Here’s a little early week humor featuring the opening skit of HIVE 2011, where we’re taken into an typical (read:exaggerated for comedic value) designer/developer exchange.

Place Partners

Project Description

{brand implementation}

Place Partners is a specialist place making consultancy in Australia with an interdisciplinary approach to the creation and revitalization of great people places. They work with urban cities and communities to optimize public urban spaces for people to visit, enjoy and use. Place Partners has a well established brand identity, but had an outdated website that didn’t tell their whole story.

Our web development partners Urban Interactive Studio hired us on for the design portions of Place Partner’s new website. The goal was to update the look and feel, bring out the firm’s personality and create and interactive user experience with thought leadership, interactive maps and even a real time project portal.

View the site here

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Now fonts can’t be just thrown around anyway you choose. In order to get the most out of a typeface, it needs to be used appropriately and in context. We’ll give you some hints on how each FFOTW can be used effectively as well as uses you may want to avoid.

Font Type: Retro Decorative
Type Foundry: Eben Sorkin
Free Font Weights: 1
Commercial Use: Yes {View License}
Best Uses: Display, headlines, decorative text, especially for a Art Deco, classic Hollywood or retro feel. Great for posters and signage. Also usable as a webfont!
Not So Great For: Body content, small sizes
Appropriate Industries: Great fit for entertainment and service industries. Could work for a variety of other industries, as long as the brand is right and the design makes sense.
Probably Not a Good Fit: Anything that needs to come off as professional or serious.

If you want to get more out of your marketing collateral and come off as a professional, engaging and strategic, avoid these overused stock image clichés:

The Hand Shake

What you’re trying to say: We are all about relationships and putting you first. Trust us.

What you’re really saying: We are middle of the road, we do and say the same as everyone else. We don’t really have anything new to offer you…trust us?

Even worse if: It appears on your ‘Contact Us’ page or around contact info

The Puzzle Pieces

What you’re trying to say: We solve your problems. We are cutting-edge.

What you’re really saying: We’re masters of the obvious and not very creative. We still depend on imagery popular in the 1990′s, and we haven’t changed the way we work since then either.

Even worse if: The puzzle pieces have embossing, gradients or are 3D

The Random Skyline

What you’re trying to say: This is the city we’re located in!

What you’re really saying: We really have no idea what else to put here, so we’ll indicate the city we’re located in even though you already know that instead of trying to meaningfully engage you.

Even worse if: It’s a poor quality, pixelated and sits in the top right corner of your website header

The Hip Businessperson Silhouette

What you’re trying to say: We are ultra hip and modern

What you’re really saying: We’re trying way too hard to be ultra hip and modern. Our culture and approach is forced.

Even worse if: Silhouette’s are standing next to giant graphs or puzzle pieces

The Old School Compass

What you’re trying to say: We are experienced, traditional and will help guide you where you need to go

What you’re really saying: We are old. We think old, act old and do not like change or progression. We have giant mahogany credenzas. If you like doing business like they did in the 50′s and 60′s, please hire us.

Even worse if: accompanied by an “Old World” map

Now fonts can’t be just thrown around anyway you choose. In order to get the most out of a typeface, it needs to be used appropriately and in context. We’ll give you some hints on how each FFOTW can be used effectively as well as uses you may want to avoid.

Font Type: Modern Sans Serif
Type Foundry: Vissol
Free Font Weights: 4: Regular, Medium, Bold & Black
Commercial Use: Yes
Best Uses: Display, logos, headlines, decorative text as well as body text in certain cases. Also usable as a webfont!
Not So Great For: Should work fine as body text in most cases, but avoid small text displays like footers or fine print.
Appropriate Industries: Very versatile across many industries and uses. Could see anyone from boutique technology firms to corporate using Maven Pro. Probably better suited for modern styles and a premium look.
Probably Not a Good Fit: Again, very versatile typeface, but would probably avoid pairing it with classical style fonts such as Caslon or Baskerfield. If you own say a classical type French restaurant, you probably won’t want to use Maven Pro

Now fonts can’t be just thrown around anyway you choose. In order to get the most out of a typeface, it needs to be used appropriately and in context. We’ll give you some hints on how each FFOTW can be used effectively as well as uses you may want to avoid.

Font Type: Rounded Slab Serif
Type Foundry: FontFabric
Commercial Use: Yes {View License}
Best Uses: Display, logos, headlines, decorative text. Will work nicely combined with a sans serif like Helvetica, Frutiger or Franklin Gothic
Not So Great For: Body text or large chunks of content. We’d probably go as far as using it for an opening summary or paragraph, but switch to a type more suited for body content.
Appropriate Industries: Great for service industries such as restaurants, hotels, festivals, travel. Could also see a lot of creative and interactive firms utilizing Weston.
Probably Not a Good Fit: Professional services such as CPA firms, law and financial

Engagingplans.com

Project Description

{brand implementation}

Engagingplans.com offers a public outreach and communication web platform for urban planners. They needed an enhanced design system for their website and online advertising, utilizing vivid photography with a clean look that would be attractive to urban planning and architect firms.

With the new brand identity also came the need for a updated website. We also wanted to implement a little bit better way of displaying our portfolio. However, with all the client work to start the year (client’s first you know) our website got delayed multiple times. In the end we ended up breaking one of our own rules and left up a temporary landing page for about 3 months. Shame on us.

Anyway, we’re happy to announce that we got our butts in gear and got this thing live on the interwebs! Now we’re still doing some refinements here and there and getting the full portfolio up, so it’s still not fully operational (Star War’s reference…BOOM!). However, this means that for the next few weeks or so you’ll be consistently getting some new portfolio adds and maybe even a case study or two. In the meantime, we’re happy and relieved to be back in cyberspace. Please help us promote the new site by showing it to your all your connections!

Nova Insights

Project Description

{visual identity + brand implementation}
Nova Insights is a consultancy that helps health care providers secure government contracts. Their aim is to help their clientele win proposals by bringing new thinking and ideas to the industry. The government health care contracting environment tends to be static and “inside the box”, so Nova Insights has worked to build their brand positioning upon the idea of providing new perspectives. b.todd was tasked with bringing out this idea into a progressive and appealing visual identity. We focused on the idea of new perspectives revealing new ideas and changing a perspective to find these. We thoroughly analyzed the market and Nova’s direct competition and developed a logo that both stands out from the rest and communicates progressive thought.

We then implemented Nova Insights brand identity into a simple web design, utilizing and reenforcing visual brand elements into a colorful website that stands out from their competitors. We utilized an easy portal layout to take visitors directly into Nova’s service offerings.

View the site here

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