Archive for the ‘Graphic Design’ Category

April was a very productive month here at Masters Allen, I think we were all ready for the bank holiday!! Take a look at some of the sites we launched:

We helped Red 21, one of our long term clients, relaunch their webstore using Magento ecommerce. The site offers an extensive catalogue of luxury gifts, each with their own detailed product page allowing customers to get a better feel for the quality and intricacy of the items available. The catalogue is filtered and organised into a user friendly navigation with a big opportunity to feature products and promotions on the home page. Take a look and have a browse…http://www.red21ltd.co.uk/

LRS Liquid Rubber is at the leading edge of flat roofing and floor membrane systems and we have recently helped them launch their new Drupal website. The site offers technical product information and application guidance giving customers confidence in the brand and product. A very neat feature is the ‘Project Calculator’ which allows the customer to work out how much of the product they need for their particular job. The site has very clear contact details and calls to action prompting the customer to follow up on what they have learnt and make a purchase. Take a look..http://www.liquidrubbersales.co.uk/

Mander Cruickshank Solicitors asked us to design and develop their new site which is also built in Drupal, the site uses large imagery and big headings to support the brand and communicate the range of services on offer. The site is very easy to update by the Mander Cruickshank team as are all sites developed by Masters Allen, we use ‘open source’ technology which is tried and tested and very successful. Take a look at the Mander Cruickshank site, built using Drupal 7…http://www.mandercruickshank.co.uk

Christmas is almost upon us and to coincide with the festivities, Leicestershire based creative design and marketing agency Masters Allen have created the identity for this year’s Cinderella pantomime at the Loughborough Town Hall.

Loughborough Town Hall offers a fantastic array of shows throughout the year to a diverse audience. Their annual Christmas pantomime is regionally acclaimed and tickets sell out fast.

Following last years hugely successful Beauty and the Beast, the town hall selected Masters Allen to create a suite of marketing materials that would create impact and set the scene for a bigger and better production this year.

Masters Allen worked on providing a polished and fitting creative to entice audiences from far and wide appealing to families and in particular children. The promotional tools were commissioned in a variety of formats from billboards and banners to posters, bookmarks and stickers.

The Masters Allen team were involved in the photo shoot for the pantomime promotional pictures. They enjoyed meeting the full cast including Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Fairy Godmother and the Ugly Sister Halitosia, played by Martin Ballard, of BBC Radio Leicester.

Jon Allen, Marketing Director from Masters Allen said, “This project gave us the opportunity to produce a fun and festive themed promotion directed at the local community”

Cinderella started in November with tickets selling fast. The show will run until the 9^th January 2011. Proving to be the best panto of them all!

For tickets please visit www.loughtownhall.co.uk or call 01509 231914.

Leicestershire based creative design and marketing agency Masters Allen have designed and created the portfolio based website for Three Point Design.

Three Point Design are based in Leicester with clients scanning the length and breadth of the country. The team wanted to show their commitment to their work and also highlight the brand awareness for Three Point Design’s customers.

Specialising in point of sale retail design, Three Point Design approached Masters Allen wanting to update their website and show the growth the company has had as of late. Working with several large clients such as Olympus, Exonmobil and JCB.

The project launched in October driving new enquiries towards Three Point. Managing Director Adam Gillott said “I approached Masters Allen after being recommended by several contacts. Three Point Design are an expanding company with a national account base and needed a new website to showcase our large portfolio. It needed to be easy to navigate and portray a large, creative design company.

From our very first meeting I found Masters Allen professional and very easy to work with. They interpreted our brief perfectly and gave regular updates via email and phone. Masters Allen delivered an excellent website which we are very proud of, and I will most definitely be using their services again. I would have no hesitation in recommending them to others.”

With an already growing portfolio and extensive knowledge of the retail design industry, Three Point Design are set to make a lasting impression on point of sale design and manufacture within the Midlands.

It’s that time of year again, the festive season is upon us. For those of you with ‘typographic’ loving friends, family or colleagues, (mustn’t forget the secret santa) a solution is at hand! Below are a few items we have stumbled across that may appeal to the discerning graphic design lover or you may even want to add to your own wish-list.

Checking the time just got interesting. The font clock designed by Sebastian Wrong is a 21st century take on the British 24 hour clock design icon. Twelve different fonts are printed within the mechanism of the clock providing a random, mixed display of graphic language within a single time piece. Available in three sizes.

These typographic pillows would look great in any type lover’s interior. The eclectic designs that make up the collection of Bonjour Mon Coussin are inspired by found vintage documents, postcards or drawn from the creators’ own world.

