Flydesign.biz – Blog

We have been asked by a web development agency, whom we know well and have worked with many times before, to assess the design and design efficiency of a ‘Cooking Conversions’ website.

http://www.cookingconversions.org/

Cooking conversions is a site dedicated to recipe weights, making them easier to understand and convert, with an array of conversions on the site, on the face if it , this seem a very user friendly site.

However the design does not do it justice in anyway, it is far too basic and lacks any relatable branding. What do we mean by that? Well branding is a vital part of any design work, if you don’t have an identity of some kind then you lose any value generated by your material in relation to sales. If effort has been put into a site such as this then there should be some added value for the brand in question, and there isn’t? There is no link from the main title to tell you anything about who they are and what they are hoping to achieve.

The menus do not inspire and they are very plain and lacking any design flair. This site is about weight, but with particular regard to food.

http://www.cookingconversions.org/weights.htm

When cooking from a recipe ensuring that you have the right amount of each of your ingredients is one of the most important aspects of getting the recipe right and having a nice tasty dish to eat. Most recipes will specify the amount of each ingredient as a weight with European recipes generally being in kilograms and grams, American recipes using pounds and ounces and UK recipes being a mixture, some using weights in kilograms and grams and some using weights in pounds and ounces.

There is a distinct lack of colour, the use of black is very depressive, some more vibrant use of colour would have helped enormously.
http://www.cookingconversions.org/liquids.htm

There could have at least been a colour for each menu item,

Home | Weight Conversions | Liquid Conversions | Oven Temperatures | Length Conversions | Spoon Measurements | Cup Measurements

Some background colour would also enhance the viewers experience on the site, with little to look at the site feels drab and one feels compelled to move on quickly or to seek a more interesting site.
This page would very much benefit from some fluid style images, something to indicate the usage of the information, with links to recipes and imagery to excite the palette and inspire some appetite.

The overall design lacks appetite appeal and would certainly benefit from some structure as well.

The information here could be grouped together to indicate its usage, or at least be in columns to aid the viewer around the site.

Imperial Pints & Fluid Ounces to Litres & Millilitres Converter

Type values into either the UK pints and UK fluid ounces fields or the litres and millilitres fields to convert from Imperial pints and fluid ounces to litres and millilitres or litres and millilitres to Imperial pints and fluid ounces.

This should relate to something within a recipe, with images, as this would enable to viewer to immediately establish the usage and pertinence to their own recipe, for example and as the image indicates, cake tin sizes.

There is no next button, no grouping of information on the page to enable the viewer to quickly jump from one section to another relevant section to their recipe for example.
http://www.cookingconversions.org/cupmeasurements.htm

This site could have been a really tantalising experience of imagery and mouth-watering images, with a useful tool to utilise every step of a recipe with relation to the really useful information within the site.

With the advent of the internet finding recipes has become easier, however you often find the right recipe only to find that the units are ‘foreign’. Sometimes you will find the weights in grams or measurements in cups where the standard is different in the Canada to the US. Our site is designed to help you make sense of these measurements and to translate them to those you are comfortable with.

The word comfortable is used and we think the whole site would make much more sense to that ‘brand value’ if it were more comfortable to use, more like our own site.

http://flydesign.biz/

Lets see if things change?

Is DIY always the best option- part two

Red Adair once famously said ‘If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.’

Naturally, being professional designers, and that’s how we’ve made our living since we indeed left school ourselves, our response is bound to be. “Don’t do it!”

We know better than most what the repercussions of DIY design can be. We are often asked to sort out the problems that can arise as a result.

Poor quality, not enough pixels, or the wrong resolution for print?
The wrong size or colour palette.
No trim, no bleed…What??
The incorrect format

We even had a client who had paid a web designer ( be cautious about this because most web designers are NOT designers, they are developers and most lack any real creative or brand skills ) to design his packaging, not only was the packaging awful and lacked any food appeal, wrong colours, wrong style, but the printers actually declined the artwork because they were unable to print form it due to its format. So not only did this cost the client once but he then paid us to re-brand him, re-design his packs and provide accurate pre-press artwork for the printers.

