crc-blog

For the Love of Wood

Amy — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:38:37 +0000

My eye has lately been drawn to the unique ways in which wood can be formed and crafted into something beautiful, interesting and thought provoking. Here are some examples of unexpectedly lovely woody things.

Tom Raffield – lighting

iCarbons – iPad skin

Ladies and Gentlemen – candle holders

Ugmonk – ampersand

Miller Goodman – playshapes

Maria Allen – pendant

Alexander Girard – plyprint

Anthropologie – pencil

Lovi – hanging hearts

Coulson Macleod – print

Hersteller – titanium ring

Five ways to tick my online boxes…

Amy — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:10:30 +0000

Online shopping is one of my favourite things in the world; I don’t need to get dressed, fight traffic, look for parking, deal with snooty sales assistants or try clothes on inside an over-mirrored cubicle with a gappy curtain! I can sit comfortably at my desk, in my slippers, browsing away to my heart’s content. Whether it’s the weekly food shop, worming tablets for the dogs or a new print for the kitchen, I do it all online and wouldn’t have it any other way.

So with all the competition out there in the online shopping stratosphere, how do you attract buyers to enter your virtual shop window? And once there, how do you tempt them to browse your wares and part with their hard earned cash? Well I’ve come up with five ways that retailers and their designers can tick my online boxes and keep my credit card company happy…

1. Email Newsletters

When I haven’t even thought about the fact that I need, absolutely need, a birdhouse to store my front door key in, an email newsletter will pop up in my inbox and let me know just how vital it is to my ongoing existence. I may be in the middle of a shedload of work, but it’s so easy to click on that email that I’m in the store in minutes and lost in it for a good while longer!

Some of the most irresistible and well put together newsletters I receive are from Hush, Graham and Green, and Not on the High Street. I’m particularly vulnerable to these tempting teasers around the festive season…

2. Free Shipping

Shipping charges can be a serious impediment to completing a purchase. I may spend days deciding on what I am going to buy, go through the convoluted process of signing up, only to find the shipping charges are extortionate. I won’t dally at this point, the deal goes down the drain, I ditch my basket and I’m off. Not because I’m cheap (well, not that cheap!) but because I know from experience what is fair in the world of online shipping costs. Online shoppers are savvy, so I say offer them the best prices you can because if you don’t someone else will. I’m a loyal person by nature but if my favourite shop’s competitor offered me free shipping, I’d be off in a minute. Free shipping? The holy grail of online shopping. If you’re a retailer, it’s a must.

Neals Yard Remedies always earns my favours when they send me an email announcing free shipping for a limited period. And Debenhams and ASOS take free shipping to the next level by offering free returns as well. Really, there’s no better turn on.

3. Inviting design

Your online store reveals so much about you, in the same way that a physical shop window does. Make it appealing enough and I won’t just stop outside to indulge in a little window shopping, I’ll actually pop in and take a look around, credit card at the ready. Like your site enough and I’ll bookmark you, with a promise to return again. Good design is all about creating an element of desire – whether it’s classic and clean, or quirky and character filled, the design of a site should excite and entice. Show your products off with clever design and modern photography and make shopping in your store a no-brainer. If you intrigue me, I will come.

Anthropologie and Caravan have quirky, ecclectic design vibes, while Father Rabbit’s no-frills elegance makes me simply covet everything in their store!

4. Intuitive navigation

Good design, however, will only take me so far. If it’s not backed up by well thought out, intuitive navigation, then I’m starting to get cold feet. Travelling around a website should be a painless experience, the only effort required being to decide whether to choose the red or brown bag? I like my menus, search facilities, contact details etc, in predictable places. Bad navigation is like driving down a road and finding the traffic lights on top of the buildings! Navigation that is intuitive allows me to focus on hunting through your products, not huffing and puffing as I search desperately for how to return to the desk lamp I was drooling over but seem unable to locate again. Add to that the benefit of great product shots, well sized, with different angles, product details and dimensions, and why not throw in a video? The more I can see of a product, the more confident I will feel about your website, the more likely I’ll be to buy.

Some of my heroes of clean and clear navigation are Aubin & Wills, Toast and Zara. There’s nothing worse than buying clothes online when you’re confronted with a single thumbnail from which to make a large purchasing decision. Not gonna happen.

6. The fun stuff

I’m up for bargain any day of the week and naturally you’re more likely to entice me into your online store if you dangle a discount carrot in front of my nose. But not just discounts tempt me… REN Skincare have a great way of ensuring I return by including free good-sized samples of their products with each purchase. Nice. Naturisimo regularly push one of their brands by offering a free product on any purchase from that brand’s line. A great way to make me buy something I may not have considered, and don’t especially need! And then of course there is the competition. Companies are really pushing their Facebook presence these days, and Facebook is proving to be a quick and cheerful way to entice a ‘like’ in the promise that you may win something. Competitions never used to appeal to me until I whimsically entered one on Love Lula and won a terrific Jo Wood Organics gift set. I’ve been a Love Lula and Jo Wood fan ever since, so it definitely worked!

So in summary, if you want to create the perfect online shopping experience for your customer, provide a beautiful, easy to navigate site. Showcase your products with good imagery, tempt and tease with discounts and freebies, and provide unobstrusive shipping costs. Give them what they want and they will come back.

