It’s been lovely to see the resurgence of paper craft in design, particularly in the commercial, advertising, television and editorial fields of late. Often incorporated with digital design elements and even film, paper craft has been positively embraced as a bona fide aesthetic for modern design.

Offering a tactile nature, with a realism and quality not easily attainable through 3D rendering, this movement is far from going back to basics, with highly intricate, painstaking and beautiful work bringing the element of craft firmly back into the industry where it belongs. Techniques like embossing and laser cutting have also been employed to add to the texture of works. From giant paper sculptures to smaller scale work, paper (as well as other materials like wood and metal) as a medium is proving to be a versatile and growing trend.

With so much of out time spent at the screen, we have begun to crave the real and handmade, yet still demand it delivered to us in a way that suits our digital world.

MTV ident and AOL brand extension by Julien Vallée. Image via JVallee

Paper window dressing at Tiffanys, London. Image via The Window Display Blog

Probably the chap that ignited the interest in paper craft to the mainstream, paper artist Rob Ryan’s work has gone from unique pieces of art to products and books you can now buy on the high street. Images via Mister Rob

I particularly like the editorial work from Benja Harney and Daniel Carlsten. Images via their respective websites

We’ve even recently created a festive email message for Natures Way Foods ourselves by taking their brand symbol and creating a paper wreath.

And we can’t wait to wield our scissors at the next relevant project that comes along!

For some reason business-to-business (b2b) customers are often treated differently to business-to-consumers (b2c). The way services are presented to business customers tends to lack the finesse of consumer-focused services. The user experience for business customers seems to have lost out to productivity and profitability, but I think it’s time for a change.

I have wondered for a very long time why so many businesses consider the communications they have with other business so differently to those with consumers. It sometimes seems as though while consumers are considered as a group of individuals, business customers are treated in a far less personal way. This can lead to a far less engaging experience for the people in business that experience brands aimed at business. Luckily many companies have cottoned on to this and have improved the way they market to b2b customers.

But whilst many business-to-business brands have upped their game over the last few years with slick websites and marketing communications, spreadsheets and business applications, forms and reports still often lack the sophistication of consumer applications. Why shouldn’t business processes be as engaging and efficient as iTunes, Flickr and Facebook?

The user economy in general is demanding a better user experience and as brands apply the same elegant digital, social and mobile efficiencies that are driving modern consumer applications to b2b products, they’re creating deeper loyalty and brand value.

There are a growing number of online products that are aimed at the B2B market that incorporate better UI design to deliver a more engaging experience. The design industry, ever being an early adopter of such things, and seeing its value, has seen a fair few well designed products offered to them, a good example being solo by thrive software (below) which is aimed at freelance designers.

Apple, of course, do some great, easy to use, beautifully designed business applications in their iWork suite. They are also releasing an online version, currently in beta, known as iWork.com

Marketeers and product managers take note; these and other products that are leading B2B communications and applications into a shiny new age of slick, user focused user engagement so it makes very good business sense to invest in good UI design for your apps, websites and other digital communications. Does anyone have any more examples of good UI design in B2B applications or communications?

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

I recently read an article about the rebranding of Chester zoo by Manchester based agency ‘Music’. They have created a bespoke hand drawn font for the new identity in conjunction with illustrator Adam Hayes. There is a primary face in 4 weights for flexibility and a secondary face playfully incorporating animal themed quirks.

The playful vibe of the typograpghy echoes the nature of the zoo well. The palette is refreshing and vibrant. There is a delightful, fun and tactile quality to the overall look. It works particularly well coupled with the charming but slightly gauche illustration. The poster looks fit for any aspiring zoologist’s bedroom wall!

It reminded me of a campaign I had seen previously for a series of posters released to promote the ‘Kids Park Zoo’ in Dubai which show a snapshot of chatty dialogue between some of the animals. The illustration is charmingly childlike, mirrored by the hand written copy.

On the flip side – sportsmen and teams net huge gains from endorsing products; this poster from 2008 features three of the world’s leading sportsmen who are said to have netted £8, 000,000 between them for participating.

So when did this relationship begin? It is not known exactly but – back in 1895 Colman’s mustard produced a full-colour advertisement, in which a bushy bearded W. G. Grace strides forth from the pavilion accompanied by the tagline “Colman’s Mustard Heads the Field”. This is the first recording of a sporting figure crossing over into mainstream product endorsement.

According to his biographer Robert Low it is not known how much how much Grace was paid for these photos.

“But he was a master of self-promotion. His annual earnings from cricket reached something like £100,000 at his peak – in modern values – despite the fact that he was supposed to be an amateur. I’m sure he drove a hard bargain.”

Wimbledon have 15 sponsors this year – netting them millions in advertising revenue. My favourite campaign has to be this one created by FedEx the parcel delivery brand, who, for the duration of the tournament this year have turned Southfields, the nearest London Underground, into a lawn tennis court. It’s a witty and light-hearted way to promote their brand and uses the tagline ‘Live to Deliver’.

