Isra Developments is a rapidly expanding property development company who promise outstanding quality and results. They are specialists in the development of commercial property designed to meet the needs of the occupier. Their aim is to emerge as one of the UK’s leading developers in the field through an approach that guarantees high level specifications and maximum commercial value.

VGroup were commissioned to design a new brand logo for a newly built retail development of 18 wholesale cash and carry units on Broughton Street in Manchester. Isra provided VGroup with the name Fashion Point.

The chosen logo design balances contemporary lines of commercial architecture – expressed by the contemporary use of typography, and the excitement of the fashion industry – expressed through the deep purple and zingy lemon. It will now be applied to literature, signage and advertising and (we hope) continue to attract businesses to the development for years to come.

VGroup’s primary objective of the new Capex website will be to clearly demonstrate and differentiate service offerings of the business, facilitate the collection of data on enquiries, provide a mechanism for frequent updating of content, and convey their expertise, professionalism and friendly personality. Case studies of completed projects will also be available as downloadable pdf’s to showcase their capabilities. The company brochure will be an overview of key USP’s and contact information to work as a part of their new collateral.

With our capabilities and experience in working with clients to evolve their corporate brand we see this as a positive step for Capex - to fine tune their service offering and capture more of the competitive office fit-out and furniture market.

Banksy’s “kissing coppers” stencil in Brighton, now a protected piece of public art

Art vs. vandalism
Graffiti has long stopped being considered all out vandalism with the term ‘street art’ being more widely used as a more positive description of graffiti in urban environments.

Street art in Brighton has become a much-loved part of the fabric of our creative city and particularly recently, areas that were previously nothing but a fly-tipped eyesore have been cleaned up, with local street artists given permission and financial support to use these walls for murals.

Some councils and commercial property owners around the country have done well to foster a tolerance – as opposed to zero tolerance of vandalism – and recognising that rather than degrade environments, street art can do a lot to improve them.

Who decides?
However, the distinction between whether graffiti is beneficial to environments and communities, whether it should be tolerated and who should make these decisions has become a central issue in changing attitudes towards street art in cities around the world. With the cost of removing ‘graffiti’ in the UK reaching £27m per year, perhaps the answer is not to be so quick to remove it?

In 2007, Bristol City council came up red-faced after removing a Banksy mural reported to be worth over £100,000, sparking public outrage and the beginnings of the formulation of an official policy to manage the issue of street art. A test poll run earlier this year regarding another Banksy piece in Bristol, resulted in 93% of respondents supporting it’s preservation. Bristol City Council has now formally published the first draft of its tolerance policy.

A fresh approach
While there is controversy among street artists about how this policy is exercised, and some early mistakes have been made by the council, these are positive steps towards the acceptance of different perceptions of art in society, and making judgements that reflect communities wishes rather than exercising black and white rules. Work is now in progress towards a social media initiative that will allow photos of graffiti to be posted online for the public to vote whether the piece should remain or not.

Unsurprisingly, the fine art world is not impressed; art critic Brian Sewell objected that the council are “bonkers” and that “the two words ‘graffiti’ and ‘art’ should never be put together … the public doesn’t know good from bad.”
(Guardian.co.uk, August 2009)

Personally, I think this initiative shows a positive step forward not only in dealing with this issue but in transparency in society and the use of social media to involve communities in choices about their environment. It means that not only are the public getting a say in their environment (as opposed to one person who complains because they may not like something or do not approve of graffiti), but that street artists – and taggers - are being judged by their peers and the community, not just someone at the council – or some fine art boffin.

Bristol Council’s initiative is just one of many connecting the public with street art in changing urban environments.

View Brighton street art on the BBC website.

The Bristol Street Art Project features Bristol street art and an interactive walking map of where to find it all.

Street Art Dealer is a technology innovation allowing the public to get more info on public art, in the street, via mobile phones, and also to buy prints of the work from the artists.

When Starbucks exploded onto our high streets back in the 1990s it was something novel, exotic and against our British sensibilities, a place to hang out, loosen our ties and soak in those vibes of a new funky, indie coffee shop. At the time we all watched Friends and we wanted a place like Central Perk. It was shiny, sexy and we loved it.

Starbucks seemed to have coined a winning formula and they rolled it out. Oh boy, did they roll it out–everywhere–across 16,120 stores in 49 countries. The green mermaid roundel was seemingly on every street, in every city. What used to be a company that nestled in the happy-huggy brand camp containing Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods and Innocent Smoothies had turned into a big green corporate monster and their seemingly successful brand was at the heart of the problem.

