Tag: brand development

Say it with Social Media!

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

We are living in the new, digital era. Social media is single handily the most powerful tool for business and it is important to capitalise on this.

From Instagram to Twitter, to TikTok and Facebook. Each platform has a different art and getting it right is key. Promote what you do to the endless stream of scrollers.

Failing to maintain a consistent presence on online may result in your organisation going unnoticed and your competitors stealing your target audience and potential customers.

Invest in the best social

Social media has become an incredible resource for staying updated on current events, connecting with friends or family, and engaging with businesses online.

For brands hoping to leverage the popularity of different online platforms and reach the ever-growing user database of those platforms, investment is key.

Developing a well-thought-out social media campaign can be an incredible investment, helping to build brand recognition and boost the success of your business.

Keep up with Competitors

Social media is a brilliant tool, allowing an open access platform to monitor the progress of competitors. Yet, it is crucial that organisations do not get sucked in and begin mirroring the behaviour of their competitors.

Innovative and original behaviour will breed success and ensuring your organisation maintains a competitive edge is key. A massive asset in this process is to hold a consistent presence online.

Communicate with your target audience

Social media is a great platform for organisations to maintain real time communication with customers, clients and target audiences. Hence, continuously updating your platform is key.

Whether you conduct online surveys via your Instagram stories, engage with your audience through question and answer sessions or operate an open direct message policy, all is beneficial.

Additionally, social media can be used to promote your company as a customer focused business and encourage engagement and feedback. Doing this will not only benefit customers, providing them with the best possible service but will also benefit your company, highlighting what your audience wants and incidentally generating ideas for future projects.

Get your timing right

Posting on social media requires considered, calculated planning. Many people still have suspicious holdups about online platforms and do not see the immense power that it holds.

When it comes to posting, timing is key. There are certain times of the day that is best for posting and capitalising on this is key. You could have a perfect social media campaign but the benefits are often disregarded if posted at an incorrect time.

#Hashtags #Are #Key

The power of the hashtag is not to be undermined. They are a valuable tool, used strategically across almost all social media platforms.

Using relatable, relevant and engaging hashtags are key, boosting your exposure and targeting your audience of choice. If correctly implemented, the use of hashtags holds the power to boost your campaign engagement, increase your audience, generate sales and enhance your organic social reach.

Furthermore, using hashtags allows your organisation to get involved in conversations and other important issues on social media. Hence, when running a campaign, it is worthwhile to research topics that are trending in relation to your focus and placing the campaign amongst that conversation through hashtags.

Track your social stats

Getting to know your audience has never been as simple as it is at the moment. Through tracking your audience’s activity, you can gain an accurate understanding into their social habits, with active time being one of them.

Posting content at optimal time, when most of your audience are active on social media is key. This will encourage their engagement and boost your exposure.

How Kaizen can help YOU with social

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we understand how to navigate platforms and how to perform well on each relevant site.

We understand how each site can be used to benefit your business differently. We use this knowledge to create a social media strategy so you can begin to master your own social media accounts.

For organisations seeking to leverage celebrated insights, social media campaigns can be very worthwhile, targeting the ever-growing users of online communities. Kaizen Brand Evolution differentiate between social platforms and categorise which platforms will work best for you. Incidentally, we can evolve your platform by creating stand-out designs that are sure to surge your insights.

Blog Writing: Tips & Tricks

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

In the modern era of online social sharing, writing a blog holds a massive opportunity for your company. The power of blogging will give your company a competitive edge, boosting your products and services into the online community in an enlightening and engaging way.

Blogging brings a massive boost to an organisations place in the market, increasing custom and growing sales through educating consumers about what you do.

Intriguing titles

When deciding on a blog topic, it is important to consider your audience and the impression this blog will make. Capture their attention instantly, making them want to click straight away!

We have seen it time and time again, where brilliant blogs go unnoticed due to a lazy, boring title. They say “don’t judge a book by its cover” but believe it or not, we all do it. Often, a title alone is enough to draw your attention in. Incidentally, the title of your blog has the power to make or break a readers decision to entertain your blog.

First impressions are key. We find ourselves gravitating towards reading material that hold exciting titles. On the other hand, we often find ourselves overlooking content that have poorly thought-out titles.

Understand your blog readers

In every aspect of business, it is crucial that you recognise, value and understand your audience. This is no different when it comes to writing a blog.

There is no better way to showcase all the brilliant things your organisation does than through blogging. A blog provides an unfiltered, unlimited and underrated platform to shout about what you do, sharing your achievements, your improvements and your advancements.

Blogging provides an opportunity to educate your audience on matters that are important for your business. Using your platform to blog about your products and services will ensure there is a more well-rounded understanding of your organisation. When readers have a clear vision of what your company has to offer, they are more likely to follow through and become a valued customer.

Featured images and social posts

We are now living in the digital era, where visuals are preferred to text. Unfortunately, this is not good news for blog writers but there are some loop holes that can lure people in and encourage them to take 5 minutes out of their day to read your blog.

Using your own images is even more valuable. Whether you offer products or services, you will find that first-hand images will resonate with readers and intrigue them.

Equally, creating consistent blog posts ensures you will always have content to share on social media. It is so important to share images when posting on social media.

Spending lengthy periods of time carefully creating blog content must be followed up by an impressive promotion plan in order to reach your target customers and potential new audience members. Remaining active on social media is paramount for organisations and ensuring content is continuously fresh and innovative will give you that competitive edge.

Let your blog tell a story

When writing a blog, it is important to consider a brand-new customer, one who has never heard of your products or services. Taking this approach will ensure your content tells a story about your brand, guaranteeing that readers will understand what you are aiming to achieve.

Blogs must be educational and informative in order to work. Although it is desired that customers recognise your brand identity, this is not always the case and you must be prepared for this eventuality.

The 5 W’s in your blog

Who, When, What, Where and Why?

When creating a blog based on your products or services, it is advisory to incorporate the trusty 5 W’s. Who are your target audience? When are your target audience going to realise what the blog is about? What is the product or service you are aiming to showcase and does the blog represent this? Where are your target audience going to avail of your product or service? Why have you chosen to write about this?

Recognise potential questions and answer them

A tip for blogging would be to integrate answers to possible questions into your content. We are all too familiar with google when it comes to questions; just ping in your query and you are likely to have the answer in seconds.

If your blog holds a solution to a query of a potential customer, it will likely appear on their search results and lead them directly to you. Providing engaging and informative blogs is imperative for your organisation as it will be a key deciding factor for potential customers.

Get in Touch

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we work internationally with brands large and small, delivering a suite of brand assets through which to promote their business.

Having one of the largest graphic design teams in the country, we are equipped to meet the demands of both large and small organisations. We work to the tightest of deadlines, while always retaining the highest level of design possible.

To discuss a creative project for your business, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Perk up your Packaging Design

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

When it comes to packaging design, consideration of the printed output and knowledge on how to achieve this is critical to the project success. Carefully considered packaging will ensure your brand is developed at every touch point of the purchase process.

Creating a relatable and attractive packaging design is very important for businesses, big and small. The packaging design for a product is often a primary element of association for consumers, particularly in a physical setting, such as in retail stores.

For example; when we enter a grocery store and see a can with chromatic red and black packaging design, we instantly associate it with Coca-Cola. This is the overall goal for organisations, to be instantly recognised by their brand identity. Packaging can play an influential role in this process.

Don’t Leave Packaging Design Behind

Unfortunately, packaging design can get the back seat when it comes to product design. As the last step in the product process, it can be forgotten about and as a result of this, rushed in the last minute.

It is important to carefully consider this stage. Yes, it is essentially the final step but is a massively important asset to your brand identity.

Packaging design can be used across many platforms, not just in a retail setting. Other uses of packaging design include online product promotion, delivery services and many more.

Stand out from the Crowd

The massive variety across all markets has resulted in a difficulty to stand out in the crowd. Appearing pride of place in a retail setting is the overall goal. Hence to achieve this you must carefully consider your design, remain consistent and boost your brand identity.

We have all done it, bought a product based on their packaging design alone. A beautifully designed packaging concept has enough power to draw attention to a product and encourage purchasing. Yet it is important to realise that the design of your packaging has the power to make or break a customer’s purchasing decision.

Premium Packaging is Key

Packaging is in essence the most important step of the product creation, as it is essentially what makes people purchase your brand. Often though, this is overlooked and the packaging can become an afterthought.

Yet, organisations who involve professional graphic designers in this process have no need to worry about this. Graphic designers recognise and highlight the importance of every step in the product creation process. From the product itself, right through to the packaging, each stage is equally important.

Poorly designed packaging can be detrimental to the success of your product. Consumers will recognise this immediately and incidentally ‘judge a book by its cover’ and avoid purchasing the product.

Packaging Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we are experienced in the design and development of packaging design for numerous industries. We can produce packaging design for an extensive variety of products. These include food packaging sleeves, gift bags, gift boxes, labelling and many other types of outer packaging.

With great experience in B2C moment of choice decision influencing, our creatives will ensure your brand has the best opportunity for purchase and engagement.

We have an excellent team of dedicated and world class designers, who have helped many organisations evolve their packaging, ensuring that their products are the best looking on the shelves.

Drinks Industry Labels & Packaging

We work with independent and multinational drinks brands to develop their brand strategy, brand activation and their range of packaging including labels and gift boxes.

Kaizen design with overall consideration for your brand strategy, but with a direct commercial focus that ensures our designs can be output in a cost-effective manner. Some of our drinks industry clients include: Bushmills Whiskey, Kraken Rum, Glencree Whiskey, Thompsons Rum and Shortcross Gin.

Start a Packaging Design Project with Kaizen

To begin your project, please get in touch with our client services team 02895 072007.

We will explain the steps, find out about your project and send a quote to bring the project to life.

The Power is in the Poster

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

Posters, a powerful marketing tool that has been utilised for centuries across the world. Securely positioned at the forefront of promotion since its inception, poster design remains a powerful and influential tool for businesses universally.

The Perks of a Poster

A huge perk of using posters as a method of promotion for your brand would be the exposure they gain. In order to achieve the highest exposure possible, it is important that your organisation considers poster location. Choosing a position that will reach high volumes of footfall is key, catching the attention of as many people as possible.

