Acumen Republic.
During a spell freelancing at Acumen Republic in Auckland, I was involved in their ongoing rebranding exercise, which meant rolling up sleeves and helping pull all the disparate elements of identity, branding, design and message into an all-new web presence.
As a PR and Communications agency, they place huge importance on getting the right message across quickly and have a vested interest in social media, as a critical tool in the communications mix. This entailed getting current, updatable content on the homepage and providing instant access to their social media channels and contact information.
Foodness!
Foodness is a startup business providing healthy-option prepared wholefood and slowfood to businesses in Scotland’s capital. It’s a friendly one-man show, fun, modern and down-to-earth with sound principles and a healthy dose of good humour - operating in a busy and competitive business environment.
We aided the nameless baby company with all aspects of branding, including its identity, web domain, logo and business stationery - we created stickers for the food delivery boxes and vehicle livery for the van. A fun project for a delightful client, success and high-fives all round!
Visit Scotland.
VisitScotland* is the national portal for tourism in Scotland. For them we worked on Visit
Scotland.org which is the stakeholder site for the tourism business and VisitScotland.com the customer facing site. Not to mention seasonal microsites, campaign emails, ad banners, competitions and all the rest!
The trick here was careful brand management, complying with very strict brand guidelines, yet creating visual appeal and freshness with each iteration.
Design and markup by me (at Union Digital).
Westwood Consulting.
Stephen Westwood Consulting is an established business consultancy with a spectacular track-record and hefty credits. Serious and succinct was the order of the day. Stand-out and a human touch also required. Hmm…
So; we developed a corporate identity with that brief in mind, carried it through to lovely matte-art, spot-varnished business cards and a small but perfectly-formed website, which acts as a touch-point for potential clients.
Corporate, but not too stuffy - human, but not too personal. Whew!
Choose Another Way.
Choose Another Way* is a Scottish Government project to promote sustainable travel methodology and develop travel plans within the business sector. The task was to create an identity for the project, and present a mountain of information within a modern, clean framework.
The website was designed to be friendly and approachable, truly semantic with extra-clean markup, kerbside appeal and enough personality to boost its tone of voice. It also had to be light, modern, functional and accessible. The client was delighted with the outcome, I like it too!
Fire Safety.
We worked on two sites for the Scottish Government’s Fire Safety initiatives*. Firelaw, is aimed at business owners, and Don’t Give Fire a Home, is part of a national cross-media campaign aimed at the general public.
Two very different approaches were required, given the different audiences and their needs. Firelaw is a pure info site, providing legislative information, DGFAH has content suitable for use as a teaching aid for kids. We had a blast brainstorming a retro fire game, and designing the look and feel for the developers in Finland.
Design and markup by me (at Union Digital).
Scotch Beef & Lamb.
Quality Scotch Beef & Lamb*, is a national body promoting Scottish farming and beef & lamb products across the European Union. That meant this site had to be written, and updated, in three languages.
Union Advertising carried out cross-media seasonal campaigns, and the website was very much part of that mix (including our microsites hosting competitions) providing seasonal recipe downloads and serving as a point of contact. CMS functionality served up by Concrete.
Design and markup by me (at Union Digital).
Platford Contractors.
Platford Contractors are a small company in South East England who carry out a range of road, paving and groundworks. Our task here was to create a recognisable brand, to deliver a logo and colourscheme which would stand out amongst the competition. The rounded P from the extant logotype had appeal, and the story wrote itself.
Business stationery then vehicle graphics were to follow; to be easily identifiable parked, with the doors open, or moving at motorway speeds.
A brand success, from the ground up!
Cargilfield School.
Cargilfield* is a private Prep School in Edinburgh, catering for nursery pre-schoolers and primary kids up to the age of 12. We designed a nice and easy new website for them. They wanted a CMS, so WordPress was the way forward - the site had to appeal to the kids, the parents, the teachers and the old-boys! A wide and varied audience…
They loved our choice of neutral blues, which helped their photography shout out, which made them very happy. The client is delighted, the kids can edit the site and have a stake in it, the parents use it as an online tool and the old-boys can keep in touch. Marvellous!
The Extra 20 Yards.
The Extra 20 Yards* is a new golf training aid. We were presented with a brand new product, no identity and were tasked with bringing this unknown quantity to market, in a very busy sector, during an economic downturn. Woah!
Soon we were at work, carving out an identity - modern, sporty, sleek, professional and putting together a website which reflected that identity, explained the product benefits, added charm and a bit of glamour and ultimately showed what, how and why and how much!
Design and markup by me (at Union Digital). Ecomms added after launch.
Burleywood.
Burleywood is a small top-end boutique clothing label, owned and operated in Edinburgh. Burleywood Beige is fine Scottish woollen daywear, and Burleywood Black is luscious slinky nightwear.
Our brief was to sharpen and refine the branding and corporate identities, to make them special, like the clothing lines - to add glamour and a hint of je ne sais quoi. To that end we drafted out new logos, a balance of blanc ét noir, serif ét sans and did some great swing tickets for the garments to follow through on the rail in-store.
Ét voilà!
Cycling Scotland.
Cycling Scotland* is a government sponsored organisation, promoting cycling to the mainstream. Their old site was a bit worthy and dull, so we were asked to go crazy and throw colour, vibrancy and modernity at it… We presented a few design iterations and they went for the wackiest!
The client was keen on a bit of Web 2.0, so RSS news and Twitter feeds were included, and we advocated FaceBook and a YouTube channel. They wanted a CMS, so our designs were coded in WordPress.
Hey presto! Shiny new site, happy client.