A brief history

For those of you, which is quite probably most of you, reading the post that use Twitter on a regular basis, this may have been your initial attitude as well. It certainly was mine 2 and a half years ago when I first toyed with the service.  Back then I struggled to see it’s value. It wasn’t clear who I was supposed to follow, what I was expected to write and what real value was to be gained from it.

Fast forward 18 months to the end of 2008 and Twitter really started to sneak it’s way in to the public conscious. Radio presenters were discussing it, celebrities were expanding their reach across it, advocates such as Steven Fry and Jonathan Ross were coating Twitter with a layer of star appeal that began to draw the masses. Twitter began to grow at an exponential rate; in terms of usage at least. An indicative measure of Twitter’s success presented itself in November 2008 when Facebook offered to buy the service for $500million worth of FB stock, a serious, although slightly imaginary figure. They turned the offer down, believing bigger things were yet to come.

A year on Twitter’s userbase has continued to expand dramatically, although research is showing that a large portion of users are signing up and giving up before they’ve really made the effort. Hence a large majority of Twitter’s userbase is dominated by practically dormant or spam accounts. This doesn’t bother me though. Because there’s still a mass of inspiring, innovative and interesting individuals and companies out there taking full advantage of the benefits Twitter offers: the ability to connect and converse with a range of people you’d never normally get the chance to meet, provide support, insight and share experiences with a massive audience that can grow to care about what you have to say, and more importantly to learn from and listen to others.

Why it works

The key to Twitter’s success is grounded in the constant devotion to the original principle that the service is designed for people. Not to make money, not to intrusively advertise and infuse sneaky viral marketing campaigns. It is a simple concept made powerful by user-generated communities and content.

It’s addictive, easy and enjoyable to use, resourceful, accessible and provides a core functionality that people can explore, adapt and extend to their own needs and purposes – it’s this that attracts and commits people to Twitter. Abusing the trust and shared social understanding that makes Twitter what it is could potentially snowball out of control and ruin it, for everyone.

Everybody’s talking

If you own, or work for a company with or without online presence, there’s the probability that people are talking about you. The bigger you are, or the more remarkable you are, the more people will likely be talking about you. I hate to state the obvious but 10 years ago if someone had a bad, or great experience with your business, they may tell a few friends who may tell a few more friends. Now, they can write a blog article, mention you on Twitter or Facebook, publish photos to flickr or Posterous, even go to the effort of filming and publishing a video on Youtube discussing you, or your business. In only a few minutes we can now reach literally thousands of people. I’ve talked about this before many time, as have plenty of other bloggers so I want rave on, let’s quickly scamper back to the Twitter subject.

If you’re using social media to promote your brand, whether that be an organisation or just yourself, you may be getting wrapped up in the marketing bullshit – strategies, ROI, KPIs, monitoring analytics etc. If that gives you a kick then go for it, but if you’re like me, it tends to bore me to death. How about just using such services for the reason they were designed – social networking. That means dialogue, a 2-way conversation, as opposed to shouting your message at people. If that’s your style then go hire some TV advertising time, I hear that’s dirt cheap nowadays.

‘Social Media’ requires you to be just that – social. Twitter is an ideal platform for such activity. That’s one of the reasons I love it, it’s one of the reasons we persist in advocating it to new people. We see the benefits, we reap the benefits. But it’s very much a case of you get out what you put in.

Be real

We need to forget ‘commercial’ and consider ‘personal’, we’re turning old marketing principles and trends on their heads, they have no business here in this dynamic, always-connected, real-time personal webspace. Instead of tarnishing user’s experiences with intrusive advertising and ineffective, instantly forgotten viral campaigns, we need to encourage, enhance and develop meaningful experiences by approaching potential consumers on a more personal level.

Our lives are overloaded with information from every angle and it’s getting harder to filter the signals through the noise. By harnessing the power of simplicity presented by Twitter, we can make it our responsibility to clear the noise and speak directly to consumers, speak directly to friends. This can lead to trust, it can lead to loyalty, it can lead to a sustained interest, sometimes it can lead to money and recognition, but it doesn’t always have to.

