Blog

By Category


99 designs rebrands and leaves us wondering if quality over quantity is a thing of the past?

99 designs‘ business model puts emphasis on quantity over quality with their multiple designers and claims of “incredible results”, as designers compete to give you a “great custom design solution”.  Yes, I said COMPETE. With 4 offices in Australia, USA, Germany and Brazil, 99 designs…

Read more »

Business card design for doctors measures your heartbeat

Business card design is still an opportunity to make your brand identity stand-out. The challenge with business card design is creating a tool that stands out from the crowd whilst leaving the receiver with a memorable impression. The advent of email and email signatures have…

Read more »

NDIS forces not-for-profit brands to market.

Not-for-profit providers pushed to market The National Disability Insurance Scheme, NDIS, was designed to support a better life for Australians with a significant and permanent disability, and also their families and carers. But the implementation of it, is having far reaching and costly implications for the not-for-profit…

Read more »

Give that designer an award!

Meeting crazy demands from clients, software problems and frantically working to ridiculous deadlines are just some of the stuff designers have to put up with on a regular basis. Most of the time, the struggles go unnoticed outside the studio, so wouldn’t it be nice…

Read more »

A New Day for branding disruptive thinking to engage new audiences.

Would you launch a new newspaper brand today? Newsprint is dead, or so we keep hearing. So what do you do if your business is Newsprint? This is the kind of challenge lots of brands have. What do you do when your whole category is heading…

Read more »

From Humble Beginnings, to a Multi-Million Dollar Business – Ecostore Provide Consumers With An Alternative

A brand bringing you eco-friendly cleaning products – and award winning packaging design. Ecostore are offering substitute products to those other harsh chemical household products we all see in our major retailers. We all know these cleaning products contain many nasties, but sometimes we don’t…

Read more »

McDonald's Packaging Re-design falls short of inspiring

Will McDonald’s get bang for their packaging redesign buck? McDonald’s is set to launch a re-designed suite of packaging in the US as part of their continuing effort to keep the brand relevant with younger consumers. McDonald’s has unveiled a new series of take-away bag,…

Read more »

Pantone Colour Institute announces their colors of 2016: Rose Quartz & Serenity

  Global colour brand; Pantone announces the color(s) of the year for 2016, combining two shades for the first time – Rose Quartz (Pantone 13-1520) and Serenity (Pantone 15-3919). The choice of these two, softer colours is a response to what has been taking place…

Read more »

WWF Visual Identity Re-Design adds to the Messaging of the Brand

WWF Visual Identity Re-Design Adds to the Brand Messaging In a clever piece of brand identity design extension, designer; Yana Makarevich uses the existing shapes of the iconic WWF panda into three other endangered species animal silhouettes. Whilst none of the new three animals has…

Read more »

How much should I pay for my Branding?

What should my branding cost? So you’re at start-up/running a growing business/recently merged/feeling the heat from new competition/just stepped into the big chair and you’ve got a sense that your branding isn’t working. No matter how clear-minded you are at leading your business, the task…

Read more »

How do I know if my branding needs to change?

  When should I change my brand strategy and/or brand identity? Brand is a sensitive beast, misread the signs or fail to understand the subtleties and you can find yourself out of touch and with a disengaged market. Like much of the branding process, there…

Read more »

20 of the best Ads on Wheels

Ode to the creative truck/bus/taxi ad As a branding agency we spend most of our lives living, breathing and dreaming of ways to communicate brands in ways that have relevance and value to the lives of our client’s consumers. As the world changes, we surf…

Read more »

Bland Identity – Microsoft Launches their New Brand Identity Design

A Branding Challenge for market Leaders Microsoft has launched the latest evolution of their brand mark at the opening of its new store in Boston. The task of keeping a brand’s visual language fresh and relevant to the market is critical (we recently wrote a…

Read more »

Nike Masters the 80:20 Rule of Branding

Not all brand activities are born equal. This is a brand principle that Nike know better than most brands as the recent release of the ‘Nike sole’. The Nike sole has been developed to fit onto the ‘flex-run’ prosthetic running blade, designed for by Nike…

Read more »

The best file format for Logos

Evolving file formats In a post last year I explained ‘Why the designer needs an EPS‘. A post to clarify the differences between Vector and Bitmap files and why one might be preferable to the other. Near the end of the post I mentioned that…

Read more »

Johnnie Walker Blue – Taking a top shelf brand to the next level

A High Class Brand Problem So what do you do when you’re the global market leader? When your brand and packaging is recognized in almost every corner of the world? When your product and brand already command a premium price? What on earth do you…

Read more »

New Retail Theater – 7 of the World’s Best Store Designs

Welcome to the New Retail Era The world of retail is changing more rapidly than ever. On-line stores compete with off-line stores, fashion boutiques feature new ranges every month, and it seems almost everything can be made in China for next to nothing, creating undifferentiated…

Read more »

adidas Vs Nike – A Battle of Brand Association

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the minds of the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their…

Read more »

Apple Vs Microsoft – A Battle of Brand Association

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to…

Read more »

Audi Vs BMW – a Battle of Brand Association

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to…

Read more »

25 Killer Custom Typefaces – A Brand Design Asset

Building Your Brand’s Visual Properties When creating a corporate image for our clients brands, we focus on building unique brand properties that can be leveraged to become brand assets. A brand’s typeface is one of the visual properties we incorporate into the brand design process,…

Read more »