When we subjected the D4 website to a brand new facelift recently, we thought it would be useful to add some information that allows you to view exactly what happens during our creative process, and beyond the standard, technical jargon put out there by other creative agencies.

We understand that every penny of a marketing budget is important and that all businesses would like to know what each pound is being spent on, from the word ‘go’ all the way through to the implementation stage and beyond. Behold therefore, the introduction of D4’s ‘Method‘.
Broken down into seven sub-heading’s we take the time to briefly and simply explain what happens throughout the creative process, allowing clients to see ideas blossom from a collaboration of suggestions, into fully functioning designs.

Commission >   Inspiration >   Create >   Communicate >   Implement >   Advantage >   Evolve

With each sub-heading being broken down into an easy to follow description, accompanied by illustrations representative of the individual stages, the whole ‘method’ gives us a chance to show off our way of doing what we do.

Without attempting to sound like a host from Family Fortunes, “If you were to ask 100 people from South Yorkshire what made them proud of their region?” I’d happily guess that a majority of them would have an answer based around a strong, industrial heritage (either that or The Full Monty!).

Being a Sheffield based company therefore, we at D4 are no different in sharing this viewpoint and consider it a great opportunity to work on a re-branding project with Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, who specialise in preserving and promoting this traditional culture.

When considering how to move forward with the brand strategy, we wanted the Trust and museum gems to be more accurately presented online and to make the website a more enjoyable experience to help convey the importance of giving museum’s an overhaul. The starting point for this project though was to give the Trust a whole new ‘brand architecture’ that could be rolled out across all future marketing and promotional material. As the Trust currently manages three industrial museums (Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet; Shepherd Wheel Workshop; Kelham Island Museum), it was important to have a design that was recognisable not only across each sub-sector, but also represented the group as a whole.

With the brand imagery decided upon, the next step was to update and modernise the Trusts website. The main principle of the new website would be to act as a more effective marketing tool attracting new visitors to the museums which we did through colourful image led graphics all powered by impressive backend functionality of a database driven website. Allowing the site to be database driven means the sites content can be managed in-house, allowing for any instant updates on events and collections as and when they happen. With the foundations of the website in place, we also brought it bang up-to-date with social media feeds, a blog and a newsletter link, all great ways to keep young viewers updated.

We didn’t just stop with logo designs and a new web design, we also helped roll out the new brand across a range of promotional literature for various events and an educational campaign to schools in the region.

Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust are very good at modernising history without removing the sense of education and traditional values attached to it….. now they have a website and brand to match…

WEBSITE BEFORE:

WEBSITE AFTER:

BRANDING:

EDUCATION LITERATURE:

We’ve been enjoying ourselves with one project inparticular recently after we were handed the challenge of designing a new brand strategy for online social invitations company, Überfly. We were also let loose on designing 10 invites that would be sold on their soon to be launched web-to-print website.

Our first step was to analyse Überfly’s offering, its rivals and discuss how we could make Überfly’s invitations more imaginative and individual. We soon realised that most of their competitors websites were quite dated and as a result, sometimes cheap and tacky looking. We wanted to design a brand, associated images and a website that would establish Überfly as a well priced company with exceptional, contemporary design at its heart.

Having created a series of images that would cover all genres of invitations, ranging from children’s parties through to corporate events, the team decided to get particularly creative on the brands logo. Fonts were tweaked, pictures were stretched and pulled, and plenty of coffee was drunk to ensure the final designs were of the highest standard. Creative thinking produced a logo that resembled the the back of an ‘open’ envelope, and the eagle-eyed amongst you may also notice that the typography in the logo has also been adjusted to match the same two types of curved contours at the top and bottom of the envelope shape. It’s what we pride ourselves on - attention to detail and it is how we believe graphic design should be. We could have just plonked a sans serif font in there and saved a bit of time, but we believe these small tweaks make a big difference. Our client also appreciated the effort we put in and feel ‘chuffed’ that they have a unique brand and their very own font.

While we’re at it, here’s a sneak preview of the website and some of the invites we designed. As I’m sure you’ll agree from the graphics below the designs of the invites look………..Über!!

The graphic below will be sold under the ‘Party’ category. Our brief from the client was simply ‘Glamour!’ - now that’s what we call an open brief. So we did some thinking, stared out of the window and then used Angela (graphic design student & D4 tea lady for a fortnight) as our muse. We took a few shots of Angela in the studio and then produced this lovely vector illustration. Client was happy and so were we.

Here’s a few more invites for your viewing pleasure…

Whilst looking for some visual reference for a design project I’m starting soon I recently stumbled across this amazing series of images entitled ‘Courts’ by Elliot Wilcox. It is a visual study of indoor playing courts, which in theory sounds about as dull as it is ever going to get. But, and it’s a big but, his abstract take on these courts turns something that would never be seen as interesting from an artistic point of view, into pure art in every sense. From a graphic designers point of view the symmetry and balance of these images is perfect.

“Much like a gallery space is missed to the artwork, the space of these courts is missed to the sport. They create a path to revealing the unnoticed and exposing the unexposed, consequently romanticizing the courts.”

This is mesmorising photography at its best - I find myself getting completely sucked in by them… I’ve got to stop staring at them! Take a look for yourself… but be warned, you may find these addictive… but in a good way.