The endgame

Money is the endgame. It always is. Don’t pretend it isn’t. If, as a brand, you approach social media with this aim, there’s a high chance you’ll fail. And you bloody well deserve to you greedy capitalist whores! Only joking. But on a serious note, financial targets are not the way to win the game. Caring about consumers, trying to establish meaningful relationships, providing support and respect will go along way, and everyone will benefit in the end.

Business aside; those who use Twitter purely for personal reasons, as many of us do, to keep in touch with friends, to learn and meet new people, to share and discover – chances are we’re putting this beautiful, simple service to far better use, and likely getting a lot more out of it than large organisations employing social media executives and strategists. Because we mean it, our mission is honest and authentic, our approach largely selfless and open.

Let’s drop the bullshit. How about a little consideration? Let’s start creating experiences, let’s think personal. We want engaging, we crave fun, we desire escapism.

Let’s start thinking differently.

Are 140 characters enough to make a point? I think so.

Nathan

This isn’t another waffling rant about clients getting board with social media – it looks at the entire process of how creative digital agencies work with clients and their clients’ clients to develop irresistable, functional experiences, and what skills and structures companies need to face up to the undoubted challenges the rapidly changing communications landscape will bring.

Further reading:

• In The Mode – Dom’s blog
• Twitter – @domrodwell
• North ‘Rule of Thirds‘ event

In such a fast evolving, and still relatively new industry, standard curricula simply can’t keep up. Web designers teaching in educational institutions begin to loose touch with the latest trends and technologies, and by the time a curriculum has been created, amended and passed it’s already well out of date, and often innacurate. This leads to many students and those starting their web design education setting off in the wrong direction because ‘the breadth and depth of our medium can be daunting’.

However, WaSP (The Web Standards Project) have been working collaboratively with designers, developers and standardistas in the industry to craft a concise corriculum that delves into all the aspects of the minefield that is web design. WaSP Interact is a fantastic new community-driven initiative that provides a essential, up-to-date framework of reference materials including books, online reading, podcasts, videos and resources to stimulate and educate. To support this great selection of resources are guides as to how work should be assigned, monitored and tested in a school environment.

In their own words:

“WaSP InterAct is a living, open curriculum based upon web standards and best practices, designed to teach students the skills of the web professional. Adapt and reuse our resources. Contribute your own content and ideas.”

The breadth of the framework covers 6 core topics including Foundations, Front-End Development, Design, User Science, Server-side Development and Professional Practice. Within each of these areas it delves into sub-topics that really pad out almost every aspect, not just of basic web design, but every facet of what’s required to work in this fast-paced, demanding industry. But what really sets is apart is how open it is. Industry experts, ‘veterans’ and anyone with an knowledge to share on the matter can contribute resources, suggest new modules and how to improve and update what’s already there. This will ensure that the curriculum remains up-to-date, fresh, accurate and versatile.

This is a dynamic, real-time curriculum. This is exactly what our industry needs. This is important.

The potential of Interact is not just important to those in education, but to anyone working in web design and development. The resource database will only grow, will only get better. There is something here for everyone. So I strongly suggest you check it out.

For good experience design to work it has to infuse every element of the business. The website, being the primary UI platform, has to be usable, friendly, easy, fast and fun. The importance of this shouldn’t be overlooked. People are busy, we don’t have time to learn new complicated systems all the time. Convenience is king!

But what other points of interaction does the consumer have with a business? When making a sale, either online, over the phone or in person – the service should be exceptional in every way. Too difficult? Why should it be? Aftersales is just as important, if not more important than the actual sales process itself. Reminder and confirmation emails must be smart, personal and inviting. If someone ever rings up or emails customer service the response should be as rapid as possible and personal. Especially with a company starting out small, this shouldn’t be difficult. In fact, it should be mantra.