Result – his products were accepted by Waitrose, Tescos and Asda, where he had been unable to gain shelf space with the old designs.

There are many many areas where your design or artwork will be scrutinised by suppliers and clients alike, never mind whether your brand or logo or material actually speaks to the right audience? There are a plethora of ways it can fail in production never mind fail in its objectives.

So what can you do to avoid these pitfalls? Well obviously hiring a professional designer will always be the best and most cost effective option in the first place, but if you cannot invest in quality design, we can offer you some tips help you avoid the costly mistakes of DIY design.

1) Brand
What are you actually trying to say
(we have a file of pertinent questions you need to ask yourself)

2) What tone of voice will speak most effectively to your customers
Are they children
Adults
Male/female
Young or old
Hip or square
this list can be endless and the more detail you have about your potential market the less risk you take on.

3) Colour
There are some basic colour issues to address depending on your market, so for example childrens products and services will appear in typically bright and primary colours. Darker more sedate colours suit more sedate and serious business’, such as solicitors (Blue is the UKs favourite colour) but remember there is a blue that suits all markets and it can appear in many hues and shades.

We employ very sophisticated colour psychology techniques to truly connect with the potential customer and have spent years honing these skills.

4) Type

See our blog all about type for more detail.

So here we are at the September or Autumnal Equinox, equality or just an axis alignment with the Sun? What ever you think, hippy stuff or science based and whether it actually effects you, I believes it’s about balance and equality, and when there is balance I think there is harmony and productivity.

In business terms getting the balance between all the different facets of the business is vital. Spend all your time just producing product and you will start losing market share.
When small business faces such challenges we have noticed, particularly in recession that there is a tendency to cut back marketing and design, no time and no money…but then what happens? No sales? No money, no business?

This can be disastrous for any business but why do smaller businesses make these decisions? Perhaps some one can tell me?

Anyway I digress, the other wonderful thing is the creep of Autumn, and I guess for most this means colder, darker nights and winter drawing in, but actually it is about building strength for the renewal that will come in Spring.

From my studio window I am very lucky and have a stunning view of trees and whilst I gaze, over the year I see the phenomenal sharp green leaves of spring gradually give way to strong but muted and sundrenched greens, mixed with bright blues of summer skies we know emotionally the colours mean summer, it connects with us at a very deep, emotional level.
So when the greens start to dull and the chlorophyll starts to retreat from the leaves they gradually change to a myriad of amazing autumnal colours and depending on the years weather that display of carotenoids will range from splendid, bright shocking reds, through soft oranges and yellows to beautiful browns. This is a similar chemical to that found in carrots and the beautiful colours will spend most of their deciduous year masked by the green of chlorophyll. We get to see the amazing displays of natures autumn show while she gets ready preparing for winter and renewal. All of nature knows what this means and sadly man has lost touch a little with the natural cycle of things and the balance to life this delivers day to day.

There must be rebirth and renewal, the cycle has to continue and this is perhaps why so many businesses stagnate when their branding stays the same. This can signify a lack of current thinking, we all like to think we use the best there is, someone who is up on the latest technology and thinking. Brand must move on, so the continual renewal of brand, imagery and material will keep your customers interested and arrest brand blindness (look at something for too long and sooner or later it becomes invisible)
A new brand can invigorate a faltering company, inspire staff and customers alike as well as build sales and loyalty.

