Corven is an integrated group of businesses all focused on creating value through strategic change. The business is composed of three divisions; Corven Consulting, Corven Ventures and Corven Networks. Working with FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies as well as with central government departments, in Europe and North America, dynamic growth led them to reappraise their brand and communications. VGroup’s appointment, following a credentials pitch, has resulted in a cohesive and integrated look to their communications.

Having successfully won the pitch, we started an intense six week project schedule to refresh their brand identity and their communications including a new website. The first stage was to clarify the hierarchy of the business divisions, each of their sectors and practice areas, and to distil this information into a clear brand architecture.

The Corven logo and Corven Networks logo were retained in order to maintain brand recognition. Our core objective was to refresh their visual identity, build upon their existing brand mark and produce a cohesive look to their corporate brand that would enable Corven to have full control over content in their  literature and website.

We rationalised their colour palette and typefaces across the Group; created an important new brand element in the form of a ‘wrap’ graphic panel which was employed throughout the design work to provide a distinctive area for titles and headers.

With Corven’s need for flexibility to edit and produce a lot of printed materials in-house careful consideration was given to the branding, fonts and colours to ensure consistency across InDesign and Microsoft Word platforms.

The Corven logo’s are written in Helvetica light, a clean open typeface, so it was decided that the Helvetica family should be used as the primary font throughout their printed materials. We took advantage of the release of Helvetica as a web-font to achieve onscreen consistency across their website. If this was unavailable to users, we nominated Arial as a secondary typeface as it would work well with Helvetica as well as across numerous Word Documents that are used internally and externally; this ensured there were no issues with type rendering incorrectly. In short we wanted to make life as easy as possible for their marketing teams.

The personality of the company is warm, colourful, optimistic, genuine and professional, so we felt it was really important that these values came across in their brand. We commissioned a photo shoot of the teams at work and engaging in live projects – the results of which can be seen across the website and in all of their collateral.

Corven PowerPoint template

The new Corven website brought together Corven Consulting and the H-I Network (now renamed Corven Networks). We created a new site architecture to ensure the content could be found easily once brought together.

When the sitemap was approved we moved on to creating a fully interactive wireframe version of the site that allowed Corven to click through and get a feel for how the site would work. These wireframes were then used as the base for the site design.

As with the printed materials we created a clean and modern look for the website ensuring it retained all the brand values of the new visual identity. With the site being built on the Drupal Content Management System (CMS) we paid careful attention to allowing the site to be as flexible as possible. Lots of different page templates and modules are available for the client to update copy, images, create new sections and promotions quickly and easily.

The results speak for themselves, but by working closely with key personnel who were involved in managing and producing marketing materials, Corven now have a more contemporary feel to their communications that represents their value and culture as a business. Their “brand toolkit” will enable them to attract new clients, as well as the calibre of people they need for their growing business, and lastly build brand value over the mid-long term.

“I wanted to write to thank you for your efforts with our website and brand refresh. Whilst it was an intense project, we are very pleased with the end results, and have had very positive feedback from clients, candidates and network members alike, as well as our own staff.” Charles Oppenheim, Corven.

www.corven.com

Founded in 2005, LOC Consulting (LOC) is a management consultancy firm which specialises in implementing complex business change and technology projects for the private and public sectors. In the past three years sales have grown 77% a year and 2010 turnover was £10m. In 2010 LOC were awarded 40th place in the Sunday Times Fast Track top 100, the only management consultancy firm to be listed.

Their brand and website design have remained static for the past four years and they felt that as the company was growing now was the time to rebrand and enhance their image and marketing communications. Following a four way pitch in March 2011, VGroup was awarded the contract to rebrand LOC and to roll-out the new brand across all their communications.

Three months later, we’re pleased to say the project has been a great success and as Elinor Fentem, Managing Consultant comments..

“Massive thanks to you and all at VGroup for your excellent work on this. I can see it [the website] in Antwerp and it looks great :) Everyone at LOC is very excited about our brand refresh and the website really is the central platform to launch this to the wider world & is definitely now a platform we can be very proud of and represents LOC perfectly… I for one love it – it is fresh, dynamic yet professional and is certainly light years away from what we had.”

Well, what they did have certainly didn’t reflect an organisation that had achieved such dynamic growth with proven capabilities. Their brief was to:

• reinvigorate their current image to keep the LOC brand fresh but without losing any of the key attributes or differentiators
• fortify the brand and ensure consistency across all marketing lines
• forge a more recognisable master brand with all components aligned
• have a brand which allowed for future evolution
• gain greater control of their website to enable frequent editorial updates to be made as and when required by resources within LOC
• ensure that the brand refresh did not conflict/constrain future web changes/updates

OLD LOGO

NEW LOGO

SUB-BRANDS

As we keep saying, “a brand is not simply a logo”. We looked at all aspects of their business culture and positioning – with the aim of capturing their personality and differentiators to ensure the business presented itself in a way that would attract and inspire clients, partners, employees and suppliers. We challenged LOC’s strapline “Unlocking your business potential” and simplified it to “Unlocking Business Potential”.

