Tag: Tips and Tricks

What makes a great logo - Idea Digital

14th October 2022

What makes a great logo?

Going by a dictionary definition, a logo is “​a design or symbol that a company or an organization uses as its special sign.”  

Businesses need a way to differentiate themselves from their competitors. They achieve this with branding. Uniquely styled visuals for their advertising, packaging and messaging. The logo on its own is not the brand but the symbol used to communicate which company owns a particular good or service. It’s a trigger for your awareness of that brand and all that you know and feel about it to come into play. The logo is the identifier of a brand. 

Brand awareness is everything that attracts and connects people to a company’s products and services. How it makes people feel owning, wearing, using and supporting these brands adds to our sense of style, status and identity. All brands have a logo, a brand mark when advertised and shared becomes recognisable as belonging to one company over another. 

So what does makes a great logo? All the designers at Idea will tell you that logos should be unique, memorable, scalable and also work in one colour. Big brands the world over have been updating their logos to look cleaner and stronger at smaller sizes, spurred on by digital and how these logos look on your mobile screens. A quick search on Google will show how big companies such as Airbnb, Google, Spotify, Burger King and Mastercard have all simplified their logos to make them more confident and digital friendly. Interestingly Guinness went the other way and employed Design Bridge to add detail, character and life back into the harp symbol which brilliantly reflects the brand’s heritage. 

Great logos are memorable, versatile, appropriate and timeless. It needs to make sense of what it’s representing and be strong and confident when compared with the competitors. The easiest way to explain the thought and rationale that goes into logo design is to show you some of our own. Here are 3 logos we designed this year with a brief description to explain why we designed them to look like this. 

Simply Blue Energy 

Simply Blue Energy - an Idea Digital Project

A company focused on blue growth strategies to fight climate change by developing marine resources such as Floating Wind Farms, Wave Energy and Aquaculture. Inspired by the wind, our logo derives from a wind rose plot diagram, a chart that is used by meteorologists to measure the speed and direction of the wind.  

Dynamic Partners 

Dynamic Partners - an Idea Digital Project

A collective of experts who work with business leaders and their teams to give them the skillsets and tools required to enable them to thrive. Bringing insight and resource to the relationships between people in organisations takes conversation and a belief that we are better together. This logo captures these conversations by using speech bubbles to represent the D and P of Dynamic Partners with a Venn diagram overlap. The meeting in the middle is where real understanding and change occurs. 

The Arc Collection 

The Arc Collection - an Idea Digital Project

A company dedicated to the curated selection, development and management of short-term luxury rental properties in gateway getaway? cities across Europe. An exclusive and elegant logo designed to visually represents its name by using arcs to create the letters. 

Let’s consider and review some of the most successful logo designs in the market today. 

Nike Swoosh - an Idea Digital Project 

The iconic “swoosh” of Nike evokes a feeling of movement, progression and speed. Very appropriate for a sportswear brand. The symbol of a logo should be highly visible and memorable. Ideally a logo should be so recognisable that a client can recall it even after one quick glance. 

Fedex - an Idea Digital Project

The Fedex logo is famous for the arrow hidden within the letters. The negative space created between the letters E and x creates a forward pointing arrow that evokes a sense of speed, destination and perseverance in achieving goals. I got into a conversation with my sister about how to brand companies and what makes a great logo, a prelude of sorts to this article and I happened to mention the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. She came back to me a few weeks later all excited about how she finally saw the arrow and now that she has seen it, she can’t unsee it. Small discoveries like this really elevate a logo in the mind of a client. Understanding and appreciating the meaning of a logo and how it cleverly ties back to the relevance of the company really helps to build brand confidence. We all like clever, it shows consideration, thought and understanding. We want our brands to understand our needs and to feel satisfied and better off by our purchases. 

 

When I mention 3 stripes which company do you think of? It’s like asking which company uses the tagline ‘Probably’. Taking something so simple and building a brand that is supported by something so powerful, memorable and simplistic is the gold standard in logo design. The three-striped logo is the cornerstone of Adidas branding. 

This mountain emblem conveys the idea of overcoming challenges, scaling mountains and pushing through to achieve your goals. In the same way we designed the Dynamic Partners logo to feel more approachable by using lowercase lettering for the name, Adidas starts with a lower-case letter to emphasise its sportswear products are accessible for everyone. 

Great logos are intriguing, eye catching, memorable and remarkable. Some may think that a logo should visually represent everything your company is or does, but I hope this article shows this is not what to expect from a logo. Nobody needs to look at a logo and see all of that. Ideally if you can visually capture the essence of the company or product in a simple, emotive and impactful way, it can create an attraction for the brand which is ultimately good for business. 

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link building blog

1st May 2018

Link Building: 5 Things To Remember

A link building process should be central to every website’s SEO strategy. But what exactly are links, and why are they so important?  

What are links?