What quality is the quality of your product, and your products packaging? How quick is the delivery time? Is your customer excited when they receive your product in the mail?

Consider vitually any Apple product. The experience of going into the Apple store, browsing the alluring array of technology on open display, talking with intelligent, enthusastic sales staff, making the transaction (and burning that massive hole in your wallet), walking out of the shop with a lovely Apple bag that draws attention from other shoppers, getting home and slowly unboxing the product is as much an experience in itself as the product is. It’s part of the reason Apple get to charge 10x more than the competition, and yet why people remain loyal to them.

Experiences that market themselves

Graze (graze.com) is a great example of a business model built around the user experience. Personally, I believe the procuct they sale is very much overpriced. But so are Apple products, fast cars, Bang & Olufson speakers and anything with ‘Louis Vuitton‘ on it.

But the Graze site is fantastically usable and fluid, so much so that it’s a pleasure. Messages are personalised. You have the option to completely configure what food items you love, like, don’t mind trying and never want to receive. You get a lovely email the day before your box is due to arrive. The box itself is of a high quality, is relatively eco-friendly and sports the Graze branding. The packaging inside is well done. The food sent is fresh and tasty. They also supply a napkin!

Within every box you get a nice card informing you exactly what’s in your selection and 3 vouchers to give to people for a free trial. You also get £1 off a box for each person you recommend, or you can donate it to some rainforest charity (yay!).

A case study business model. Graze has done almost no advertising whatsoever. Almost every single new customer has been by word-of-mouth marketing because of a remarkable product, a fantastic user experience and a great incentive to spread the word.

The consumers voice

One bad experience, just one pissed off customer that just so happens (or maybe not) to be a blogger or socialite with reach can potentially turn hundreds of people away from your business. On the web every consumer is a producer. Everyone has a megaphone.

Thus it’s essential to remain consistantly great. Listen to what your consumers have to say. Emails should be received and responded to. If a customer has had a bad experience and tries to contact you about it – don’t ignore them. Reply immediately, apologise and offer them a refund or future discount or whatever seems relevant. Doing so may have just turned an angry customer into a happy one that goes and tells others about your generosity.

Don’t shrug

If that all seems to difficult, you may as well throw the towl in now. Because there’s a 100 other companies, freelancers and individuals, charities and organisations that are more than happy to give it a go. And sure as hell if they do right by it you’ll be out of the rat race.

Something to think about, I guess.

Regular readers may have noticed that Redswish has taken a slight turn in topic style over the past few months. This is largely because it’s a one-man mission and I tend to blog about what I’m interested in or learning about at the time. Recently I’ve been focusing a lot on new marketing, building up more personal and effective relationships with clients, the demise of mass media and commoditisation, the evolution of experience design and authenticity and the psychology behind how we, as marketers and advertisers can influence and connect with  people and craft stories that spread.

Hence the reason it’s been a while since a design post, which as a web design blog I truly feel I owe you. But I must admit there’s been a wealth of great design articles blanketing the web at the moment so feel free to hit up Smashing Magazine, Web Designer Depot etc and you’ll find lots of great material. BUT NOT RIGHT NOW! Because I have other stuff to sell.

This article may not seem beautifully crafted and may come across as thought spilled onto paper (or a computer screen). Well, that’s exactly what it is. I want to hear what people think about this, I’m merely dipping my toes in the vast lake of this subject and I’m totally cool with holding hands!

Advertising is dead

Advertising will never die. But it sure as hell is transforming massively. And we’ve known this for a long time, but are still slow to respond. Investing stacks of cash in big, bold, flashy, in-your-face ads isn’t enough anymore. Breaking through the noise is too difficult. How often do you notice the Google AdWords or daft banner ads on a site? Most certainly less and less as we subconsciously train ourselves to tune out the distractions. I’m not saying billboards, TV, radio etc are completely useless, but yeah unless you’ve got a silly marketing budget and creative license to bang your head against a brick wall, then yeah.. go home.