Additionally, posters hold the power of flexibility. They can be placed on a wall, on a table, handed out to commuters. The possibilities are endless.

Involve the Experts

Poster design remains a powerful tool in promotion, hence the importance it holds is second to none. Yet, a common error of judgement by organisations is to conduct a DIY design job.

Often, DIY design jobs can fail to showcase the business in all its glory. Although this is not always the case, with several DIY designers being able to come up with impressive concepts through platforms such as Photoshop and Canva.

Although this is a cost-effective solution, if implemented poorly, it can be spotted a mile away and affect your brand reputation. It is important to always showcase your company as a premium, reputable business and a poorly designed poster can lead to a dip in this opinion.

A valuable realisation for any business when carrying out a marketing and advertising campaign is investment is vital. When creating a promotional tool, particularly a poster, you know it is going to hold a long-term position in society. Availing of top-quality service will stand the test of time for your company. This will lead to impressive results and the deserved recognition.

A business should always aim to hold a recognisable brand identity. To ensure this, organisations must implement consistent designs to create and maintain a familiar company recollection with customers, clients and competitors.

Remaining consistent in design is key and without professional training, it can be difficult to maintain this. Graphic designers are familiar with remaining consistent through brand guidelines, sticking to agreed fonts, design, colour palette and measurements. Doing this will ensure a distinct brand, constantly boosting brand identity and remaining competitive in your industry.

The Technical Bit

Posters are a unique promotional tool, that target audiences from all different demographics, 24/7. It is crucially important to recognise the different audiences that your promotion will be reaching and ensure that it is understandable for all.

People that are looking at these posters every day, need to be able to read them. They need to be able to understand what exactly is going on and act upon your sales message.

Designing a poster requires detailed creative consideration. From the location, to the distance from which it will be viewed and the level of content that is added.

Poster Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

Lucky for you, here at Kaizen Brand Evolution we know what it takes to design a brilliant poster. Stand out from the crowd while using our tried and tested design techniques.

We have a knowledgeable and enthusiastic team of graphic designers, who have proudly helped many local, national, and international companies get their print marketing campaign right first time. We design with purpose and through a considered discussion with your marketing and sales functions, we will understand and design your poster accordingly.

Whether you need an A3 short run digital poster or an A0 nightclub poster, we have created thousands of poster designs for organisations like yours. With vast experience in poster design of all sizes and for almost every conceivable use, our graphic designers will create the perfect poster design to meet your project goals.

Perfect Poster Design for Every Industry

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we have the unique benefit of being part of the Belfast’s’ leading poster printing companies; Kaizen Print. With this said we have designed thousands of posters for organisations across the country.

To discuss a creative project, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Wow this Winter with your Event Design

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

We know, we know! Summer has just begun, but winter is coming… faster than you think. Although winter is an unfavourable season for many reasons; the cold, the dark and the dreary, it does have its exceptions. Winter is the ultimate event season, boasting Halloween, Christmas and New Year parties, to name just a few! Whether you are hosting an event or attending a trade show, it is important to make a memorable impression on your audience with event design.

Event branding offers companies, organisations and collectives a chance to massively amplify awareness, using experiential design best practices to offer an impactful and unforgettable experience. Through the power of distinctive, dynamic design, businesses can harness the immense potential of event branding – but it’s only through an intelligent and cohesive approach that you’ll experience the full effect.

Let the experts deliver memorable results

Event planning can be extremely stressful, particularly around the festive season. Why not take the pressure off and involve a professional graphic design team in your planning and implementation? Not only will this take a huge chunk off your workload, it will also ensure the highest quality content is produced and promoted.

There are many complex layers to the task of event design. Many of which go unrecognised until the late stages in planning and preparation. Elements include website design and monitoring, campaign design, branding and promotion, to name a few!

Involving a professional design team in this process offers the prospect of massively amplifying brand awareness for your organisation, using experiential design best practices to produce an attractive and unforgettable experience.

Consistency is key with event design

When hosting an event, the overall goal is to impress your audience and ensure they have a wonderful time. Equally, you hope to receive the deserved recognition and reputation boost.

To achieve the optimum brand recognition and create a memorable impression with attendees, it is crucial that your event design is consistent. Whether your event is a one-off occurrence or a frequent experience, holding consistent design is advisable to ensure both a high standard of delivery and a familiar brand identity.

Maintaining this consistency can be difficult without the involvement of a professional in event design. Graphic designers are experienced in developing projects that hold a unform template through meeting careful considered brand guidelines; using brand fonts, design, imagery and colours. Without the correct software or design knowledge, implementing event design in-house can be both time consuming and unobtainable for your business.

Consider your attendee

Creating a sense of togetherness throughout your event branding is especially important where the attendee journey is concerned. The journey an attendee takes from entrance to exit needs to be subtly and strategically designed.

With all elements of the event working together, the journey from A to B should be seamless, that way, your audience will have the most immersive and engaging experience possible. Maintaining a sense of perspective throughout the event branding process guarantees results.

It’s by keeping one eye on the big picture, exploring how different elements interact and how they work to communicate your core message, that you’ll deliver a meaningful and memorable event.

The benefits of event design

Event design is a massively beneficial tool, promoting a top-class reputation and providing an inclusive feel for attendees. Whatever the definitive aim of your event is, whether it’s to boost brand exposure, advance awareness on a topic or promote sales and subscriptions, the journey an attendee takes from start to finish needs to be subtly and strategically designed.

Within Kaizen Brand Evolution, we have worked with a number of different businesses, right across Belfast and Northern Ireland, as well as event organisers themselves, to provide them with the right display products and design for their events.

Our designers will make sure that the design used for your event material are the best you can get, being both eye catching as well as durable, so that no matter where you are, potential customers and clients will notice you and want to come and talk to you.

To discuss a creative project, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Graphic Designer: Involve the Experts, Reap the Rewards

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

Graphic designers are creative experts who produce visual concepts both digitally and traditionally. Creating complex and innovative designs, a graphic designer aspires to inform and inspire audiences. From website design, brochures, posters and social media graphics, graphic designers hold widespread experience across numerous industries.

In the modern day, many professionals would consider themselves to be a jack of all trades (yet a master at none). In many instances, organisations fail to see the benefit of involving a professional graphic design team in their plans. Many view graphic design as a DIY opportunity. This perception can unfortunately lead to poor results and a drop in reputation. The notorious excuse for this often links to financial savings. Yet, the question to ask yourself is, “yes, you are saving money, but are you wasting time and affecting your reputation?”

Of course, the service will cost you money but involving a graphic design expert in your campaign planning and implementation will be a massive asset to your success. The return on investment is guaranteed and what you pay out in money, you will regain in reputation. This collaboration will offer your business expert design insight, creating a recognisable, innovative design that will boost both brand recognition and identity.

DIY Graphic Designer Fails

DIY graphic designers can often be spotted a mile away. A logo created on Word; a poster designed on Photoshop… hey, congrats on the resourceful creativity, it works for some but unfortunately, the majority of times it does not. Incidentally, the lack of creative expertise could cost your company credibility.

Don’t get us wrong… if done correctly, DIY graphic design can be a functional and accessible tool for organisations. Yet, it is still advised that a graphic designer is involved to implement the technical design for your business.

Ask the Expert: Gain the Insight

As well as designing all of your content, a graphic designer can provide revolutionary insight into the industry. Graphic designers are connoisseurs in their field, with an imaginative flair like no other. They hold direct insight into the dos and don’ts of the design industry and this awareness can be crucial to your success.

Stick to the Status Quo

Although investing in a graphic designer is more expensive than a do-it-yourself job, it saves immense amounts of time for your organisation. This time can then be invested into your original area of expertise.  Win-Win really!

Instead of wasting countless hours trying to implement a technical graphic design campaign in-house, it is advised that you invest your money in a professional graphic designer, who can create first-class designs, in a fraction of the time.

Create a Lasting Impression with a Graphic Designer

You have heard it a million times before, first impressions are so important. In general, people take in graphics quicker than text. We are more likely to catch attention with an exciting graphic than with an engaging paragraph.

With this in mind, the involvement of a professional graphic designer is paramount, ensuring the visual design is excellent, achieving the desired first impression.

Trustworthy Design is Key

In the modern day especially, we are becoming less trusting. Due to the rise in scams and fake news, we have become more reserved when it comes to our consumer habits. When buying a product or service, consumers seek out reliable, identifiable brands to trust and purchase from.

A business should always aim to hold a recognisable brand identity. To ensure this, organisations must implement consistent designs to create and maintain a familiar company recollection with customers, clients and competitors.

Remaining consistent in design is key and without professional training, it can be difficult to maintain this. Graphic designers are familiar with remaining consistent through brand guidelines, sticking to agreed fonts, design, colour palette and measurements. Doing this will ensure a distinct brand, constantly boosting identity and remaining competitive in your industry.

Graphic Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, graphic design is our forte. We have executed a huge portfolio of design projects in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and beyond. Our esteemed reputation did not happen by accident, our design studio boasts and expertise, ensuring your graphic design is implemented to the highest standard possible.

From logo design, poster design, social graphics to vinyl signage, we have you covered.

If you are interested in involving a Graphic Designer in your brand, please contact our studio by calling us on +44 (0)28 95 072 007, emailing us at studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com or filling out the form on our contact page.

Advertising campaigns we won’t forget in a hurry

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

Advertising provides a massive opportunity for organisations. If implemented correctly, brands can evolve their identity massively through advertising, particularly through print and digital platforms. When it comes to advertising design, whether it is a complete campaign review, or simply a one-off advertising campaign to promote a single product or service, it is crucial that everything is implemented to the highest of standards.

An advertising campaign, by definition is ‘an organised course of action to promote a product or service’. Hence, your advertising is what your customers can see and feel, when you are promoting your product or service. Ensuring the right message is portrayed at every step of the process is vital, and this can be implemented through well-thought-out, measured advertising design.

Considering implementing an advertising design? We have you covered. Check out a few of our favourite advertising campaigns in recent years that have worked a trick.