Divine Design Blogs

Amy — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:18:24 +0000

Here is a wee selection of design blogs that we are big fans of. They are really worth a look – such talented people, such interesting, cute and clever designs. Great for inspiration, adoration and adding to wish lists!

Ingela P Arrhenius

Sandra Isaksson

Orange You Lucky

Print & Pattern

Eight Hour Day

August Empress

Photos by Jessica

Amy — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:45:55 +0000

As designers we’re used to pouring over the results of a photoshoot hunting for just the right cover shot, sometimes only to be told the artist doesn’t like that image of themselves. The simple truth is that most people are pretty picky when it comes to how they look, whether it’s appearing on the front of a classical music cd, or sticking a photo of yourself up on your lounge room wall. We all know what we don’t mind about ourselves and what we most especially (must be avoided at all costs) hate. So it was with a little trepidation that we booked ourselves a family photoshoot recently with the very lovely Jessica from Photos by Jessica. Like us she hails from the lands down under and so we had plenty to natter about as she snapped our family skipping and posing around a chilly park one October morning. It was a such a lovely experience that we almost forgot we were having our photos taken – ahh the wiley ways of the clever photographer. And were we picky as we poured over our own photoshoot results? Of course! They are going on our lounge room wall afterall.

MVB Fonts

Amy — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:01:14 +0000

We were recently contacted by MVB Fonts who loved the way we had used one of their typefaces – MVB Solano Gothic – in a series of CD designs for Nino Rota. That was a buzz, especially for a type junkie like me. Very chuffed we are. Thanks Mark!

Why not pay them a visit… they have some lovely fonts for your typographical pleasure. mvb.com

Oh so innocent

Amy — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:16:07 +0000

I have a very large stack of recipe books that I tend to glance through when I’m feeling bored with my dietary routine but generally they seem to occupy more of a ‘coffee book’ status in my house. Having three fussy young eaters on my hands now I have a much more pressing need to buy recipe books that actually work – by encouraging me not just to sight-see but to pick a recipe and blimmin’ well cook something! So it was with hopeful glee that I discovered the Innocent cookbook. I’ve been an avid consumer of Innocent products over the years, both because they taste yummy and are vege friendly but also because their philosophy and packaging are so creative and quirky. They really started a whole new vibe in personalising packaging design, making it fun as well as functional.

And now they’ve made a cookbook and it’s fab. I even made a recipe on the second day, so excited was I by it’s contents! The artwork is, as you’d expect from Innocent, jaunty and cheeky with lots of unexpected twists and turns and hidden surprises. There is so much more in here than recipes and photos though, there are interesting additions like ‘The 10 Commandments for Washing Up’ and ‘The 30 Steps to Sunday Heaven’ and even short stories to read the kids. It’s family fun focused and full to the brim of both enticing recipes and great ideas for creative things to do with fruit and vege (a must in my house!) and makes you really want to get stuck in and have a go. Oh and of course it’s beautifully designed.

Heartily, happily recommended.

Scandi-tastic

Amy — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:54:27 +0000

Having a Swedish grandmother imbued me with an affection for all things Scandinavian and these days the buzz for Scandi-chic extends much further than Ikea it seems. In hunting about the net to furnish my own ‘hus’, I’ve discovered a lot of terrific sites out there specialising in beautiful Scandi design, some with a modern edge, others with a more traditional flavour. Here are a few of my favs:

Hus and Hem

Cloudberry Living

ISAK

Scandinavian Design Center

Scandi Living

Drift Living

Nordic House

Something old, something new

Amy — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:52:54 +0000

How do you take an old classic and make it relevant and desirable to a modern reader? Well a crackingly good cover design seems the right place to start. I’m a firm believer in the magic of the book cover to draw a reader in, enticing them to buy. I must confess to often buying books just because I love the cover so much. Perhaps that’s the wannabe book designer in me or perhaps it’s simply the designer doing a spellbinding job? Whatever the case, beautiful books are worth a look, a read, and a place on your bookshelf. Here are some lovely, unusual and creative reinventions of old classics that have tickled my fancy…

Moby Dick – Vintage Classics

Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Vintage Classics

The Scarlett Letter – Vintage Classics

Diary of a Nobody – Vintage Classics

The Secret Garden – Penguin Threads

Emma – Penguin Threads

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Penguin Essentials

Lolita – Penguin Essentials

Persuasion – Penguin Classics Deluxe

Wuthering Heights – Penguin Classics Deluxe

Pride and Prejudice – Penguin Classics Deluxe

Movie Posters

Amy — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:20:27 +0000

I’m working on my own poster designs at the moment and have been looking at movie posters as a source of inspiration… perhaps I shouldn’t have – they’re all so good! I seem to be drawn to posters that are relatively simple, with minimal text, bold use of colour and an imaginative concept. Summing up a movie in one piece of art must be a real challenge but a pretty exciting one at that!

Griff the Invisible

Bonnie and Clyde

Winnie the Pooh

Beats Rhymes and Life

Between Notes

Brave

Super

Websites with the WOW factor

Amy — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 07:24:08 +0000

I love to browse the latest and greatest sites on the web; It’s a good way to keep abreast of the shifting trends in web design, and an opportunity to check out some supreme talent at work. Big and bold seems to be the way forward at the moment, with super-sized backgrounds the order of the day. On the plus side, sites like these offer eye-catching effects and lux imagery to draw you in but on the downside, it can often be a case of design over usability, as loading time can lag and navigation isn’t always intuitive. You be the judge…