“Fly are responsible for a complete re-branding of our business and for the brilliant design of all our marketing materials, including our website.
They started completely from scratch and took the time and trouble to learn about our business. They even managed to bring out our latent marketing skills and they still continue to come up with innovative marketing ideas whenever we speak.
They remain an important part of our team and their designs continue to evoke positive reactions from all that see them.”
Many thanks to you both. Louise Turner, Frost Group Limited

Nearly all brands evolve, unless they are trading on their historical roots such as Tate and Lyle, look at Persil and there will have undoubtedly been many many incarnations with very subtle changes along the way, in between these packs. Most of the time we are unaware but that is the trick of a good competent designer.

So what can the rest of learn?
That we must evolve or we end up standing still which, in such competitive times, really means going backwards!
That anything that promotes our business must be strong and stand up against our competitors, now and in the future. Why take the risk?

So…How will you evolve?

I bet there’s a lot of you out there who’ve had frustrating travel tales to tell – particularly with the likes of the ‘no frills’ airlines. I’ve just returned from a long weekend which turned out to be 3 days longer – and potentially a week longer than we’d planned due to a cancelled flight. Without going into a lot of detail the most frustrating of the whole experience was the usual problem. LACK OF COMMUNICATION.

You are told to stand inline for literally hours, or left somewhere with no idea what’s going to happen. We were eventually sent to an out of town hotel and once duly dumped, left to our own devices – and despite being offered by easyJet full board were told only B&B was available. And we were to be holed up in this basic hotel in the suburbs for 6 days!

The following day we discovered we could change our flight to go from a different airport – at our own expense – but allowing us to return 4 days earlier. We took this option and after 2 days of busses, trains, metro, more hotel bills only to discover the flight was delayed again eventually arriving home at 3.30am.

Anyway, getting back to the point. You would think large businesses such as these airlines would know all about COMMUNICATION. Give them their due, we discovered a very polite and succinct email when we got home about what to do – but it wasn’t there ‘in the field’ so to speak. Instead everyone is running around like headless chickens having to ask whichever orange bedecked person they can find, with the normal response of “just join the queue” and then turning on their heel as fast as they can. Since most people on holiday don’t have access to email – and were not expecting one anyway, email probably wasn’t the best choice of communicating in this situation, and a dedicated ‘communication team’ at the airport would have been more useful.

Why are people so afraid to COMMUNICATE?

We see it everywhere – even in the supermarket you can look at a PRODUCT LABEL and search everywhere on it to find out what it is or what’s it for. They just assume because they are so close to their brand that you will know that their new non-biological, colour preserving, cleaner than clean, Madagascan vanilla perfumed, ecologically proven product is – what? a fabric softener or a liquid soap???? We don’t know because they didn’t put in on the LABEL! We are supposed to just know what the bleedin’ hell it is! Communication and Informing on a PRODUCT LABEL is the most important consideration along with attracting and engaging in terms of making the sale.

This applies to small businesses too. In particular people that hand out their BUSINESS CARDS at a networking event; some of them might as well be saying “Guess who I am?” “Guess what I do”. Well no, I can’t be bothered to guess thank you very much! Some arrogantly defend themselves by saying they can explain better face to face.. But what they often don’t realise is that they are not always there to talk about themselves and their company. Only their BUSINESS CARD or FLYER will remain behind to do the work and ’speak’ for them.

So it’s vital that that piece of communication, no matter how SMALL, does the best job it can in Informing everything about your company – what you do specifically, why yours is a good company, what you’re like, what you can do for your customers, what makes you the best choice, why they can trust you …

Therefore in a nutshell to Communicate as much as you can on your business card or flyer or brochure or whatever other piece of sales material you leave behind – the more the better.

Of course the easiest way to communicate all this is a well thought out BRAND, LOGO and visual styling. All which directly and subliminally communicate the what, the who and the why through clever design, devices, photography, COLOUR, typography etc. along with print and paper choices. And without blowing our own trumpet too much !! who better to do this for you than a good design company like us with bags of experience with Major Brands, Supermarkets and SME’s.

