Illustration is a fascinating area and can really make a brand come alive. Illustration can be a powerful part of your brand communications tool set. There are some situations where a photograph just doesn’t work, and this is an ideal reason to commission an illustrator. Some great uses of illustrations include creating a character illustrations, info graphic illustrations and creating gorgeous illustrated art work, to name but a few. How about when you have a complex concept you want to get across? Look no further than illustration.

Stylised contemporary illustration can help build brand loyalty and give your business an easy to understand visual language that typography and photography alone can not achieve. While illustration isn’t ideal for all businesses, it may be perfect for any business that doesn’t have a physical product. After all a key element of brand is navigation. What better way of standing out from your competition who offer very similar services than a distinctive illustration?

As you can probably tell, at Design and i we love illustration. If you want to have a chat about illustration and how it can help your brand give us a call on 01332 890333.

Visitor Support

Info graphic

Main Event

The Greyhound

Info Graphic

Christmas Grinch

The rack

It will

Egg and spoon

Not average at all

Dreaming of beans

Revealed Vintage

Dead good edward

Night night graham

Darkly Dreaming

Mono bot Duo bot

Belting illustration

Revealing illustration

Oakley box

Bus

Panda robert

Bird hat

Calamari illustration

Usually good

Walkies

Dead good

Wrestler

Another Visitor

Trash

Bat bot

Goth hair

Mono bot

We love illustration – a bumper selection of illustrationsDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

Visitor Support - Selected by aoi

Illustration Selected by AOI

We are pleased to announce that we will be in the prestigious AOI’s (Association of Illustrators) Images 36 – Best of British Contemporary Illustration 2012. This is the second year in a row Design and i’s creative director Martin Hyde’s illustration’s have been featured. Last year we had our iconic illustration for the Derby Greyhound swinging sign featured. This year it is the lead piece from an illustration series called The Visitors. The piece is called Visitor Support, and features the Derby Cathedral and a giant mechanical robot. The Visitor series were produced on brushed aluminium and have been widely exhibited around the region, including the Tarpey Gallery and the Royal Derby Hospital.

“I am really pleased to be selected to be in Images 36. It means a lot to me to be in such a prestigious book, and recognised as an illustrator by my contemporaries.” – Martin

You can buy last years Images 35 – Best of British Illustration 2011 from Amazon and other good retailers. We will let you know when Images 36 is available.

About the AOI

The AOI was established in 1973 to advance and protect illustrator’s rights and encourage professional standards. The AOI is a non-profit making trade association dedicated to its members’ professional interests and the promotion of illustration.

IMAGES 35 – The best of British contemporary illustration 2011

Published August 2011, 366 pages, hardback.

Featuring around 400 illustrations, as selected by an expert panel of internationally acclaimed judges.
Now in its 34th year, Images includes an introduction by the distinguished New York based teacher and commentator Steven Heller and special feature, the Critic’s Award, selected by the Editor of The Observer, John Mulholland.

RRP: £39.95

Best of British Illustration AgainDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

Working with Design and i, is a real pleasure. Their continued professionalism and skill in design and branding means I would have no hesitation in recommending them for any business where brand is essential.

Soboho TestimonialDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

The project features a complete range of gorgeous branded stationary and printed items as well as the E-commerce site. For the E-commerce site Design and i have collaborated with web development company Quick by Design. Design and i created all of the site designs and HTML and CSS templates. The site is built with web standards in mind being 100% WC3 valid, but pushes the boundaries in terms of the visual aesthetic that we are used to for online shops. There are lots of clever ideas in the design, as well as some new web technologies which allowed us to have really nice typography, as well as unique features.

SobohoDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

Love this book

What’s it About?

The Brand Gap is written by branding guru Marty Neumeier, who is responsible for many of the famous brands of the world, e.g. Apple, Adobe, Netscape. The books aims  to give a unified understanding of branding both from the creative and strategic sides of things. This approach is a breath of fresh air, as many branding books concentrate on only one side of things.

Who’s it for?

The book is a fairly quick read – it is designed to be read during a plane journey – but is packed full of useful insights which would be handy for any business owner or branding business.

Great bits

What’s great about this book is it get down to the core basics of what branding is about, and its combined approach is very insightful. There are some very interesting ideas in the book, one of the best being the three questions you should ask about your own business – Who are you, What do you do, and Why should I care. These three questions will definitely get you thinking about your business, it certainly got me thinking about mine.