Creating ideas that spread

It’s the way forward folks. Viral is still in it’s infancy. In old marketing the marketers jump in at the end and try to bridge the gap between product and consumer, now flip it upside down. Authenticity is essential. Great products and services that people talk about is what will drive you forwards. Your customers are your marketers.

Following the herd

Another element in the spectrum I want to look at is that of social influence. This is a huge factor in the psychology of marketing and when harnessed properly, and respectfully, can provide us with power to ‘nudge’ people in a better direction, based on a concept called Libertarian Paternalism proposed in the book Nudge by Thaler & Sunstein.

Social influences can easily be broken down into 2 categories:

• Information – the simple passing on of relevant information that may or may not influence our opinions.
• Peer pressure – often subconscious, but can be more targeted, more personal and can in certain cases be extremely effective – although quite often for negative purposes.

Peer pressure may conjure up ideas of teenagers forced into smoking, drinking or sex. But it really stems to all walks of life, in even the slightest of situations. Quite often it’s subconscious or easily dismissed, but the truth is that a massive part of everything we do, every day is influenced by others. A few examples off the top of my head:

• In the office: “Anybody fancy a brew?” – did you really want a brew before that question was asked? “Well, if everyone else is…”
• People often read the same newspapers, support the same political parties, football teams, listen to the same music, wear similar clothes, can even look the same as their peers.
• When eating together, there’s more likelihood you’ll finish your food if your peers do, even if you’re full.
• People smile when people on screen smile, even when there’s nothing funny. Yawns are contagious.
• Everyone faces the same way in a lift.
• Do you ever read on the train in the morning even when you can’t be bothered, simply because everyone else is?

These examples may not apply to everyone but there’s certainly some basis of fact in them. Decades of scientific research supports it, seriously.

Conforming

The fact is most people are either conscious about what people think of them, or even ignorant as to what others really think. The 2 sides of the see-saw are labeled with the clever terms collective conservatism and pluralistic ignorance.

• Collective conservatism refers to when groups stick to established patterns or practices, afraid to challenge the status-quo or other people’s perceptions of them. Or perhaps in some cases there’s simply no better alternative. Examples may include Google users, Playstation gamers, smokers, coffee drinkers, heavy-metal enthusiasts etc.
• Pluralistic ignorance, on the other hand, refers to an ignorance about what other people really think. Even when people hate doing something, they maintain it because they believe it’s correct, not realising that others disagree or have trended differently. In a marketing sense this most likely lends itself to people stuck to trends that have gone out of fashion, but in some extreme cases it can relate to politics and has been linked with the cause of Soviet Socialism and Nazism… sheesh!

Marketing to groups of this nature can be nearly impossible. Sometimes being the next, or the new, or the improved isn’t merely good enough. Challenging group perceptions can be a serious task, one that was once dominated by high-budget advertising. But new media and marketing provides us with infinitely more channels through which to communicate with people and help spread the word, build and nurture conversations that flow from person to person.

Where once marketers had to collide head-on and try desperately to force messages across with the hope that enough people would listen – we now have the ability to align ourselves with customers and engage on a more personal level with people, not demographics and statistics and names in a database.

Harnessing the power of influence

Marketing starts as soon as that idea pops into your head. Through internal stages of selling an idea or product to management and colleagues, through testing, development and launch. More open work processes are becomming more popular – this confirms authenticity and builds trust.

Make a great product. Make it for people, not for profit.

Once it’s out there, get people talking. Find out what people really think – social networking is your greatest asset here. Companies like Threadless, thesixtyone, ASOS etc have fantastic relations with people on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Offer customers prizes, offers and discounts and freebies in return for their feedback. Then don’t ignore it! Test and retest – constantly evolve your product, service, approach. Immerse yourself in every element of what you do and constantly consider how you can be providing a better experience.

