Year Ye Year Ye

January - News for News UK

News UK's Technology and Operations division were looking to create a wayfinding solution for the merger of 10 departments whilst injecting some personality into their new space on the 6th floor of 1 London Bridge, which sits directly opposite the Shard. Our interior branding skills were put to the test but everyone was very happy with the results as the new look brings them all together! Click here for the full story.

February - A new look for 3DReid

February saw the launch of our new website for award-winning architects, 3DReid. Having designed their brand, they wanted us to design a responsive wordpress site that mirrored the quality of their work whilst retaining the simple and clean style we had created across their other touch points. The site is uncluttered and gets straight tothepoint (see what we did there!) with an impactful homepage showcasing a full screen carousel of their leading projects. Click here for the full story.

March - Celebrating with a bang

Not too long ago we helped Transport Systems Catapult launch the All Aboard Competition, a national school competition challenging children and young adults to make it easier for those with a visual or hearing impairment to travel by bus. We branded the competition with a quirky and vibrant take on the existing TSC IM campaign we’d also created, using hand-drawn icons and the trademark TSC blue to create something a little more “down with the kids” as they say. The competition featured on national TV, with Baroness Kramer; Minister of State for Transport, helping to drive the competition forward. Click here for the full story.

April - Speak for yourself!

In April ISBA felt it was time to refresh their marketing materials. Our work started with their Annual Conference, however from the very beginning the plan was to create a contemporary suite of marketing materials for 2015 that reflected ISBA as the voice of a modern industry. We’re now working with them on evolving their look ready for launching in 2016, with a few new twists and turns, starting with the look and feel for their 2016 Annual Conference. Click here for the full story.

May - Act for the Act

One of our chosen 'give-back' projects this year was to provide branding and designs for a series of posters to help with the crowdfunding campaign for 'Act for the Act', helping to raise awareness of the benefits the Human Rights Act has had for everyday people in Britain. In super quick time, one week from brief, we helped create the brand and the theme for the poster campaign and within three weeks the crowdfunding had exceeded its target! The Act for the Act Campaign went out all over London later in the year and can still be seen at some sites and even on some cupcakes. You can find out more on their website, and still sign the letter to Michael Gove, here. Click here for the full story.


June - The home of design

In June Derwent London came to us to work on the marketing materials for their property Holden House, a Grade II listed building whose office entrance is nestled on Rathbone Place, for its up and coming return to the market. We designed a website, signage and a quirky brochure, featuring die cut coloured stock, where the shapes overlap and reveal imagery and text as you read, evoking the sense of discovery that can be felt when walking through the building itself. Following the speedy letting of the space we have now been asked to help with their London development at 20 Farringdon Road. Click here for the full story.

July - An Ace up our sleeve

In the summer our friends at News UK asked us to help the team at ACE Circulation to create a refreshed identity and website that was able to keep up with their growing needs. Their new site needed to be able to manage online event bookings, invoicing and payment and included a jobs database and login space for members. All this along with a fully responsive layout, analytics and a CMS that was easy to update…not much then! They were delighted with the results and we even got an invite to their fab Christmas party at the Grosvenor House Hotel. Click here for the full story.

August - Ship shape branding

We’ve been working with the folks at Union Maritime for some time, but in 2015 we refreshed their logo as well as designing and producing their slick, new minimal and responsive website. These designs are now influencing other divisions within the group who are looking to align their brands with the new simplified look and feel. Establishing a strong brand isn’t something that happens overnight (if only life was that easy!), so the hard work has only just begun. Click here for the full story.

September - Nuts for KP

As Autumn arrived we began working with the Intersnack group. The project was the branding of KP Snacks’ new head office in Slough. The interior branding needed to balance their 22 strong portfolio of well known brands, parent company branding and their new look staff materials. With an overarching theme that ran through the office we tied together corporate messaging with humour, graphics, pack illustrations, product icons, taglines and photography, even producing an alphabet from their core logos that helped bring the KP brands to life. The result, a creative, playful, energetic working environment. Click here for the full story.

