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…
Joshua wrote this on 14.11.07 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Design box
On November 16th, 2007 at 2:34 am, Smoking responded:
Social Media!
Web designers are the new Estate Agents.
On November 16th, 2007 at 4:19 pm, Will responded:
Anonymous commenters are the new traffic wardens.
On December 16th, 2007 at 1:53 am, Maureen responded:
Its better than the old brand, which needed some work but could still be pushed more. This doesn’t say cutting edge company to me, design harder, blog less!
On December 18th, 2007 at 4:16 pm, Jenni responded:
Hi Maureen – thanks for this. It raises that old chestnut – what is design?! One of our key objectives in designing the new site was to give greater visibility to the range of experiences / views / opinions within our team. This company isn’t just about Mr Nixon and Mr McInnes – it’s value lies in the people who deliver the work. We want to give our clients access to that knowledge and expertise on an open basis – so blogging is the ideal solution.
I don’t think we’ve ever stood for design for design’s sake, but rather for measurable results delivered through the right medium for the target audience. This site is nowhere near perfect, but it does largely achieve the objectives. It will progress over time -and the new brand gives us plenty of room to do this.