LOC has successfully delivered a range of programmes and projects with passion, integrity, innovation and flair, and throughout this growth they have retained the original vision and value set of the firm. Their new brand re-affirms their commitment to their clients and values and it reflects what makes them unique. It is also a consistent reminder as to who they are and what they do – both visually and culturally

The alignment of their brand identity across print and digital media was an essential requirement of the project and as an integrated agency, something we are set up to deliver . From stationery and flyers to presentations and website, we created a dynamic and fresh visual identity using cross-media typography, an inspiring colour palette and distinctive, photographic imagery. Here’s how it all came together:

WEBSITE // locconsulting.co.uk

FOLDER // FRONT

FOLDER // OPEN

FLYERS // SERVICES

FLYERS // PRODUCTS

We are now finalising their Brand Style Guide which will provide guidelines to help their employees and suppliers manage the design and production of their branded communications in the future.

If you run a professional services business, VGroup have specialist expertise and understanding of B2B branding and design, so give us a call on 020 7734 8855 to discuss what makes you special and how we can help communicate that most effectively to your audiences.

www.locconsulting.co.uk

This month sees us adding the finishing touches to the design work for the launch of new online luxury lingerie retailer, Fox & Rose. The name reflects the personalities of the brand’s core customer; The Fox – playful, teasing, spirited, seductive. The Rose – elegant, beautiful, delicate, intriguing.

Fox & Rose champion British designers offering beautiful and innovative hand-picked collections by designers including Fleur of England, Ell and Cee and Fifi Chachnil. It also has the unique selling point of supporting and showcasing young talent with its affiliation with the students at De Montfort University, (currently the only university in the world to offer a contour design course).

Our task was to convey this duality and luxurious proposition into a tangible brand. Inspired by antique engravings from pictorial dictionaries, the studio created drawings of the Fox and Rose which were then juxtaposed with an elegant and modern logotype. A palette of muted pinks, cream and grey enhance the sophisticated identity of the brand, and works beautifully across the website, stationery and packaging. Customers are set to receive their purchases wrapped in Fox& Rose patterned tissue paper in bespoke grey boxes, foil blocked with the F & R logo and finished with a cream grosgrain ribbon, the tactile qualities reflecting the intricate nature of the product.

Fox & Rose founders, Alexandra and Amanda, wanted to create a unique and comprehensive online purchasing experience. A perfect fit is paramount when buying underwear. Therefore it was decided that in order to show the garments most effectively they would be photographed simply on a lightbox, secondly on a model and lastly we would capture video footage of the model walking – giving customers a more realistic vision of how the garments will sit on the body. After a busy 2 day shoot and going at it hanger and thongs! we had our images for the launch and Fox & Rose’s debut collection. It was amazing to see the pieces being brought to life and we are now busily integrating them into the website.

The site also features advice on how the underwear may affect your outerwear, a fitting service and look books with current styling and fashion ideas.

To keep up-to-date with the website’s launch sign up at www.foxandrose.com and become a member of ‘Fox & Rose 7^th Floor’ where you will also be eligible for exclusive discounts and offers. And for those who want a taster of just how serious Fox & Rose are about lingerie visit the Fox & Rose blog and join in the excitement.

Sophie Kenos is the founder of Kenos Consulting. She has made her name as a thought-leader and a trusted partner to executives in over four continents and 25 countries, with extensive global networks. Sophie has worked with several major finance and insurance institutions with up to 180,000 employees, as well as with one of the world’s most prestigious consulting firms.

We took Sophie on a journey of discovery to establish her company’s brand truths, values and personality. We defined the company’s brand promise, its essence and target audiences and markets. We also compiled a platform from which to base key messaging and designed a logo and visual identity that matched our research.

The logotype is understated and professional and is complimented with a striking and confident ‘K’ symbol. The ‘K’ is eye catching yet sophisticated and aligns the various strokes that make up the letter form. These in turn are designed to animate when used in a digital application and reflect a feeling of engagement, networking and dynamic interaction. It is these and other qualities that capture the spirit of the Kenos culture; one of quality and professionalism in an elegant, positive, personable and cultured way.