October - New signage for Thames Clippers

The ship shape crew at Thames Clippers had been working with TfL to introduce touch-in, touch-out Oyster payments across their services. Time for us to be called in to help update their pier signage and alert commuters and visitors to these changes. It started with a few enjoyable trips on the service for an audit of their current wayfinding and messaging. The main challenge was to align the two brands to ensure consistent messaging, to help bring synergy to the information and provide greater clarity for the traveller. It's now all in place and no-one has been reported lost so far! Click here for the full story.

November - Have you heard: In London For London

Following on from the success of our ‘have you heard’ campaign to launch their Reading office, we’ve been working with the guys over at Turley to build on their presence in London, launching the ‘In London For London’ campaign. The campaign needed to highlight their expertise as a cross service and cross sector company within the capital. We created a ‘co-ordinate’ sub brand mark that will allow Turley to visually pinpoint their projects to the exact latitude and longitude. The ‘In London, For London’ logo has been used across various materials for key client events, and will be expanded upon in 2016. Click here for the full story.

December - Onwards and upwards!

December is always busy sorting out our calendars and catching up with clients to celebrate the successes of 2015 but we are also looking forward to working with some great new clients on exciting projects in 2016. As we run up to our break (24.12.15 - 03.12.16), we are putting the final touches to a new brand and website for the Patient Hub, preparing for the next stage of our work with 'Return2Play', starting work on a multisite for KP Snacks and also making a start on our 'give back' work for 2016, working with the charity ‘Circles Network’ to help develop their brand hierarchy and look and feel. We look forward to developing this initial work further in 2016.

We hope you’ll continue to watch this space for our latest news but for now have a great Christmas and all the best for 2016 - our 25th year!

Getting fit

The idea of getting fit often sends a cold shiver down our spine, especially during the season of over indulgence! But thankfully ISBA’s Future Fit conference is less about counting the calories and more about counting the Retweets, or more specifically it’s about ensuring the advertising industry is ready for the future.

New technology and lifestyles have changed the way we consume media and in turn how we absorb advertising. ISBA’s Future Fit day invites industry renowned speakers to discuss this evolution and help the industry to stay on its toes and adapt.

Although we've kept brand recognition by using the familiar colour palette of greens and browns, the conference is a stand alone event and didn't need to follow the sound graphic we created as part of the 'Voice of British advertising' concept.

The interlocking F’s have been used to suggest the idea of a perfect fit, whilst imagery within adds dynamism.

The conference will be hosted in March, so there will be plenty more materials needed in the lead up to it. So watch this space!

To find out more about Future Fit visit ISBA’s website.

Our 2016 Calendar

Time flies when you’re having fun, so it comes as a bit of a shock that in June we’ll be celebrating our silver anniversary! That’s a whopping 25 years of getting to the point for brands big and small. So this year we decided to celebrate with all things silver and create an extra special edition of our calendar by using silver foil blocking.

Each icon represents something silver synonymous with the month…with a little help from our clues, try to guess each one. If you think you've got all 12, click here to enter your answers in our online quiz. All correct answers will be entered into our end of January prize draw and 5 lucky winners will be sent a bottle of Champagne! Look out for the answers in our January enewsletter!

The team at Benwells helped to bring our concept to life and invited us down to watch the magic happen. Naturally we went down en masse to see foil blocking in all its glory, and luckily the Benwells team were very accommodating!

Calendar numbers are limited, but if you haven’t received yours, drop us a line at hi@tothepoint.co.uk and we’ll do our best to get one to you.

WWWhy Change?

Many businesses still have out of date websites that aren't geared to the growing use of mobiles for web browsing. Many are advising the time has arrived for a technology catch up, but we advise you step back and really consider why you are doing it. It should be more than just keeping up with technology or the Joneses. Do you really understand your customers and audience, have their needs evolved, have you crafted an engaging story and what do you want to achieve from your website? All this should be considered as well as the technological arguments for change. So why should you update?

Unresponsive design.