We often hear from Small Tradesmen and SME’s “It’s just me – I don’t need a Brand” But they’re wrong. We associate ‘Brands’ with the Big Boys which of course is where it all started. But anyone can have their own brand. After all it is just a VISUAL COMMUNICATION of who you are. For example having your own Logo and styling that CONSISTENTLY and truthfully represents your company, visually, on your BUSINESS CARD, STATIONERY/ INVOICES, UNIFORM, CAP, TEESHIRT, VAN, etc … to whoever you meet or sees you in the street, can increase your client base. If they like what they see you will get more enquiries and more business – because you COMMUNICATED.

At a ‘Boardroom’ type event I went to a year or so ago a business was invited to stage his problem and the rest of the invitees around the table were supposed to ’solve’ it. His problem was that he was a sales person for a burglar alarm company and he had a real difficulty in converting sales. It shouldn’t have been a problem, the product he was selling had some UNIQUE FEATURES. The trouble was he had no means of informing people of them. The BROCHURE was inadequate. It basically only showed a few pictures. What it didn’t do was highlight the 6 main reasons why his product was better than Joe Bloggs around the corner. His BROCHURE did not COMMUNICATE. But there was also an inherent problem in this communication case – because the Directors had never really sat down and discussed their Brand, they probably hadn’t really rationalised what their key features were. So they had never communicated this to their brochure designer or to their salesman. The knock on effect was of course – no sales! So get yourself a good Brochure that really informs what you’re selling and what you’re about!

So if you have managed to get to the end of this you will realise that we’ve been going on about the importance of good communication – and if indeed we still have you we will offer you as your prize for tenacity, a free consultation on how good your brand is in communicating. Just call our freefone number on the website to discuss or send us an email using the keyword ‘communication rant’

Happy Communicating!

CO2, thats the bad stuff right? Yeah ok I am only messing, of course it is, silly.

So Carbon dioxide is that nasty stuff we all create too much of, but it is actually vital for plants to photosynthesise and make goodies for us as well as oxygen. So why is this relevant to design and you?
Well according to a recent study (Internet Threats Trend Report) published in April this year, talk amongst other things about the cost of emails in terms of CO2. We all think email is essentially paperless and there fore much better for the environment right? We have all seen this irritating green messages about the need or not to print out an email (all terribly worthy) and don’t get me wrong I am obsessive about recycling, I recycle all the usual stuff but also every scrap of plastic, including bags and soft stuff (lucky enough to have access to much better recycling than most) So am jolly pleased we only generate a small carrier bag of rubbish for a four bedroomed house.

I digress, the research goes on to tell us we send 221 billion (yes thats right Billion) emails every day! 183 billion of those are classified as spam – how much viagra can be changing hands!!!
We are not all equal either, the US send the most spam, obviously, with 38 billion spam emails, followed by India 13.7 billion spam emails, Russia 9.8 billion, Vietnam 9.7 and Korea 7.6. Here in the UK, spam represents about 85% of all emails sent so fairly significant.

But my real issue is the cost in CO2, this both worries and delights me all at the same time! Studies have suggested that each email generates 0.3 grams of C02, not a lot in itself but multiplying that by the sheer number of emails means we are generating an extra 21 million tons of CO2 every year. By contrast the average burger loving americans diet produces 2.10 tons of CO2 every year, more than all his planes, trains and automobiles produces believe it or not!
(I hate to blow my own trumpet but my planet loving one only produces .19 of a ton yearly instead! )

The reason that electronic email’s poor CO2 stats delight me is because I love print, some thing in print adds that extra dimension, yes I also love my mac and listening to talking books on my ipod but who wants to curl up with a good iphone!, there is something reassuringly comforting in the look and feel of printed matter, it connects to another sense that electronics have so far failed to achieve. All the emotional responses that we as designers rely on to connect to our audience on behalf of our clients, are present! texture of the paper, the smell of ink and paper combined, the involving experience of opening a folder, envelope of other device, the sounds of paper, rustling and folding, the deep click of crisp cardboard. This cannot be replicated in the virtual world and so it does