Brands, however successful, need constant reviewing, revaluing and reconsidering. Starbucks had taken their then successful brand and steamed on ahead with it without a backwards glance or thought of consequence. But consumer ideas and ideals constantly change and brands are at the mercy of their audience. We’ve been banging on about localisation, ethical values and honesty for years, particularly in the food market and Starbucks should have been all ears. We go to farmers markets, we watch the celeb chefs on telly telling us to buy from our hardworking butcher. We want original, fresh and honest not an identikit consumer experience.

Despite many companies taking this on board, Starbucks woke up and smelt the coffee far too late and have opted to take the rather extreme and incredibly risky measure of removing their brand completely. Currently they are trialling a new coffee shop in Seattle, which has been stripped of any existing branding. Infact, they have gone as far to name it 15^TH Ave. Coffee and Tea, the only reference to themselves is the line “Inspired by Starbucks” in smaller text underneath. The interior and feel of the place is that of a typical independent US coffee shop, chalkboards and vintage leather sofas. They even sell beer and have open mic nights.

I think Starbucks have already gone in too far and the cost of this brand back peddling with be far higher than to have implemented a brand rethink when warning bells began ringing. Such is the negativity that has build up towards the brand that it may not even work at all!

One company that seems to have done their homework is Zizzi, a chain of pizza and pasta restaurants. They are currently inviting local artists to work on the interiors with them. Although the guts of the restaurants have been retained like the furniture and the menu, they have tailored each restaurant with specific themes that local people can connect with. And they have actioned this exactly at the right time in their company growth too.

Although food retail is just one industry sector, the same is true for all sectors and brands, big or small, whether they need to reflect the current financial environment, sector specific trends, fashion or politics.

So the moral of the Starbucks story is, if your brand is working well for you then great, but it is best not to rest on laurels and to get the best possible value from it, never take it for granted. Branding is not an ugly word at all. It is the heart of how a company expresses themselves. But the heart is a beating, living thing and so is a brand. A great brand grows with you, adapts and changes when needed to always remain relevant, successful and fresh.

Thumbnail image on previous page via Flickr/adotjjotsmith

Estate agent branding in particular is highly visible and recognised in the area they trade, particularly in the form of property boards and they will typically “own” a colour individual to them – especially in the case of Anthony Pepe & Co, who have been trading for more than 20 years! Therefore it was important that the existing colour palette in essence was retained, although their dark green was deepened and richened and the bright yellow modified to a golden yellow to reflect the company’s quality of service and experience. In a strategic move they also wanted to capture more of the higher value sales and lettings market so our design needed to move them up-market.

As the old logo was considered too long and awkward in usage, the revised logo was stacked and housed within a cube, which is also an important aspect of the new brand.

A new typeface within the logo was chosen to give the brand more personality and to contrast with an ornate ampersand, balancing modern attitude with traditional values.

The ampersand (oh, we love ampersands!) was made into a prominent feature, and will also be featured as a brand extension on different marketing collateral, which we are currently implementing.

Here’s the transition from old to new logo version:

Is Jafaican an affected Jamaican accent, or an emerging sociolect that could potentially overtake Cockney?

Jafaican, Blockney or Multicultural London English (MLE) are all ways to describe an English dialect that has evolved organically through a  combination of elements from Jamaican, west African and the Indian subcontinent which emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly in inner London. According to research by Queen Mary, university of London, multicultural English is gaining territory from Cockney. Although its street name implies it is ‘fake’ Jamaican, researchers indicate that it is not the language of white kids trying to ‘play cool’, but rather more likely that it is a language that has evolved due to the growing exposure to a mixture of languages and cultures.

The role linguistics play in brand naming should not be underestimated. When the Toyota Yaris (meaning little lion in Swahili) was launched, its name was questioned because of its phonetic similarity to the cockney rhyming slang for ‘aris’ (aris = Aristotle = bottle, bottle + glass = arse). It was not deemed to be an issue. Cockney is a little used dialect spoken by a small percentage of east Londoners. But suppose this name was to be used for a business that was to be located in East London, or if the name was to be used for an alcoholic drink where the ‘bar call’ is important. In a crowded east end bar this name could easily be mistaken. Phonetics and semiotics are branches of linguistics that could determine the success or failure of names and potentially your business.

There are many issues to consider in the UK alone, languages, regional dialects and accents spoken which mean choosing the right name can become problematic. There is English, Welsh, Gaelic, Urdu, Hindi, Geordie and evolving dialects like MLE to mention but a few, which all create comprehension and pronunciation problems for brand names.
If you multiply these issues by the number of territories in a typical European or Global naming project it is easy to see why we have names in the market like: publishit.com (Publish It), Grey Poupon, Nintendo Wii, Gü (puddings), Bing (Microsoft search engine), Fairy (washing up liquid) and FullChoke (men’s cologne) to name a few.