Unresponsive sites are bad for business and communications. It is a fact that there are now more searches performed on mobiles than desktops so why would any business run a website which doesn't adapt to the multiple devices we have for our 'connected world'? Pinching or expanding screens to view a website properly hinders user accessibility. And if your site is not conveying your offer in seconds, or the user experience is awkward, they will go to your competitors who do have responsive sites and may therefore be even more responsive in other ways.

It's also important to be aware that non-responsive website are marked down by search engines, which will further harm your digital voice.

Complex user journeys.

The buzz word of today is simplicity. And, as our business name implies, it's been our core focus since we started nearly 25 years ago - digital is no different. The user journey, the experience, the use of anything should, whenever possible, be intuitive and simple. The journey you want the user to take through your site, what information you want to steer them to, should be clear from the start.

Making the complex simple is not an easy task but an essential one. Say no to over complex navigation, too much content and jargon, unnecessary graphics and imagery that don't relate to context. 'Less is more' should be adopted for digital as it was by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for minimalist design and architecture back in 1947.

Design for the client, or their audience?

Failing to create an easy to use site, with engaging informative content that speaks to your audience, will only ensure an increase in exit rates and lost opportunities. User experience should be at the heart of a strategic process for the design of a website, for example what information needs to be visually highlighted?  And how can we use design to highlight this content?

This will help create higher levels of engagement and more business opportunities. And as this can be measured through even the most basic analytics you can test and refine your strategy to ensure the site evolves to achieve higher levels of interest and even better results.

If you'd like to find out more about how we can help with your digital requirements please call Simon or James on 0207 378 6999. The tothepoint digital portfolio can be found at www.ttpdigital.com

Round up, Round up!

TTP Calendar 2016

It’s nearly time for our annual tothepoint desk calendar to be sent out. This year it’s an extra special edition, as we're celebrating 25 years in business! The team at Benwells have been helping to bring our silver theme to life through some expert silver foil blocking, and the team here have been on press to watch it in action. Benwells have done an amazing job, we've particularly enjoyed the mix of old and new techniques in the printing process. Keep your eyes peeled for more. If you would like a calendar then drop us a line at hi@tothepoint and we'll try to get one out to you.

WWWhy

Even in today's tech driven world, many businesses still have out of date websites that aren't geared to the growing use of mobiles for web browsing, and aren't being reviewed on a regular basis to keep them relevant. Equally, all too often websites are designed to show off the latest trend or technology, rather than to reflect the needs of your audience. We have a full piece on all the elements you need to be considering when reviewing your website (including why you should be reviewing your website!), from making it responsive to having the most effective user journey. You can read the full story here.


Mucky fingers

We’re always harping on about the value of the design process. Well this month we’ve taken it to another level, getting our hands mucky in a collage class with South London based artist Richard Pavitt. We quickly overcame our horror at tearing up books and walked away with some great pieces (and stuffed with tea and cake!). Check out his work and dates of other courses here.




The amazing world of Escher

Sarah and James have been culture vultures this month, checking out the M.C. Escher exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We’re going to hand over to James for his review:
“The exhibition covers his key pieces of work, beginning with sketches and linocuts from his early years as an architectural student, then follows his travels as an artist, quickly identifying his interest in geometric tessellated patterns influenced by the Islamic tiled art of the Middle East.

You get a fascinating insight into how Escher developed as an artist, and as well as a rare look at his working sketches, notebooks and litho-plates. The exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery is pretty popular though, so it’s a good idea to book a slot at weekends, and make sure you’re on time!”

The exhibition is on until mid-January, so there’s still time to check it out.