Having produced the Kenos brand map we set about designing and producing a full range of stationery and designed and built a website. Check out kenosconsulting.com

What more can we say. It’s been a pleasure to work with Sophie and the results we hope reflect the great relationship we’ve enjoyed in creating what you see. To see more, have a look at the Kenos case study

Following last month’s Lasting Leaf bagged salads launch in Waitrose, we’ve designed and built a new website to optimise brand awareness and raise the product’s profile. We’re ‘telling the story’ to engage with consumers by providing information on the full range, how it works and recipes exclusively created by James McIntosh. Have a look for yourself at www.lastingleaf.com you could even try a few of the recipes!

As with all new product launches, once out in the public domain the campaign continues to grow organically. Consumers will be able to make a visual link with the packaging in-store as well as shelf talkers and articles in various Waitrose magazines. You can read further trade articles on the Press area on the website.

The website design is clean and fresh with VGroup art directing the product packaging and recipes photographic shoot. Careful consideration was taken as to the ‘food style’ and what we had to achieve to make the images look fresh, tasty and appealing to the eye. You can try the recipes here.

There is also a link to the Lasting Leaf Facebook page on the website for reviews, so spread the word.

We are tracking the performance of the site, and although it’s a bit early to get really meaningful information, we couldn’t help looking at the stats. The site is nicely busy, and we can see that a large proportion of visitors have come direct to the site, rather than being referred from a search engine, or links from another site. This would suggest that most of the traffic is coming from consumers looking for more information after seeing the product advertised, reported on in articles,  in-store, or have purchased the product.

The visitors that have arrived via a search engine have been largely typing in ‘lasting leaf’ or variations of that, but a few have picked up keywords from within the recipes, and ended up on the site. We expect to see that kind of search traffic to increase proportionately over time.

Forward thinking employers are always looking for opportunities to motivate their employees, increase staff retention rates and reduce absenteeism. When BCP decided to move their call centre to Astral Towers in Gatwick we moved the business on, not only physically but psychologically.

The business issue

As BCP’s brand guardians for over 15 years, VGroup were commissioned to capture the BCP brand – its culture, values and personality – and express it through the visual, tactile, three dimensional elements in their new working environment; and to create a highly functional, quality oriented environment that worked across both corporate and employee needs.

We knew the working environment had to be motivating. Strong (brand) colours – blue and yellow with a dash of magenta – were used as a basis for the design to create a fun, exciting place to work. This extended through the offices on to the walls, furniture and accessories.

The solution

Specially designed call-centre pods were created using a natural beech wood finish for work tops with a silver grey supporting structure. This scheme was then broadened out through all desking and meeting room furniture. Other unique branded elements included their ‘corporate brand pattern’ (silhouettes of planes and cars) used on glass partitioning and over some areas of the walls. Specially designed abstract artworks were produced by VGroup and hung on the walls throughout the centre. Again using the primary brand colours.

The result

This project involved working with BCP staff at all levels. Uniforms were chosen to co-ordinate with the interior. Great attention to detail was given to filing, electronic presentation systems, storage locker room space, training and chill out areas, and official boardroom areas. This has ensured that BCP have a new home where management can meet with corporate clients and employees are encouraged to live the BCP brand – which in turn helps deliver the brand promise to its customers.

“Just wanted to say what a fantastic environment Astral Towers has become, having seen the empty site back in July to today, it’s great. Everyone is buzzing with pride and the future is definitely magenta and cyan! Well done and thank you to all the team”.  Kim Thurlaway, Head of HR at BCP.

Download our Internal Communications brochure here.

To help attract expert staff for the elite Samsung Electronics Research Institute (SERI), VGroup created a new brand identity for the institute and a brand mascot called Magnuss (an anagram of Samsung). SERI provides R&D support across Europe for Samsung’s production complexes, focusing on technological development and product design for a number of areas including telecommunications, audio/visual, multimedia and other consumer electronic products. Within mobile communications, established competitors such as Nokia and Ericsson were traditionally viewed by technical experts as best of breed employers. With the imperative to attract candidates of the very highest caliber Samsung’s research institute required a compelling new message.

The solution
Our brief was to create both a new advertising concept and also a new brand identity that would re-position SERI as a leading edge employer and attract world-class talent. We also had to ensure that the creative solution would work alongside Samsung’s existing branding.

Consultation with SERI confirmed that the new brand would need to be smart, individual and fun while reflecting the key values of an ideal employee. Our solution introduced Magnuss the dog – a new brand mascot using a fresh, contemporary and quirky ‘cartoon’ style. The brand mascot was complemented by the development of a distinctive brand identity for SERI.

The result
SERI corporate and mascot branding was applied across a wide range of media including recruitment advertising and events, plus online and printed collateral. The advertising was a great success, generating both increased response rates and improved quality of response. The brand has played a vital role in helping to reposition Samsung as an employer of choice.