It’s really not that difficult. iPhone apps can reach millions of downloads in weeks, Youtube videos gather hundreds of thousands of views in days! People rapidly find themselves in niches and soon even tribes. Their influence can spread like wildfire. People tend to follow others on Twitter because they’re interested in their opinions and findings. One person with 500 followers can influence a huge percentage of people and invoke interest in something very quickly.

Sometimes people feel they have to keep up so they don’t feel left out, this is collective conservatism in action. The difference between good and bad marketing depends upon how you adopt the power of social influence. Embracing it and using it to ‘nudge’ people in the right direction, to a solution that mutually benefits everyone is a goal we should be looking to. However abusing it, spamming people, spreading lies instead of authentic stories is not only evil, but is beginning to fail.

People are getting wiser and better at distinguishing truth from bullshit. So it’s simple. Tell the truth and don’t bullshit. There you go, that big sprawling article above led me to that conclusion.

Your views

I really want to know what people think about this. It’s still quite new to me and as a designer I almost feel out of my depth rambling about this. But I think I can learn, and surely many others can, a lot from this.

Voice your opinions below, I’m looking to keep this active for a while.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Imaginative title.

Yep, I was there last week. Had a great time but decided to write about it on the Flame blog instead of here, sorry loyal readers!

It was great to meet some new people and some familiar faces (although some of them from only a small Twitter avatar), the event itself was good, inspirational fun and the after party topped everything off nicely!

Some other reviews can be found here:

• Phil Thompson
• How to always enjoy a conference

My words have found their way to print, along with 99 other people. “Connect! Marketing in the Social Media Era” is now available to purchase through Blurb. I talk about how we can use Twitter to build more personal connections. But that’s all I’m telling you – you’ve got to buy it to find out more!

The book is a fantastic collaboration of 100 authors from the marketing/new media/design industry that discuss current trends in social media and how we can harness the power of the social web from a marketing perspective to create my dynamic, personal consumer relationships.

Even better, the book is purely none-for-profit. Besides educating and inspiring, the aim is to raise money, and awareness for Susan G. Komen’s campaign towards the cure for breast cancer.

It’s a great book, it’s for a great cause. Please help out by grabbing  a copy, it’s totally worth it.

• More information on the book and the Project 100.
• Get yourself a copy at Blurb.com!

Thanks to all the other authors, and thanks to the editor Jeff Caswell for making it possible.

Nathan x

Constraint leads to bad design, and good design

Books can teach you how to write HTML, online tutorials can help you craft your Photoshop and Fireworks skills, thousands of hours of hard work and engagement will provide you with a better understanding of the ins and outs of the Internet and the ways in which people interact with it.

Your job title is meaningless.

I am a designer. I work mainly on the web. I use Photoshop and Textmate daily. I build websites.

Does that stop me picking up a paint brush, spray can or scissors, or camera and camcorder and going out onto the street to obtain different forms of media that I feel may be useful in moulding my final output, the end creation?

No?

If it serves as a valuable asset in creating the final experience, there is no need to be restricted by my job title or the equipment on my desk alone. But constraints also allow us to expand creatively. By creating barriers, we know how far we can go – the lengths to which we can stretch and bend the rules to create something new, something that works within it’s medium whilst evolving beyond the competition, beyond the confines of the original brief or spec.

Make clients happy, make users happy. Everyone’s happy, everyone wins!

If there are no rules in the first place, how can we break them?

However, never forget the difference between art and advertising. Art is personal expression. Advertising serves the needs and purposes of the client. It is to promote a brand, a product, a service or opinions. Advertising makes money. Web design is a form of advertising, an increasingly essential and multifunctional branch of advertising and branding that absolutely cannot be overlooked or underestimated.

But advertising is dead, isn’t it?

Here’s one of those ‘less talk, more listen’ posts. You don’t get many from me! I want to know a bit about your websites and your approach and attitude towards their purpose. Is your site(s) designed to make money, inform and educate, publicise a product/service/person or is the purpose unclear – perhaps it’s just for fun. For each case, how do you achieve your goals?