It does however seem that the rules have become militant – they now have a policy of confiscating any items (foodstuff’s/caps etc) if they are made by anyone other than an official sponsor and the branding is prominent. A Wimbledon spokesperson said “It is common policy across sports events to do this because commercial companies pay for the privilege to be associated with these events”.

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

Beer. It’s a man thing. But women make up 25% of the beer market, despite beer marketing being very male oriented. Carlsberg are the first to positively change the way they market beer, not just with ads or design but with a whole new product.

The Denmark based brewery have just released Copenhagen (the beer, not the city) at home, with plans to go global in a year’s time. The beer has a light, refreshing taste, and comes in very minimal, stylish packaging using strong typography on a white background.

According to Kirsten Ægidius, VP of Marketing, the Danish business is increasingly encountering consumers who are seeking alternatives to ordinary beer.

“Many young people aren’t keen on the bitter aftertaste of beer…we have created a highly drinkable beer with a balanced taste – a real alternative to white wine and champagne,” she says.

I think it looks great, and would certainly try it, but will it get more women drinking beer? Probably.

Originally coined in the 1960s, the term “Supergraphics” used to refer to an architectural movement of applying colour and graphics to interior and exterior building surfaces. Today, the term is more representative of environmental graphics that are so large, they require extension onto surrounding walls, floors and surfaces.

Not only beautiful, Supergraphics can be useful, enabling path finding or environmental and user movement through a space. Often employed to disguise urban ugliness, temporary structures or hoardings, they can also improve well-being for inhabitants in the area.

Our lovely studio is in the New England Quarter development right next to Brighton Train Station and as more areas are marked for development, the surrounding hoardings have been the blank canvas for local graffiti artists, commissioned by the local council. A form of Supergraphics I suppose. It will almost be a shame to see them replaced with the new buildings! Nearby, in Kensington Street we also have the incredible work of artists which extend to the chimney pots and all wall surfaces on the backs of buildings in the whole street.

Supergraphics have recently been brought back to our attention with the publication of Supergraphics from Unit Editions, an inspiring look at design on a gigantic scale.

It was great to see the current Wim Crouwel exhibition at the Design Museum (on until the 3rd July 2011) utlising Supergraphics to promote the exhibition on the museum’s exterior.

Due to the popularity of the book (we have a copy in our studio of course) and the beginnings of usage for high-profile clients, I think we are going to see a lot of Supergraphics appearing in the design and corporate world in the coming future.

So yes, it seems big is certainly back.

*“less is a bore” quote by architect Robert Venturi.
Kensington Street graffiti image from Flickr all other images from Unit Editions.

Some of us may have forgotten that the Olympics 2012 also comes with the historic and emotional event of the torch relay which will cover over 74 locations, every nation and region in the UK and will include island visits and travel 8,000 miles. There is an interactive map to see all of the locations and dates as to when the famous torch will be in your area. Day 59 Monday 16th of July will see the Olympic torch in Brighton & Hove, is it coming to your town?

For each Olympic Games, a new torch is designed to carry the flame on a journey to the host city. In fact it was back in 1948 when the last torch relay was in the UK. This torch was designed by Ralph Lavers, a fan of classical architecture.

The French chose Philippe Stark to design the stainless steel torch for The 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics.      

The 2012 torch is being created by east London designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby and is due to be unveiled in June.

If you are interested, a search for 8,000 torchbearers is currently under way, so if you fit the criteria why not go for it!

MXC Capital is an investment company, and a consultancy. MXC’s proposition is to work with clients to identify acquisition and disposal opportunities as well as provide corporate consultancy on all aspects of business management. But it also, crucially, invests into the client companies with which it is engaged.

MXC Capital approached VGroup with a brief to brand them in a way that reflected both the financial and the consultancy aspects of their business. There was a balance to be struck between ‘financial’ and ‘racy’ so, unusually, we presented a number of options on the visual identity allowing MXC Capital to choose visually where they would position themselves between ‘financial’ and ‘racy’.  You can see what they opted for as we think the overall design speaks for itself.

The MXC Capital website brief was for a clean, clear, concise site with a bit of subtle Flash animation. Oh, and… “Can it work on my iPhone?”. Well, yes. We have used web fonts (Thank you Typoteque) and some lovely JavaScript animation to lift the site but keep it firmly in search and mobile device friendly technology. Attention to the grid and typography means that the site has visual impact without relying on a whole lot of irrelevant imagery. Take a look.

Their stationery, and in particular the business cards, also needed to make a serious impact. We produced a thick, duplexed colour plan card—black on one side, white on the other—with a foil blocked logo. Wow.

The whole brand identity came together really nicely, accurately positioning MXC Capital as an investment company with an edge.