Barclays New York Challenge is a US-based curtain-raiser to the Barclays Premier League season. Here’s a link to the launch press conference (link) video where you’ll be able to see some of our brand activation work!
Tag Archive for 'branding'
Seve backs Spain's bid to host the Ryder Cup
Madrid is one of the cities bidding to stage the 2018 Ryder Cup, the golf competition that pits the best of Europe against the best of America. Wild West was pleased to help out British PR agency, Lexis by designing and producing some impressive branded clothing and other materials for the launch – all produced in double-quick time, in order to be ready for the launch event which featured Spanish golfing legend Seve Ballesteros.
Sadly, Ballesteros will not now be able to play the four demonstration holes at next week’s British Open, to be staged at St Andrews, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. His recovery from brain surgery and consequent therapy simply won’t allow it.
Inflexion chief executive, Simon Turner
Inflexion Private Equity are longstanding clients of WildWest Design. They began life on a shoestring, but have transformed into one of the industry’s top mid-market players.
It’s largely because of Inflexion that WildWest was able to develop such a strong presence in financial markets.
Now, managing partner Simon Turner is featured in an interview with the private equity trade magazine, Real Deals, about the philosophy behind his firm’s stellar performance.
70% response? Impossible! (or not?)
This direct marketing campaign happened when B2B eCommerce was the really sexy thing in IT.
Everyone was talking about it, and Ariba were the hot company within this particular technology.
The problem was that Ariba wanted to sell to big companies (Times Top 200, typically), their software was a big ticket item (for large companies it would have been a fairly substantial investment) and Ariba were new to the UK. They also wanted to talk at a high level (Finance Director).
Over a period, we jointly devised the idea of a remote-control car, branded and boxed, and a theme – ‘You can’t have power without control’ – to link the creative to the Ariba product. (’Control your spending, get better value from every pound you spend’).
WildWest sourced the car via a German company who manufactured in Hong Kong. We sent artwork for them to brand the car, which included the Ariba phone no. We thought we would have done a job even if we got the car onto an office shelf.
The key idea though, (the ’sting’, if you like) was that the recipient didn’t get the controller for the car until he returned a card – didn’t have to do anything else, though there were options to sign up for a seminar or request a meeting. The controller was similarly packaged and as soon as the card came back, it was sent off.
All this happened pre-Christmas (November) and there was a fantastic response – something like 60% in three days! There was telephone follow up just in case anyone was embarassed or had guidelines that didn’t allow them to accept (we would then send a donation to charity on their behalf). That allowed us to check whether the message had got across, if they remembered Ariba and what business they were in – all were great numbers.
We sent out about 240 of the cars. Final response was over 70%.
It wasn’t cheap. The whole exercise cost about 45k, but that was about the price of a dps in the FT – which was one of the other options considered.
Best of all was that Ariba got six sales direct from the campaign which paid for itself many times over.
No matter whether you are a start-up operation just beginning to make your mark on the business world, or an established company with a brand to protect and enhance, the way you look is important.
And it’s not so good when your website (for example) looks great, but your corporate stationery looks second class. Or your product literature is great, but you’re let down by an outbound email. High quality is important and consistent quality more important still.
At WildWest Design, we’re proud to provide that consistency of approach. Because we’re not the largest of design companies, we have to be incredibly thorough about detail, (as well as providing the inspiration in terms of the big picture), because getting things right – from a business card or a powerpoint presentation to a corporate display or a product launch – really does matter. It means business for our clients, and it means business for us too.
Our bright and confident logo for Hatton Grange, a company providing specialist services to private equity and venture capital companies
Hatton Grange (see the story directly below) are the latest new company to launch with a new identity, new stationery and new website – all designed by WildWest. They join a growing list of companies working with WildWest, either for specific projects or on the basis of regular and frequent needs. You’ll find that list to the right of this story. Scroll down to the ‘Contacts’ section.
