Category Archives: Creative Design

by Hannah | April 26, 2013 · 9:38 am

New in This Week: The finished brand identity and logo design for The FD Studio

My last blog post was dedicated to the Mood Board for The FD Studio branding, where we mapped out the values, ambitions and dreams for Mike Rowe’s new business. I’m pleased to reveal the finished product!

A bright, punchy orange is the first thing you notice about this brand. A creative, sociable and vibrant colour (remember my blog post about the psychological properties of orange?), it matches Mike’s business personality perfectly. It’s an unexpected colour for a financial company, who tend to favour more conservative colours. The elegant font (Museo, for you font geeks out there) balances the playfulness of the orange, adding a touch of authority and credibility. We’ve bought energy and life to Mike’s business card design, with colour flowing through the strap line providing beautiful movement and interest. The impact this has on the design is just gorgeous, isn’t it?!

What Mike says:

‘From the first moment I met Hannah, Derek and Dan I was made to feel valued, welcome and special. They brought a creativity and enthusiasm to my branding project that both impressed and inspired me. I had a vague idea of how I wanted my business to be portrayed, but Hannah took me on a creative journey that allowed me to understand my core values, ideals and aspirations. I believe that this experience unearthed my true feelings about my business and how I would like to help my customers. I feel that everything I represent is enshrined in the branding, the logo and design work and it has given me a confidence in my identity, my brand and my business. With the ditto team behind me I truly believe that I can leap tall buildings with a single bound.’

I’d like to note that these words were entirely unprompted from Mike – when I asked him if he’d give us some feedback, with a view to using it on the blog and on our website, I never imagined that we’d receive such heartfelt words. Thank you, Mike – clients like you make our job a genuine joy.

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Filed under Colour in design, Creative Design, New in This Week, Powerful Branding

Tagged as branding, Ditto, logo design, Sevenoaks, The FD Studio

by Hannah | April 18, 2013 · 3:38 pm

New in This Week: A striking brand identity for The FD Studio

Introducing The FD Studio

When I first met Mike Rowe, I was immediately struck by his warmth and compassion. Mike has identified a gap in the market for ‘small businesses who aim to be bigger’, who need the guidance of a Financial Director, but not on a full time basis. The FD Studio bridges the gap between the standard advice that an accountant may give and the ‘bigger picture’ guidance that a business coach would provide, with the personal aspirations of the business owner very much in mind.

The FD Studio is all about thinking creatively, and about being more than just a number cruncher. Complementing, rather than competing with, the services of accountants and tax advisors, The FD Studio provides a unique services to business owners. Mike aims to really get inside the businesses he works with, understanding the people behind the business, what their goals are, what their stresses are and what makes them tick in order to provide guidance which will help their business to grow. The FD Studio aims to allow business owners to pursue lifestyle ambitions by ensuring that their company is structured and organised in such a way that it can be a vehicle for them to do what they want with life. The focus is on building genuine, honest long term relationships, offering advice based on Mike’s commercial and financial background.

The Challenge

Through our Mood Board and Brainstorming session, we were able to gain a deep understanding of The FD Studio’s purpose and mission. The company is in need of a brand identity, effectively communicating the company’s values and beliefs while engaging their target market to provide The FD Studio with a platform to go out in the world and grow.

The Mood Board

At the time of our Mood Board session, Mike hadn’t yet decided on a name for his new venture. This made the Mood Board session all the more valid, as we bounced ideas around and gathered inspiration. I think Mike and I both went away from the Mood Board feeling inspired, yet slightly cloudy, about the direction of the company name – over the next few days various ideas were suggested and rejected until The FD Studio came to fruition: the name conjures up images of creativity and collaboration, which is perfect for Mike.

Concept 1: Fun, modern, quirky with a lively and friendly colour palette

Concept 2: uber-modern, contemporary and unexpected, with a cool colour palette

Concept 3: Simple and to-the-point with the same friendly colour palette as concept 1

Concept 4: Cleverly using negative space to create the ‘f’ and ‘d’ with a warm colour palette introducing a touch of ‘serious’ blue and grey

As well as carefully crafting the logo graphics, we put a huge amount of time and debate into deciding upon the colours we apply to any given brand. For Mike, a creative and sociable colour palette was needed to help separate him from the sea of blue that tends to follow financial-types around, yet a balance had to be struck to avoid the brand being portrayed as too playful – after all, Mike expects his clients to put their businesses into his hands. A certain level of credibility and gravitas is essential.