‘SERI is very excited by the Magnuss theme and feel this new character is very eye catching and also emphasizes that ‘it’s fun to work at SERI’. Our previous cartoon theme was tremendously successful and we hope this re-branding will provide a further boost for our recruitment campaign.‘ Samsungs HR & Facilities Manager at SERI.

If you would like a new slant to either your recruitment advertising or employee communications – let’s talk!

Click here for more and information & to download the case study.

The brief was to design and build a microsite for the Field to Fork tour, to explain the journey our salad makes from a seed to your plate. The tour begins in the lettuce fields of sister company Langmead Farms, and continues to Natures Way Foods where you learn how the leaves are processed. It finishes with a testing session in their Innovation Kitchen and the creation of individual bags of salad to take home. The Tour follows the Healthy Schools curriculum.

The F2F logo was designed by VGroup in 2008, and we designed and produced items to accompany the tour. They consisted of a goody bag made out of natural jute material, which was handed to each child at the end of the tour. Inside the goody bag were printed items to include Bug ID cards with magnifying card, Field to Fork Fact Sheet, Journey Sheet and Recipe Cards.

All the characters and illustrations produced for these items come alive on the microsite using Flash animation and audio to help the children connect with the characters. The navigation throughout the site is simple and easy to use with clear bold instructions and funny and colourful characters such as the Tomato Man and the Broccoli Man. The Tour takes you on a journey and explains all the steps and procedures undertaken by NWF to provide consumers with fresh prepared salad.

At the end of the tour you are asked to take a quiz referring to information supplied throughout the tour. If you complete the quiz you will receive a packet of Cress seeds to grow at home or at school, which makes a great accompaniment to your salad.

We hope the children will enjoy the microsite as much as we’ve enjoyed making it!

Try it out here: www.field2fork.co.uk

Naturo is a new product brand that VGroup have created as part of our ongoing work for the Langmead Group. We were commissioned to breathe life into their existing product brand with the creation of a new logo and packaging designs. The latest incarnation of the brand is a series of luscious salad packs that break with the somewhat traditional supermarket designs to create a real stand out value on the shelves.

We came up with various concepts but really wanted to challenge the convention of the regular pack designs where the branding is minimal. To achieve this we utilised the leaf symbol from the Naturo logo to create a window to view the product and taking into consideration the various leaf mixes that the product development team at Natures Way Foods had devised we developed a colour palette that complimented each product in the range.

The ends result allows the shopper to see the fresh salad inside while still achieving a presence on the supermarket shelves and increasing brand awareness.

To read more about this work download the case study.

OK, so the lowly newsletter is not the most exciting, glamorous piece of collateral – and the title ‘Regulatory Policy Newsletter’ doesn’t evoke cutting edge design – but I secretly rather enjoyed working on the recent re-design of ICMA’s quarterly publication.

The challenges

• Progress an existing design which had become a bit stale, whilst retaining some of the existing ‘feel’
• Make the newsletter easier and faster to create
• Enhance the on-screen readability of the newsletter whilst maintaining a professional look as a printed document
• Give the newsletter a more authoritative look
• Make the content look more engaging
• Incorporate a new document structure
• Sticking to a tight budget

The thought process
Discussing our initial thoughts about the project with ICMA, it became clear that they were thinking along the same lines as us, and our suggestions received a positive response. Our suggestions were:

• Go back to the drawing board and create a new grid for the document, which is structured, but more flexible that the existing 3 column layout
• Stronger use of colour, and the introduction of a grey to the palette
• Slightly larger body copy, and much stronger headings
• A simplified folio (the page number, title etc. that appears at the bottom of the page)
• A little bit more white space (but not too much)

The design
The newsletter is an A4 portrait format, and I created an eight column grid, with a 12.5 point baseline grid.

This is what looks it like:

We used ICMA’s corporate typeface, Helvetica, in the ‘75 Bold’ weight, for the new, stronger headings and sub-headings, and used thick and thin lines to break up the information and create texture. All the lines and typography aligns neatly to the grids, giving the newsletter a flowing, structured feel. Redesigned folio and section headers follow this convention, along with call-out boxes and styled contact information.

The main body of the newsletter is set in 2 columns, allowing a larger type size, and reducing the amount scrolling required when reading on screen.

Here’s how all that looks, applied to the grid:

We created a new punchier masthead, using the grid & setting the type carefully to fit the words together, a new look ‘In this issue’ contents box, which links to the relevant articles in the PDF version.

The Result

The design was very well received, and has gone on to heavily influence ICMA’s brand update, which we are currently working on. ICMA said that it captures perfectly how they want to be seen in the marketplace; as providers of accurate, no nonsense, up to the minute information; advocates of doing ‘the right thing’; authoritative, but a valuable conduit for debate within an industry in turmoil.