Recently, I have been searching for different design agencies, each with different specialities and expertise. This got me thinking as to where I would come into the industry.
Throughout this previous year, I have had several projects that seem to have a consistent theme, this was not deliberate but does seem to be my own style that I have stumbled across and seem to have stuck to.
Here are 2 examples:
My style has become the use of a large slab sans serif typeface with bold shapes and even bolder colours. This is very experimental and unusual. I think that I really only have 2 choices, to keep my style and hope that it influences people into using this style, or tone it down slightly and make it more slick and professional to fit in more with the current trends. I think that I will need to tone down the colour palettes, the heavy use of bold typefaces and create a strong style that can be used through a range of media. I completely understand that the style that is used is correlational to the project that I will be undertaking and the wishes of the client. However, I feel that current design agencies are very safe with their designs, I think this could be down to the client brief but as a designer, I like to veer on the side of taking a risk. A pioneer of a risky branding design and strategy will be seen as unique or unusual and will therefore have more publicity or strike harder and be noticed more by the public.
I think I have begun to tone it down slightly with my Final Major Project. I have used some bolder colours, but have used them with the intention of using them purely as an accent colour against a grey colour scheme. I have also toned down the boldness of my logo. Up until now, I have created a symbol and made it work with the brand name. This time, my logo is typographical. I think this suits the project as much as fitting in with the current trends. But here is the problem, I want to create my own style and don’t want to be like every other Graphic Designer out there, I want to be an individual and want my designs to express a certain individuality and uniqueness about it. Despite this, I think my designs would have to fit in with the current trends, to a certain extent.
While looking through some design agencies, I stumbled across Lono. Lono are a Graphic Design Agency based in London. It specialises in data visualisation, infographics, brochure design, Facebook engagement applications and responsive website solutions.
Here are some examples of their work:
Looking through this type of design, I think that I would fit in more with this style of company and design. Lono are very experimental with their vast array of clients, designs and disciplines. Looking through their portfolio, I can see that the more experimental design comes into its own within the infographics discipline. I think this is mainly because an infographic lends itself to new and interesting layouts and designs. However, their creativity doesn’t start and end with their infographics, their stationary designs and print designs alike show different textures and innovative layouts. Looking at my own style of design, I think that I use more creative and innovative layouts and designs, therefore would fit in more comfortably in this style of industry when compared to other design agencies mainly focused on corporate design. My designs tend to be bold and statement-making creations. I think this would be the ideal type of design for me to explore further.
Looking through some existing Graphic Design Studios/Agencies, I have found a very local agency to my location, just 20 or so miles away. Looking through their portfolio, they design for print, web, branding and logo design. This is quite a range of designs, especially as there is only 8 members of the team, and only 4 of which are designers.
Looking at some of the work they have produces, they are very corporate and very serious look to their work, however, I think a lot of this is due to the clients they take on. The type of client seems to be small companies that are trying to establish themselves in their relative industry. For this reason, the aesthetics for their company, must look tight and professional. Whereas, larger, more established companies can take more of a risk with their aesthetics and advertising etc.
Here are some examples of their work:
Comparing this type of work with some of my own work, I can tell that my designs are not as corporate or professional as these designs, I imagine that this is because of the clients and their need. Also, I feel that I can be more creative with my designs due to the situation that I am in, I am encouraged to show innovation and creativity throughout each project, however, when in industry, I am sure that this is completely different in that the client would want a professional and corporate look rather than a risky, never-been-done type style design aesthetics for their company.
Looking through several design agencies, I cam across Speed. This is a small agency comprising of approximately 10 people based in Elton near Peterborough. It is a very friendly atmosphere within the agency. This agency specialises in Branding, Marketing, Web, overall design and Print.
Here are some examples of their work:
This style of design is very corporate and professional. I feel that this is the style that this company goes for when browsing their portfolio. This is very understandable as they have some large corporations as clients. Their clients include Norwich and Peterborough Building Society. I think that this would require a clean and clear visual rather than using experimental methods and medias. Despite their corporate visuals, they seem to have a vast range of skills from web design and coding to editorial design. When I am ready to enter industry, I think that this type of skill range would benefit me in the coming together of different minded people and bringing other ideas to the table. I think that there is a wide variety of work and disciplines within this design agency. For this reason, I think I would be comfortable in such an agency. However, my design style would need to be slightly altered from a bold and experimental with type to a more slick and corporate style.
Well, I have been asked to research into the history of the corporate identity and marketing sector of Graphic Design. This is obviously an important part of the Graphic Design process and therefore should be well known.