Share a Coke with: Kaizen

You would be hard-pressed in finding a person who is not familiar with the Coca-Cola empire. Although this is a wonderful position to be in, it also presents difficulties for the brand in creating a trailblazing advertising campaign, when they are already known on an extensive scale.

In 2011, Coca-Cola begun a revolutionary campaign, targeting an audience that not often receives global attention. The individual. Share a Coke With…, by Coca-Cola was an ingenious campaign that targeted the normal person, sending them on a hunt to find their name on the famous red and black bottle. Every Tom, Dick and Harry had their own personalised Coke bottle and it was, for a time, the greatest thing to happen!

Coca-Cola thought of everything with this campaign, promoting a sense of representation which is massively important in the modern day.

We either are them or we know them, but there are always a few frustrated individuals who can never find their name on personalised products. Coca-Cola had the foresight to consider this and offered a personalisation service, offering those unique named customers a customised bottle.

The localisation, representation and inclusivity were something to be admired with this campaign. Although a worldwide promotion, Coca-Cola customised their advertising campaigns to resonate with the audience within particular locations. For example; the billboards across Ireland boasted names such as Tadhg, Aoife and Roísín and those in Italy included local names such as Giuseppe, Rosalia and Franco.

McDonald’s – Our Food: Your Questions

Similarly to Coca-Cola, McDonald’s is a brand that requires little to no introduction. However, the associations with the McDonald’s brand have not always been positive. Over the years, there has been an ongoing debate about the quality of their food products.

We have all heard the rumours… but McDonald’s were keen to put those to bed, with a clever, transparent advertising campaign. Releasing a behind the scenes look into the McDonald’s brand, the fast-food chain answered questions about their food quality, products and reliability.

McDonald’s wanted to showcase to their customers that their opinion and concerns mattered. This campaign was not implemented quietly but showcased for the world to see, by answering over 20,000 questions on online platforms, as well as traditional platforms including billboards, train stations and in print.

What makes these advertising campaigns stand out from the crowd?

If we refer to the above examples of successful advertising, there are numerous patterns. Many of these patterns lead to the exposure and success of these campaigns.

Transparency in advertising campaigns

Trust is uncommon in the modern day. We are all sceptics, cautious of the catch and concerned about the consequences. Consumers seek transparency in brands prior to forming an opinion. Promoting a sense of transparency in your advertising campaign is massively beneficial. This will encourage confidence in your brand amongst important consumers, including investors, customers, clients and stakeholders.

McDonald’s were spot on with their transparent campaign, massively boosting their reputation by showing that they have nothing to hide from their customers. This incidentally changed the way a lot of people thought about McDonald’s and put to bed a lot of false rumours about the brand.

Localisation in advertising campaigns

Advertising campaign localisation is a massive opportunity for brands, particularly those that function on a worldwide scale. When a brand is universal, we often feel disconnected to their story.

There is a simple, yet effective way to combat this. Localisation. The process is often overlooked but is extremely beneficial and you will reap the rewards from consumers on a massive scale. Coca-Cola encapsulated this perfectly in their Share a Coke With… campaign. This initiative enforced a localised promotion across the world, from Cavan to Chicago to Croatia, they had it covered.

Building these associative terms brings a sense of familiarity and representation to brand identity. Which in turn will create a positive opinion and encourage association.

Advertising Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we work internationally with brands large and small, delivering a suite of digital assets through which to promote their business. From seasonal campaigns to reactionary creative concepts, we are always on hand to understand the creative brief and output the highest quality advertising designs.

Having one of the largest graphic design teams in the country, we are equipped to meet the demands of both large and small organisations. We work to the tightest of deadlines, while always retaining the highest level of design possible.

To discuss a creative project for your business, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Retail Design: Remain Relevant

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

Some may argue that retail stores are on the downward spiral when it comes to popularity. Unfortunately, this is the case in some situations, with consumers swapping out their shopping sprees with scrolling, but it is important we do not rule out the power of retail design completely.

Retail design can be an extremely powerful method of persuasion when it comes to encouraging consumers to shop in your store. Attractive retail design is key. You want it to stop people in their tracks and intrigue them.

An impressive design lends a hand in the success of a retailer. The overall goal is to develop a brand that consumers will choose. We all aspire to be the first choice, this is extremely relevant in the retail industry, due to the dropping popularity, as well as the dense competition.

Unfortunately, the industry progress in recent years has seen a new-found intricacy in the process of retail design.

Retail Design: A Customer Experience

Now more than ever, it is crucial to stand out in the crowd. This is no different when it comes to retail design, it is crucial to stand out in the high street or shopping centre!

To create an authentic retail design, you must incorporate your brand identity, bringing it to life through your physical store. A retail store should provide much more than simply products or services to customers. It should provide an experience that will resonate and bring a feeling that customers will identify with, when they consider your brand.

The Consistency within Brand Identity and Retail Design

A common misconception when developing a retail design is that it simply revolves around the physical store. Yet, a successful design will consider much more than simply what is in your bricks and mortar store.

Retailers must consider all elements of their brand identity. To maintain and boost their exposure, they should marry all of their design elements together, maintaining consistency and building familiarity. Ways in which this can be implemented includes a consistent font, logo, colour palette, design feature and retail store.

Create a Retail Design that Consumers will Trust

We now live in an era where unfortunately trust is not easily earned. Consumers have become extremely resilient to trust, particularly in the retail sector as the ‘too good to be true’ termis often proved to be factual.

An area that physical retail stores can use to their advantage is their trustworthiness. Having a real-life store brings a sense of reassurance and trust that online stores sometimes fail to deliver. However, it is important to note that competition is prevalent and shoppers are always going to prefer to spend their money in a retail store that has a polished branding and design.

With this in mind, it is important that brands maintain a premium retail design, updating it where necessary. Through an established retail design, brands have the opportunity to turn consumers into customers or clients by engaging with them through trust, understanding and memorable first impressions.

Incorporate Retail Trends

Trends come and go and it is important to recognise this. Yet, there is a fine line between an enduring trend and a passing phase, known as a micro trend. Longstanding trends will be an asset to your business, showcasing a forward-thinking approach. However, a miscalculated investment into a microtrend can be detrimental and a poor expenditure.

In times gone by, trends did not hold the power that they do now. The popularity of social media has provided a platform for worldwide exposure, reducing the timeframe for brands to hop on board the latest trends, in order to remain relevant. However, the investment of time and money must warrant a return on investment, so brands, particularly in retail must be smart to the areas in which they participate.

Retail Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

Our design team at Kaizen Brand Evolution is made up of some of Ireland’s most experienced professional graphic designers. Our team of experts have a unique skillset across numerous industries, including the retail industry. This insight has afforded us with a first-hand understanding into the retail environment, the opportunities and the complications to overcome.

Our knowledgeable and enthusiastic team strive to create considered retail design that is suited to your anticipated business vision.

Get in Touch

To discuss a creative project for your business, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Annual Report Design – Telling a Compelling Story

Posted on by Michael
Irish Football Association Annual Report Design - Kaizen Brand Evolution
Irish Football Association 2020 annual report design created by Kaizen Brand Evolution

The Annual Report is a critical part of a good business marketing strategy, both internally and externally.  Above all, it is the story of your business, whether it be for your investors, your customers or even your employees.  Annual Reports typically include:

  • The company’s financial data summary
  • Financial statements
  • General corporate information
  • Auditor’s report
  • Accounting policies
  • Financial transactional highlights
  • Letter from the CEO
  • Company Partners/Members’ Portfolios

Reasons Why Annual Reports are Important

An annual report is primarily for giving company financial performance to investors, but has evolved and therefore it is key your company should go with an impactful report. Go with a professional to make the most of your annual report design.

Annual Reports Communicate With Investors

Annual Reports are an integral part of a strategy to attract and retain investors, and ultimately illustrates proper management.  Above all, regular communication is good to keep everyone informed and the annual report is your most critical communication.

Builds Customer Trust

Annual Reports inform on a company’s statistics and vision, building trust in the brand.  They are also key to conveying the company’s stability and profitability.

Attracts & Retains Employees

No longer solely for investors, the annual report reassures employees with company success and awareness of any pitfalls/issues.  In addition, annual reports illustrate that the employer understands the marketplace and above all, has a vision.

Informs & Influences the Media

Reporters monitor and give details of a company’s fiscal year performance, health and future plans for coming fiscal years. In addition, any impacts to the community are illustrated.  Therefore, a clear and concise report is paramount in ensuring the correct message is conveyed.

Highlights Achievements

The annual report recaps the company’s mission statement, history and goals.  Following, it conveys the successes over the fiscal year, including but not limited to financial success, market share achievements, research progress, or any employee awards.

Therefore, engaging your audience is key and how to engage has evolved.  Annual report design is focused on visual content which compliments the text and holds the attention of your audience.

Compelling Annual Report Design Strategies

Statistics Featured With Infographics

Infographics should be kept focused.  A high level understanding of the presented statistic must be instant and should retain the attention of your audience.  There are various infographics you can select from to present your statistics effectively:

  • Statistical
  • Timeline
  • Process
  • Geographic
  • Informational
  • Hierarchical

A professional annual report design consultation with an expert can advise on what infographics can be utilised for a most effective presentation.

Effective Data Illustration

Your annual report is the story of your company’s fiscal year.  Think of it as a story and present it as such.  Use a unique cover page to grab the audience’s attention and interest.  The cover should include infographic elements and photography to best leave a favourable impression on your audience.

Share some of the main company highlights in the beginning of your report.  Allow your audiences to understand what you want them to readily comprehend.

Effective Photography Use

Photography adds the human element to your annual report.  When utilised effectively, photography an attract and inspire investors and shareholders, having a measureable effect on their decision making.

Following determining which pages would benefit from photography use, consult with an annual report designer to position in the most compelling way to grip your audience.  High-resolution photography is best practice to use in your report design.

Make It Interactive & Engaging

Keep the audience engaged with any relevant video presentations, image presentations, GIFs, and other elements in the digital form of your report.  Various interactive elements including graphs, subtle animations and characters will assist in making your annual report more compelling.  You want your audience inspired and engaged to review your most critical communication and adding some life will guarantee that.

