The best way to break free of straight lines is to add a puff of smoke.
This effect is often made by dripping ink in water, photographing it, and adding special effects in Photoshop. It adds depth, color and a little abstraction to an otherwise ordinary image, elevating it to the next level.
Trend of the month – Flat Design
Flat design is typically used in website. It refers to a style of interface design which removes any stylistic choices that give the illusion of three-dimensions (such as drop shadows, gradients, textures, or other tools that add depth
It is focused on a minimalist use of simple elements, typography and flat colors.
Achieve this look:
Avoid glossy buttons, beveled edges, gradients and dimensionality.
Borrows from various styles of art:
Swiss, minimalism and Bauhaus
Brands using flat design:
Microsoft, Windows 8, Google and Ebay
Font of the month – Nevo
Nevo is a 14 style contemporary sans serif designed by Stew Deane. Nevo was specifically designed for a premium feel that is suitable for anything from advertising and branding to web and screen.
Its versatility comes from the minimal, subtly unique letterforms that come in 7 weights, with matching italics for each weight making it easily adaptable to brands and market sectors.
Pantone Color Institute is excited to announce the creation of an official new PANTONE Color, Minion Yellow inspired by Illumination Entertainment’s Minions.
PANTONE Minion Yellow is an illuminating, energetic, friendly and fun-loving yellow shade that immediately calls out to you.
“Just as the sun’s rays enliven us, PANTONE Minion Yellow is a color that heightens awareness and creates clarity, lighting the way to the intelligence, originality and the resourcefulness of an open mind – this is the color of hope, joy and optimism,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute.
“A brand for a company is like reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
– Jeff Bezos (CEO Amazon)
Growing pains are a big challenge for many businesses and this was the case for Ellesmere Agriculture Ltd.
With an established market reputation and a well recognised brand identity, one of the concerns for Ellesmere Agriculture Ltd was updating their brand communications to reflect an evolved business offering whilst ensuring they did not lose the loyalty of existing customers and team members. We worked closely with the leadership of Ellesmere Agricultural Ltd to explore the possible directions for developing their brand, and ultimately established that the most effective strategy was to stay true to the heritage of the business by simplifying the brand name and evolving the logo – rather than introducing a completely new look to the market. By shortening the brand name to “EA”, a description already commonly used by the market, and adding the letter L for limited, we ensured the business did not suddenly become an unknown entity to the market. We widened the suggestion of EAL’s business offering by adding the description “AgriServices Group”, which allows the market to understand that EAL offers more than one service. The word “Group” was included to describe that the business extends well beyond it’s original Ellesmere location to include team members based in another service hub. In essence, we’ve simplified the name down to a summary of the complicated evolution of this hard-working and successful business.
To ensure staff, loyal customers and the wider market instantly recognised the new brand name and continued to apply those positive associations previously attached to the Ellesmere Agriculture Ltd name, we felt the look and feel of this simplified brand name had to retain a recognisable link to the established logo. The new logo needed to be seen as an evolution rather than a revolution. By retaining the “feel” of the old logo, but redesigning the line widths and structure of the three letters in the new main icon, we suggest a more balanced and solid brand. Viewers feel comfortable seeing very familiar shapes and colours within the logo, yet will also feel that the brand has “more to it” now.
It has been with great pleasure to work along side Sandy & Fred Hoekstra to launch their fresh new website last week. When Veehof asked JFM to design and build a new website for their business, the brief was to create a website that was fresh and aligned with their professional customer service and product offering, which they’ve come to be known for.
One of the first steps of a website build is the wire framing of the site (how will each page look and feel, what information will we put in front of a customer at any point in time, how can we engage them further with a product, service or our brand promise) this ultimately creates the conversion path to sale or contact.
For Veehof, this meant three key areas of focus; ease of navigation, a platform for education and information sharing along with a product showcase. Providing farmers and Veterinarians a website experience which makes building their own Wopa Cattle Crush (Standard, Mobile, Pro and Pro+) with all the bells and whistles (20 plus add-on’s) was a challenge our creative team were up for. Our approach to communicating all the important points like always, centred on the end goal goal in mind; building brand awareness and contributing towards business performance without forgetting the addage features tell, benefits sell.
The website forms one cog of a much larger wheel for Veehof. Their website is also used as an information and application portal for their ever popular one-day workshops and advanced courses. With website data connected to a series of cloud based software integrations, this enables streamlined communication, registration and administration processes with course participants from throughout New Zealand; a key ingredient in striving to gain operational efficiencies and enhancing the customer experience.
Consumers are becoming more educated about a product or service before purchasing decisions are made; all the information in the world, is at their finger tips. What does it take to make B2C or B2B interactions more timely and more relevant than the competition? It can often mean changing the perspective at which we look at our businesses; it takes courage to innovate. Price will always be a consideration, but by demonstrating a business understands what’s important in the lives of their consumer it shows they’re more relevant, responsive, and connected.
If you have a moment, feel free to connect with Veehof and browse around their webiste – www.veehof.co.nz
It’s an awesome feeling when you make someone’s day. It’s even better when you bring a smile to a complete stranger’s face, and encourage them to do the same for someone else.
That’s the genesis of the Pay It Forward movement: doing a random act of kindness that inspires another and multiples into many more. So when our marketing team came up with the idea of Xero paying it forward for small business owners (#xeropaysitforward), I thought it was an awesome way to get behind this social movement. We get to give something back to small businesses and their customers (and get them to pay it forward too, of course).
Here’s how #xeropaysitforward played out:
▪ We asked Xero staff in every Australian office to nominate a business (and amount) they wanted to pay it forward to.
▪ We visited these businesses – ranging from cafes and eateries to barbers, gyms and even Bondi Icebergs Club – and paid it forward to them.
▪ When customers went to pay, they were handed a card and told that “this one’s been paid for by Xero”.
▪ We filmed/photographed peoples’ reactions, and encouraged them to pay it forward.
Styling
Styling is a simple, light, sans-serif typeface inspired on old cars and planes with an aerodynamic shape. The font comes in 5 weights plus italics. Styling and Styling Alt families offer professionals a wide range of creative options.
Styling was created in 2014, while its designer was 30,000 feet in the air and the plane was flying over some Latin America cities. A flight full of flavours and shapes. This typeface is the result of anxiety and speed. Keep on rollin’ and fly high with Styling!
This months trend we would like to share with you is how objects intersect with type.
This is a difficult effect to achieve, but if done right, it pays off. The most popular objects to layer with lettering are flowers, landscapes and people. It’s not a particularly readable style, so stick to simple words and phrases, and use a plain font color so your message doesn’t get lost in the crowd.