It all started getting big in the 1920’s. During the twenties, when the markets were booming, company branding was less important. It was a time when companies focused in its manufacturing capacity and productivity. Successful companies such as Ford and its famous “pipelining” had dominated the American industry for years. But in the late fifties, new technologies emerged and started to bring in competition. More and more companies found it tougher to market their products, and lowered their inventories. They looked for a unique feature or benefit, as Rosser Reeves (American Advertising Executive) called it, the “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP). Then they depended on massive advertising to drive the idea, and subsequently set up a brand.
E.g. M & M’s Chocolate. It was the first chocolate candy in the fifties. It quickly became the leading brand by promoting its USP – “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand”.
Technology kept bringing more ‘me-too’ products and ‘me-too’ competitors. It was more and more difficult to find the USP, even when it could, it wasn’t the one the customer wanted. With the avalanche of ‘me-too’ products, customers were educated to ignore the product feature. Well actually, they realised that USP theory was not enough to handle the marketing problem in the sixties.
Then the market entered brand image era. As David Ogilvy (British Advertising Executive) said, “with the appearance of ‘me-too’ products, customers were no longer emphasising on any specific product feature, but on the reputation or image of the company behind the product”. Companies should focus its efforts to communicate the difference of brand, built up a unique desirable brand image with massive advertising, and subsequently enhanced the process of repeat-purchasing. This is exactly what they did.
E.g. Before World War II, Marlboro Cigarette was promoted as a feminine brand. Then it adapted the image strategy, threw out the feminine image and changed to “cowboy”. After years of promotion, Marlboro had successfully become No.1 selling cigarette in the world.
As this strategy swept through branding and marketing community, the market pretty much started to flood with repeated image and ended up confusing most consumers. In addition, new development in the society has brought the explosion of product, media and information. Consumers were overwhelmed with over-volume information and it became harder to establish a distinctive brand. By the time we even reached the 1970’s, the marketing in USA gained less in its image strategy.
However, this problem had a solution. Experts indicated; “the consumer rejects any information that does not compute, and tend to choose particular brands outstanding in its category as they chose Coca-Cola in colas, Band-Aid in bandage and Volvo in car safety. The company had to shift its focus from the marketplace to consumers mind, and strive for the purpose of creating and securing a worthwhile position for its product. Once the product has set its special position among the products, consumers would certainly prefer to select that product for the product brand (position) representing that category or attribute.” To you and me, this means that the product has to have a function and sell a way of life. It needs to have a certain attribute that will always be associated with that product.
E.g. In luxury car market, Mercedes = prestige; BMW = ultimate driving machine; Volvo = safety; Ferrari = speed.
Essentially, this is the background:
1900’s – Industrial Revolution created many jobs for millions of people, but there just was no real need for any branding to be done.
1920’s – Markets were booming, company branding was less important. It was a time when companies focused in its manufacturing capacity and productivity.
1930’s – Depression. There was very little need for any type of branding when people literally couldn’t afford to feed themselves. Branding would have advertised products, but no-one could buy them.
1940’s – World war II. There was still very little need for branding. There were very few men around and the women and families were being rationed on food, clothes etc.
1950’s – TV was beginning to get big, there was a lot of TV adverts starting to be broadcast and the radio and wireless all were used by the companies that could afford them, obviously only the larger ones.
1960’s – First USA to Britain TV programme. This entitled USA to also brand their products and broadcast them in the UK. Brands got bigger and bigger as people could afford them. It was now well worth creating a brand for your company as this would be broadcast and issued throughout the country, giving extensive sales nationwide.
1970’s – The larger brands already had even bigger advertising campaigns and branding for their products. The consumer was fully established and they were certainly targeted. They would be overwhelmed with adverts and campaigns for various products.
1980’s – Internet had just been invented, it started becoming popular and it didn’t take the larger companies long to figure out what needed to be done. They started up websites and webpages, as well as campaigns online to get more people on the internet and therefore increasing their exposure to the product.
1990’s – Now – Internet gets bigger and bigger. Social Networking is introduced in the 2004-5 area and take off instantly. The big companies take advantage of this, using the modern technology to advertise their products. We are now overwhelmed by brands and are now exposed to thousands of brands each day.
However, branding is still only a 50 year old discipline. It is still in its infancy and therefore has not developed fully. I think that it will continue to get bigger and bigger and we (as consumers) will become bombarded by branding and marketing 24/7. Here is a cool little video that you can watch, about the history of branding of course.
We have just had a presentation, where the group have presented a couple of online portfolios that they have been looking at. We have talked about the pro’s and the con’s of each website and what we think would work well for our own online portfolio. This is because we will need to combine the form and the function of the website, however, we will need to do this in equal measures as if it was an uneven balance, the website would not be as effective as it could be.