Comparison Infographic

Giving context to your company’s performance allows you to tell the fulsome story about your fiscal year, without any ambiguity.  Comparison infographics clearly illustrate year on year performance effectively and efficiently.  Future growth expectations can also be made impactful with the use of comparison infographics.  A professional annual report designer can assist in advising on most impactful utilisation of comparison infographics.

Create a Short Motion Graphic

Make your report enticing and exciting.  Thank, welcome and impress audiences by creating a short motion graphic to introduce your report. 

There are many elements to consider when drafting your annual report, notwithstanding the content itself.  The story is one critical element to convey, but how you iterate that story is just as crucial for a successful annual report.  Consider your audience and how you want to convey the story of your company’s fiscal year in the most engaging and enticing manner.  It is your grandest statement, therefore, your design should be grand and well laid out.

Start a Project With Us

To begin an annual report project with Kaizen, or to discuss how we might work together further, please get in touch. Our client services team are available to contact on 028 9507 2007. Alternatively you can send us a direct message via the contact form. We look forward to working with you soon!

LEVEL UP YOUR LOGO DESIGN

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

A company logo is an important, stand-out design that will immediately engage with the public. A symbol to promote brand recognition, logos are a key element in the buying process, encouraging customers to invest in your company.

In the modern day, it is paramount to remain vigilant to the ever-changing industries. Organisations must ensure their logos align with company values to enable a stand-out position in the market, remaining competitive and evolutionary.

A logo speaks a thousand words for your business, hence the importance it resonates with the audience. From the typeface, to the mark or symbol, it is important to choose carefully, representing your company in the best possible manner.

Logo Blunders

A common mistake that organisations make is failing to recognise the power and importance of a company logo. More often than not, businesses consider their logo to be a miniscule design element in the bigger picture. This results in a rushed, poorly thought-out design that inevitably fails to showcase the business in all its glory.

DIY Logo?

Ever been tasked with a logo design project from a family member? The vast majority of us can vouch for this statement. Merely showing interest in the digital world can convince relatives you are a graphic design genius, resulting in gaining the responsibility to design posters, content and the all-important company logo. Although this is a cheap and cheerful solution, it can be spotted a mile away and fails to showcase your company as a premium, reputable business.

Invest for the Best

An important realisation for any business is investment is key. The longevity and top-quality service will stand the test of time for your company, particularly when it comes to design. A logo design holds an equal power status to that of your products, services and indeed your workforce. Consumers will resonate with company logos that are captivating and this will incidentally boost your reputation and position of trust and establishment.

Fake it until you Make it

As previously mentioned, a well-executed logo design holds the power to position your company as an established, reputable and premium organisation. This is a massive opportunity for businesses just starting out, providing them with an initial platform to build upon. Holding an established reputation from the get go is a massive opportunity for start-up businesses, showcasing your goals and aspirations through a recognisable and premium brand identity.

Logo Design: Where to Begin?

When embarking on a journey to achieve the perfect logo design, it is paramount to carefully consider all elements of your business, its aspirations and its purpose. You must also have a clear understanding of your audience, what they like and aspire to receive from your company. Having a logo that clients resonate with is key, showcasing your business as a customer focused organisation.

Consistency is Key

Having a stand-out logo will make your job considerably easier when it comes to designing artwork, advertisements and merchandise. The colour scheme chosen for your logo will become your staple colour scheme for all thinks design and artwork. This will reduce the time, effort and resources required when developing additional design elements, such as social media content, artwork for billboards and newspaper advertisements.

Inconsistency promotes a fragmented and unproductive reputation for a business, dropping the establishment of a recognisable brand identity and reducing trust. Holding a clear logo, theme and colour scheme will be a massive asset to your organisation, maintaining a clean image and consistent focus. In most cases, the starting point to creating a design package like this is through creating a logo.

Recognisable Logos

Once you have a brilliantly designed logo, the opportunities are endless. The goal for any business is to hold such a strong brand identity that their customers recognise them by their logo alone.

The swooped tick, the giant M, the 3 stripes… we all know them from that simple visualisation. Be it on a global scale, with the likes of Nike, McDonald’s or Adidas or a national scale, with the likes of Boojum, the Guinness Harp or the GAA, there are many instantaneously recognisable logo designs that you will be familiar with due to their unique colour palette or design style.

Moreover, the majority of recognisable logos maintain a very minimalistic design, with very little fuss and indisputably sleek.

How Kaizen can help YOU

At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we have designed hundreds of logos for businesses nationwide. Our experience and understanding of many market sectors and the ability to draw on our skill, ensures we are experts in logo creation. With one of the largest design studio teams, our focus is always on creating a stand-out logo to represent your business to the highest standard possible.

GB Poultry Brand Development

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The family business of GB Poultry contacted Kaizen Brand Evolution wanting to their refresh the identity of their well known brand. GB stands for Gregory Bell which is the family name of the business established since 1982 that has been passed down the generations. In their own words “GB Poultry Ltd is a family owned business based in Crossgar in the rolling countryside of County Down”. There are 7 Directors in the company, all from the Bell family who are personally involved and committed to the general day to day running and operating of the business. An EC Approved Cutting plant and are guided by DAERA (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs). Supplying a wide range of Whole Chicken, Flash Fried Chicken, Sauces, Cooked Chicken, Turkeys and other meat products. GB Poultry wanted to modernise their brand and bring it into the future as they are leading in their field of poultry in Ireland. Supplying to outlets such as Boojum, Pallas Foods and Henderson a refresh of brand is what they wanted to align with their customers aspirations.

One of the main USPs that GB Poultry wanted to bring across is that they are from Crossgar, a small village in County Down, we travelled down to their offices and were met by fields upon fields! They are very proud of where they come from therefore we have come up with the tagline ‘A Taste of Crossgar’ as an important part of narrative of their brand. This brings in the origin of the product and also links to the taste of which is also developed in Crossgar.

The previous logo consisted of a cooked chicken and a wreath, similar to your traditional styled butchers, our creative studio updated this with a modern rounded typeface which gives connotations of friendly and approachability. We created a custom vector illustration of a chicken to match the rounded typeface. We have selected the colour scheme of a dark grey and light blue palette which gives a refreshing difference from their usual red and green branding. We have used the colour separation of the blue and white two toned logo for the GB and the Poultry text.

When we travelled to Crossgar we noticed the beautiful landscape around it, we captured this by creating a custom illustration of fields with trees, tractors and chickens in it that can be rolled across their branding. We used textures and muted colour palette for this to utilise the brand and the modern logo, they bring across the farm aspect of the brand. GB Poultry have several products requiring packaging design, this includes sauces, flash fried chicken and cooked chicken which flavours they create themselves. The flash fried chicken products are readily available from most local shops, make sure you try them out. We have visualised up three different types of products, sauces, salt & chilli chicken goujons and breaded chicken burgers using three different colour schemes to define the different products. The packaging is a sticker on the products which sit on shelf with all of their competitors therefore the bright colours of blues will stand out. The brand roll out includes tone of voice, business stationery, packaging, vehicle graphics and signage.

We greatly enjoyed working with Bell family on their brand refresh for GB Poultry and we are looking forward to seeing the packaging roll out and the well known vans on the road.

Belfast Mens Health Logo Design

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Belfast Men’s Health Group (BMHG) is made up a group of people across the community of Belfast and volunteer organisations across Northern Ireland, all with a strong interest in the health and well being of men, by raising awareness of all the main health issues relevant to men and sharing events of interest across Greater Belfast.

BMHG provide a range of information shared by experts who really are experts in their fields. Organising meet up events, provide videos, podcasts and even hosting competitions, they want men to really feel good about themselves and to look after others. BMHG want to make sure there is access to all the relevant information where ever you are.

In their words:

“Belfast Men’s Health Group is a made up of representatives across statutory, community and volunteer organisations across Belfast with a strong interest in the health and well-being of men. Each year we celebrate Men’s Health Week and International Men’s Health Day by organise events to raise awareness of health issues that are relevant to men. We also work with other agencies at other health events to raise further awareness. We are developing the work of the group and a website to further evidence of our ambitions.”

Initially approaching Kaizen Brand Evolution on a website, designed to help them share a range of media and information to a wider audience, our working relationship grew. After our first studio meeting, BMHG noticed our wall of clients and our portfolio of work, it was at this point they decided to rebrand their logo as they felt it was outdated, and it wasn’t communicating the tone of their current direction.

BMHG wanted a logo that worked along side the Northern Health and Social Care Trust branding, they wanted it look like a sub brand to the Northern Health and Social Care Trust and to feel like a brand you can really trust with some sensitive topics within the health and general well being of men.

Hoping to show people that they were a Belfast based organisation, whilst also hinting at what they stand for. They also didn’t want a logo that was too clinical, so this became our challenge to produce a mark, which would become instantly recognisable, corporate and memorable to men across Belfast.

We created a device using the B for Belfast, removing the counters and replacing with the cross for health. The colours are more of a muted blue, which when in use is quite corporate and masculine. The B+ device could be used as a window what information BMHG has to offer, the logo will work well online, email signatures, on t-shirts, beanies and also work on pop up banners, and flyers for events. The use of blue helps the logo have confidence, and feels trust worthy.

We are also creating a website for Belfast Men’s Health Group which will be their audience’s digital handbook for anything and everything they need to know about Men’s Health and well-being. The website will include a range of videos, podcasts, blogs and links to other websites in a visual and clear manner, to help men understand the importance of good health and uniting together. The site will be launching during Men’s Health Week in September 2018.

It will be great to see how their new logo will be used around Belfast, knowing they are helping Men across Greater Belfast.

Day & Age – Brand Development

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Day and Age, creators of short films, use video to make sure the little moments are never forgotten. Kathryn approached Kaizen Brand Evolution when she wanted to steer Day and Age in a new direction, when she wanted to hand her brand identity over to safe hands for an all over evaluation, and when she wanted to evolve her business.