The latest in the popular series of typography based calendars from Japan. The new Typeface calendar 2010 edition features the Calson 540 typeface, a 1902 variation of the original William Caslon design, considered to be one of the first English typefaces.

If design isn’t your cup of tea, (excuse the pun) this mug might not be for you! The kerning mug is an ideal gift if you want to impress your colleagues on your return from the christmas break, at least for a day or so.

.

January next year, the Royal Mail will be issuing a collection of stamps depicting 10 classic British album covers as shown below. The stamps will be uniquely shaped to accommodate a vinyl disc poking out of each record sleeve.

They are (clockwise from top left): Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell / Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head / Blur’s Parklife / New Order’s Power Corruption & Lies / the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed / David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars / Primal Scream’s Screamadelica / Led Zeppelin’s IV / Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells / the Clash’s London Calling.

It’s a shame that the classic first album ‘Step One’ from Steps didn’t make it into the final cut …maybe next time.

Masters Allen have been working with midlands based telecommunications company Daly Telecom on their rebrand.

Daly Telecom recognised the need to future-proof their business, viewing the situation as an opportunity to expand their client base and move into new markets.

It was clear that the name needed addressing first and foremost, whilst it may be familiar to the current client base, it restricted their product offering and development into new markets. We had to establish a name that not only retained the 25 year heritage within the industry, but also provide a solution to take the business forward in an ever-changing and fast-moving industry. The solution, as it turned out, was simple – a removal of the reference to telecommunications, combined with the retention of the Daly name and reference to communications, joined together, created the individual name – Dalycom.

The new brand and design style has been applied to a variety of visual assets to create a consistent and coherent business message.

As a designer and eternal student to the craft of design, I have taken great comfort in reading “Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failures, and Lessons Learned”. The satisfaction in knowing that even the cream-of-the-crop have their off-days, not always hitting the mark every time. I understand the agony of defeat from an idea not coming to fruition as intended. I cringe at the ever so public, humiliating creative mistakes and blunders. But I also appreciate that with every stumble, dead-end and cock-up, there’s a lesson learned and a necessity not to find yourself there again. Without the disasters, there surely cannot be any triumphs!

Dozens of top designers reveal the heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious, mistakes they have made and talk about how they were able to grow from their experiences. Self-delusion, overcommitment, procrastination…they’re all here. Poor communication, missed deadlines, enraged clients…yes, they’re here too. Read this book and be inspired to find the silver lining in even the cloudiest situation.

This is a good question that has been raised by www.noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com. A high percentage of logos are only seen online, where colour is not a problem (ok, that’s not strictly true, individual screen resolutions/settings can affect screen colours, but you get the gist). Today’s advanced litho and digital printing methods allow colour to be easily produced over old school black and white printed pieces. Even press advertising is heading for the full colour option. Which leaves the question, where does a black and white logo need to appear? Obviously, there are many places, such as brand merchandising or labels. But even these can still have colour options if absolutely necessary. I guess the answer is, there is no need for a black and white version of a logo.

That said, I’m a big fan of simple, clever logos that can work in any environment. If your brand can be applied to etched glass or even sewn into a beanie hat without losing legibility or impact, then I think you have a logo that will be prepared for any situation your business requires of it. It’s not just about have a logo that is black or white, it’s about having a logo that lends itself to any environment.

Masters Allen are pleased to read of Leicester’s “potential to be one of the most creative places in the UK.”. With so much focus on London to forge the way forward in design, we are delighted to find that the City and surrounding areas have the opportunity to become a hive of creativity. With some of the larger design agencies based in Leicestershire taking advantage in these uncertain financial times and actively targeting London agency clients, hopefully they can prove that you can get big ideas and good solid design outside of London. Let’s hope it’s the start of a creative revolution!

Full feature story below. Original source Design Week.

Hive of creativity

Designer-maker Andrew Tanner was born and bred in Leicester, but, like 1960s dramatist Joe Orton, he escaped. Tanner ended up in Brighton for 12 years, where he studied and set up his studio.

Unlike Orton, however, Tanner came back. ‘As my work was manufactured more and more in the UK, it was difficult to get to the factories in the Midlands from Brighton.’ At the moment, he’s spending three days a week in Stoke-on-Trent, where his new range for Poole Pottery is being made. What’s more, he claims that the creative industries community in Leicester beats that of Brighton.

He cites the agency Creative Leicestershire, which supports 1500 arts, media and design businesses of up to five people, many of which are based in the city’s West End.

For the past 18 months, Tanner, whose designs are stocked by Selfridges, has been working out of Leicester’s LCB Depot. This collection of 55 studios for creative businesses in an old bus depot was designed by Ash Sakula Architects and branded by Newenglish.

