Santa Claus is coming to town!

The holiday season is well and truly underway, and as with most coins, there are two different sides to next few weeks. It is important to acknowledge them both in order to come out on top in the end.

Firstly there is the buildup and everything that comes with it. For most of us that means longer days at the office, dealing with equally stressed out customers and putting in that extra push to end the year on a high. Then there is the shopping, fighting your way through the masses, trying to get the best deal out of the highly inflated prices. It is a ritual I go through year after year and still every time it comes to it, I feel as lost as Alice was in Wonderland. The creativity part of my brain goes into hibernation for the month and the simplest task of choosing a gift for my loved ones becomes equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. Finally there is the dreaded question, what would you like for a present this year? I always think of a number of useful things I need, in February and August that is, but, as there is never pen and paper to hand to write them down, and my first choice Porsche 911 Turbo is still “slightly” out of reach, all is forgotten by the time the question comes around. 

Still, then there is the other side of the coin, and this is the one I prefer to focus on. Regardless of which holiday it is you celebrate, it is the experience of sharing it with the people you love that makes it so special. Those few days where the family gathers together and you can allow yourself second and third helpings of diner, the work parties where its ok to drink a little too much in front of your boss, going out and dancing the night away with your friends that are back in town, or simply getting up late, sitting down with something wet to drink and watching a seasonal movie. There are decorations everywhere, bright lights, and if you are lucky enough, snow outside.

Now we’ve set the mood, and it is this line of thinking that has inspired me to take one of our Palette CAD master plans and add some seasonal magic to it. It is a simple idea that can be used on previous plans of your own to give them a quick update as well as provide some seasonal advertising, in showrooms for example.You can also see the original plan and compare them at our Facebook page.

This is then a perfect time to reflect on the year gone by and look forward to the adventures in the coming one, and here at Palette CAD it has been an eventful one. 

The company has been growing very strongly this year and we were represented at many national and international exhibitions, with our attendance at one of the biggest in the tiling industry, Cersaie, recently covered in a blog by myself further below.  

Already we are looking at a busy schedule in the first half of next year. To start off we will be at BAU 2013 in Munich between 14 and 19 January. It is one of world’s leading building trade fairs held every two years. In 2009, BAU attracted more than 235,000 visitors and over 2000 exhibitors. To find out more about the trade fair and see the layout map you can visit the official website at http://www.bau-muenchen.com/en/Home. Palette CAD will be in hall A6 stand 530.

Also on January 31^st and February 1^st we will be at KOK Austria 2013 in Wels. It is a very important exhibition focusing on tiled stoves and home ceramics. You can find us in hall 20 stand C204. More information about the exhibition can be found at http://www.kachelofenverband.com/exhibition/kok-austria-trade-fair/. I will be present at both exhibitions so feel free to stop by for a visit.

Year 2012 also saw growth and investment for our international market and therefore the company responded by increasing focus on helping our international partners and customers. We have added international social media to our already existing German sites. A new Tip of the Month feature has also been added to the existing blog, providing that extra little help for your common hotline queries.

The guys in the programming department have been working very hard to bring out version 8 of the program, which is currently in its testing phase for some of our German customers. We are hoping to have a solid version in time to cure the January blues for our existing service partnership customers here in Germany.

What that means for the rest of us, non-native German speakers, is that translation into other languages can begin soon after with a view to release translated Palette CAD 8 in the first half of 2013.

I have been lucky enough to get a chance to play around with Palette CAD 8, and since I got it in November, my creativity was still around, allowing me to come up with the idea to reproduce a room from a very famous action sci-fi movie, see if you can guess what it is. It goes to show that uses for the program are far from conventional so don't be afraid to experiment a little.

I have not been the only one thinking outside of the box and our recently started international group on Facebook has seen some great and innovative designs. Following its growing success I would like to invite our users to join our group and post your designs for others to see. From next month I will be choosing my favorite picture, which will then be featured in my blog earning the creator a place in the spotlight. So far we have had representation from UK, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Poland. Time to get creative and represent, so join the group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/164040557075439/. 

Below is the very first picture to be posted on the page, designed by yours truly. It was one of my first projects and I drew my inspiration from the recent Euro 2012 tournament and England’s overwhelming success.

In closing and as I said at the beginning, the end of 2012 is near, so I would like to leave you to think about the following:  He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice, Santa Claus is comin' to town!

Happy holidays

Your Palette CAD-Blog Team