Starting from a young age Kathryn was capturing videos for weddings, corporate insights and family events. Day and Age is now pushing forward to new areas of film, looking to create memorable films that become powerful memory aids. Focusing on making memories and treasuring each moment, whether it be for promotion or an event, a memory for someone that may forget, or even just to give as a gift – Kathryn creates the most beautiful and effective videos.

To display this evolution of the business, we took the Day and Age brand and re-focused it. A brand that will appeal to the current, the new, and the expanding target audience. Kathryn and ourselves agreed that that bold and fitting name of the business should remain, everything else we could assess, address and push in the right direction.  

Throughout the process, it was clear what Day and Age represented and what it would bring to each of its clients-memories. A Day and Age film would provide a beautiful memory aid and so much more. With memories, nostalgia and capturing the moment in mind, we came up with the suitable brand language that would surround the brand. The strapline ‘Memory Studio’ helped give definition to the name, explaining exactly what Day and Age is. They create memories and help you ‘Remember each day’.  

The brand identity itself was provided as a wordmark and an abbreviated device ‘D and A’ to apply throughout any brand extensions. We found the connection between the initials of the brand and term ‘DNA’ riveting. Day and Age’s main aim is to celebrate families and individuals, all about the ‘DNA’. Displaying this connection subtly through the abbreviated device meant the ‘Day and Age’ name still held prevalence.  The versatile device can be applied in many different ways to connect you directly back to the Day and Age name while highlighting the ‘DNA’ or ‘D and A’. We used the combination of a rounded and modern font to reflect personality, approachability and style, a brand that you would want to work with and trust.

The colour palette and imagery came naturally from the Day and Age films.  Using all stills from taken footage, we could see how well the brand would work. We applied a soft and neutral colour palette to compliment the brand identity, language and each film. Not to distract, but to honour the nature of the brand and each film. 

We are now seeing the brand come together to display a clear focus and direction, the direction that Day and Age were and are aiming for. The new Identity is tailored to evolving clients, through narrative, identity and finally the implementation, whilst still appealing to a greater audience. Day and Age creates memories, but it can also still cater to and appeal to any possible film seeking client.

We continue to work with Day and Age, rolling out their new brand across various different forms of stationery and promotional materials. The new brand is coming to life and complimenting all the great work that we are seeing from Day and Age. It is a pleasure to work with such elegant content and now a new brand that compliments that content. We look forward to seeing where the business and new brand goes from here.

Graze, Belfast – Brand Audit & Logo Refresh

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Graze is a restaurant based in Ballyhackamore, East Belfast. They love serving tasty little dishes (also know as tapas). These dishes are full of flavours using quality local produce, paired with your favourite wines. Graze is a great place to enjoy your tapas as they have created an atmosphere that is comfortable, friendly and the ideal place for people who just love great quality food and drink. Graze has made a name for themselves because of their special fish dishes, which change daily, based on the catch that morning.

In their own words:
“The Graze experience is about more than just food. A sincere effort to educate our staff on all aspects of food and wine culture is the basis for our service philosophy. We take great pride in our relaxed style of service and our welcoming staff at Graze go to great lengths to make diners feel at ease, comfortable and well taken care of.”

As well as the restaurant serving tapas & wine, Graze has the Lounge; soft lighting, with dark interiors and comfortable seating makes the Lounge feel relaxing. It’s known for their range of local Gins, craft beers and ciders.

Graze really know how to make your experience extra special; with their resident mixologist, who will make you some amazing drinks and cocktails.

Graze love their Gins so much they have their own Gin Club. Get involved in their monthly club where you can try 5 new gins, and shown how you can serve them up yourself.

Graze approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to create a brand audit for their restaurant because they wanted a brand which was consistent, and reached a new audience of late 20’s early 30 year olds. Graze’s approach has always been simple, so we felt we needed to create a branding system, which would be easy to use. They will be able to use across all of their marketing for both online and offline. It had to be simple for them to use. It had to stand out from their competitors and it most of all had to be consistent.

To create a brand that really represents Graze and develop a brand identity really needed. The previous brand and the food didn’t pair well so we took inspiration from everything within Graze, from the dishes they serve to the colours used in the interiors of the restaurant.

The Graze brand combines a word mark with a personality, a popping friendly colour palette and referencing the tiles they have in their interior. We developed a tone of voice which is friendly, and sounds familiar, it reminds you to “Enjoy the little things” in life and to cherish those moments with friends, family and to be surrounded by great food and drink.

As well as the branding system we produced a range of visuals to show them how the brand could be used across different mediums; including work uniform (aprons and chef jackets), interior signage, exterior signage and menus.

I enjoyed working with Graze on this branding project; I can’t wait to see the branding all over social media and Ballyhackamore. I’d like to see Graze develop into a restaurant, where people come from all over to try their tapas and gin.

I hope Graze sets the mark for what tapas should really be all about.

Meet our evolutionaries – Dawn

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1.What has working in Kaizen Brand Evolution taught you about the design industry?

The main thing it’s taught me is adaptability. The world of design is fast moving and it’s so important to evolve with it and to be able to work on a wide range of projects. It’s also taught me that you can’t just think like a designer making pretty pictures, you have to think like a marketeer, an advertiser, a strategist, an accountant, a business owner and a consumer to ensure you get the best and most effective results for your client. Oh and it has to look good too.

2.Desert Island Design Studio, which typeface would you bring with you?

Burford. It’s not one I use all the time, but it’s a really creative typeface that you use by building layers. It consists of base layers, top layers and bottom layers that you can have a lot of fun with. It would definitely keep me entertained and give me something to do if I was stuck on a desert island!

3.What do you use for motivation inside the studio?

When I’m in need of some serious motivation, there’s nothing for it but headphones and heavy tunes. Anything from ASIWYFA, Daft Punk, Royal Blood, Muse or Biffy Clyro depending on how I’m feeling.

4. Any designers you have been stalking online recently?

I’ve been following/stalking Morag Myerscough on Instagram since I was at her talk in Offset last year. I love her use of bright colours and typography. I really want to decorate my house in this style, but I might need to invest in some super strength sunglasses first.

5. What are you listening to in work today?

Today I’ve had a bit of 6 music with Father John Misty, and The Vaccines, Temples, and um Justin Bieber on Spotify. I have a very eclectic taste in music. Don’t judge.

6.Any exhibitions in Belfast recently that are worth checking out?

The Late Night Art Bus Tour is absolutely brilliant and definitely worth checking out. The bus takes you round various galleries and street art in Belfast, often to places you’d never think of going to. Some of the stops even include a glass of wine, so it’s a super night out, very inspiring and great craic.

7. What’s your pet called? Tell us about them.

Sadly, I’m currently petless. I did have 3 goldfish but it didn’t end well. Nuff said.

Code Fixer – Branding

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Codefixer are a small web design and development company based on the Malone Road, Belfast. They design websites for a range of clients  across many different industries all over Ireland. Codefixer are one of the few companies that specialise in Google Ad words, SEO friendly websites and Analytics. Having this all under one roof helps give you the ultimate package for your business. They make the whole experience very easy for your business and needs.

In their own words:

“Codefixer offers a comprehensive range of first class web design and development solutions including e-commerce and WordPress, that coupled with our extensive skillset in SEO and Pay Per Click helps all types of websites punch above their weight.

Whether you are a small to medium sized business, a start-up to a multi million pound online business we’re confident that we can help you improve and get more of out your online business. Our success is due to our hunger to succeed and provide web solutions that exceed client expectations.”

Codefixer came to Kaizen Brand Evolution wanting a new look to their brand. The old brand was out-dated and didn’t match the professionalism and years of experience Codefixer had. It just looked cheap and amateurish and this was so far from the truth. In fact they have been in this industry for just over 15 years. Codefixer wanted a refreshing logo that would set them apart from the industry landscape. They needed to look like a professional web design studio who you want to look after your online presence. As being a company who works with the internet they are potentially competing in global market not just local. The current brand doesn’t do Codefixer and justice.

Our approach was to create a memorable logo, which is future-proof; we wanted it to say exactly what sector they were in without looking like your typical web design company. We created a logo that would easily develop into a brand with sub logos.

In the meantime it had to be a logo that covered all basis of what Codefixer do into an eye-catching design, which prominently worked across all screens from mobile devices to desktop.

The mark is a inspired by the language of code. A main object is written in square brackets ‘code’ followed by an instruction ‘fixer’ in this case. This language is written in lowercase (computers don’t understand uppercase). The [code]fixer mark can easily be written when the logo isn’t present on any device and will become instantly recognisable. The use of azure blue helps reach out to more corporate clients. This blue makes the business feel trust worthing and reliable.

The new logo will be used on social media, Linked In, their own website and possible print materials.

I believe the new mark will help them get the business and clients they want for their business.  The logo will be able to work well for training course and possible coding events in the future in Belfast and across Ireland.

 

Active Health – Brand Development

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Holywood based Active Health Solutions approached the team at Kaizen Brand Evolution to reposition their brand identity to tie in with their plans to build a new website and a re-fit to their facility on Hibernia Street. Investment into their online service and internal facilities sparked the requirement to refresh their entire brand identity from their logo mark to their brand purpose and narrative. Active Health Solutions required a fresh, contemporary brand audit that reflected their ambitions for the business and a brand that spoke to new and existing clientele.

In their own words:

We are a company of passionate health care professionals providing a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to healthcare from our bespoke clinic in Holywood, County Down. Our mix of services include Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Chiropody, Massage Therapy, Pilates, Personal Training, as well as the provision of Occupational Physiotherapy to a number of large companies and organisations across Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Active Health Solutions was started in 2006 by husband and wife team David & Rachel Saligari who are both are highly trained Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialists who met while completing their Masters of Manual Therapy in Perth, Western Australia. They and their clinical staff pride themselves on providing the most up to date and evidence based treatments available. Whatever your requirements, you will be directed to the health care professional within the company with the expertise to solve your problems and achieve your goals.

