IN THE DIGITAL
COMPANY REBRAND & WEB DESIGN
Sector: Marketing Year: Ongoing
THE BRIEF
In The Digital is a collective of freelance creatives striving to provide unique, engaging and innovative digital experiences for anyone requiring professional design, development and marketing services. Functioning in a similar way to that of a creative agency, In The Digital separate themselves from the norm by allocating hand picked freelance teams best equipped to provide personal, expert assistance on every project for every client.
The challenge for this brief was to meet two deliverables; a complete company re-brand and a fully responsive corporate site. With this in mind, this project begun as a relatively blank canvas that allowed for the construction of a fresh company image to match their talent and ambitions.
THE SOLUTION
Because In The Digital were already an established company, they had an existing identity that they were currently running with. Their original brand was built around the idea of their company name being the prefix of each of their services (i.e In The Digital... 'Marketing'), using the ellipses to encompass this concept. While the essence of this concept was present in their original design, we could do one better.
The key factor to this rebrand was making sure that the new identity captured elements of the old but brought the overall image into the now so that the brand could attract new audiences and continue to compete in the ever-growing modern market. The two elements that I immediately knew I was keeping were the encasing 'D' shape to represent 'Digital' along with the ellipsis which represented the companies overall message. While reworking the concept I wanted to reconstruct the 'D' so that it was immediately more recognisable and simplified to move away from what became known as the 'Sim Card D' in the original. I re-purposed the ellipsis to become the form of the letter 'I' to further encompass another element of the name while retaining the most important parts of the original concept. The mark was then tested within an encasing shape and without to gain a sense of it's versatility and what it could achieve in both states. Once the general concept was approved, it was decided that the icon would primarily be used encased within the rectangle as the core brand identifier as it helped to further the readability and memorability of the design.
With the mark now signed off, the integration with the wordmark began. The original design featured repetition in the implementation of the brand name as well as the ellipsis so these were the first things to be stripped away. The next area to be addressed was the general style of the type as the existing style didn't seem quite fit for purpose as the lettering had more of a tech aura surrounding it as opposed to an all around clean, creative vibe. To ensure that the logomark could suit the wide range of services available through In The Digital without adhering to a specific area in particular, the name was kept as a simplistic sans serif type to cover all bases with an emphasis on impact and readability. The hierarchy was also organised so that 'Digital' provided the biggest impression on audiences.
The existing brand palette was bold but was a little too garish and harsh on the eye. The client wanted something that could recreate similar reactions but with a finessed touch. The yellow was dropped in favour of a vibrant green that was subtly combined with a faint teal to create a delicate, appealing gradient. White and a slate blue were then also introduced to the core palette to provide a more attractive blend and allow for maximum contrast for when the colours were used together. With these four colours set as a core brand palette, there will always be a suitable combination to use with any medium in mind for any situation as it ensures that the logomark can be it's own distinct, versatile ident across all future assets.
Now that the logo reached the point of completion, a smaller but very important part of the rebrand needed some regard before attention could be focused on designing the new website. This next challenge came in the form of housing the vast amount services that In The Digital provide into categories, before giving each their own unique image within the ITD realms. After multiple conversations and hours of planning, 6 fundamental services were decided upon and organised accordingly.
When it came to the design, taking these service identities in the direction of iconography felt like the natural step. I wanted to capture each of the services characteristics in their respective icon in a creative way that still had ties to the core brand. An innovative way of achieving this was to tie in the ITD ellipsis into the designs to make these icons consistent and relatable to the company. The ultimate goal for these was to come up with individual designs that became another key part of the brand identity we were developing. Each service was then given it's own respective colour that complimented the core palette to polish things off.
To provide the client with their first piece of tangible marketing material, business cards were designed with the new look in place to allow them to get a headstart in promoting their rebrand. The cards inherited the service identities in an effective way which was taken note of for later use for when it came their own independent sections on the website. The information present was pretty standard but was presented in a clean way with maximum brand value.
The majority of the brand identity was signed off at this point and was ready for preparation for the relaunch across the client's channels. With this portion complete, the heavy lifting with the web design work could officially begin.
Near enough all web design projects start out with comprehensive organisation and planning work, and this one was no different. It was very important that this site catered to the clients needs and could provide an enjoyable digital experience that audiences could use across multiple devices and platforms. To ensure these needs were met, many hours went into wireframing the site before visual work commenced to ensure that the user flow was mapped out for an optimal user experience.
The site content was drawn out into 6 key areas - Home, About, Services, Portfolio, Case Studies and Contact - and as soon as there was an overall direction agreed upon with user flows and general creative orchestration, the design of the home page got underway. At this current time, the samples presented below are fit with placeholder imagery and body copy to communicate layout and content presence while the copy and imagery for the final site are being organised by ITD. Some lesser iconography is still in development for the team pages while member content is being arranged.
The site was designed around having the home page as the eye-catching, expressive landing page that served as an attractive summary of In The Digital as a whole. The page was designed as single screen that fit above the fold to entice audiences to interact with the sites case studies and menus. The site was also created with a full width, responsive guideline in place for optimal screen usage, versatility and maximum creative freedom.
The service specific pages inherited the 'sub-brands' that were developed previously, using the respective iconography and colour palettes to instill some vibrance and life into the site to make ITD's services engaging and appealing to their markets, while also making the individual services recognisable. With an emphasis on responsiveness, these pages paid particular attention to ensuring that the layouts lent themselves nicely to easy transformations when it came to reflowing the designs as well as having ample content to interact with to guide a user through to their desired destinations.
As with any website promoting creative services or goods, the most crucial pages for those projects are those relating to the brand's portfolio. The ITD site was conceptualised to be built around case studies being the main content and selling point of the site, using multiple prompts on relevant pages to direct attention to specific projects associated with the subject being explored.
The case study region of the site was seperated into two segments - an archive and a study post. The archive was designed to have a brand-centric design (that promoted the clients ITD worked with through their own identities), while the study post was designed to capture the challenges and solutions ITD provided to promote their own services and showcase an insight into their professional processes for potential clientele. It was incredibly important that the study post was designed as a template of sorts to ensure that it could be populated with relevant work from any specific client while encompassing the ITD brand in a responsive manner that also allowed for an accessible, easy way for the client to create new studies at any given moment.
The overall build for In The Digital's new web experience is currently under development.
All work contained inside this case study is the property of In The Digital, copyright 2019.
TESTIMONIAL
"Having worked with Jake on previous projects, including a software gaming house, I can categorically say he not only knows his stuff, but lives and breathes it. From quick turn-around logos to full branding/rebranding solutions, his work is always exemplary. Oh, and he’s a great communicator, too. 5 stars."
M. Booth
FOUNDER, IN THE DIGITAL