Simon's Sunday act

You may remember the team at Act For The Act, who are striving to save the Human Rights Act from being scrapped. Simon met up with them again:

“On Sunday I travelled out to meet many of the team who'd worked tirelessly together to bring the Act for the Act campaign to life across London and other cities. Following the success of the crowd funding project we worked on, our Act for the Act logo has found its way onto celebratory cup cakes and cat cakes but more importantly the poster campaign, which is still live in some places. It features the people who have experienced the benefits and value of the Human Rights Act first hand. Having seen some of the early videos and read their stories I realised how ill informed I had been about the Human Rights Act, especially through the tabloids focus on singular aspects of the Act. By helping to raise the visual profile of the campaign we hoped that at the very least awareness would be raised of the positive aspects of the Act. To meet face to face with one of the couples featured, Martina and Matt Brincat-Baines, was very humbling but also inspiring to see how it had brought back some positives, and even a smile, into their lives with the support and changes they have been able to make to the law. If you feel ill informed, or have the impression the Act is only for criminals and terrorists, it is worth spending a little time watching some of the videos now on the website.

One of the three founders of the campaign, my good friend Fiona Bawdon (not for long if she keeps reminding me we've known each other for 30 years+), writes:
 'The Act for the Act campaign is unique as it is all about telling the stories of ordinary people when something has gone wrong in their lives. We are asking supporters to sign our letter to Justice Secretary Michael Gove, telling him the act is too important to all of us to be scrapped. Signing takes, literally, a couple of seconds and each signature really does make a difference.'"
The letter is up there on the homepage of the website so you too can make a difference. http://actfortheact.uk/

Window into Christmas

Everyone loves the excitement of a good Christmas display, it has become an intrinsic build up to the big day just like the Coca Cola advert and in more recent years the John Lewis advert. Retailers all over London’s Oxford Street are vying for the attention of shoppers and long gone are the days when a sprinkle of fake snow would do, retailers are now favouring a more abstract interpretation of the festive season and Christmas. It is particularly interesting to us as it links to our work with interior branding, it’s always good to take a look at what other brands are doing with their interiors and the materials they are using. Here are some that have caught the eye of Design Week.

Brandalism

Guerrilla marketing and viral campaigns are often well known for their humour or quirky nature, promoting big brands in unconventional ways. However, it’s easy to forget that this marketing method isn’t just used for the LOLZ (as the cool kids say), it can be used to promote smaller brands with tighter budgets.

Case in point are Brandalism, who are using guerrilla marketing as an anti-advertising campaign. Their most recent campaign critiques the corporate sponsors of the UN summit, and features 600 artworks positioned around Paris.

Check out their work here, and even if you’re not ready to “stick it to the man” just yet, it’s still inspiring to see this style of marketing used in this way.

(Not) lost in translation

Over the past month we’ve been helping our clients New Capital, an investment house with global locations, to raise their profile through a print and digital advertising campaign. The campaign spanned websites, emails and publications, as well as continents as it featured in the UK and China!

We worked in partnership with media booking agencies in both Hong Kong and London for the campaign, which aimed to raise general awareness and promote New Capital primarily in Hong Kong.

Using the bold New Capital style (which we created in a not so distant past, here) we opted for a simple text-based solution that would help them to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Their recognisable black and white photography is used across the corporate adverts to keep brand consistency, whilst using red to highlight key wording.

At the same time as this corporate campaign they also asked us to look at creative ideas for a print based Christmas card. Having had more requests for digital cards this was a nice opportunity to create something tactile and have a bit of fun with the brand. They liked two of the cards so much they had both printed.

In London, For London

Turley, one of the UK’s biggest planners (who btw we rebranded last year, see here), came to us to create a campaign that would help to raise the awareness and visibility of their services in the London area, and of course we got stuck straight in.

The campaign needed to highlight their expertise as a cross service and cross sector company within the capital. Turley are known for their specialist planning around the UK but not as well known for working within London. By raising more awareness of their expertise and success in the capital a bigger share of the market should be achievable.

We created a ‘co-ordinate’ sub brand mark that will allow Turley to map key areas distinctive to London and pinpoint their projects to the exact latitude and longitude.

The campaign needed to respect the existing Turley brand and bring their skills and personality to the fore. It uses the brand font in different weights to mimic the parent brand, whilst still allowing the Turley logo to sit proud.

The ‘In London, For London’ logo has been used across various materials for key client events, using the ‘+’ to show location co-ordinates of projects.