In total contrast to this project was our work for central Europe’s largest manufacturer of branded spirits. Stock Spirits neeed to document and control the use of their brand mark over different territories, and to ensure a consistency of approach in terms of corporate websites wherever their products are sold. WildWest designed and implemented a set of ten websites, many with two and three language versions.
Different companies have different requirements, but our award-winning service can be important whether you have specific design needs, or you are concerned to have a service that will reinforce your product and service quality wherever you are visible.
The home page from the new Hatton Grange website
If you are involved with or interested in the private equity or venture capital markets, (as an investor, manager or participant) then you’ll need to take a look at WildWest Design’s latest client, Hatton Grange.
Hatton Grange is the creation of Hector Macandrew and his partner Simon Mellor. The company – a very specialist provider of services to investors and entrepreneurs in the media and technology sectors – launched last week with its bright, confident new logo, and a new website too, which you can reach at www.hattongrange.co.uk. Both were designed by WildWest.
Hatton Grange partners with entrepreneurs and investors by building networks in their chosen sectors, advising on transactions, providing executive search and consultancy services to their portfolio companies, and originating deals.
The company also supports senior managers (executive and non-executive) in their search for venture capital and private equity backed opportunities.
In a market where specific expertise, experience or knowledge can sometimes be the key to unlocking multi-million pound opportunities, we’re sure that Hatton Grange has a big future in front of it, and we look forward to supporting the company’s aspirations and growth over the coming years.
Each year, Wild West (as part of its work for Barclays) puts a complete set of display equipment into some rather nice large hotels in order to cement awareness of Barclays’ status as the sponsoring company of the Premier League in England.
Giant banners at the PFA Awards Dinner
The PFA Awards Dinner is one of these events.
The dinner is an essential part of the end-of-season celebrations, and is held just before the winners of the Premier League trophy can be known for certain.
The awards themselves, which have been won in the past by Kevin Keegan, Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham, are particularly prized by the winners, because they are awarded on the basis of votes amongst the players’ fellow professionals.
This year (2010) Awards were given to Wayne Rooney (Player of the Year), James Milner (Young Player of the Year) and Lucas Radebe (Special Award).
Wayne Rooney (centre), James Milner (right) and Lucas Radebe (left) pictured with their 2010 Awards
In this World Cup Year, to be hosted in South Africa, it seems particularly appropriate that Lucas Radebe has been honoured with an award. A South African, he has for many years rendered stalwart services to his English club, Leeds United, before injury forced him to give up the game.
You can read more about Barclays and their involvement with the Premier League in England at www.barclaysfootball.com and specifically about the PFA Awards at www.premierleague.com/page/Magazinedettail/0,,12306~2035490,00.html
Spaces for Sport in the Arsenal matchday programme
Barclays Spaces for Sports is an award-winning and international programme aimed at giving young people from deprived areas the opportunity to play sport.
It is the focus of the overall Barclays corporate social responsibility programme and operates in the UK and Ireland, South Africa and the USA.
In the UK, the programme operates in conjunction with the Football Foundation and runs alongside the Barclays commercial sponsorship of the English Premier League.
Now, Barclays have asked Wild West to put together a series of advertising feature pages, each one directed specifically to the work that Barclays and the Football Foundation are doing with each of the clubs in the Premier League, and highlighting the achievements of this remarkable initiative – which not only creates the areas for sports of different kinds, but also gives constructive assistance to community groups, helping them to get into a routine of managing and maximising the use of the space.
Barclays Spaces for Sport in Liverpool
Barclays Spaces for Sports are already up and running in the neighbourhood of each and every Premier League side and in many other areas too. But Premier League sides, and the Football Foundation too, are also taking a hand in helping to establish the credentials of these new facilities and playing an important role in attracting local publicity for what Spaces for Sports can offer.
Everyone involved hopes that these new facilities will become etched into the fabric of their local communities, providing a focus and an outlet for kids who otherwise might be attracted to gangs and crime. So, in many important ways, Barclays Spaces for Sports is helping to revitalise areas where problems of various kinds have been in evidence, and helping to get lives back on track by encouraging individuals to develop their sporting skills.
