Aspire, part of Lincoln College Group, commissioned the agency at the start of the year to create their new identity and brand. After being successful at the pitching stages, we we’re asked to install signage within their building, from wall mural graphics and wayfinding, through to large front of house signs. This morning the items were being installed and I went down to cast my eye over the proceedings. Big thanks to MX Display for the quality of production and installation across all locations.

We are looking for a design graduate to join our team on a minimum of a 3 month internship with the possibility to extend the contract.

Working with our design team the new role will involve liaising between our Lincoln and London studios, on a wide range of design projects. We are looking for an ambitious designer with amazing design skills, playful typography, print and strong conceptual ideas.

Other must haves for any candidate include:
- Excellent communication skills and a pro-active attitude
- Strong eye for detail
- High level knowledge print design
- Knowledge of digital design
- The ability to use Photoshop and Illustrator CS5 to a high standard
- A good understanding and ability to use In-Design CS5

There are some applications we’d love you to know how to use, but aren’t essential:
- PowerPoint – any previous experience would be great, but we’ll happily give you training on this if not
- Ability to use other Adobe applications in CS5 including Dreamweaver, After Effects, Flash
- Artworking skills

As well as being an all-round great creative, Studio View is a very down-to-earth and happy studio, so we’ll be looking for like-minded folk we can get on with too.

Please send your cv and short pdf of your best work to jim@studioview.co.uk

Recently our site was attacked with some Mallware, it even left a back door key (a re-access point to our site) which bypassed our password changes and security measures. Obviously this has now been corrected but it highlighted a few vulnerabilities in some WordPress installations, especially older ones. Anyway I thought I would add a few pointers and plugins for people who want to avoid/fix this problem.

Firstly make sure you have a google webmaster tools account. You will need need to verify your account and website with google. You can find more info here. This is very useful and needed to review your site if you have been affected, however it could not precisely pin point where the Mallware had been injected, it just linked to a dynamic page. You can check ftp logs on your server if that capability is open to you but even so I found no records.

Secondly check your upload folders and make sure there are no php files in there, if so check them and make sure they are not malicious. (WP does not allow executable files to be uploaded in this folder so shouldn’t be there, this is where I found the back door key!).

Thirdly create a new user with administrator privileges and remove the default admin. Install  WebsiteDefender WordPress Security (WSD), I found this the best resource for wordpress (there are a few) and sign up to the free account. This will give you a nice dashboard of potential issues, making it real easy to resolve problems.

This is just a quick overview so you can learn through our misfortune, luckily we managed to resolve this issue quickly, but with these few steps you shouldn’t have to.