This mark will work in conjunction with photographs that will tell a story of the area, capturing the essence and history of London. The concept and story telling aspect of the campaign will be supported by the commissioning of images which will communicate Turley’s social and community approach to planning and highlight their in depth knowledge and understanding of London. We’ll be sure to show you once complete!

We introduced Turley to PR company ING Media, who we are now working in partnership with on the In London For London project, using both our skill sets to deliver a strong successful campaign.

Autumnal announcements

Check it out, we’re live!

Remember our work with Croydon BID for their Ambassadors and their new consumer website, checkoutcroydon.com, from last month? We teased you with a few visuals and the promise that it would soon be live, well, the time has come. Checkoutcroydon.com was officially launched on Friday 30th October just ahead of the Christmas Lights switch on, which will be happening later in November. To celebrate, a competition with a handsome £500 prize has been launched, and the Check Out Croydon Street Ambassadors will also be out in force distributing flyers and encouraging Croydon to check it out.

As Matthew Sims, Chief Executive of the Croydon BID, says “The website provides an ideal platform for showcasing, in one place, the impressive range of shops, restaurants, bars and entertainment already on offer in Croydon and we believe the site’s importance and relevance will only continue to grow, as the pace of Croydon’s re-development accelerates and new businesses and initiatives, such as BOXPARK Croydon, come on board.” We’re all excited to see it out there in the public, and can’t wait to see how it grows over time.

CSP new site

This month CSP, retail property agents, have launched their shiny new website, designed and built by yours truly. We created a bespoke Wordpress site that is easy to manage and we’ve made it even easier by programming the site to pull in live data and feeds, meaning less manual updates for them!

Responsive layouts were key with this site as many of their clients use the site whilst on the road, so each responsive break point was as important as the navigation and layouts for the desktop site.

The design subtly reinforces the brand through the colour palette and by using the unique CSP rectangular icon shape to hold imagery, buttons and logos. The site also showcases their bespoke icon library that we created as part of the project to visually represent each page. Take a look at their new site here.

KP getting some loving
Our work on KP Snacks workspace interiors was a great project to work on and we’re thrilled Creative Pool & DesignWeek  agreed and featured us on their sites. To top this off we got a great quote from our client: "we were overrun with great ideas from a centrepiece WOW factor to small, personal details that create all the difference in making our new office feel uniquely KP."

Workspace branding is an area of our services which has grown substantially, see here, with companies realising branding should expand beyond print and an online presence to bringing personality into their physical work space by creating an engaging environment for both clients and staff.

This is no Act

You may remember our branding work for Act for the Act. Well the success of the crowd funding has meant their nationwide poster campaign launched at the end of October. Spot the posters in one of the 97 tube stations around London or on one of the Nationwide roadside billboards.

Their campaign encourages people to add their names to the letter to Justice Secretary Michael Gove, telling him the Human Rights Act is too important to us to be scrapped. If you’d like to add yours please click here.

Halloween Quiz

The entries came in thick and fast. The scores have been counted, verified and the winner drawn from the top scorers by our independent adjudicator (our Uber driver on Friday night). We are very pleased to announce Stephanie Fraser is the winner with a solid 10/10 grabbing a pair of tickets to the spooky London Bridge Experience. Keep your eyes peeled for more from the quotebank. For those of you who missed the quiz it's still on our site if you fancy a go... but no more prizes for this one... sorry!

Calendar

It’s a scary thought that we are in the penultimate month of 2015, but also exciting the festive period is almost upon us and that we’re printing our tothepoint 2016 calendar! As many of you will know, each year we send out our calendar as a little early Christmas present to see you through the following year and next year is a bit special as we'll be celebrating our 25th year in business. If you would like to receive one, drop us an email (hi@tothepoint.co.uk) and we'll do our best to send you one.

Tackling a new brand

This month the studio has been gripped by Rugby-mania, but not just because of the World Cup (or the thought of winning a tenner in the sweepstake). Recently we’ve teamed up with entrepreneurs Return2Play, who are making big strides to help clubs and schools effectively manage a player’s return to play following concussion on the pitch.

