Paper comes in a wide variety of weights, finishes, coatings and textures. Making sure you select the most suitable type of paper and finish for a particular job (including audience, tone, and purpose) is essential – after all, if you tried to use standard photocopier paper for a corporate report or artistic brochure, the printer and design agency will want to beat you to a pulp!
The word ‘finish’ traditionally refers to the treatment of the surface of the paper, and put most simply, means it may have a particularly smooth or rough texture, Some papers absorb colours better than others and are more suitable for a type of printing or specific application than others, all of which mean the type of paper chosen can have a huge impact of how the printed, finished item looks.
Ask your printer or design agency to show you samples of the different paper and finishes, as touching them and seeing them first hand will give you a much better idea of what will work for your job.
Back at the start of the year we helped PIE, a team of specialist mapping, data and routing experts, to refresh its logo, clarify its brand identity and messaging as well as developing a clear structure for the company (see our first story on this here ).
Part of this was to refresh the look and feel of the PIE service websites, creating a series of top-level banners, including simple and easily recognisable road related graphics, colour and messaging to ensure brand consistency across the PIE group and assist with navigation across the various microsites.
Another key part of the overall project was to help facilitate the launch of PIE’s new Data Exchange online service, developing the brand and core messaging. A national database of essential road and street information, including navigation, parking bays, low bridges and road restrictions for larger vehicles, the Data Exchange is ideally suited for any vehicle type that uses the road network in the UK, providing them with the most up-to-date road information, when they need it.
PIE has been getting ahead of the London Olympics, having both updated its Data Exchange to include all the changes affecting the city’s road network and developed the data for the new TFL Freight Journey Planner for the Olympics. These will help both the public and specific audiences, such as freight operators, make better routing decisions to manage their deliveries during the Olympics – essential so that the pubs don’t run out of beer!
Therefore, time was of the essence for this project as the new site, incorporating the new messaging and PIE identity, had to be up and running in plenty of time before the Olympics. Having supplied the site’s overall design, structure, wireframes and banners, we're continuing to liaise with PIE and its web development agency Azure to provide ongoing consultancy to ensure the brand messaging is consistent across all of the PIE websites.
www.iprn.com Formed in 1995 the Independent Public Relations Network (IPRN) is now the world’s largest independent agency network and offers opportunities for client referrals and for members to work together on global projects for clients.
IPRN's previous website design:
We were asked to design and build a new website for the IPRN as its existing website, whilst functional, was dated and didn’t accurately convey the forward thinking nature of the organisation.
There are two main purposes to the IPRN website: to attract potential clients, directing them to the relevant IPRN agencies and to encourage other independent PR agencies to join the IPRN.
As such, the original brief was to make the current site more user friendly and appealing, with improved navigation and ensuring the key areas are more visible for visitors to the site. We expanded on this brief, highlighting that the site should be more current, engaging, visually accessible and a ‘living’ entity – ie regularly updated with informative content – to help reinforce IPRN’s brand reputation and value proposition.
In addition, we were asked to come up with ideas for refreshing the existing IPRN brand, which included redesigning the logo to create a fresh, contemporary and bold identity that enhances the brand and reflects its members’ global expertise.
So, following a competitive pitch process, we got to work implementing the chosen logo – a series of orange off-centre, concentric circles that allude to the global nature and knowledge sharing of the IPRN, with contrasting black text – and building the new site.
Our new IPRN identity
We built the site using Wordpress as it needed to be simple to use for members and non-members, with clear navigation and easily uploadable content. We also created a specific Members only area using Buddypress, to make it easy for members to add their own content and news, thereby encouraging the sharing of information and expertise and also increasing the site’s SEO.
A test version of the site was unveiled to the IPRN members at the annual general meeting in Buenos Aires, to very positive feedback, with the site going live this month.
IPRN founder member Maggi Fox, who has been instrumental in launching the new site said:
“We're delighted with the fresh, crisp appearance of the site. It wasn't an easy job for the designers to provide a site which had to satisfy so many members from so many countries and they met these challenges to the great satisfaction of us all."
Specifically designed to fit into a travel card style holder, the inserts provide a brief snapshot of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and highlight the advantages of its Training or Qualifications workshops to both new and experienced public relations practitioners.
The bright pink and purple colours of the inserts – to be handed out to CIPR members at its events – along with the bold headline copy and clear simple messaging reflect the new CIPR style that we have been developing and implementing across its marketing materials throughout 2012.
Leading commercial interior design consultancy Luxe Interiors approached us to update its existing website, which whilst functional, didn’t reflect the high end creativity and professionalism that Luxe brings to all of its projects or its brand positioning. Luxe wanted to unveil the new website at an industry conference the following month, which meant the clock was ticking.
