Only is an award winning strategy and design consultancy organisation. They focus on Strategy design, Brand design, Digital design. It was set up two and a half years ago with a large client base such as Lost Village music festival since the beginning and work with sony music. Range of sectors, lots of non-profit valuable things and luxury stuff helps pay the pills.
Common misconceptions
- You need to be able to code
- It's not proper design
- It's boring
As long as you've got an idea you can explain it to a developer who will do all the technical things with it.
It's important
- Primary way of consuming a brand
- Experintial/interactive
- It's here to stay
It's the first point of contact if you like a brand you will get on social media. How you get people to engage and interact with is important.
It's exciting
- Endless opportunity
- Fast-paced
- Constantly evolving
Premier league new design is something you don't expect to see. It's more possible now because technology is evolving. Considering the digital side of it is something we bring more and more forward with the process. Considering how the way the brand feels when you move with it, the sound, the motion and language it's something to be considered earlier on in the process. How does it work? How does it respond? Think about how the brand lives on the screen will inform the visual identity and how it lives together. People think that there are loads of restrictions and that it's boring but it opens up a whole world of opportunities.
Design Process
Phase 1 - Research
Who's going to be using the product, who the competitors are, who are the users, personas. Five or six different personas for the product. This helps makes decisions throughout the process. How would this person feel using this. Example: Jane. Use this as ways of answering design questions in the process. You get your answers from actual proper research, matter into users, audience.
Phase 2 - Wireframing
These two phases you would normally be working with someone else. The strategy would be done for you. If you do your wire framing properly and quickly and fluidly then it will help when it comes to the design to have the organisation and plan there. Instead of opening a photoshop document and thinking shit.
Phase 3 - Design
This is where the design comes in more.
Phase 4 - Front End
Work with the developers on what your vision is about how it moves and feels.
Get a sample of 5 or 6 people trying out what you've designed it will help and you can build into it more.
Goldsmith University
Primarily art, needed to strike the balance of international and master students. Needed a new rebrand and new colours.
Often design starts on paper then moves on to digital.
University of Suffolk
Solution references core proposition of change. Change being the only constant and preparing students for an ever changing world. Neatly tied a reference into their place, the yellow is taken from their flag. Modern take on that. Clean, minimal, easy to apply on different assets. Keeps it on a neat format.
Lost Village
8,000 people
Music festival focuses on the experience side. Wanted something the audience could take on and own themselves. Space that's lost in time. References their old language and it's adopted by the people that attend. Based on a bespoke hand drawn typeface. Represents ancient languages. Is another brand people come into contact with it on instagram. A lot of what they do uses 15 second videos and social media aspects to promote Lost Village.
Sony
Bring me the horizon - sony open to ideas. Can look editorial and drawn from print or a graphic design background. Take it a step further with how does it move. How does it feel.
Helberts
His first brand where he moved out of Louis Vuitton. Sells in Mr.Porter and Barneys. No limitations to how it looked.
Q&A Section of the presentation:
How many pages do they do - when do you know when to stop instead of designing a thousand pages?
One page template for courses. Design a source of module based things and show it to a developer you can build on stages. We normally do maybe 7 or 8 templates. We will do a view of the entire website and what the different templates of what the different pages are and the design patterns that will sit on those pages and come up with a gallery or slider of ways to view those pages. Then just create a grid or set of rules on how they sit on each other. Probably stop after 8 because then it's too much. Put the time and effort into learning how to do stuff. We've only shown a few applications but the possibilities are endless. A lot of brands push what the possibilities are. There are no limitations at all. Think about the possibilities for your brand. It's easy to rule someone if they've not considered having an active interest as part of their portfolio.
What are your aims when your trying to design for screen, guidelines, rules, objectives?
One is that is we don't ever offer an inferior experience just because you're on a certain type of device. Need to create designs that are optimum for the device you're on. So you don't get a worse experience if you're on a phone or laptop. Accessible. It's something people roll their eyes out but it needs to be something that can be designed for things that are colour compliant. Particularly if it's for a client that has a broad audience, it cannot prevent anyone from using the products. Visual rules, space is important it's important to be able to distinguish between what content sits with which image and keeping an eye on line length and space. No one wants something that goes across the page in 12pt it looks awful. With adobe now you can just plug your phone in and check what that looks like. Just keep checking back on what you're doing.
Do you find limitations on not having your own developer? Problems?
Not really tbh. We use a few different tools to realise whatever ideas we have. Sometimes photos and illustrators are not enough or just use after effects or envision to made a crude mock up. If they have an idea and believe in it then they will make it happen. Tools like after effects and just being able to communicate them to developers is enough. Good developers will always try to create your ideas. We're always looking for people that are open to trying new things.
Do you do research for example for Goldsmith's do you look at what devices it's primarily accessed through?
Definitely get those statistics up front. The client normally hands them over. For Little Mix it's 80% mobile. For an application that was 80% mobile we would constantly be looking at the mobile experience. Some people would tell you to design mobile first but we look at desktop. We will always be looking at mobile but for getting it approve they want to see what it looks like big instead of stacked on top of each other. We still at the moment always design on desk top first.
If you design something mobile initially? How do you present it to a client?
Envision you can build a crude prototype on a phone. It's like a working prototype so you can show it on a phone, on mobile and desktop. The reality of actually designing it is desktop but the client will always get to review the entire experience.
With a brand like Helberts, do you find it a challenge to reflect a luxury brand on screen whereas on print it might be easier to apply foil? Where with print methods it looks luxurious, how do you present luxury brands through screen?
The details have become really important. There's nothing on that screen really. The video becomes important. The space and screen size along with animation is really important. It has a preloaded where the Halberts thing comes in. Theres a thing that is two stems that comes in. The video by default will lurch in before it loaded. All these little details such as subtle touches, you don't want to just put something bad on screen. Notice in the menu change with luxury brands they're focused on all the little details so bring that into whatever your application may be it gives that air of luxury. In that instance you want to start looking at the content, clear the clutter more and bring that device. Just present the content and wherever possible bring in a little animation detail.
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