Tag Archive for 'identity'

Great design – It all adds up

Published on June 17, 2010 in Brand and identity, Corporate and Design. 1 Comment Tags: branding, Corporate, design, design inspiration, Hatton Grange, identity, start-up, Stock Spirits, venture-backed, web site, website.

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.

Hatton Grange – Identity, Personality, and Capability Too

Published on June 16, 2010 in Brand and identity, Finance and investment and Web. 0 Comments Tags: branding, Corporate, executive, Hatton Grange, Hector MacAndrew, identity, investment, key skills, media investment, non-executive, portfolio companies, private equity, recruitment, senior managers, Simon Mellor, technology investment, venture capital, web design, wild west design, WildWest design.

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.

Do-it-yourself identities? Oh no…

Published on February 24, 2010 in Design. 0 Comments Tags: Advertising, branding, business services, Corporate, design, direct mail, Display, identity, Indicus Advisors, investment, literature, logo, Marketing, PR, sales literature, Satya Capital, Secerno, Sonaptic, start-up, Tribold, Vintage Wine Gifts, Web, web site, website.

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.

One thing leads to many more…

Published on February 16, 2010 in Marketing. 0 Comments Tags: Advertising, branding, business services, Corporate, direct mail, direct marketing, finance companies, financial, identity, Inflexion, private equity, Satya Capital, web banner, web design, website, www.alcentra.com.

From the new Alcentra/BNY Mellon site

We’re certain that we can’t claim the credit, but it does have to be said that our clients – and particularly those in finance and business services – have managed to retain the entrepreneurial spirit, even through the downturn which we have (and still are in our view) experiencing.

So, while new clients have been harder to get than ever before, it’s been good to have recommendations (either because our work has been visible or because one of our existing clients has been kind enough to refer us to colleagues and friends) which have been cemented on the basis of the work that we have done elsewhere.

Our new site for the American operation of Alcentra (a long-standing and valued client of Wild West Design here in London) adds resources from BNY Mellon, and is already looking very successful.

Further from home, our work for Satya Capital, which we referred to in an earlier post, was noted by a new company working to bring investment into southern Sudan, and it has been our great pleasure to help them (though too early to reveal our work!)

Recent projects for us have included press advertising, web banners, complete websites, identity projects, display systems, corporate and product literature of different kinds, direct marketing initiatives and more! It has been a busy year already, but we’re always pleased to welcome new clients and the challenges they bring.

If you would like to see more of our work of course, just visit the home page of our website and view or print our credentials document, or get in touch with us directly.

All or nothing – start-up businesses

Published on January 22, 2010 in Finance and investment. 0 Comments Tags: branding, design resources, ecommerce, hi tech, identity, investment, logo, new look, real estate, Secerno, SME, start up companies, start-up, technology, Vintage Wine Gifts, web resources, website.

Our work for Secerno included their name, logo and animated web site

Because of our links with venture investors and others in the finance industry, we’re regularly asked to provide the design work that is essential to giving start-up companies the design impetus, and the web facilities, that they need.

Sometimes, they have to emerge like a swan, with a graceful new logo, a web site, product literature and many other kinds of design and web resources. When a company spinning itself out from Cambridge University, previously and awkwardly known as ‘Safetalk IT’, emerged into the commercial daylight as Secerno, Wild West was very proud to be the catalyst in that complete process, including the development of the new name.

When Vintage Wine Gifts emerged, from an entrepreneurial idea rather than some blistering new technology, we helped them too, with a smart and appropriate logo, stationery and packaging and of course, their new ecommerce website.

Our new identity for Vintage Wine Gifts

Putting these companies on the path to success is something we’re proud to do, but it’s difficult to manage in a commercial sense. Emerging companies just don’t have fortunes to lavish on marketing – if they do, they usually crash and burn before they get to us!

While we can’t play fairy godmother to companies like these, we can often find ways for them to reward us based on their own later success, a formula which everyone seems to appreciate.

Just this month, we have been appointed by a real estate investment company who need an identity and accompanying design and web work. Their establishment is still a little uncertain (and what’s not uncertain in these times), but when the recovery gains momentum, our new design work will be there, ready and waiting for these new entrepreneurs to catch the wave.

Short-term contract? Working in the UK? You need Carrington!

Published on January 21, 2010 in Finance and investment and Web. 0 Comments Tags: accountancy, business services, Carrington, contractors, health service contractors, identity, investment advice, IT contractors, logo, umbrella services, Web, www.carringtonaccountancy.com.

Carrington Group consists of Carrington Accountancy and Carrington Investments, both important advisory companies with an approachable style and award-winning performance, which we hope is reflected in the web sites which we built (and still maintain for them) at www.carringtonaccountancy.com and at www.carringtoninvestments.com. Their smart, colourful logos are also our work.