Carl Bebbington tells another side of the Leicester story. He moved from a job in London to Leicester 13 years ago, to set up Newenglish with his wife Wendy. Now six-strong, the consultancy can point out a host of local businesses that it has worked on, from Leicester Tourist Information, the National Space Centre and Leicester Libraries Services, to the Indian restaurant Mirch Masala and fair trade shop Just Fair Trade.

It was a conscious decision for Bebbington to focus increasingly on local clients. ‘It’s really nice to be able to walk around the city and see our work,’ he says. ‘We’re helping to change the cityscape.’

And this city of 300 000 people does seem to be changing. This autumn has seen the opening of Foreign Office Architects’ Highcross cinema and retail complex, Rafael Viñoly’s Curve theatre, and next year the Digital Media Centre by Marsh Grochowski will be ready.

These modern structures rub shoulders with some pleasing Victorian buildings. However, many period pieces have been left to deteriorate, or sit uncomfortably next to 1960s architectural mistakes.

The DMC will have 30 workspaces managed by the LCB Depot people. Peter Chandler, manager of LCB Depot, describes the difference the depot project and these other schemes in Leicester’s so-called Cultural Quarter are making. ‘They’re helping raise confidence in the city. Before the regeneration, this area was perceived to be unsafe, even during the day.’ Because, as Leicester Regeneration Company admits, the city has been suffering from a poor image. Indeed, some vestiges of its former self are still evident, even in the Cultural Quarter. Hence the adult entertainment venue, G Spot, located opposite the tasteful new Curve.

And despite these attempts at transformation, not everyone based there is keen to be associated with Leicester. Checkland Kindleysides, with a staff of 88, is one of the UK’s most high-profile retail design groups. But that’s despite, not because of, its location 20 minutes from the centre of Leicester.

‘We don’t see ourselves as Leicester people,’ says co-founder Jeff Kindleysides. ‘We don’t relate to any other businesses here, not because we’re arrogant, but we have done things our own way. Our work has always been national and global.’

Of course, there are the obvious advantages to being away from high-rent locations like London. While Newenglish occupies a capacious former Victorian Methodist Sunday school in town, Checkland Kindleysides resides in a 2400m2 studio, along with a 2300m2 workshop, where 15 people are employed to mock up furniture and shop environments.

Other developments in Leicester include the ethnic mix – it’s not just the architecture which is eclectic. According to the 2001 census, Leicester’s citizens includes 60 per cent white British, and more than 25 per cent of Indian origin. This second figure ranks Leicester as having the largest Indian population of any local authority area in England and Wales.

According to US economic regeneration expert Richard Florida, such an ethnic mix means Leicester has the potential to be one of the most creative places in the UK.

In his 2003 Demos survey, Boho Britain, the country’s 40 biggest cities were ranked using three creativity indicators: ethnic diversity, the proportion of gay residents, and the number of patent applications per head. While Manchester came out top, Leicester drew second with London.

So it’s not all shoe design and ‘contour fashion’ (meaning underwear design) in Leicester. As Clare Hudson, creative industries manager for Creative Leicestershire, points out: ‘De Montfort University is now strong in product design, and there are loads of printers here.’

And for Leicester-based designers, it’s worth bearing in mind that the city is a mere seventy minutes by train from London.

Continuing with our brand themed blogs, we have put together a selection of instantly recognizable brands, each one iconic in it’s own right.

These brand identities are so distinctive, all you need is a glimpse to instantly place them. Some of which are more established in terms of age, but all share the same key component, strong visual cues.

To make our point we have created what we can only describe as a pop quiz! and such is our confidence in how recognizable these brands are, we have zoomed in and only given you a peak at the logos.

Click here to reveal the logos

So what is our point? It would be too easy just to show the above brands in full, for obvious reasons. All of the brands above have recognized the value of brand recognition. To mention a few others, McDonalds have their arches, Goodyear has its blimp and AOL has its distinctive pyramid etc. etc.

Recognizing these items involves visual cues stored in your memory. You’ve seen the item before and you’re able to identify it based on features including shape, location, colour, and size. Even the relationship the item has with another item provides your brain with recognition cues.

Looking at the logos above. Is it a design you instantly recognize? What aspect of the design helps you to recognize it? The colour? The shape? Perhaps you don’t recognize the design, but you do recognize the typeface style. A brand strategy which employs the maximum number of recognition cues has an advantage over a competing brand using fewer cues. The more cues the higher the probability that the brand will be recognized by more people.

All of the brands featured above employ lots of recognition cues, not to mention a large marketing budget!