Concussion management has been a hot topic amongst contact sports recently. Claims that the number of injuries are increasing, along with more awareness on the effects of concussion and the risks to players if it is poorly managed, have rightly brought concussion to the attention of the press.

The Rugby Football Union have updated their regulations, which now includes mandatory rest, a return to play plan and sign off from a doctor before being allowed back on the pitch.

To help guide people, the team at Return2Play have created a concussion management system. It is initially being offered to schools and clubs and will allow parents, schools/clubs and doctors to track the child’s progress through the return to play process. It will also link them with a sport-friendly doctor who has undertaken special training on the subject and is able to assess and sign off the child at the end of the process.

The brand needed to appeal to schools, parents, doctors and clubs, and also take into consideration its application across web, apps and print. With this in mind we chose to use the bold orange for the core brand colour, which then appears across the website, stationery and guidelines to give the materials a fresh and modern feel.

The heartbeat reflects the medical nature of the app but also suggests measurement and forward progression. The circle and heartbeat have been adapted to introduce a series of simple icons that will be used across digital and print to reflect the brand and help break up the information into clearly defined areas. The aim is to build on this visual language.

As the brand will be focused on digital platforms we opted to create a responsive logo, which features a full logo and a shortened version to be used when space is limited.

The website and video were built by the team at Idea Group but we were on hand to act as brand guardians and supply the little touches that helped to link all of the new materials together. Social media will be handled by Smarter Reach but twitter is currently being managed by the inhouse team at R2P.

The brand and website, return2play.org.uk, will be launched into the world shortly, so watch this space but you can already follow them on twitter @return2play.

And despite busy schedules and lots of tweeting they still had this to say about us:

“Simon and his team have been a delight to work with.  They immediately demonstrated that they grasped our concept and shared our values such that we had total confidence in them.  As a start up, R2P was dealing with many business critical projects each competing for attention.  TTP's professionalism and expertise sets the benchmark for a partner to deliver the right result on time, within budget and accommodate changes without drama.” Dr Sam Barke, Medical Director and Co-Founder, Return2Play

New signage for Thames Clippers

You may recall our work with MBNA Thames Clippers from last year, when we helped with their overall rebranding. They’ve now introduced Oyster touch in, touch out payment, making it easier for commuters to sail through the rush hour and for visitors to enjoy the river. This required a refresh of their pier signage and yours truly were on hand to help.

To communicate a visual link between MBNA Thames Clippers and TfL, we adapted the colours to the TfL river transport colour palette, keeping the recognisable MBNA Thames Clippers’ orange as a highlight colour. We adopted the route colours and timetable information into the MBNA Thames Clippers signage, to help bring synergy to the information and providing greater clarity for the traveller.

The big challenge was to collate the variety of information and develop a flexible format that allowed MBNA Thames Clippers to have ownership and clearly communicate the travel details for each pier. The signs needed to include the route map, timetable and pricing structure plus how these all worked with Oyster pay as you go. The team at MBNA Thames Clippers were also keen to use the signage to promote their services rather than just featuring information, as they have done previously.

It wasn’t a case of one size fits all, as not all the piers feature the same amount of space, the same visitors, same boat routes or even the same information - it was a little tricky! To solve the problem we created a series of graphic building blocks that the MBNA Thames Clippers team could use to construct the perfect sign for each space and pier, making the most of their messaging.

Our client had this to say:
We worked with To The Point to refresh the branding across all 20 of our piers. It was a big challenge as we have lots of messages we need to get across whilst also promoting our services and key destinations we travel to. We were launching Oyster touch-in, touch-out across all of our services and zonal pricing so we had lots of new information we needed to include.

To The Point definitely rose to the challenge, creating a fresh look and feel whilst developing a template that could be used across all of the piers which differ dramatically in space and signage. The feedback from our staff and customers has been great. Thanks To The Point for all their hard work.

The new pier signage has now sprung up across the river, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled on your next riverside stroll! Maybe even tap in and treat yourself to a ride on a clipper!