Synaesthesia is a relatively rare yet harmless condition which allows a person to interpret sounds, colours or words with two or more senses simultaneously. In Kandinskys case, colour and texture triggered particular sounds or musical notes – literally making the the process of creating a painting more akin to composing a symphony.

Image source: WebMuseum, Paris

The correlation between sound and colour was a lifelong preoccupation for Kandinsky, starting as a curious hissing sound heard when mixing colours in his paintbox as a child and leading to a dramatically moment of realisation during a performance of Wagners opera, an experience which moved him to say “I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.”

Looking at his body of work it is easy to see how this unique background led to such distinctly abstract art. Despite lacking the familiar features of a portrait or landscape his work possesses a beauty of its own, focusing instead on balance, tone and the interaction of shapes.

A true master of composition, Kandinsky’s unique vision pushed the boundaries of the visual arts – and that is why he truly inspires us.

His work is often characterised by three signature elements; creative use of natural light, designs which compliment the contours of the surrounding landscape and extensive use of a building material traditionally viewed as crude – exposed, cast in place concrete.

When conceptualising his structures Ando took inspiration from Zen philosophies as an underlying constant, with the interplay of nature and artificial structures often resulting in complex interweaving three-dimensional designs that come together to form large geometric shapes which transverse both interior and exterior spaces – intended to represent the dual nature of existence.

Ando’s mindset of respecting the world around us and living in harmony with nature has inspired a generation of architects who are taking design to its natural extension of environmentally friendly designs. Even former England football star Gary Neville is onboard with this philosophy, having recently commissioned a custom carbon neutral mansion built into a hillside to avoid detracting from the surrounding rural landscape.

It’s an open source system, meaning that a community comprised of hundreds of volunteers are responsible for maintaining and updating the core software. The upside of this is that it’s managed by people who are truly passionate about using the system, so bugs and security issues are quickly patched out and it has quickly evolved into one of the most user friendly systems available.

There are also literally thousands of additional plugins available which have been created by developers to add specific functionality to your website from shopping carts to booking forms and photo galleries – making for an incredibly flexible development platform.

The main thing about WordPress is that you don’t need any technical knowledge to use it, so we’re usually able to get clients up to speed and editing their own pages within 10 minutes of showing them the backend system.  Oh, and did we mention it’s free to use? That’s sure to help keep costs down too, something that our clients appreciate too!

www.wordpress.org

Being an inflatable product meant that a puncture was inevitable at some point and this is at what is truly special about the Blow chair; they embraced this and it was released as a relatively cheap, disposable item which was intended to be fun and ran completely contrary to the traditional view of furniture. This attitude shift, combined with the ability to use it outdoors, led to it being enthusiastically adopted by the youth of the time and cemented its place as an iconic piece of 60′s design.

The blow chair itself may have ultimately been little more than a novelty but the concept behind it’s construction inspired others to create a wide range of inflatable products which have transformed the landscape of beaches and pools worldwide.

If that’s not a convincing enough case for why the blow chair is important then ask yourself this: would you rather be on a luxurious leather sofa indoors or on a cheap inflatable chair on the beach in the glorious sunshine? That’s what I thought!

The main aim of this project was to provide a clean and professional design which would give an at-a-glance overview of the courses main benefits along with booking information and the upcoming dates.

For the front of the flyers we used slightly abstract imagery that is conceptually linked to the course, resulting in a visually striking design to catch the eye of potential customers.

This was surrounded by a standardised frame featuring the MacBrac branding along with other important company details that could be retained for future flyers to maintain a consistent look and feel.

The bottom of the flyer is intentionally blank to allow for upcoming course dates  to be over-printed after the initial print run – extending the life of the design and making for much more cost effective printing. This flexible area also opens up the possibility of adding the latest offers and promotions without requiring a redesign.

Creating a dating site aimed at people over 50

The brief for this project was to create a custom template design for a new dating website to run in association with Silver Surfers Club, an online community to help people over 50 get the most out of the Internet.

The brand identity is an evolution of the silver surfers logo, with the original friendly mascot being replaced by a pair of stylised male and female computers together.

For the website design we used a light blue colour palette to tie in with the original silversurfers brand along with soft, rounded design elements to give a friendly and open visual style designed to appear welcoming to people who may be apprehensive about getting into online dating for the first time.

Along with the standard website design and registration form we also provided bespoke banners for use within the email communications and tailored the colour scheme of the backend dating site application to provide a consistent look and feel.

www.friendsamour.co.uk

This year we decided to take a traditional approach to celebrating Easter – with an equal mix of chocolaty goodness and egg related puns! A lucky few of you also received a package containing a selection of chocolate eggs so you too can join in the fun.

This project initially began as a simple content update due to Rapra having recently changed address, however we took the opportunity to also redesign the leaflet to make it more visually engaging.

As the majority of the content was preexisting this was largely an exercise in layout and aesthetics, as a starting point we decided to place further emphasis on the curved design element of the Rapra identity and use it as a framing element within the design.

The brand colour of green was also used much more prominently to give better recognition and the original imagery from the previous design was repurposed and adapted for the new layout thus avoiding unnecessary additional stock imagery purchases.

This project is a great example of how refreshing existing marketing materials can be a highly cost effective way to refresh your promotional items without all of the resources required to create new material from scratch.

With such altruistic goals this project was a pleasure to work on from the very beginning. We we’re approached with a great idea that was designed to really give back to the local community, the project already had a clear vision and a catchy name but needed a strong brand identity and website to realise its ambitions.

Branding

While the meat and bones of this project was a web based directory system the brand identity and visual style was a key factor in the projects success – even the most useful website will struggle to attract visitors if it has a clunky design and is difficult to use, especially considering the primary target audience are still taking their first steps on the internet.

The final logo design takes the form of a friendly anthropomorphic cartoon computer screen rendered in a light blue colour palette and juxtaposed against the company name in a soft, rounded typeface. This mascot literally gives the company a welcoming face in line with the projects goals – making computers and the internet more accessible to a demographic which may traditionally be intimidated by these technologies.

Website design

The website design follows a similar design philosophy with bright colours, rounded edges and large, easy to read fonts. The various sections are clearly divided by colour and feature multiple navigation routes to any given area to minimise the chances of getting lost, along with a convenient text re-sizer option and  prominent support links should they require help.

All of this is built on a highly customised CMS installation which allows the Silver Surfers Club team to easily update the website with helpful articles and list of services which may be useful for their users.

There is also an in-depth subscription model which allows businesses to promote their products or services to the Silver Surfers Club community along with a system which awards significant discounts to businesses which offer special offers for Silver Surfers Club users. These offers can take the form of a coupon that appears on business listings, allowing visitors to print and cut it out for redemption at local stores and businesses.

Silver Surfers Club has received a great reception since going live, with endorsements from numerous local authorities and features in both the local press and on the radio.

www.silversurfersclub.org

When we were first approached by iSmithers they had a new range of books to promote – they already had a set of overview leaflets prepared but they wern’t happy with the overall look and feel of the design.

We were on a strict deadline to get these items to print in time for the main books publication date, so rather than reinvent the wheel we took the existing content and evolved it into a more contemporary design.

Following a series of revisions this produced a set of great looking promotional items for a fraction of the time and cost required to recreate them from scratch. The flyers were then translated and adapted for distribution across multiple European countries – saving further time and money by getting maximum usage out of one design instead of producing additional localised versions for each country.

While we’re always happy to help you to create engaging, original content it can often be much more cost effective to just have a professional designer give your existing materials a makeover instead.

If you have outdated or unprofessional looking marketing materials then get in touch today and let us turn that powerpoint shambles into a powerful sales tool!