We are emotional creatures and make our buying decisions based on emotion, not logic. We are influenced by all the senses but colour, form and touch are particularly potent.
http://flydesign.biz/other/theArtOfColourPsychology.php

And now it seems that paper can actually be more environmentally sound than electronic methods of marketing, some research albeit by the paper industry suggests, that within the next 10 years, half of all the UK’s energy will be needed to run laptops and PCs, quite astonishing!.
By contrast the European paper industry is already pretty green, with an area the size of 1.5 million football pitches becoming reforested every year. 50% of the energy used my the industry is already from renewable biomass sources and paper is already one of the most recyclable resources.

So what does this mean for you? It means there is a great advantage to using direct mail, good old fashioned postal methods, indeed. As our love affair with email becomes ever deeper, actual mail is more effective, around 80% of direct mail is opened compared to only 30% of email.
Time to create stunning direct mail, to send a host of weird and wonderful items through the post and into the eager hands of potential customers, for this particular set of circumstances won’t last for ever.

We have created a number of great direct mail campaigns including sending sticks of brightly coloured rock, together with the company name running through it!

as a teaser for a postcard follow up, which then generated leads and visitors to an exhibition, all tied neatly to the strap-line ‘Asset management doesn’t need to be hard’

What will you send??

When I say Face I mean typeface, for type ‘faces’ are really just like real faces, they have personality and age, some are babies some are old & stuffy, some are mean, some are friendly and some are hilarious. All manner of traits can be represented in a typeface, for they are as varied as faces are. There are alleged to be around 200,000 fonts out there.
Now that’s a lot to choose from. To the untrained eye it could be bewildering, but for those of us slightly smitten with type, it’s a pleasure, and there are never enough!

So why is this important, well the right font (type face) can speak a thousands words and really communicate your values and aspirations. Type has subliminal qualities and can express many different emotions. This is why companies spend what seems like a vast amount on fonts and even bespoke fonts, in order to be even more unique and tell their story.

A colleague brought to my attention an interesting piece at the BBC all about type.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10689931

And it reminded me that there are still those of us who are a little obsessed with good typography and the beauty of letter forms. I include myself in that, for type is mesmerising and once hooked you are there for life.
I started my type obsession at art school, I am old enough and lucky enough to have attended when there was still a ‘hot metal’ room. This is where we had proper old style letterpress printing presses and cabinets with an array of draws full of actual metal typefaces. Each letter was set by hand and it was very laborious, as you can imagine. Newspapers literally used hot metal to create each page as an aluminium plate, one that would get melted down to form tomorrows plates again and again.

This gave us a close understanding of types origins and taught us to respect type and typographers well into our digital careers.

So have computers made things better or worse? Well I think there have been some gains, speed and access to fonts is much better, where we used to rely on a beautiful magazine named U&LC for all our font news, now we get it on the web. I do think standards have slipped. With everyone having access but not really understanding type and letter-forms, an ugly landscape of unprofessional and poorly executed typography prevails.

The furore over Avatars subtitles is a case in point, often the untrained eye will use a completely inappropriate font, causing untold damage to the original product, this can be true across the whole gamut of design services, from websites & packaging to brochures & advertising. Anywhere the public must be communicated with is an opportunity for beautiful typography, not just a space for any old ugly face.

And it’s not just legibility…who wants to look at an ugly face!!

So what are you hatching?

Are you always thinking how you can sell more, raise profits or are you just content to survive at the moment.

Business is certainly like wading through treacle at the moment, I have heard this expression many many times lately, especially in the small business community.

How will you reach potential customers?

How will you speak to them and engage them?

How will you let them know you are the best person for the job?

How can you be s?ure of using the correct visual language

The right colours?

The appropriate typeface?

and a design that truly reflects your brand and its values?

Are you going to ‘have a go’ ???