Utilising their own description of Active Health Solutions we crafted a brand narrative and identity that would help re-position the business as market leaders, experts and forward thinkers. The first port of call was the logo mark itself. In a brand audit we retain and refresh rather that re-invent. This ‘refresh’ was a modern take on their existing mark, a contemporary word mark with considered typographic detailing using the ‘sportier’ glyphs found in ITC Avant Garde along with a simplistic ‘Plus’ brand device that the business can introduce as a nod to the health industry as well as reflecting that they are a physiotherapy business at the core “PLUS’ so much more. A key piece of the audit was also to remove the word ‘solutions’ from the primary brand mark – this decision came into play rather early in the design process, we felt that ‘solutions’ was too generic a word to describe the full set of services on offer at Active Health. This was an easy removal for the business owners as most clients refer to the business as ‘Active Health’.

We introduced the narrative ‘Activate your Health’ to use across all branded touch points both online an in print. Activate your health is a direct call to action for the brand and acts on its own as almost a sub brand for the business to use around the building, on advertising and in any promotional material they produce. With the logo mark and brand language set in place the colour palette and photography direction was next in completion of the brand audit. The colour palette reflects the previous branding, rather than using a primary lime green, we have introduced a pastel scheme to accompany a beautiful blue grey. The colour symbolises renewal and growth, addressing the key selling points of Active Health Solutions. The photography direction is focussed, dramatic and telling of the services carried out at Active Health – we wanted to move away from the traditional stock photography direction of clients smiling in a clinical environment, something that this market is saturated in. The imagery is much more though provoking and speciality focussed.

Active Health are currently working on refreshing their website with us, creating an informative, user friendly experience online, all reflective of their service in store.

Mongey Communications – Branding

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Mongey Communications tasked the Kaizen Brand Evolution studio with a full company rebrand of their hugely successful communications business based in Co. Kildare. The work that Mongey carry out is instantly recognisable across the island of Ireland with reach across audio and visual in some of the most prestigious sporting and high profile events across Ireland, not to mention their security communications and audio work. Mongey communications reputation is exceptional, however their brand identity was falling behind. We created a new brand purpose for the business including strong brand narrative, ident and brand vision for future growth and success.

In their own words:

Mongey Communications , founded by brothers David and Cyril Mongey is built on over 30 years worth of experience in the sound and communications market. Operating throughout Ireland, the company has the commitment, resources and experience needed to provide a comprehensive audio-visual and communications solution for any event, project or venue.

We have developed an enviable reputation in providing AV and communications solutions for the event industry in Ireland in the sporting, cultural and entertainment arenas.

We are experts at providing first rate audio-video solutions. This is our job. We have been doing this for the past 20 years at some of the biggest events Ireland has ever witnessed, from the hugely successful Ryder Cup in 2006 to all the rugby and soccer internationals in Landsdowne Road and Croke Park.”

Our first challenge was the name, we believed that the name Mongey stood alone in its own right as a recognisable name, so we decided to drop the ‘communications’ from the brand paving the way for a simple, clever mark. As we investigated further with narrative and storytelling for Mongey we introduced the ‘MORE” concept. More audio, More visual, More CCTV for example. This alliteration makes the Mongey name synonymous with More than communications. This new strapline also aids Mongey for growth and introduction of new technologies, which the company pride themselves on. Any new technique of communicating to audiences Mongey is an early adapter, from Walkie Talkies to drone work they are a progressive, contemporary business with focus on the future. All of these business attributes have been considered in the new branding for Mongey.

The new Mongey mark is very much an audit of the original abbreviation “MC” that they used as their brand identity for many years, we felt this was the best approach for the business, to recognise success by treating the logo mark as a contemporary 21st century brand system with modern values. The M becomes the device for the brand and evokes the sense of the Mongey personal touch. This personal ‘signature’ style was crucial in reflecting how the Mongey business is very much a family business, a subtle but relatable hint. The remaining word mark takes a very modern, structured approach. Increased kerning and valued space between letters in the mark improve its visibility on screen and in print. We have retained the original Mongey red palette and introduced a beautiful Teal palette to work alongside it, as well as a brand image library full of high impact, abstract photos. The photo direction is an important factor in the new Mongey brand as it propels Mongey as a stand out communications company. Competitors traditionally use images of their actual equipment, screens and speakers we have focused on the experience that Mongey brings to a project with bright, dramatic shots of fibre optics, close ups of audio systems and even high impact visuals of the types of events that Mongey has experience of working in.

The brand itself has extensive reach across Ireland which we as a studio are excited about, from Croke Park to Kingspan Stadium the Mongey brand is now prepared to soar across Ireland successfully. It was a pleasure to work on and we look forward to continuing the brand roll out across print and digital.

Offset 2018 – 5 reasons to attend a design conference

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In 2009 Dublin opened it’s doors to a new and exciting conference for design creatives. Starting out in the Liberty Hall, with 411 seats to fill, the Offset festival has significantly grown. The conference now takes over the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre for one weekend every year. Filling around 2,500 seats, two stages, workshops and activities, making Offset one of the world’s most inspirational, educational and vocational conferences for the design and creative industries. A weekend we would suggest – not to be missed. 

Each year the studio makes the best efforts to get down to the festival. This year was no exception. Here is why we find Offset to be such a beneficial part of a designers calendar.

1. To Learn

In the design industry, we believe that we are learning every day. This is true. However, to hear from the leading creatives in the industry, you are likely to learn a little more than the average day at the studio. From the first talk of the weekend, we are gathering information and not always from the particular field that we work in. We can learn from the thought processes of any creative, illustrators, fashion designers or even photographers. Offset provides a range of workshops, this year they were run by Facebook’s Creative Shop. Workshops are run at a much smaller scale and provide a more personal learning experience. We attended a workshop ‘Create Fast’. Showing how the industry leaders advertise and how anyone can apply their techniques to a scale that suits best. 

2. To get the Inspirational Hit

The weekend at Offset flies in every year, but what is evident is the boost and lift you feel after the conference. It could be down to a range of things. The dance moves thrown at the delegate party, the work shown on anything other than a Pinterest board or maybe the array of talent displayed by creatives. Designers that started off just like us. The conference is a constant reminder with every talk that ordinary talented people are creating the work we look up to and aspire to. A lot of the talks, give us a personal insight into the speaker’s journey taken, to where they are now. Then the background to some of their projects, reviewing what they have learned along the way. Adam Brimm from Adam & Eve/ DDB highlighted that the smallest and most random of ideas can turn into some of the most effective advertisements. Then, on the other hand, Frith Kerr discussed how all of her projects stem from one Truth, every project develops from one simple truth. Both small tips that can go a long way and can be forgotten or overlooked in our usual routine. 

3. To be Surrounded by Your People

Offset has grown a lot over the years, it still fascinates us just how many creatives we are surrounded by at the conference, speakers and audience members. The conference is a friendly reminder and celebration of the size of the creative industry. There is something to be said about a 2,500 person group of people that can empathise exactly with you. After a stressful or successful week in the studio, there will be at least one speaker that you can identify with from your own experiences. This year Irish design studio Red Dog discussed their 25 years in business, their ups and downs, many of which we could feel exactly, and provided us all with a good laugh along the way. 

4. To Treat Yourself

Maybe not the most important reason to attend a conference, but let’s not forget the goodies. The drinks, the food, the prints. What’s even better at offset all the treats and freebies look great.

5. To Appreciate the Industry

65% of Offset attendees are professionals working in the industry. Like many others, our studio is a happy, creative and very busy one. As creatives, we can often forget to appreciate what we do, forget to enjoy our work and appreciate that we are getting paid to do what we love. Taking a break from the computer screen, the meeting room, the studio and getting out of town to celebrate the industry and the people we work with is exactly what we would recommend. Hearing everyone’s stories and remembering your own, catching up with friends at one of the after parties and meeting people with jobs you would never have imagined helps remind us to appreciate this exciting industry we are in.

Whether it be Offset, or any other design festival or conference, we would suggest making the effort to attend. We are back to the studio with a spring in our step, a drive to do more and lots of prints that will need framing. 

Poppogoblin

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Poppogoblin are a healthy focussed café/juice bar situated on Alfred St, Belfast. They have garnered a reputation for fantastic, delicious healthy alternatives for lunch and for having warm friendly staff that make the entire experience with Poppogoblin one to remember. The owners approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to re-position the branding for plans to refresh the business alongside an interior fit out and a unique Poppogoblin juice range. The businesses reputation an integral part of their offering, which became apparent in our own research into customer, reviews on trip advisor and the broad social media landscape. One thing that was reoccurring was the focus on how the customers where blown away by how friendly and lovely the staff were in Poppogoblin, which immediately set them apart from competitors and highlights their brand purpose. With the brand purpose in mind we made sure to include hints to the unique offering in their brand identity, narrative and tone of voice.

The brand mark itself reveals a smile in the typography, which is paired alongside a re-draw of their infamous lotus flower. The ‘smile’ in the typography immediately triggers a sense of positivity and the experience that Poppogoblin offers as a destination – you’re going to leave smiling. To balance the re-enforce the logo mark we introduced the strapline ‘eat smart, smile more’ – a strapline that sets the tone for the entire re-brand. You can now see as the brand launches in their signage, on their menus and even on their newly launched food truck – ‘eat smart, smile more’ is as dominant in the design as the logo itself, highlighting the power language can play on your brand.

Colour choice was a delight for Poppogoblin, healthy modern pastels we’ll call them help extend the brand reach to the modern diner without isolated a particular gender or mind-set. You can dine in Poppogoblin if you are vegan, veggie, and carnivore – any palette really so we kept the colour scheme open and friendly as to represent the brand purpose fully. Photography plays a role in telling the brand story of Poppogoblin to which we called upon one of our favourite Architectural, interior and food photographers Donal McCann. Donal’s shots extend the brand direction fantastically, capturing the warmth and friendly atmosphere as well as the beautiful food and drinks on offer.

Brand launch began some months ago in the background of the shop façade. Behind the scenes our team were building the full responsive website for Poppogoblin as well as preparing the social media channels for launch. The website utilises Donal McCann’s photo-shoot alongside beautiful typography, layout and brand placement. The full screen imagery on the site play a hug roll in telling the brand story and giving you a taste of the Poppogoblin experience on your desktop, on your mobile, anywhere really. We ensured that the brand roll out kept on track with the vision from the branding exercise. This extended into quality control with signage companies, interior fit out teams, vehicle wrap companies and juice bottle label manufacturers. We always like to keep a close eye on things as roll out happens, acting as full brand guardians as a brand starts to launch. This process and relationship with a brand extends our reach and expertise in the branding process and ensures that your investment in the brand is realised and achieved correctly as agreed.