Design and Usability

How does your site design contribute to the end goal? With regards to user experience, what do you feel takes priority – enabling visitors to get to where they need to be as quickly as possible, or to provide an enjoyable experience. Or both? And how do you go about achieving this?

How much do you feel design contributes towards the overall user experience? Would you prefer a site that is easy to navigate and view, with well written copy and clear structure but features a minimal or unattractive design? Or would you rather a beautiful looking site with fancy dynamic functionality and gimmicks, but ‘makes you think’ a more? What about a balance of the two. How do you feel you can work to create a website that is fantastically well structured and presented, whilst revealing some tasty eye-candy?

Measuring success

How do you measure your site’s success? What do you determine to be ‘success‘? Site traffic? Perhaps a deeper look at your site’s analytis; what do you feel takes precedence? Length of visit, repeat visits, countires visited from, pure volume of traffic? How do these statistics vary depending on your site’s purpose? Perhaps you feel the best measure of your site’s success is more organic than statistical – the comments you receive, RSS or email subscribers, contact form feedback or a combination of the lot.

What do you feel is more important; your visitors experience or the site stats and revenue made?

I want your opinions

Please take the time out to comment below. This post isn’t about me or Redswish, I want to know what other people think. Get your site URL in there to get some coverage. I’ll be summing up everyone’s responses in an article in a few weeks.

There’s no debating the fact that an online presence is essential in today’s market. Indeed there are only a few niche industries that do not rely upon or are affected by the global transition from workplace to web.

When it comes to doing it right, anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the way the Internet works will agree that representing your business or product online is by no means as simple as throwing up a website and claiming your territory in a small corner of the web.

Aside from the many factors that make a ‘great’ website, such as careful usability consideration, good aesthetic design and well-written copy; there are the numerous other external variables including SEO, PR and email marketing etc that help to promote your website, and in turn your brand.

What is a brand

Well, it’s just your logo and stuff isn’t it? Not at all. A brand is the representation of a business that is portrayed through a range of mediums – logos, product names, colour schemes, slogans, the style of language used to promote a product or service and much more. For a more verbose description, Wikipedia offers us this:

‘A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme that convey the essence of a company, product or service.’

It’s often found that as a company grows, the general acknowledgment of the value of it’s branding grows and becomes more apparent. Ideally this shouldn’t be the case, it’s irrelevant whether you’re a new start-up or a multi-million dollar corporation, your company’s image should always demand a level of priority.

However, creating a solid brand can take a lot of time, decisive and objective thinking, creative input and usually a lot more money. Thus many smaller business fail to see it’s relevance; ‘maybe a quick logo mock-up in Microsoft Word and some cheap template flyers should do the trick’. This is not a concept that should be promoted.

Losing sight of your brand

When it comes to web design, many businesses loose sight of their objectives and company image. I’m primarily referring to those that have transposed to the Internet, who already have a physical brand.

There are a plethora of reasons that explain this. Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding of the Internet’s potential which leads to carelessness, also the idea of building a nice new website can cloud judgement and obscure the realistic goals and objectives of a business. This isn’t helped by the appeal of free website templates and WYSIWYG editors that are far cheaper than investing in a professional designer.

Unfortunately taking this approach can cripple your existing image. Preset themes aren’t built around your branding and are almost impossible to manipulate to accurately represent your company.

At the other end of the spectrum, designers can also cause trouble. Even though we, as designers, are supposed to have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t on the web; we can also get carried away by our own creativity and artistic input – which in turn can tar our client’s branding that they may have created and built over time, purely because we feel our method is better or our opinion more valid.

New website – let’s rebrand!

Another popular trend is to completely rebrand to correlate with the launch of a new website. It’s often unclear to see what business do this, unless the rebrand came first and a new website is therefore a necessary measure. Some people get bored of their current image too easily, some believe it a positive, refreshing step to rebrand every so often, like a spring clean. But let’s remember that building a strong company image relies on consistency and recognition, which is impossible to attain if logos and colour schemes are changing every 6 months.