I’ll be sharing more on this project soon – do keep your eyes peeled!

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Filed under Colour in design, Creative Design, New in This Week, Powerful Branding

Tagged as Brand Identity, logo design, Sevenoaks, The FD Studio

by Hannah | April 8, 2013 · 10:08 am

New in This Week: A Colourful Mini-Brochure for What On Earth?

‘Curiosity is our most precious natural instinct. It is how we learn all the most important life skills from talking to tickling from cradle to grave’

Wise words, from this man – Christopher Lloyd, founder of What On Earth Publishing, and friend of Ditto. Christopher graduated with a double first in history from Cambridge in 1990 and went on to become the Technology Editor for The Sunday Times. He left in 2000 to become CEO of Immersive Education in Oxford before becoming an author in 2006. He established What on Earth Publishing in Spring 2010, and today divides his time between writing books, journalism, and lecturing mostly in schools, museums and literary festivals. Chris is, as I fondly refer to him, a totally nutty but brilliant type – full to bursting of scientific facts (a casual conversation about a rabbit can turn into a mini-lecture on the evolution of small animals and how they’ve impacted our lives) and I find him totally fascinating. We’ve worked with Chris for some time now, from when he published his first book to the later ‘What On Earth Happened?’, ‘What On Earth Evolved?’ and the titles he’s working on right now… which I couldn’t possibly reveal!

Chris asked us to design a mini-brochure (a clever piece of marketing which arrives as an A5 folded leaflet but opens up to an A3 poster) to promote his new What On Earth? Wallbook Wonderbox – a resource pack for teachers to bring the What On Earth philosophy to schools. Packed with illustrations, supplied by Chris’s illustrator, Andy, the design is colourful, bright, informative and characteristically bonkers (aren’t the illustrations just stunning? The design wouldn’t be the same without them). With plenty of calls to action to encourage teachers to book a visit or request more information, the mini-brochure is easy to navigate, and contains all of the pertinent information that readers will need without losing the personality of the What On Earth? brand.

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Tagged as Christopher Lloyd, leaflet design, Sevenoaks, What On Earth

by Hannah | April 4, 2013 · 3:33 pm

New in This Week: A beautiful logo design for History Magpie

Introducing the History Magpie

History Magpie is the creation of Rachael Hale, a freelance writer who has a keen specialty in history. Rachael asked us to create a logo for her new project , and following our first meeting it was clear that we needed a design which was gentle, timeless and slightly quirky. After playing with several typography-based designs, we felt that the design needed something extra – the fonts alone weren’t enough to give the design the character it deserved.

Rachael mentioned that her husband knew an illustrator who also lived in their village, and I was delighted to learn that it was Rebecca Day of The Toadhall Company (remember I blogged about her a while ago?). Rachael commissioned Rebecca to craft an illustration of a magpie holding a key in its beak, and the results are just gorgeous. The magpie slotted into our design beautifully, and really enhanced it to create something very special. We rolled the design out to a range of stationery for Rachael, and it’s worked so well. The beautiful soft greys of the magpie sit neatly with a nostalgic pattern on the reverse of the business cards, and the illustration nestles among the text perfectly. I love the character and individuality added by this bespoke illustration, don’t you?

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Tagged as history magpie, logo design, Sevenoaks

by Hannah | April 2, 2013 · 2:22 pm

Riverhill Himalayan Gardens: The Brand New Guide Book

I’m thrilled to be able to share with you some snippets from the final design for Riverhill Himalayan Gardens Guide Book!

After piles of hard work, research and development (not just from us but from Sarah and Ed Rogers at Riverhill, too), I’m really proud to reveal the final design. This year, the Rogers family were keen to build upon previous designs and create a Guide Book rich with content and images, sharing much more of the fascinating story of Riverhill with their visitors. We spend many hours poring over the incredible photo albums (most of which were dated around 1800) that Sarah bought in for us to work from – we were incredibly lucky to be given such fantastic material and content to work with. The result is a highly photographic book, full of insights into the Rogers family story and the tales behind many of the plants that visitors see in the gardens today. We’ve bought the Guide Book right up to date by including cues to visit Riverhill’s Facebook page, with a QR code on the children’s page. From photos and letters, to an introduction to the gardens by Riverhill’s head gardener, Guy Chatten (and not forgetting a beautiful hand-drawn map of the gardens), the Guide Book is a comprehensive guide to the stunning gardens at Riverhill. I urge you to visit – the season’s just started and the team have a year absolutely packed with events!