Poppogoblin is a fantastic case study for us a brand designers, the brand itself highlights how every aspect of your brand can be considered for maximum purpose. The Poppogoblin brand identity, language and brand guidelines are all set in place for a bright future.

The Skinny Sauce Company

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The Skinny Sauce Company approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to create an engaging brand identity and packaging strategy for the launch of their exciting new Skinny Sauce product range. The brand story begins with the owner and entrepreneur Maria Doran. Maria’s passion for sauce has been long standing; from ketchup to curry she has always loved adding flavour to her meals to enhance the eating experience. Maria also embraces the healthy lifestyle, going to the gym, eating right and taking care of herself. She soon realised that despite eating healthy she craved the added flavour that the sauces and dips brought to her meals and the sauces available on the market were full of sugars, additives and unhealthy ingredients in general. Maria’s mission is to revolutionise the sauce market and make healthy dips and sauces for the health conscious consumer.

With this in mind be researched the industry and developed a strategy for the business with the tagline ‘skinny dip more often.’ This strapline acted as the foundation for the creation of her brand identity and packaging. Keeping the target audience (health conscious shoppers who crave sauce) in mind we designed a bold, eye-catching brand that highlights the good ingredients that go into Skinny Sauces. In a world of Heinz and other well-known sauce brands we aimed to reach Maria’s ambition of becoming a household name and compete and stand out on the shelves in major retailers.

The first point of call was the brand mark. We crafted a ‘handmade’ type based logo with a bright, youthful colour palette, which immediately stands out from the competitors. The logo is a reaction to modern brand styles and trends utilising hand drawn type and illustration to reflect the fun skinny sauce experience. The brand mark leads nicely into how we visualise the brand narrative ‘skinny dip more often’ – using the hand drawn script and bold palette to emphasise the text. The language plays an important role in communication the values and vibrancy of the product. Aimed at an audience of 25-35 we have tailored the brand to fit in with that demographics lifestyle. As well as the language and the brand mark we proposed a photographic and typographic direction that would spark an emotional and aspirational connection with the target audience, using young, happy, healthy models to communicate this rings true in the Skinny Sauce marketing strategy and in their brand collateral.

Following the identity, strategy and narrative and artistic direction we began work on the packaging for the Skinny Sauces themselves. Each bottle and flavour introduces a fresh colour palette creating an engaging, eye-catching suite of products. One ambition for the packaging was to make it look suited alongside the likes of high-end sauces within M&S or Waitrose. This ambition was easily realised following the identity and artistic direction for the brand. We were able to utilise the type direction and layout to suit such retailers and realise the ambition for future growth and perhaps buyer in such retail environments. As well as the colour palette for each flavour of Skinny Sauce we introduced hand-drawn illustrations to reflect the core ingredients inside the bottle – beautiful hand-drawn chilli’s, peppers, tomatoes were included to create an all round flavour focussed packaging piece.

In preparation for the Skinny Sauce Company brand launch we worked alongside Maria to ensure that the values set out from the beginning would be strengthened and represented fully in the collateral and packaging. Working as brand guardians for Skinny Sauces we continue to develop and evolve this unique, beautiful brand to ensure the businesses ambitions are realised. We thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and look forward to working more with the Skinny Sauce Company in the future.

Punchestown Racecourse

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Punchestown approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to perform a re-brand for their established and celebrated racecourse and entertainment venue. We re-positioned the Punchestown brand by creating an engaging narrative and strategy for the business. With focus on the new ‘Town’ campaign we developed a suite of versatile straplines to use across the new brand roll out and marketing campaigns.

The Punchestown Festival is considered amongst the Racing community as the equivalent to the Wimbledon of Tennis and the Augusta of Golf. The best of the best from far and wide and the entire annual racing season compete at Punchestown. The sheer audience and exposure of the Punchestown brand provided the need to keep their identity and advertising fresh and representative of their unique offering.

There is a deep history at Punchestown Racecourse, which helped immensely in the craft of the brand narrative, from the famous horses, trainers and events that have taken place there is much more than meets the eye at Punchestown. The racecourse is not only synonymous with racing, there is so much more to the venue, from music festivals, corporate catering, family days, hospitality and new years celebrations to name a few.

We felt that the best way for us to communicate the wider offering was to generate a campaign that’s going to be immediately representative of the brand and evoke the emotions and sense that you feel when attending events at the racecourse. This is where the “TOWN” campaign was born. Developing the campaign narrative from the courses namesake, presented potential mileage for the brand and its campaigns immediately and it seemed like an organic development for the branding. With the TOWN campaign decided upon we generated a suite of potential Irish colloquialisms, sayings and relative straplines that would become the driving force behind the new brand identity. ‘Get out of town’ was a saying that marries a few points at once, which we explored on launch.

The idea of getting out of Dublin Town to visit Punchestown is the initial response to this phrase, however we’ve blended a traditional Irish colloquialism in the messaging “get out of town’ also gets used when you’re surprised to hear or see something. i.e. ‘I got a new Ferrari handed to me by my boss’ – the response would be “get out of town’. So the narrative bar was set, to communicate on two levels and engage vocally through the brand materials.

With the narrative and strategy in place we could work the craft of the logo and brand materials. The logo, which features the Punchestown Fox (identifiable through the years across each variation their brand history) has been brought into the 21st century with the use of a fresh new type family and custom fox mascot, who sits neatly above the TOWN letters, harking back to the narrative and campaign messaging.

We introduced a contemporary colour palette for the brand, keeping yet improving on the notorious Punchestown red we added a seasonal suite of colours to be used across the festival graphics, easily identifiable with the likes of Spring, Summer, Autumn Winter festival days. The colour flexibility has really strengthened the brand materials and creates an immediate association with a time of year at Punchestown. Primary colours explore pairings that compliment the Punchestown red, gold and a deep navy.

Once the brand elements are married together it is clear to see the visual results of the successful re-brand, which now addresses the ambition of Punchestown as a business. The new brand identity and campaigns stand out from their local and national competitors. Everything from the strategy, narrative, identity, implementation and management of the brand has been considered and carefully treated to ensure absolute success as the brand evolves. We absolutely loved working on this brand as a studio and we continue to work with Punchestown as brand guardians and as the racing seasons come around.

Watch Tech

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Watch Portfolio Management is a well-established business specialising in financial guidance with many clients reaching from the UK to Australia. Watch Portfolio Management is based in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, and is known for their financial advice that leads businesses that have gone into insolvency to find solutions. This, however, is no longer the case! Watch Portfolio Management decided they would approach Kaizen Brand Evolution to create an identity for their cutting edge software, that they primarily would use for daily tasks, as going forward they would like to be seen as a financial software business. This software is to be called Watch Tech. The interface is easy to use and finds information fast making it the best financial insolvency software on the market.

To creating the brands identity we needed to first fully understand the industry landscape that Watch Tech would be positioning itself alongside. We researched and developed clear directions to take our brand ideas based on Watch Tech’s potential competitors in the financial, security and tech sectors. Learning from our research we found what was working and what wasn’t necessarily relevant moving forward with the creation of Watch Tech’s identity. It became clear that a simple, modern identity would be best to represent this brand effectively.

Now that our styling has been determined from our research the identity soon followed. A potential branding direction that we explored was revitalising Watch Portfolio Managements shield to link Watch Tech to it’s heritage, as well as to show the software’s strength and durability when it comes to protecting your financial well being. However, the brand chosen to represent Watch Tech was our identity representing “financial growth”. This mark, illustrating a positive outlook, is a meaningful graphic that lends itself to the company’s primary objective for its clients. The brand mark uses three primary bars linked by two diagonal bars in the background giving a ribboning effect to shape into a “W” ultimately representing Watch Tech. Looking back on our research we decided to use a corporate typeface in a variety of weights to blend with our modern brand mark. This typeface joined with our brand mark comes together to create our Watch Tech Logo.

Following the design of the brands elements we were able to focus more on what our brands message would be. Watch Tech is really the first financial insolvency software to come onto the market and we decided “Pioneering financial insolvency software” would be a good direction for their brand language. Our taglines to follow this direction are “faster, stronger.” and “better, smarter.” to illustrate how superior this software is in comparison to other financial insolvency software’s and its main selling points the software can provide. Leading from this language our imagery shows the idea of exploration and moving forward to illustrate Watch Techs brand message.

With our logo and language already decided the next step in our process is to show our strategy in regards to how the logo would be implemented. The new Watch Tech logo is a strong shape with distinguishing features making it recognisable individually. It’s because of this that we decided to use the outlined shape of the brand mark as a device to house imagery. Imagery on print, signage and online would follow this strategy or be full bleed with the brand mark positioned accordingly alongside our brand messages. We didn’t just create a new brand identity for a piece of software we created a new platform and style for a new business to follow going forward.

Join us for our next Brand Masterclass

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A few months ago we hosted our first ever brand masterclass in association with Women in Business NI.

It was so successful that we’ve decided to host a few more masterclass sessions, starting with our “3 Steps to a Successful Brand” workshop on 29th September. Our masterclass will take place at the Thinking Cup on Lisburn Road from 9am to 10.30am, and tickets are free! Tickets are available to book now, just visit our event page here to book your place.

Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a long established business, having a strong brand presence and strategy will set you apart from the competition and help you grow your business. Our workshop will take you though the key elements of a successful brand, from logo and language through to longevity across all channels.

This session will cover:

  • What a brand is and why it’s so important
  • The key difference between a logo and a brand
  • The importance of a brand strategy for business growth
  • How language can impact and shape your brand perception
  • Key tools for building your brand online

This masterclass is perfect for those with a new business who need guidance to build their brand from the ground up. It is also helpful for businesses who have been established for a few years but who would like to evolve their brand and take their business to the next level.

We’ll be providing tea, coffee and refreshments from 8.30am if you’d like to come along early for a bit of breakfast and networking. We hope to see you there!