Having looked at the existing site we realised the best plan was to scrap the old site and start again, which meant creating a completely new design and CMS, not easy in less than a month. Well, we do like a challenge…
A key part of the brief was to keep the site simple so that Luxe could easily update content as and when necessary, along with creating a simple image gallery to showcase the wide range of projects and sectors that Luxe works across. We opted for a Wordpress site due to its ease of use and flexible layout, which allowed us to show images at a good size and quality.
In conjunction with the new website we also refreshed Luxe’s logo, to ensure it was more in keeping with the more prestigious and contemporary website, using a typographic approach with a simple, stylish execution.
Finally, to complement the refreshed identity and website, we’ve also produced a 55mm x 90mm concertina brochure featuring plenty of images and a company overview. Luxe wanted marketing collateral that was engaging, informative and able to convey the breadth of its work, yet small enough to carry. Designed to fit into a wallet or pocket, our concertina brochure fits the bill perfectly.
We’ve worked with developer Richardsons Capital LLP and Carillion on a number of projects and, as such, we were the natural choice to create the naming and identity for their latest residential development – a joint venture with Gleeson Homes – in Thanet, Kent.
The development’s location was key to our naming and branding approach, as it has great historical significance. For any history geeks out there, the local area of Richborough is thought to be the landing site of the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD43 and went on to become the formal entrance to Roman Britain.
The Roman port was marked by a huge arch, so we used this for inspiration and came up with Richborough Gate. Playing again with the historical connotations, we created a simple, elegant logo, featuring a representation of a wrought iron gate in a light lime green on a dark blue/grey background to illustrate the coastal link. The Garamond font used for the logo reinforces the area’s links with the past, whilst the modern graphic approach keeps the identity contemporary and fitting for the new residential development.
We’re also in the process of creating a microsite for the Richborough Gate development, which will act as a portal to direct potential buyers to the associated marketing agencies. We’ll update you once this is finished, so watch this space.
The art of origami and pretty paper plants aside, understanding paper folds is essential for designers and clients alike. Whether designing a leaflet or pop-up children’s book, paper folds are as important to design as typefaces, formatting and illustrations. There’s a lot more to it than just folding a piece of paper in half or half again (in a ‘here’s one I made earlier’ kind of way) and believe it or not, paper folding is considered an art form.
Choosing the right layout, and therefore folding, reinforces the message of your document, engages the reader, makes you stand out from the crowd and lets you control the way the message is revealed – all pretty powerful stuff.
Paper can be folded into some downright crazy shapes, most of which you’ll never need, so for now we’ve just covered the basics in our handy guide, along with bindings and their typical applications. So whether you’re looking for a concertina, standard or parallel map fold, we’ve got it covered here.
Things are never simple, are they? The vast array of media now available means logos are now supplied in a bewildering number of formats, and for those who aren’t professional designers or in the industry, what to use for what application can be pretty confusing. High res, low res, eps, jpg, Pantone, RGB, it can all get a bit much.
Again, as for last month’s top tips on colour models, we’re aware a lot of you know all of this backwards, but we are firm believers in revisiting the basics as well as helping those who aren’t in the know.
As designers often vary in the kinds of logo formats they supply, understanding the different file formats can be crucial. Just knowing the basics means you can avoid unnecessary changes and painful exchanges back and forth with the designers/printers/other agencies etc and speed up the whole process.
We’ve worked with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) on a number of its campaigns so we were the natural choice to create a concept for this year’s CIPR Excellence awards.
The annual CIPR Excellence Awards, now in their 27th year, are the most prestigious celebration of public relations, with this year’s black tie event in May to be compered by Olympic medalist Colin Jackson – reflecting the London 2012 Olympic theme.
The brief was to come up with a bold, fresh concept that celebrates this year’s Olympics and reflects many of the Olympic values that the CIPR also holds dear; namely competition, fair play, ethics and a winner's mindset.
The theme also needed to introduce the strapline ‘building on the past, looking to the future’, which we also created, as well as communicate the organisation's renewed drive and focus under the leadership of new CEO Jane Wilson. This strapline will be used on all future CIPR materials, highlighting the new direction the CIPR is taking whilst at the same time recognising the huge value associated with its past successes.
Given the plethora of Olympic themed branding and news out there at the moment we didn’t just want to jump on the bandwagon and produce a clichéd 'inspirational' image. So, our solution was a purely typographic approach based around the Olympic theme of gold, silver and bronze. The concept involved highlighting the successes of past Olympians such as Daley Thompson, Kelly Holmes, Steve Backley etc, with the type printed in the colour that corresponds to the medals that they had won in previous Olympic Games.