Below are just a handful of photos from the new Guide Book (I’d love to share more with you and could waffle on about this project for days) – I do hope you like them. A big thank you to Sarah Rogers for all her time in sourcing many of the gorgeous photos we’ve used in the design.

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Tagged as Ditto, Guide Book Design, kent, Riverhill Himalayan Gardens, Sevenoaks

by Hannah | March 21, 2013 · 10:06 am

New in This Week: Inspirational Mood Board session for a Sevenoaks Nanny Agency

I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve dedicated a blog post to a Mood Board session.

Mood Boards are used by all manner of creatives to help gain a visual representation of what their clients want to achieve, and are such an effective way to gather inspirations, find words, colours and images that represent your business. They’re ideal for bridging the gap between what a client may think they want, and what they actually mean – and through the process, we drill into the commercial reasoning for why they may want to present their brand a certain way. Through the process there’s plenty of lively debate – ideas emerge rapidly and words flow easily, giving shape and purpose to a client’s objectives.

Mood Board sessions are about more than collecting nice images together, but rather finding the depth to your brand and ensuring we understand exactly why each and every word, colour or image makes it to the board. Some brands are particularly difficult to ‘draw’, which makes Mood Board sessions all the more valid and worthwhile. Aside from being a really fun exercise, it gives our clients real clarity and confidence, and helps us to be able to deliver a creative and commercially grounded brand which will engage with the intended market.

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Filed under Creative Design, Find Your Voice, Powerful Branding

Tagged as Brand Design, Ditto, Mood Board, Nanny Agency, Sevenoaks

by Hannah | March 8, 2013 · 9:26 am

New in This Week: The Riverhill Himalayan Gardens Guide Book – the finished design!

I’m soooo pleased to reveal the final design for the Riverhill Himalayan Gardens 2013 Guide Book. After months of hard work and research, it’s wonderful to see that our effort has really paid off. The new Guide Book represents a new chapter for Riverhill, as yet more of their stunning gardens have been opened to the public, with the new Walled Garden being a huge attraction for 2013.

Riverhill has been in the Rogers family for generations, and one of the big changes from their previous Guide Book is the addition of the Rogers’ family story. The Rogers have quite a story to tell, and the new Guide Book includes previously unseen photographs from the Rogers family private albums, some of which pre-date 1930. It has been a real privilege to have the opportunity to view these albums, and I’m pleased we’re able to share some of them with Riverhill’s visitors. We’ve really focussed on giving equal weight to the beautiful photos of Riverhill as to the words which tell the story of the family and Gardens – and I think we’ve struck the balance.

The Rogers family are utterly passionate about learning, and believe that visitors of all ages have something new to discover in the Gardens. Before we began design work, Sarah and I debated the direction – should the Guide Book be geared towards Riverhill’s younger visitors, or to the keen horticulturists who regularly visit to see the rare species that live at Riverhill? We decided there was room for both, and have divided the page space to cater for all visitors. While the keen gardeners will enjoy the Garden Introduction by Riverhill’s Head Gardener, Guy Chatten, children will enjoy the ‘keys’ which unlock some of the hidden stories of Riverhill. And of course there’s plenty of space to introduce the mythical yeti which resides in the gardens…

To encourage visitor interaction, we’ve even included a QR code which visitors can scan to immediately land on Riverhill’s Facebook page, allowing them to share stories, post photos and keep up to date with news and events. Riverhill have a huge amount of events planned for the new season (which starts tomorrow, by the way!), so do take a trip to the Gardens if you can – I highly recommend it.

A big thank you to Sarah Rogers for all of her time in helping us piece together the family story – you’ve been a star and an absolute pleasure to work with!