The Home Page:
As a group, we have decided that the homepage is the first touch point and therefore is the most important page. We found that quite a few of the home pages that we have looked at, had a page with an introduction to the designer, often with a large format portrait. We thought that in some cases this worked well for the designer in question, however, in some cases it worked against them. This is because most people are generally very judgmental. We concluded that it was down to the type of portrait image that was used.
We thought that having a certain type of portrait could make the designer seem arrogant and self-obsessed. However, we all agreed that a visual representation of ourselves as a designer would be necessary, whether this be an illustration or a photograph.
Here is an example of using portraits as your homepage:
We all decided that the language in which we wrote was also very important, we thought that some of the online portfolios by existing graphic design agencies used the same type of language, generally depending on the size of the company. I found that large companies such as ‘Pentagram’ used very formal language to inform the potential client. We also found that individuals or small agencies used very informal language. As previously said in a past post, I think that if the language is too informal, the company may not be seen to take their work seriously, and a potential client would want designers who are serious about their work. However, too formal and the agency may seem like a machine, a potential client would want to be able to speak and converse with the designer rather than a machine. Overall, I think that a happy medium between too formal and too informal is the way forward.
Content:
We looked at quite a few different websites and found many different ways of showing their content. Everyone found a few websites that they liked the look of, but the content wasn’t as good as expected. We found that a lot of the websites only had a small write up about the brief or their client specifications, many didn’t even have any writing whatsoever. We felt that this didn’t help the potential client decide if the agency was right for them. I think that there should be a small outline of the brief, a short rationale of their ideas and a sentence or two explaining each image. I think this would inform the possible client sufficiently.
Design:
We saw a lot of websites and found that some were very creative, some were nice and some were just plain boring, all this in terms of the overall design of the portfolio. We found some that were very creative but wasn’t very easy to navigate, and some that were super easy to navigate but had a severe lack of creativity. I think that, as a graphic design agency, the website should show off your skills and should have a balance between form and function. Me, as a student and a lone graphic designer, I think that my website should have some creative elements seen to be desirable, but also have it really easy to navigate, even for first time users.
Here is an example of a very easy to navigate portfolio, but also quite creative too:
We saw some very interesting imagery on our travels through the World Wide Web, and saw some really good examples of how not to use imagery. We did also find some that had excellent use of imagery throughout their portfolio. Some of the websites had small thumbnails and that was it, some had full page imagery. We saw a large variation of images. We all decided that a good portfolio would have large formal images to go with it. We thought they should start from initial ideas all the way up to the finals. This would give an overview of the project and show possible clients the way in which the designer works. This would be far more informative than a full page of text outlining your thought processes. We thought that if there is web designs and the website was actually made, the project should have a link to the website itself. This would enable the client to see their working web skills and creative designs.
I think that the home page should introduce the designer in some way, but be careful if you are using a photographic portrait as this can come across as arrogant.
The language should be not too informal or jokey, but not too formal like a machine. The client wants to talk to the client and discuss the project, make sure they feel they can approach you.
The content of the portfolio should have a short sentence or two for each image, outlining the rationale and the design of the piece.
The design should be creative and aesthetically pleasing but shouldn’t be really complicated so that no one can use it.
The imagery should be large format images that shows the quality of the piece of work, there should be at least one image for each stage of the design process.
We have been asked to analyse a couple of existing Graphic Design Agency websites. I will analyse these websites in terms of the content, design and language. This final agency is called ‘Electric Pulp’ and as with the other 2 agencies that I have analysed in my previous posts, these are mainly interactive and screen-based media.
Design:
I think that this designis quite a contemporary design and it uses typography really well. This website shows the creative side of the agency in just showing them the logo and what they do. The background is a blown up version of their log, but in subtle colours so that it doesn’t detract from the actual work. The page continues down to show a large image and rationale, followed by 6 large thumbnails spanning the width of the site (same as above – 2 rows), followed by another project with rationale, followed by thumbnails etc. All of these, you can click on and it will take you either to the website itself or take you to their designs, with a rationale.
Content:
‘Electric Pulp’ is a small agency and therefore only has a small amount of employees. There is only 10 people involved in the company. Because it is a small company, there is only a small amount of clients. However, they do have large clients such as ‘Virgin’, ‘Ford’ and ‘MIcrosoft’. Their work is exactly what you would expect from a professional agency. Their work has a large range as the designers are mainly self-taught and had jobs and degrees before becoming a designer. Their backgrounds range from aeronautical engineering to genetics.