Reuben’s tasty new website

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We love when businesses grow and reach new levels of success through hard work and considered business direction. It’s our goal to help them get there through great graphic design and web site design. Today we’d like to show how we’ve helped grow the presence of Reuben’s, a modern, rustic cafe that prides itself on delicious local food.

When the owners approached us to evolve their branding and look at their online presence we knew this was a tasty adventure we wanted to unfold. We felt their current website design did not portray the modern and friendly feel the Reuben’s team has worked tirelessly to achieve. The food which should be the hero of the hour was lost in a menu and not visually displayed online and so we extolled the virtues of great food photography, which has made a significant difference in it’s own right to the sites look and feel. Reuben’s new online presence was just not about making it pretty but also making sure we communicated the brand’s personality and history into it. Each page tells a story of Reuben’s cafe, from the opening in 1996 right through to the current day.

Evolving your brand is important to ensure you protect your business from the threat of competition. By continuously improving and ensuring dedication to your brand will ensure you are in a stronger position to grow and flourish. Don’t worry though, we are experts in this field, providing professional web design, here in Belfast.

Shebelle’s Brand Identity

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Shebelle required a brand identity to reflect high end, ethically sourced hair extensions and associated beauty products. During a temple ritual in India women donate their hair to the gods. The temples used to burn this high quality human hair but now they auction it on the open market and channel the profits back into community projects. The hair is locally made into wefts and Shebelle only chooses product from companies with proven ethical standards in manufacture, employee relations and charity work, especially the education of women and girls. The products that enrich the hair are derived from andiroba oil found wild in South and Central America and in Africa. This blend of quality ingredients and ethical sourcing was the foundation for a strong branding position.

 

We designed a luxurious, contemporary brand identity that sets Shebelle apart from their competitors. Patterns, photography and colour play their part in telling the story with each product having a separate, localised illustration. Traditional Indian, African and South American patterns weave through the packaging and marketing materials. The product launch is set for launch in late Summer 2016.

Slim’s Healthy Kitchen No.4

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From the very inception of the Slim’s Healthy Kitchen idea, Kaizen Brand Evolution have been creative partners providing all manner of brand support from identity and brand language, to marketing and strategic positioning for all stakeholder communications. For many clients, our service goes far beyond graphic design and Slim’s Healthy Kitchen is certainly one this holds true for.

Last month, Slim’s opened their 4th store in Belfast and true to form, they wanted to make a huge statement to mark their arrival in Dundonald. A 25ft x 7ft mesh banner will do just that! The design takes the already strong Slim’s Healthy Kitchen branding and moves this towards our Spring/Summer campaign stylings which you will see visually rolled out across the brand over the coming months.

Boojum, Cinco De Mayo

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Boojum approached us to create a concept for the launch of their new ‘Win a trip to Mexico’ Campaign for Cinco De Mayo. We developed an online and printed campaign strategy that revolved around a ‘holiday tag.’ Using the tag as the device to drive the campaign it was clearly linked to the Holiday theme and strategically, ‘Tagging friends’ on social media became the staple of the competition. The tag also appears at the final stages of the competition where Boojum hold a special night where finalists have the chance to find a printed ‘Boojum Tag’ inside a Burrito on the night of the draw. Corona where the main partner in the holiday give away and we introduced some hashtag’s to coincide with the competition #boojum5demayo and #boojum&corona. The competition has proved very successful in driving new traffic to the main site www.boojummex.com (design by us) and raising brand awareness across Ireland.

Brand evolution of White’s Tavern

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The owners of the White’s Tavern came to us with an idea to brand the floor above the traditional Irish pub into a one of a kind bar/eatery. Stepping away from the long-standing tradition of White’s the new addition was to be tailored to a young professional audience, which would become a place of nostalgia and happiness with an edge.

We delivered a striking brand identity for the new venture titled ‘Vandal.’ Vandal’s identity is a nod to nineties street art and culture. Through considered graphic design, the bright colours, patterns and hand drawn typeface are tributes to the 90’s theme with a contemporary treatment. The theme continues throughout signage, menus, wall graphics and online.

International Society of Typographic Designers 2016

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I travelled to DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) Grangegorman last weekend, 5 March 2016 for the Annual ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers) Student Assessment. Every year design students from across Ireland take part in what Erik Spiekermenn described ‘The Most rigorous and honest assessment in the world. No personal likes/dislikes can affect the outcomes.’ The students answer one of 5 ISTD briefs to which they may use a number of mediums and outcomes. When assessing we look for strong concept with comprehensive typographic exploration.

On arrival we have a chance to grab some breakfast and catch up before beginning the assessments. This year I was paired with Jamie Murphy from Salvage Press, a typographer and letterpress printer and all round great guy. The briefs are outlined below.

Project 1: A life’s work

Celebrate the life’s work of Adrian Frutiger. Create a prestigious ‘publication’ (digital/physical or both) that celebrates the life and work of Adrian Frutiger.

Project 2: The Undiscovered Country…

‘Stare death in the face’ and find out everything there is to know about it. Consider international, societal, scientific, religious, historical, statistical, cultural, literary and poetic touch-points within your research, before determining your approach.

Project 3: Visualising Music

Using Philip Glass’ opera Einstein on the Beach as your source material, you are asked to investigate different ways of making visual typographic notations in order to create a music score for this work.

Project 4: Eye Witness

Your task is to translate a written, first person account of a significant event, into a typographic experience that is designed as a site-specific installation in the gallery of your choice.

Project 5: And the winner is…

Celebrate the Nobel Prize. You may wish to propose the design for a suite of publications that highlight the various categories of awards; perhaps a prestigious publication that investigates the life and work of a selection of Nobel Laureates; or a very focused approach looking at a specific category e.g. the prize for literature.

Yet again the standard of work for Ireland is exceptional with a number of students passing the bar and one merit awarded from myself and Jamie. I thoroughly enjoy the assessments and believe that this institution greatly benefits the design community, raising standards in typographic practice across the globe.

Girl Power

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Kaizen Brand Evolution join Women in Business

We are excited to be part of Women in Business, one of the largest and ever growing business network’s for females in Northern Ireland. Lynsay from a design perspective, and Glenda from sales are new members joining many of our entrepreneurial clients. This gives us an amazing opportunity to network with local business as well as engage with new starts. An added benefit is the mentor programme, allowing our team to both mentor and be mentored to gain invaluable experience in the business world we contribute to. Looking forward to our first event and introduction to a great initiative. We’ll be sure to keep you posted!

Slim’s Healthy Kitchen Cookbook

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Kaizen Brand Evolution created the branding and designed every touch point you will see from Slims Healthy Kitchen, Slims being one of our longest standing clients, a client that is constantly growing, succeeding and as Slim grows in business as do we. When Slim came to us with the idea of designing a cookbook for the Christmas shelves in November, we were extremely excited and a little scared at the deadline! Our relationship with Slim and his team is incredibly tight and we knew, no matter what, we were going to produce the most exciting cookbook working together. Shout out to Chris Love (love PR) and Kate Magill who worked on the content and Khara Pringle for her outstanding photography. The Kaizen Brand Evolution team worked tirelessly with the Slims team in creating this wonderful healthy cookbook. The design approach was contemporary, straight forward and high impact. The imagery and text had to sit well together, be functional as people needed to follow the recipes and be visually stimulating. We succeeded in the delivery of Slims first Cookbook with plans for a follow up in 2016 which we cannot wait to get stuck into. The success of the book has increased the brand reach and interest in the healthy eating movement happening in Northern Ireland, with Slim being the captain of the ship. If you would like a copy of the book you can find it in Waterstones and most book retailers across the land but be quick they’re selling fast.

Visit slimskitchen.com for more info. Here’s to the next instalment. #choosebalance

Changing markets!

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‘St George’s Market Bar & Grill’ becomes ‘George’s of the Market’
Our creative team relish creating brands as much as turning around inherited brands. George’s of the Market logo was presented to us as a blank canvas to create the brand story to deliver a signage and way finding system as well as a range of menu offerings. Our initial presentation included heritage market images sympathetic to the character of the market and its traders, as well as simple graphic interpretations to build assets from the new logo. With input and feedback from the client we developed the visuals mixing the Victorian iron work illustrations with neutral contemporary colour palettes. Fonts that were reflective of the era and simple black and white styling was mixed with brown paper and craft cards synonymous of the packaging found on the market floor below. Stamps are created to brand the paper that would pack the fresh bread into on special nights such as the Twilight Market. Transforming the almost invisible upper level restaurant, to a modern airy eater that gives a nod to the historic market below.

Boost – St Patrick’s Day

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Boost St Patricks Day Graphic Design

With Boost Energy Drinks being a market leader in independent retailers across Ireland they approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to develop an advertising campaign to link St Patrick’s Day with Boost. We set out to develop a campaign based around luck. From this idea ‘Boost your luck’ was born. This campaign message has the positive connotations that derive from essence of Boosts Brand, the idea of luck is already set in stone with the Irish Holiday and how do you make the day better? With a Boost of course. The typography and imagery was then designed in the bright green / a change of pace from the blues that are usually associated with Boost, and rolled out across in store printed materials and online campaigns. The success of the campaign has secured Boost Energy Drinks as one of Kaizen Brand Evolution’s top clients.

Buns on the Run!

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French Village Bakery Delivery Fleet

French Village Bakery are expanding their fleet of livery to deliver their tempting treats from the bakery to their Botanic Bistro and across Northern Ireland to their hospitality clients. Our brand team worked on concepts to translate the French Village Bakery style across the vehicles. After a site visit witnessing the bakers at their craft, delicately placing each embellishment by hand, we knew it was important that this art was not lost. The blue striped treatment with logo ribbon holder is a nod to traditional patisserie packaging to communicate the fresh handmade goods that French Village Bakery create daily. It’s subtle placement, not overpowering the vehicle, is the professional feel that the client required when arriving at corporate catering events and weddings. Our senior design Ryan Stanfield visualised and created artwork across a range of vehicle sizes, liaising with the vinyl print and applicator for quality control. We think they look très bon!