The section which talks about logos being dead and a throwback to when the only  option was printed material was very eye opening, long live the avatar and icon.

Bad Bits

Due to this book having been originally published in 1995 there is quite a funny section where it talks about damaging your brand, one of the examples is Amazon damaging their brand because they widened their product range to include other items besides books. Yep that was a massive mistake, where are they now.

Presentation

The design of the book is very interesting even though the pages are printed in black and white (nice paper though). There are lots of quirky design and layout touches and little illustrations/collages which get across the concepts in the book and make it a thoroughly interesting read. Just shows how good design can create a great product even if there are limitations in-terms of printing budget.

Overall

This is a great book, and essential read for brand designers and business owners a like. For business owners it will give you a really strong insight about your own business message, how you are positioned in the market and how it your brand is perceived. For brand professionals it will give you lots of great tips and insights into branding.

[Rating:5/5] Essential Reading

Reviewed by Martin – Design and i

Book Review – The Brand GapDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

What makes up a brand identity

BRAND IDENTITY?

Brand and Brand Identity are words that are often banded about in business, but how many people actually understand what it means? We thought it would be useful to give you an introduction to the reasons for brand identity, its core elements and how to achieve a strong brand identity.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN FUNCTIONS OF A BRAND IDENTITY?

Navigation – to enable your business to stand out from your competition. To aid customers in navigating the huge array of competition and pick you out.

Reassurance – to provide reassurance to clients that they are making the right choice in choosing your company by communicating the quality of your service or product. Taking trust out of the buying process is key to a successful sales process.

Engagement – to help customers to identify with your company through the use of imagery and message. Without engagement your product or service will only compete on price.

WHAT ARE THE CORE ELEMENTS?

A brand identity is made up of a series of visual items which form a system. The strength of the system is in creating a visual language that is easy for a customer to understand, making it easy for the business to communicate their message and values.

When designing a brand identity it is essential to have mastery of all the individual core elements. This is to enable them to be combined into a powerful visual language for your business. The success of the brand identity will succeed or fail on the consistency and quality of the elements and how they are used.

Approach to designing a brand identity

It is important to understand the commercial and academic reasons for a strong brand identity and its structure. How many businesses and designers make choices purely based on aesthetic reasons? How many businesses make decisions on their own branding on their own personal taste rather than their target market? More than you would think, I would say. Using a structured design process can help overcome these problems in the discovery and definition stages. You can check out our design process here.

Our experience in creating and combining all of the core elements of a brand identity allow us to create strong brand identities which provide navigation, reassurance and engagement in their target markets. If you would like to talk about your brand identity call us on 01332 890333.

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Print based Touch Points

Digital based Touch Points

Brand Identity Touch Points

In this article I want to talk about brand identity touch points. What is a touch point you may be asking? Well a touch point represents an opportunity to increase awareness of your business, and build customer loyalty. In other words, all the different ways your business can communicate with potential or existing customers. With the approach of 2012, what better time to start thinking about these opportunities and planning for them.

Some of these touch points you may already have in place for your business, or some may not be relevant, but for the majority of businesses there will be some which are a potential goldmine of opportunities that have been missed.

I have broken them into print based touch points and digital, just to make them a little easier to navigate. However you need to look at print and digital as a whole in terms of your brand identity, as it is essential for them to be consistent for your brand to work successfully. Touch points are changing all the time, so its essential to keep up to date with the latest opportunities.

How we work with brand touch points

Our job as brand identity specialists, is to highlight these opportunities, and create brand identities which communicate across all the relevant touch points in a consistent and creative manner. Irrespective of whether its a web site, a vehicle livery, an invoice or your Twitter page, they should all stay on message and use the same visual language.

Our ability to work across all touch points maximises your ability to increase awareness and customer loyalty for your business.

A common issue with many brand identities is the use of multiple agencies, which introduces inconsistencies and inefficiencies with the brand identity. Using Design and i, solves this problem, saving you valuable time, and maximising impact with each of your touch points.

If you would like help maximising impact with your touch points, please call us on 01332 890333.