There can sometimes be a fine line between evolving a band and recreating it. You must step back and ensure that, when updating your image, you can guarantee that it still reflects and resembles the old look and feel – that it maintains recognition. The process of rebranding should be done in one of two ways:

• Gradual evolution, one small step at a time, over a long period of time.
• Complete transformation – a full, across-the-board revolution that demonstrates a strong step forward.

Maintaining your brand’s consistency

David Airey’s article on the top aspects of successful branding concludes that consistency is by far the most important factor in maintaining and growing a great brand. This means ensuring that your image is immediately recognisable wherever it is, and on whichever medium it’s found.

Take some of the most globally recognisable logos:

The topic of what makes a good logo is a discussion for another day, but what has helped to establish these logos as such undeniably iconic symbols is the fact they have remained consistent on print, clothing, packaging, TV and on the Internet.

Who’s the new kid in town?

What’s your reason for changing or developing your image? Is it to help pull your company into the current times, to motivate your workforce or bring in new clients? Are you changing your corporate image to transform people’s perspective of the company, perhaps to express a higher level of quality or when trying to enter a new market?

If you choose to redevelop your branding – make sure you’re clear of the reasons why you’re doing it. If it’s a half-hearted or foolish move, it can greatly damage your image and general recognition.

Rebranding across the board

When it’s time for a rebrand, make sure it’s definitely time for a rebrand – don’t do it for the sake of it. Your first step is to decide whether to gradually rebrand or change everything in one fell swoop. Once you’re settled on that account, it’s time to get as many heads together to brainstorm and construct a solid plan for change. Make sure everyone involved in the process is on the same page, understands the end target and is comfortable to express their opinions that may contribute to the process.

• Rebranding is not just a new logo. Mocking up a new logo is not rebranding – in fact it really serves no purpose at all if it’s not backed up by a full, fresh direction that incorporates new slogans, mission statements, business and marketing strategies, colour schemes, typography and imagery usage guidelines, print media (business cards and letterheads etc), occasionally new staff members and much more.
• Project manage the rebranding process. Treat your in-house development as you would a client’s project. Set deadlines, make sure staff are sticking to the deadlines and are on task, set someone in charge of the operation to ensure it runs smoothly and this will help generate a better overall outcome.
• Aim for originality, push some boundaries. Some of the most popular rebranding campaigns have been those that have boasted originality and new ideas. This can be a case of using an arrangement of the letters in your company name to build an adaptable logo that works on several levels, like the famous FedEx logo, where the space between the E and X forms the shape of an arrow – representing direction and haste. A similar idea is used in the Amazon logo, where the arrow underneath points from A to Z and also resembles a smiling face.

The main point is that if you’re going to rebrand, do it properly – consider all the elements and ensure that they relate to each other and don’t contradict the overall message.

Bridging the offline-online gap

When taking your branding to the web, many of the same rules apply at to print and other medium. Sometimes we’re held back by current technologies or accessibility and cross-browser considerations, such as a restricted number of typefaces. However – colour, imagery, copy and print design elements can be recreated or manipulated to suit the web.

A method to help retain brand consistency over different mediums is to create a brand guidelines document. This sets in stone various rules that must consistently be applied when developing any form of branding, such as what typography to use, colours to use and on which backgrounds, the kerning and spacing around letters, block content and imagery, how and where the logo is meant to be used and much more.

When creating a website design based on a company’s current image, I surround myself in print media and any form of branding I can find to help transform those elements to the web.

Don’t forget, the objective is to maintain consistent brand recognition. When a visitor arrives at the website – it needs to be immediately apparent where they are.

On your way to creating a stronger company image

Creating a strong company image is about more than just the visual essence you project. It relies on a well-crafted product, effective marketing, good customer service, in some cases a great portfolio or catalogue and lots of time and effort.

When making important design and business direction decisions and strategies – don’t rush into anything, take your time, research and gather as much opinion (especially from within the business) as possible.