Who knows? Barclays Spaces for Sports may provide an important platform for British success in our very own Olympics in 2012. And Wild West is very pleased to be involved in this important initiative.
As designers, we’re often asked if there are rules that you should follow in order to make something look good when it’s printed or put on the web. Sadly, we have to say that if there are any rules, we haven’t found them yet. In fact, we’d go further and say that often, it’s when you break the supposed ‘rules’ that you actually get a better return.
Loudhouse logo and watermark
One fairly easy and obvious rule might be, ‘don’t make your logo too complex, and always make your name the centre of attention.’
Sound logical?
Well, not always. This is a version of the logo we designed for a market research company called Loudhouse. They wanted to have not only a simple mark that would serve as an identifier, but they wanted too, a mark which would be used as the front cover of all their research reports – which is what you see here.
The design itself reflects the ripples that spread outward from any simple act – like asking a question of clients. On subsequent pages of Loudhouse reports the ripples were used – without the company name – as a watermark. So it was always obvious who produced the data.
Or take this, the mark that we designed for Vintage Wine Gifts.
Our logo for Vintage Wine Gifts
It is in two parts for a reason. Our client wanted to emphasise their traditional quality by using a modern version of a classic typeface, which was fine. But they also wanted to reproduce an identifier by some rather specific means – through a stencil onto wine boxes, for example.
So Wild West invented the button which is at the top of their identity – a simple mark that could be stencilled or indeed used as a ‘action button’ on their web site, or anywhere else that only basic reproduction methods could be used.
Sometimes of course, a logo isn’t a logo at all, but a composite development of the corporate logo to support something else – a sponsorship arrangement perhaps, or a joint venture.
This simple but really stylish mark is one of a number we developed for the British technology supplier Okana. Okana build free-form search devices – which means they can search text and numbers or speech or music or web sites or email or pretty much anything else that is part of the way we communicate. Okana wanted to give others the opportunity to build devices based on their own licensed technology, and at the same time to show that their technology was at the heart of the device.
The 'On Okana' logo
To recognise different types of device, there are different colourways, and of course the black background makes this an ideal mark for display on a computer screen too, which is the natural habitat for a mark like this, and where it will be most often seen.
Logo’s and identities are just a part of the design work we do for emerging and established companies in all kinds of fields. If you go to our main site (www.designwildwest.com) and download or print our credentials document, you’ll get a much better view of the things we help our clients with.
Reputation, in our view, is built on design, and reputation is often what makes good things happen.
Our identity for Vintage Wine Gifts, at the time, a new business
DIY has a lot to answer for, notably the stunted growth or premature demise of many promising start-up companies.
Good design isn’t always expensive. (It does though get more expensive the less you are prepared to think through your brief, and more expensive still with your unwillingness to put your requirements in writing).
It is however, an investment, just like the computers and the desks you buy. And just as you wouldn’t think of building your own furniture or electronic equipment, please don’t think of designing your own logo, website, sales literature or advertising. These are quite simply, jobs for professionals.
Most professionals will treat early-stage companies with consideration. They will make it as easy as possible to buy their professional skills, and create the resources that all businesses need in order to grow. They may even postpone some or all of their charges until a company finds it can afford them.
Improvements to the Sonaptic logo included a strapline to show core skills
Because professionals like us like to think that we can build a basis of trust between us. That, as your needs grow, you’ll stay with us, and we’ll grow with you.
That’s good business for us. It gives us a real interest in your future and in the effectiveness of the work we can do for you.
We may not still work with all the companies we’ve helped from an early stage, but we’re certainly still doing business with Alcentra, Brands2Life, Indicus Advisors, Satya Capital and Vintage Wine Gifts among others. We’re proud of our contribution to the success of many more – including Secerno, Tribold and Sonaptic.
All these companies found success by using their own skills to best effect, and also by using ours.
Design isn’t a part-time job. When you need it, talk to professionals like us.