Language:
The language that ‘Electric Pulp’ has adopted is an informal strategy of providing information. They are a very honest company as they even say ‘there are things we do well, there are other things we don’t do well. We don’t do those so much.’ This is good for the client as this show honesty and that they are willing to show that they are not perfect. I think that the client is more likely to repsond to this than the usual formal language that other agencies have used.
Overall, I like the website, I think that the language is inviting and refreshingly honest and I also like the design of the website, it is creative but not over the top, The work is the thing that stands out from beyond the design. When juxtaposing the 3 websites that I have analysed in my last 3 posts (including this one), I can see 3 very different ways of creating an online portfolio. The ‘Lounge Lizard’ website is a very informal and casual website, the ‘Pentagram’ website is practically the opposite, it is very formal and very professional. I think that this website is the happy medium of the 2 other portfolios. This one combines the informality and creativity of the ‘Lounge Lizard’ website with the ability to show work effectively and professionality of the ‘Pentagram’ website.
We have been asked to analyse a couple of existing Graphic Design Agency websites. I will analyse these websites in terms of the content, design and language. This agency is well renowned and is a global company with 5 separate offices. ‘Pentagram’ don’t specialise in any walk of Graphic Design especially but each branch does have its separate specialities.
Design:
This is the ‘Pentagram’ homepage. As you can see, it is a mix of thumbnails of their own work. I think that the design is not especially creative, after all, they are a Graphic Design Agency. I think that the design is really not creative at all and it does just show thumbnails that you can click on which takes the viewer to a page specifically on the client projects. On the other hand, it is very functional and I do like the horizontal scrolling that this website has used.
Content:
This is one of the largest Graphic Design Agencies and therefore has a lot of clients. The content is likely to be very professional. You can get a rough idea of just how many clients they have designed for by looking at the black bar that helps the horizontal scroll. They have 19 main partners situated around the world. Each one is one of the leading designers in their particular field. Their designs range from architecture to real estate to government to entire cities. Their range of designs and potential is one of the largest I have seen.
Language:
It being one of the largest Graphic Design Agencies out there, ‘Pentagram’ is very formal and very professional. As you can read, they mention their history of over 50 years old. They also talk abou their main partners and their commitment toward the potential client. I think that this is virtually the opposite of the ‘Lounge Lizard’ website which I analysed in my last post. This tells the client what they need to know as well as telling them their commitment and loyalty to the client.
Overall, I think that this design is a very accomplished design agency, however, I think that the design is a bit boring, yes it is functional but there is a balance between functionality and creativity. I think the language is very formal and is more likely to attract the larger companies. I think that this is their aim as other websites I have seen are more creative with their websites and they have smaller companies in mind. ‘Pentagram’ has some very large companies as clients and they seem like a very well established agency.
We have been asked to analyse a couple of existing Graphic Design Agency websites. I will analyse these websites in terms of the content, design and language. The first one is a New York company called ‘Lounge Lizard’. They specialise mainly in interactive media, such as web design and marketing.
Design:
This is the homepage of the ‘Lounge Lizard’ website. It is a very interactive homepage and it has been designed to represent a bar. Each item on the bar area will move and interact with the user when the mouse hovers over the item. Each item also represents a different page, for example, the matches are a ‘contact us’ page and the coasters represent their ‘web’, ‘game’ and their ‘about us’ page. The design is very casual but still creative. I think that the website homepage is one of the most important touch points to a company, as this is their first impression.
Content:
This is the work of the particular agency. They show mainly interactive and screen based media as they specialise in this area. There is very few print designs. I think that the design of the content is also very creative as it is a notebook with different tabs for each client. The content is pretty much what you would expect from a professional Graphic Design Agency, the work is very professional but also very creative, as is their own website.
Language:
This is the type of language that ‘Lounge Lizard’ has adopted. As you can see, the design is still creative but the information is still there. The language itself is very informal and very relaxed. This is to keep their relaxed atmosphere that has been portrayed throughout the website. They have even used word like ‘brandtenders’. This being a play on the ‘bartender’ analogy. There last sentence in the ‘about us’ section is ‘Here’s to more clicks-and Happy Hours’. This is quite an informal way of speaking to potential clients, however, I think this is an attractive quality as it makes the client feel more involved in the process and makes the client feel they can actually speak to the designer.
Overall, I really like this website, I think that it is very creative and very relaxed and casual. I think that this is not necessarily a bad quality. I think that ‘Lounge Lizard’ has the balance of language right, as too informal and ‘jokey’ would seem like the agency doesn’t take their work seriously, but too formal would make them seem like just a machine.
Graphic Design - The Sequel 