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Filed under Creative Design, Ditto News, New in This Week, Printing

Tagged as Ditto, Guide Book Design, Riverhill Himalayan Gardens, Sevenoaks

by Hannah | February 22, 2013 · 1:19 pm

New in This Week: Web to print system for Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital

Introducing Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital

Spire Healthcare have 38 private hospitals across the UK, delivering excellent health care in beautifully equipped, clean and welcoming hospitals. The nearest to us in Sevenoaks is Spire Tunbridge Wells, situated in the very beautiful village of Fordcombe. I recently met with their marketing team to see how we could help them to manage their marketing in-house in Tunbridge Wells while keeping their brand streamlined. For a large company such as Spire, maintaining their brand identity consistantly is really important, so our web to print option is perfect for them. We’ve built them a number of design templates (working to their brand guidelines, of course), which ensure that their fonts, colours, logos and style are locked in place, allowing the team at Tunbridge Wells to simply edit the appropriate elements of the artwork before sending orders off to print. The web to print system is ideal as it removes so much of the time and hassle that ordering print can often entail, and will make sure that their brand looks right, every single time.

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Tagged as leaflet design, Spire hospital, Web to print

by Derek | February 14, 2013 · 5:07 pm

We live in a digital age – but here’s my business card

Ever noticed that despite living in a digital age, we still rely on business cards as a first point of contact?

The genesis of the business card can be traced back to the mid-1600’s when they were known as “Visite de Biletes” or visiting cards. These early cards evolved into two distinct categories, one for when calling on an individual or group socially, the other that served as a small advertisement for one’s trade or service.

Along with their aesthetic and functional evolution, a specific protocol began to emerge. This dictated how and when to use the card, the type of card stock to be used, how they should be printed, etc. They also quite often included a map as street numbering had not yet been introduced and this directed potential customers to your premises.

From these early beginnings we arrive at the card as we know it today: they tell a story, open doors, make a statement, answer questions, unlock and initiate conversations, provide information and they also serve as an extension of the owner. Quite frequently, we pass on someone’s card to a contact as an introduction to a colleague or customer.

Amazingly, in this digital age the very low-tech business card still proliferates as the way in which businesses communicate with each other. (Yesterday I visited my old college, Ravensbourne, which proudly proclaims to a leading all-digital establishment, but the first thing I was handed was a good, old-fashioned business card!)

So, have a look at your business card, does it say all you want it to about you and your business? Are you proud of the message it conveys? Is it up-to-date with your business and where you are today? If not, give us a call.

Image credit: all images from Hannah’s ‘Business Card’ board on Pinterest

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Tagged as business cards, history of business cards, printing, Sevenoaks

by Hannah | January 29, 2013 · 9:07 am

New in This Week: Flyer Design for Zest Home Cleaning

Introducing Zest Home Cleaning

Having launched Zest Commercial Cleaning a couple of years ago, Dan Lockey and the team at Zest have launched their latest business venture, building on their excellent reputation to introduce their home cleaning service. We’ve worked with Dan for a number of years, so we were pleased to be asked to help him get his new business off the ground.

Keeping it simple

Dan’s not one for clutter or fuss. We were after an immediate, punchy message which instantly tells his customers who they are and what they do. On flyers, particularly those used for a door drops (and therefore arriving with ‘cold’ contacts rather than people you already know), the challenge is always to effectively introduce your business without writing essays on what you do. Rather than list infinite bullet point lists of services (or worse, use the phrase ‘offering all aspects….’ which Dan and I agree is the worst thing you can possibly do when introducing your business), I composed some concise copy which was no more than 3 sentences long. We focussed in on what it is that Dan offers his customers that truly matters. The benefit of a home cleaner isn’t so much that someone else does the vacuuming for you – the true value lies in the fact that having someone take care of the cleaning frees up a couple of hours for you to go off and do what you want. Identifying your customers’ point of pain is crucial to engaging with them – empathise with what ‘hurts’, and tell them how you’ll make that go away. A simple tactic, but very effective! Team this up with a clear call to action and you’ve got yourself a winning flyer.

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Filed under Copywriting, Creative Design, Find Your Voice, Marketing, New in This Week

Tagged as Call to Action, Cleaning Company, Copywriting, Flyer Design, Sevenoaks, Zest Home Cleaning

Category Archives: Creative Design

New in This Week: The finished brand identity and logo design for The FD Studio