Brand Identity Touch Point’s – Opportunities to Grow Your BusinessDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

In this article I would like to share the design process we use on our projects. Personally I got very interested in the Design Process when I was studying for my MA. What is most intresting is many of the most successful businesses in the world all have a structured design process which all share many of the same stages. It was clear from the research I conducted that using a structured design process can aid any business into creating better products and services. At Design and i, we prescribe to a design process with 4 key stages. The stages are broken up into the discovery, definition, develop and delivery stages. Using a design process enable us to consistently deliver outstanding brand identities that deliver results for our clients. Using a structured design process in your business, if you don’t do so already, will improve consistency and quality of your product or service. It will also help with project management and delivery.

In the following stages I talk in terms of a brand identity, after all thats what we do, but this can be replaced with your product of service.

The Design Process

DISCOVER

In the Discovery stage of a branding project we research a clients market and competition. We also research current and future branding trends that would benefit their brand identity. Research highlights the key do’s and don’t, and potential opportunities which would have been otherwise missed if me had started the project blind.

DEFINE

With the aid of the research in the discovery stage and the initial brief we can then define the brand identity. This is very important stage as it gets all parties on the same page so to speak.

The brand identity and its various assets can be defined in various documents such as the concept document, top down design, cost benefits analysis and functional specifications. This stage can also be used in creating a contract with the client of deliverables for the project.

DEVELOP

Once the requirements for the project are defined the initial concepts are created through the use of static screen designs. Designs evolve organically through consultation with the client until a final design is agreed. Again with this stage, it can become part of the contract with the client.

DELIVER

The final stage of the design process is delivering the finalised designs from the previous stage. This might be building a web site, or finalising a logo design and delivering it to the client in various formats.

Because brand identities are liquid in terms of ever changing business environments, they will continue to evolve long after the original brand identity has been signed off. Its important to have a good relationship with your brand designers as a brand identity is along term investment. This is true of many products or services. The design process is never truly finished, a product or service will continue to evolve.

Further Reading

If you are interested in the design process, the Design Council have lots of useful resources on it.

The Design Process – A Process for Better Products and ServicesDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

One of the most important aspects of your companies brand identity is consistency. For modern businesses, social media has become a very important form of marketing, but is often an area which is overlooked in terms of brand identity. To maintain a level of professionalism and your brand image, it is essential not to ignore branding in this important area of marketing.

Designed Brand Consistency

We can carry your branding throughout your social media, whether that be an interactive fan gate on your Facebook page; branding your Twitter feed or even small aspects such as your profile image, and content in your profile.

If you are currently not using social media, we can help you set that up as well, and give you valuable free advice on how to use it to benefit your business.

Facebook Fangate

So you might be wondering what a Facebook fan gate is. Well its all about being liked, more specifically your Facebook business page being liked (Facebook speak for following your business). If a potential client visits your Facebook page, its important to engage with them and encourage them to like your page as its a fantastic way of marketing directly to them. As well as encouraging a visitor to like your page, its a great opportunity to promote your business, though information and links to pages on your main web site. Check out our fan gate at www.facebook.com/designandi to get a flavor of what a fan gate is all about. If you are already a fan of our Facebook page you can click on the Welcome link in the facebook menu on the left of the page, to get an idea of what it looks like.

Twitter Page

Twitter branding is simpler but just as effective. Check out our Twitter feed here http://twitter.com/#!/designandi

Call us now on 01332 890333 to get your social media branded.

Our Twitter page

Our Facebook fan gate

Have You Branded Your Social Media?Design and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration

1. A logo is the key element of a businesses brand identity – it should always be designed first.

2. A logo should be simple, memorable, versatile, original and be instantly recognisable.

3. A logo should be designed in a vector format (resolution independent) so it can be used for both print and web.

4. A logo is often an abstraction of ideas which work on a subliminal level.

5. A logo should work in both colour and black and white.

6. A logos design should be paired down to its simplest form so that it works both at small and large sizes.

7. A logo should always be composed in CMYK or Pantone. RGB will cause colour inconsistency between web & print.

8. A logo should always designed bespoke. You don’t want to be sharing logos with other businesses around the world.

9. A logo design should evolve with the clients input. Here is an example of a logo design process http://ow.ly/7kD64

10. A logo should be provided in formats for print and web for both design professionals and general use for your company.

We excel in logo designs, and we really love doing them. Check out this bumper selection of logos we have designed. We love logo design article

10 bite size tips you need to know about logo designDesign and i brand identity web design graphic design and illustration