enjoying a wonderful and fulfilling executive role within an international technology company. His days were full of client meetings, strategy sessions...and sitting through some truly dreadful PowerPoint presentations. For every compelling presentation he attended, there would be 50 others that lacked structure, were collapsing under the weight of bullet points, choc-a-block with cliched clipart and were basically horrible. Death by PowerPoint ruled the roost.
He decided something had better change...fast.
Making your slides prettier
After tearfully waving goodbye to his friends, colleagues and a very nice car, Simon walked into the distance and Eyeful was born. And we have the first version of our logo to prove it:
At this stage, it was merely about taking a bunch of slides and making them look nicer. Not particularly groundbreaking but welcome relief to companies across the land at the time.
We fondly remember our first fee paying client, a lovely sales exec from Dun & Bradstreet - 30 slides of bullets transformed into something a little more glamourous within 24 hours. Halcyon days...
Making your slides more effective
The problem was that this simply wasn’t good enough for Simon. He couldn’t just nod and smile whilst the client explained what colour they wanted their template...he had to offer advice on structure, messaging and interactivity. By not being able to keep his mouth shut, Simon had stumbled upon a consultancy methodology that would eventually form our Presentation Optimisation process.
When word got out about this tiny little company that revolutionised the way businesses used PowerPoint, all hell broke loose. In quick succession, we picked up lots of lovely new clients (big names like Unilever, BAA and, um, Microsoft through to a smorgasbord of SMEs and start ups). All very exciting and all very manic.
It was time to update the logo...
Time to grow the team
Finding top quality PowerPoint designers is like finding a needle in a very big haystack...with the lights off. Our search took us across the breadth of the UK and then beyond. As a result, our design team now resembles the United Nations being made up of people from the UK, Spain, Zimbabwe and the US. Unlike the UN, they all get on very nicely.
Presentation consultants were equally difficult to find. The main obstacle was that they have to be a rare breed - comfortable brainstorming with (and often challenging) our C level client base whilst also being able to deconstruct engrained messages and presentation structures. Oh, and they also need to be able to create compelling and eye-catching storyboards on the fly. Despite this ridiculously long list of requirements, the team grew across the UK and life was good.
By default, the Head Office delivery team also grew. When interviewing for positions within project management, customer service and accounts, it finally dawned on us that we’d become a grown up business and needed bigger premises.
Bigger premises, bigger reach
At the end of 2007, we moved the business up to the Midlands to benefit from lots more space, easy access for our clients and the opportunity to develop an environment that both clients and team found creative. The Brainstorm Barn was born!
Following the move, things went from marvellous to brilliant. Eyeful now proudly works with clients across the globe, has opened up a sales office in the US (Chicago if you’re passing and fancy a coffee) and grown revenue and reputation year on year.
From the Brainstorm Barn to Eyeful Towers
In the Spring of 2010, the team came to the consensus that the much loved Brainstorm Barn was just a little too small. It would seem that clambering over each other to get to the printer or to make a round of teas was simply not practical (although fun now and again).
So we upped sticks and moved down to the road to the rather grand Desford Hall, affectionately coined Eyeful Towers. This afforded us lots more space, a custom designed client workshop area and easy access to a very nice pub for afterwork drinks.
It’s not taken us long to feel at home (in either the offices or aforementioned pub).
Are we there yet?
Simon is still actively involved in the business and spends most of this time getting over excited about new presentation approaches, bouncing ideas off the Microsoft Office product team and speaking at events. He’s never been happier.
As for Eyeful, in the inimitable words of The Carpenters, we’ve only only just begun...
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