"We really wanted to produce something that reflected the new direction that the organisation is taking under the leadership of Jane, and in doing so, change any preconceptions that people may have had of the CIPR", said Kevin Cox, our Creative Director.
The concept will initially be applied to invites, programmes, guest lists and certificates that will be handed out to the cream of the PR profession at the awards ceremony held at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London.
In a glittering ceremony at the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw, Poland on 17 April, we were crowned winners of the Construction and Investment Journal (CIJ) Residential Awards 2012 Best Residential Development Website award for the innovative and stylish website we created for Palazzo Dorottya, a restored historic building in Budapest.
The Construction and Investment Journal (CIJ) Residential Awards 2012 celebrated projects as well as companies that have excelled in performance. Projects submitted for The Best Residential Website are judged upon various criteria, including graphic design, innovation, commercial success, beauty, layout, integration and user friendliness.
The project
In May of 2011 Richardsons Capital LLP and Fingen, the joint developers and property owners of Palazzo Dorottya - a grand, historic 19th century building in the heart of Budapest – approached us to create a brand, website and marketing collateral for this six storey mixed use development, consisting of 87 luxury apartments with commercial and retail space.
Before work could start on the website we needed to create a brand for the development. We wanted to communicate that Palazzo Dorottya is a sophisticated destination for living, working and entertaining, whilst also reflecting the building’s juxtaposed classic and modern characteristics. So, we created the strapline ‘where the past meets the present’ and logo, giving it a typographic treatment through the use of two fonts to reinforce the old and new – a theme which was also reflected in the marketing materials as a whole.
The innovative website we created includes a homepage that features full screen images, a distinctive image gallery, along with a custom designed interactive map of the area that had links to luxury products and services. Individual floorplans are available as both zoomable images and downloadable PDFs. The site has also been optimised to work well on tablets such as the iPad and is easy for the sales team in Budapest to update.
Ben Jackson, Head of Digital Media at to the point said,
"The site has been purposefully designed to be as ‘flat’ as possible – meaning that most users will feel comfortable enough to view all of the main sections. Content has been pared down to a minimum so users get all the information they need. All additional information is then accessed via lightbox overlays – meaning navigation is kept very simple. User testing was carried out to ensure users were never swamped with too much information and felt that they had simple access to everything they needed to encourage them to get in contact and find out more about the building/apartments available.
We built the site using a customized version of the Wordpress open source CMS (.PHP) – with CSS hand coded to be clean and simple. The site is very easy to maintain, with quick and simple content entry for all pages, including location information, and apartment availability".
We created several plugins and features specifically for the site.
Location section - based on a customised version of Google Maps, this has been created as a stand alone local search system designed to promote local landmarks, retail, hotel, entertainment (etc.) facilities. All data was researched and written specifically for this site.
Image gallery – as images were very important to the brand, we created a gallery system (based on SlideShowPro) to show the images in the best way possible using Flash where available and a separate non-Flash version for mobile/tablet users.
Custom apartment search facility. Used in both the Sales and Rentals sections, this was created from scratch for the site in order to present a very simple, intuitive way to search for apartments by multiple search categories. Due to the deliberately simple site structure, this is all presented on a single page, with high-resolution, zoomable floorplans opening into a lightbox overlay for each selected apartment (these are also available to download as a PDF).
Site has been designed to work well on its own and also as the online component of the iPad sales tool.
To complement the website, we developed an iPad tool to help facilitate sales. This needed to be developed quickly with no constant bug-testing or waiting on App Store approval. It also needed to be relatively simple to keep up-to-date and easy to use. As iPad Apps can be expensive and time consuming to create, we came up with a cost effective tool (essentially a supercharged interactive PDF). This enables the sales force to show potential clients all the relevant property information if there is no Wi-Fi connection, and allows them to access the website to show real time availability and pricing when an internet connection is available.
The website and iPad tool were also supported by a suite of printed marketing materials. These included a luxury wallet and brochure with floorplan inserts for each of the 87 apartments. We specified a high quality digital print solution for these inserts, which enabled the client to call off shorter runs, printing floorplans only when needed to tailor presentations for specific client needs, as well as reducing the environmental impact associated with printing.
About the Awards
The Awards are organised by Roberts Publishing Media Group, which has been publishing CIJ Magazine for over 19 years in Central and Eastern Europe. This year’s CIJ Residential Awards were held on 17 April 2012 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Warsaw, Poland and honour projects completed between 1 January 2010 and 31 March 2012.