Linguistics play a small but important role in the naming process. Perfect fit naming is the combination of strategic thinking, creative, legal and of course, linguistic expertise to ensure that the name works harder for your company, product or service.

The VGroup Interactive team recently attended the highly-acclaimed dConstruct 09 conference, which Brighton is lucky enough to host. Local residents looked bemused as the city suddenly became over-run with GPS/iPhone wielding, satchel/black rimmed glasses wearing, super-brainy but slightly lost-looking geeks.

With a raft of speakers and delegates from all over Europe, Scandinavia and the US, we certainly feel lucky to have this thought-provoking event on our doorstep in what is fast becoming one of Europe’s most respected digital communities.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Designing for Tomorrow” – by which was not meant simply visual/graphic design, but systems, paradigms and concepts. And while there was a LOT of talk about robots :-), there were some surprisingly grass roots outputs from some of the world’s most influential digital innovators.

There was a lot of talk – good talk – about getting the web off the web and into the real world. People have all the information they need when they are online – but what about when they are not?

Mobile is very clearly the future – but when leading mobile interaction designer Brian Fling delivered his predictions of the future of mobile, he pointed to a base set of front-end languages (albeit new versions) that are the tried and tested building blocks of everything on the web, and that digital media practitioners use every day; HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and XML. (VGroup Interactive’s Lead Developer Mark Perkins delivers the low-down on HTML5 here)

This got me thinking about what innovation really is. Innovation, in any industry, tends to be associated with more – more technology, more features, more complexity, more detail, more speed etc.

But innovation can also mean taking things away. Less complexity, fewer features, less detail … revising everything we’ve been experimenting with to give people what they need, something that works well and nothing else.

It amazes me sometimes how many things that have been around for ever still do not work very well, despite the fact we can (supposedly) take man to the moon. We really need to work on this.

We shouldn’t build things that don’t need to be built. We shouldn’t try to re-invent the wheel. We should look at what’s there and make it better – more user-friendly, less complicated and more accessible.

The future is about making digital media more human.

(For a nice collection of things that geeks think should be preserved for the future, check out the dConstruct09 Time Capsule on Flickr.)

PS: We’d love to hear your thoughts on what’s important in the future!

We all Google don’t we? If you use a computer as part of your job it’s generally how you find information quickly and is now even considered such a part of our language that it’s become a verb.

GOOGLE (verb) - The verb to google (also spelled to Google) refers to using the Google search engine to obtain information on the Web.

I’m sure a lot of us lose count of the amount of Google searches we do each day but next time you go to type in those six immortal letters into your web browser you may want to consider that a few of those Google searches can generate about the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle for your daily brew!

We love a brew in the studio, sometimes we even survive solely on the stuff while burning the midnight oil thinking of concepts or preparing presentations, so it’s a sobering thought about what an impact all of the things we do during our normal working day have on the world around us.

Emissions are caused by the electricity required to power our computers and for our computers to send their requests around the world. The more serious side to this of course is the little known environmental impact of computer and internet use. With more than 200 million internet searches estimated daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet are provoking concern. Would you be surprised to know that it contributes to a greater global carbon footprint than the whole of the aviation industry?

Alex Wissner-Gross (www.CO2Stats.com), the physicist leading this research believes that while Google is efficient, they do have a definite impact on the environment. Google claim this is exaggerated and they are at the forefront of green computing and have responded in this article.

One alternative created by Heap Media is to search using Blackle - essentially a version of Google that’s predominantly black, which given that some monitors require more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen saves energy.

All this is very interesting. We embrace new technology here at VGROUP, working with computers and being involved in new media is our livelihood and something that’s not going to change, but it’s always good to look at the bigger picture and make positive changes where we can.

On the flip side The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs say: “If everyone boiled only the water they needed instead of ‘filling’ the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity to run practically all the street lighting in the U.K.”

Now that’s a thought…. cuppa anyone?

I passed it round the studio to see if anyone could get their grey-matter round it, with mixed results, but the answer really got me thinking about how we think. As designers we have been trained to think laterally, outside the box (another piece of over-used business jargon) -  it’s one of the valuable things we bring to the table (more over-used business jargon). But often our clients and suppliers have great insights and ideas that come out of left field.

So let’s see how you get on with the puzzle. No prizes, it’s just for fun.

Instructions:

Print this blog post.
Connect all the dots using only 4 straight lines without taking your pen off the paper.
Simple.

When you know how.
Click here for the solution