Would you trust your judgement, perhaps compared to years of training and experience?

It all sounds a bit tough doesn’t it?

After all you don’t want to spend thousands on a spangly new brochure only to find it falls short of your expectations and even worse, turns off the very prospects you are trying to reach.

When we are asked by a company to produce anything from a business card to a brochure, website and overall brand, the first thing we do is listen, we really get under the skin of a company, gaining valuable insight into the workings, ethics, staffing and processes involved in running the business. This is vital for us to understand where the company currently is and then learn where it wants to go.

Determining the future goals of the business helps us to re-position the companies image and put it exactly where it needs to be for success.

Would you trust this company with your books?

Just for fun we created a card for a fictitious accountancy practice, ignoring all of our instincts for colour and style and the right tone for a particular business sector. So whats wrong?

Colour

Font

Legibility

Spelling

Clipart

Size

the list is endless. These kind of errors are very common and can cause untold damage to your business and its potential to generate enquiries and sales.

We have had proven success for our clients, including one client who reported a rise in sales of over 100% after we re-branded their business.

Well according to some experts we are experiencing the W effect when it comes to the recession and we are at ‘the point’ in the middle, which means, if they are to be believed, we are about to take a nasty trip back DOWN!!!

So what can you do to avoid the worst effects, well design and marketing are key. If you have a strong plan in place before we start to slide, then you will reap rewards, if previous recessions are anything to go by.
Statistically if you spend on your marketing and design strategy during recession you will be winning once we are out the other side.

So what should you be doing? well a good plan is important and we can help, we have a number of expert Marketeers at our disposal, many of whom will meet and audit your business for free initially. But consider how you will promote your business in the most effective way possible, beyond that plan.

We have loads of creative ideas to help you do that.

Is your workforce branded?

branded pens remind your client about you everyday!

Company vehicles are FREE and mobile advertising space!

Postcards

Flyers

Adverts

Banners

Competitions

Pens

Keyrings

Hats

Badges

the list is endless!

A great alternative to the usual business card is our Miniflys!

The cost effective ‘brochure in your pocket’

Ever felt that a business card wasn’t quite enough to communicate your company’s features, but don’t really want to carry around brochures all the time? Then Miniflys are your answer. Business card sized miniature brochures!
Great design to capture your customers’ interest

More information to engage & enlighten

More space to really sell & enhance your ideas

• Increase sales
• Generate new enquiries
• Improve website traffic
• Enhance your marketing
• Engage with your existing and potential customers

MiniFlys are a great way to promote your business; Small, portable, covetable, cost effective, easy to use, eye-catching, memorable …

Miniflys, the brochure in your pocket

Call us free and we can help set up your business to fight the recession!!!

0800 6191 595

With all the graphics packages available and facilities, since school, to give everyone the opportunities to express their artistic talents, it is no wonder that companies will be tempted to design their own materials.

Naturally, being professional designers, and that’s how we’ve made our living since we indeed left school ourselves, our response is bound to be. “Don’t do it!”

But why? What makes us so special? Indeed some professional designers aren’t particularly good either – And how can you sort the wheat from the chaff?

These are questions we hear every now and again, and as a response produced some tips (called, with tongue in cheek, Fly Tips!) See the link below. http://flydesign.biz/tips.php These tips outline why you should use a professional designer and what the processes are that a designer will go through when designing your job.

It makes sense really. Whatever you do to earn your living, you naturally become expert at it, stands to reason. Since that’s what we do, day in day out, are minds are tuned in to every aspect of design and the marketing of the client’s product or services. And it isn’t always easy for us either, we may agonise for hours thinking of the right concept, sifting through 100’s of typefaces to get that optimum one. Staring manically through colour charts to get the right colours, screening the psychological implications off using certain colours, and tempering, always tempering one thing against another to get the balance right. Getting the balance right, getting the weight of line, the size of images against type making adjustments always making sure the right message is getting through. And that’s just part of it.

