Finally it’s done!

What an intense labour of love it’s been rolling out the Nixon McInnes brand. My baby is born. For me, it was essential for this design to go live ASAP. The personality of NM was there from the offset but it was not being communicated in our marketing materials. 
The success of this project lies in the research phase – so often this is skipped, but with this project there was a chance to embed this important phase of work. And to be honest this is the real success of the project – once the personality was defined, the rest just flowed. You see, the design of the website is a reinforcement and expression of the brands’ essence. It is integral to the offering of NM. We are social media designers and from the off it was important to big up the blogging – our commentary and understanding of all things design/social media/techno magical; our people and the knowledge we own.  I also wanted to challenge how this information is presented – really push methods of interacting with information to satisfy the wordsmith folk as much as the visually lead user. 
Naturally this site is accessible to as many different types of users and is SEO friendly. After all if we are going to talk the talk we need to walk the walk… n’est pas? 
The design concept is minimalist, allowing the information to really stand out and has been stripped of superfluous padding and waffle – after all, minimalism is the reduction of something to its absolute purity – it’s all about honesty and plain talking, which is really big part of our culture and brand personality. 
The other major brand device is the ‘today…’ . This device goes across all out assets, from proposals, to business cards – it gives a human touch, becomes really relevant and up-to-date. I love it! Another great aspect of this project for me is the photography. I’m glad we took the bold move to commission a really talented photograper, it has made a world of difference to the visual language. We now have a range of images we can use extensively and really celebrate the people who are one of our greatest assets – its only right we did a good photo shoot. (If you like the photography visit Laura Steven’s own website). Of course with any good design there is always so much to improve upon so expect a version 2 some time soon…