Carrington offer some special services for contractors, people employed to provide specific services on a temporary basis. Once, it was fairly common for IT specialists to work this way, but now its common for all kinds of people, from health service workers to engineers.

Carrington Accountancy’s umbrella products keep the financial rain off the heads of contractors, helping them to predict payments and where possible, avoid unnecessary tax payments. Carrington are fully HMRC compliant and offer a great level of service.

We’re very pleased to be working with Carrington.

Christmas, and the Recovery

Published on November 25, 2009 in Unusual. 0 Comments Tags: christmas, credentials, design samples, design wild west, identity, planning, web site.

Just a month now before Christmas is upon us. Next quarter (so we’re told) is the one when the UK finally emerges from recession.

Whether it does or it doesn’t, companies around the UK should be better structured to take advantage of the opportunities that do come along – more efficient probably, with every kind of expenditure monitored and scrutinised.

Marketing expenditure is no different. Fortunately, because we can offer a very cost-effective service, we often benefit when times get tough. So, we’re lucky that things haven’t really slowed down at all this year. We’re grateful for the opportunity that Christmas provides, to get our new identity complete and rolled out.

At the moment, our web site is a holding site, but not long into the new year, it should be available with much more content, and show the wide range of work that we are involved in. Please come back and take a look at www.designwildwest.com in 2010.

What more do you need from us?

Published on October 20, 2009 in Brand and identity, Corporate and Marketing. 0 Comments Tags: Activation, awards, Barclays, Barclays Premier League, branding, Corporate, credentials, design, electronic marketing, financial, identity, private equity, sponsorship, start-up, Stock Spirits, testimonial, Web, web design, web site.

We’ve implemented a new web site. At the moment, it’s a simple holding site – in line with our bold new look. You can reach it on our old address (www.wildwildwest.co.uk) or on our new one – www.designwildwest.com

The pictures which you view through the WW device are samples of our work – from the ribbons on the Barclays Premier League trophy, through to our web site for Stock Spirits.

It is just a holding page really, but you can check our address, view or download our (very smart!) new credentials document or (of course) link through from the site to this blog (and we’ll be updating our blog header very soon too).

If you would like to see more from us – either on the web site or on this blog – then please let us know. At the moment we’re debating what we feature on the web site – our past award-winning work, case studies on topics as widely different as corporate naming or annual reports, or simply the kind comments we’ve had from our clients over the years. Please do get in touch if you have suggestions or comments!

And if you’ve not dealt with us before, maybe now is the time to think about whether we can help you? As you’ll see – in corporate design, in web and electronic marketing, and in sport sponsorship activation – we have a pretty good track record. Why not go to our web site now and take a look at our brand spanking new credentials document? We hope it will convince you to get in touch.

Please bookmark our address now: www.designwildwest.com

Our New Look

Published on October 16, 2009 in Brand and identity. 0 Comments Tags: Corporate, design, identity, logo.

Our new brand mark

Phew! Stage one of our new look goes live from 18th October. It’s taken us a while to get there, but you can check our holding page (and, if the mood takes you) download a copy of our new credentials document from our site. Use either the old address (www.wildwildwest.co.uk) or our new url (www.designwildwest.com). In between working for all our clients, we’ll be working on the new web site and our new stationery, which will also be going into production very soon. You can see our new mark on this post. Big, bold and confident, our new mark will help us to maintain our position as a respected supplier of corporate design services for print and display, and also for the web and electronic media.

The Cobbler’s Children – Time to Refresh our Identity

Published on September 22, 2009 in Brand and identity, Design and Web. 0 Comments Tags: branding, competitions, designwildwest, identity, microsite, PR campaigns, Web, web design, web site.

Things have changed since we founded Wild West Design in 1996. Back then, it was only just becoming important to have a web site, mobile phones were getting to be less like bricks, and web applications were just starting to be talked about seriously. The dotcom boom was still to come, global warming was just an idea and ecommerce was unknown.

In those days, the bulk of our business was display, corporate literature, advertising in print and direct marketing - with hardly an electronic communications tool anywhere.

Fast forward 13 years, and most of our business still comes from important business services companies, but electronic design and communication is something we do every day of the week.

We not only design and build web sites for companies, products, PR campaigns, offers, market research, competitions and sponsorship initiatives, but our clients often expect to use their web site and email to communicate to specific target audiences through data-rooms and private areas which we set up on their behalf.

It’s been a hectic time.

Now though, we’ve had the chance to catch up with our own web presence and identity, and you’ll see the new wild west rolling out over the next few weeks. We’ll tell you more as it happens.