So if it takes us all this time, with our inherent talent, and years of experience, then how can you justifiably expect the efforts of an amateur diy-er to be on par?

The sad truth of the matter is we have seen a lot of companies doing just this. The results are appalling, amateur attempts that are an embarrassment. Even sadder is that these companies usually have a good product or service. So why do they do it? Because, of course, they can. And it costs them nothing. They think.

However, the true costs of saving money by opting for diy design runs deep. Once that bad logo has got into your company, bit by bit it embeds itself into so many parts of the company’s running, like a creeping fungus, so that it becomes really difficult to replace. It’s on the stationery, which costs money to print. It’s on that expensive gloss laminated folder (with the bad design but printed beautifully). It’s on the signage, the promotional items such as mugs, pens and teeshirts. It’s on the exhibition panels. It’s on the website. It’s on the packaging and signage and ticketing. In some cases it might even be glass etched on the window and weaved into the carpet (yes I’ve seen this and weeped!) The list goes on. So you’re stuck with it. That awful scribbled amateur logo that your secretary / 14 year old son / wife did that doesn’t intrinsically mean anything, says nothing about the brand, and is usually drawn particularly badly. (Unfortunately I’m not sure if we’re allowed to show examples on a blog… ) Yes, that logo, now represents your company. So along with the immense cost of replacing all those items what is the true cost?

The true cost is difficult to measure as design is, among other things, a subliminal tool. We are persuaded to buy, to engage, because somehow that company looks or feels right. It works in reverse too, we might shy away from a company or product that doesn’t look or feel right. It may look cheap, ‘dodgy’, amateur, in food unhealthy, not professional or credible. So with these factors up against another company that does look tuned in, able and willing with get up and go, talent, professionalism and whatever other qualities you’re looking for. Well who would you choose?

So the true cost is, you don’t know. You don’t know how many new clients might have chosen you – but didn’t. And how many of those new clients, that might have referred you to others (because what you do is great after all, isn’t it), didn’t. You don’t know how many of your existing clients get wooed away by those smartypants with the new identity. That’s the true cost.

Oh, and one other thing. Buying cheap or free design from some printers and the like comes under the same category – sorry! In fact their design will probably be worse than yours, as they definitely can’t afford the time to put into your important project as you can for the low or free prices they offer.

So our message is, treat your company’s image as you would treat anything else in your life that’s important to you…with love and respect!

There is always good sport to watch somewhere and even if most sport is not your cup of tea there are valuable lessons to be learned in business that also apply to sport.

Running a lean, efficient company is vital, being agile and able to adapt quickly with give you the edge. Complacency and lack of fitness can all effect your performance and that of your company.

And that is where good design can help, how do you communicate your efficiency to your potential customers? Through your brand of course. How do you let them know your are modern and can offer the latest techniques in your field, again your brand can do this for you.

A good strong brand can help you communicate anything you want, but only by using the right colours, right fonts and correct styling.

Getting it wrong could be a disaster, placing you in the wrong market and without a real voice.
And who wants that for their business?

http://flydesign.biz/tips.php

A perfect example is a lovely client of ours ‘The Frost Group’
We were presented with an old logo (shown below) that whilst usable and perfectly functional, wasn’t really reflecting the true values of the company. It lacked imagination and flexibility.

We created a soft and friendly identity that covered three separate sub brands, that fit together visually to create a strong unique group brand. Reflecting the positivity and support offered by the Group.

With an icon for each sub brand, this enables Frost to use each one separately with the subtleties of colour and icon subject they have been most successful. Not least and significantly increasing the sense of employee loyalty and sense of belonging to something special.
http://flydesign.biz/identity/frost.php
http://flydesign.biz/print/flyers2.php
http://flydesign.biz/websites/frost1.php

Loyalty and belonging seem pretty strong factors when building a successful football team too!