Tag Archives: Brand Identity

by | 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.

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

The FD Studio logo presentation2

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

The FD Studio logo presentation3

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

The FD Studio logo presentation4

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

The FD Studio logo presentation5

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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by | August 22, 2012 · 10:55 am

New in This Week: Brand Identity and Website for a family building company

We first met Heather and Alastair Musselwhite a couple of years ago at a business exhibition. They have a thriving building company which has been established for over 50 years (and has a glowing reputation), but their brand was looking a bit – well – tired. After a thorough Ditto re-brand, I’m proud to share their new look brand and website with you.

Introducing Musselwhite Builders

Musselwhite is a family-run building company established in 1962. Now with the third generation of Musselwhites at the helm, the company still trade on the same values that the company was started with – honest, friendly service and quality workmanship. The Musselwhites have done a fantastic job at keeping their skill set bang up to date, and in the period that we’ve been working together, Alastair has attended more courses and gained more skills than I care to mention. Needless to say, they know their stuff – and are some of the most trustworthy people you could wish to meet.

And the challenge?

Rebranding a company which has been trading for so long is a fantastic opportunity, but their is often a hesitancy to stray too far from the existing identity. Luckily, Heather and Alastair were very open to ideas and we worked together very easily.

The brief

In a relatively crowded market place, it was essential to convey the values that Musselwhite trade by. Keen to establish that they’re not just ‘any old building company’, we needed to refresh the brand to reflect their modern approach while maintaining their family values. Musselwhite work with a mix of schools and hospitals as well as domestic customers, so we needed to create a look that would welcome both ends of their market: corporate enough to impress larger clients while emulating a friendly feel to engage the domestic market. This is the final design for the logo mark (which, I have to say, looks absolutely fantastic on the polo shirts that the guys wear!):

The blues and greys give this look a corporate edge, while the mustard yellow softens it to a more gentle tone. The typography used has some beautiful shape to it; authoritative, yet friendly.

And so to the website…

Here’s the existing site, which had been untouched design-wise for quite a while:

We knew that one of the big challenges with the website would be to get the imagery right. The existing website contained amateur shots of the guys at work, which left room for improvement. We carefully selected a range of photos which were softly lit and conveyed a handmade, people-orientated look. Having spent time dissecting the websites of other builders with Alastair (we always recommend you check out what the competition is up to – it’ll help you to differentiate with your own advertising), we found that builders’ websites were generally packed with fairly uninspiring photos of people at work – and while these photos might be quite relevant to other builders, but to a prospective customer they mean nothing.

Of course, the copy was re-written with SEO in mind to optimise their performance on search engines – and written to appeal to the Musselwhite’s target market. And to the big unveil: here’s their new site!

 

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by | November 15, 2011 · 4:05 pm

Who owns your brand – you or your customers?

As we get more and more heavily involved in developing brand identities at Ditto, I find myself asking the same question of our clients – who are your clients, and why do they buy from you? Of course, it’s not rocket science to know that successful marketing depends wholly on understanding the needs of your clients and discovering their point of pain – you need to know who they are, where to find them and what’s common to all of them in order to build a successful brand and business. But given that we invest so much time and energy in getting into the bones of what makes our customers tick, it begs the question: who owns your brand, you or your customers?

When you take a moment to think about it, an uncomfortable number of big brands have succumbed to the pressure of their customers and changed their brand as a direct response to the poor reaction they get when they make changes which their customers don’t like. Take Gap, for example. The clothing giant abandoned their new logo after just 7 days because their customers hated it (admittedly it was hideous, reminiscent of something you might see knocked up in powerpoint). Starbucks also provoked mystified and confused faces from coffee lovers all over the world when they announced they were ditching their 40 year old logo in favour of a new look, stating it was because the future of Starbucks would probably revolve around products which didn’t have coffee in them. Clearly, their customers weren’t happy about the new direction of one of the world’s most famous brands and several hundred of them were very vocal in voicing their thoughts.

The thing is, your brand is all about engaging with potential customers. It’s about creating something that they can get excited by, and that influences every experience they have with you. Your brand doesn’t exist, doesn’t have any equity, except what’s inside the minds of your best customers. You might feel your business needs to be rebranded or relaunched, but your opinions are irrelevant: You work for the company. Your brand has a life of it’s own and a future which is decided upon and shaped by your clients.

It’s actually pretty exciting, when you think that the identity of your business can envoke such a passionate response in your customers. And I’m really interested in knowing how much of a part your customers play in your day-to-day marketing decisions. Are their opinions a deal-breaker for you – or do you plough on with your own ideas and assume your customers will follow?

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