Links are the streets and avenues that connect websites. According to moz.com ‘search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance in the ongoing democratic opinion poll of the web. Links aren’t everything in SEO, but search professionals attribute a large portion of the engines’ algorithms to link-related factor.’ So in other words, link building is important to boost your web ranking and website traffic. It helps algorithms see what websites are indirectly connected, helping them with quality control. To put it another way – ‘your tribe is your vibe’!

Link building is the process of ‘earning’ links for your website from other external websites. Backlinks can be received from social media websites and other directories, but usually come from blog posts and the content of other websites. Ideally, you would hope to receive backlinks from other companies in your industry and field. For example, a farm compliance application company may reach out to big players in the agriculture industry, such as Bord Bia. But how to you plan an excellent link building campaign?

Here are Idea’s Top 5 recommendations:

(1) Create quality content

Before you set out trying to gain quality backlinks to your website, you have to give these websites a reason to share your links in the first place. Writing quality blog posts or articles on an industry-specific topic will surely stand out to the websites that you hope to receive recognition from. Try and make your pieces long, elaborate and thought-provoking. Don’t throw in random industry buzzwords where they don’t make sense. The algorithms will outsmart you!

(2) Guest post on other websites

Posting on industry-related websites is so key to link building. Make it a win-win situation and ask the owner of the website you are posting on to write one for your website too. More people will come across your website name and links which is sure to drive more traffic to your website. It’s a win/win for everyone!

(3) Be wary of websites linking to you

When it comes to receiving backlinks from other websites, you should focus on quality over quantity. A quality backlink is a link that comes from a reputable, well-respected website with a high Domain Authority (DA). A website with a DA score of over 60 is considered good, 40-59 ok but anything less than 40 isn’t too great. Receiving links from websites with a low or ‘spammy’ score may be picked up on by Google. Robots will crawl these spammy websites and may also deem your website to be ‘spammy’. Be selective in which websites you receive links from!

(4) Create aesthetic Infographics

Infographics have the potential to add real quality to your websites blog posts/articles. They’re simple, usually colourful, easily shareable and simple to understand. Infographics, when designed correctly, can really stand out on your website. Create an infographic that provides value to your reader. In turn, these people are likely to share your infographic on their website. Even better!  

(5) Share your content all over social media

Creating and sharing content on social media platforms is a great way to improve your backlink strategy as Google uses social signals for rankings. The best way to gain attention and traction on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram in particular, as well as Twitter is to run a competition that is sure to engage with your customers and increase the number of links going back to your website.

 

Do you have questions about your website’s SEO or online strategy?  Why not talk to Idea – info@idea.ie.

We help businesses to grow online by providing various professional services like:

Follow Idea Digital to stay updated with the latest social media trends , tips and tricks and other Irish News
Also if you want to start your career in Digital Marketing filed, Contact us today we’re hiring!

 

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28th July 2017

The Importance of Property Branding

As the demand for property rises and new homes start to seem like they ‘sell themselves’ sometimes brand can be ignored or at least pushed to ‘second place’ behind the immediate requirement to build and feed the demand. This is a wasted opportunity for additional profits, building brand recognition and long term corporate growth. While square footage is at a premium in Ireland, developers are not. Don’t sell yourself short!

 

Why Invest In Your Brand?

By failing to build a brand, property developers can not only be losing out on potential additional profits but also long-term gains by building a reputation and workable case studies for future opportunities. In today’s world, the reputation and brand of the developer and high-profile case studies are central to survival and long-term success. Building your property brand ensures profits, prominence and prestige.

 

Developing Your Brand

So what benefits will a focus on brand bring? There are tangible and intangible gains for both developer and buyer:

● Developing a sense of place and community

● Creating a greater sense of pride of place and belonging for a new home development or town centre

● Adding monetary value to the householder as an investment purchase

● Adding monetary value to the developer by phasing the sales releases (a potential buyer is more likely to remember and be enticed by ‘Luxury Lake View: Phase 2 ’

● Future-proofing both the area and the investment for further phases

 

Not Just a Name

For a new home development, a brand is not just about a new development name, but about the qualities that associated with that name and how these are expressed physically through house style, landscaping, play areas, street naming, road signage and wayfinding.

This is combined with communication touch points during the planning, build and sales phases from brochures, signage, advertising and show units through mobile digital applications such as videos, 3D walkthroughs, websites and even virtual reality show units. A strong sense of the place is paramount to getting most customers to connect with the property.

 

Survive or Thrive – Let IDEA Be Your Guide

In over two decades of working with the property industry in Europe, IDEA has seen many great branding triumphs, as well as a large number of developers who failed to focus on developing their brand. Can you guess which group are more successful?

In our experience, those that survive the occasional and inevitable downturns, invest in their corporate profile and reputation – developing their brand as high quality, conscientious developers. Those that endure, have focussed on building the brands of their developments – and this has been fundamental to their success.

Successful property developers pay attention to brand building. This not only increases their profits in the short term but also helps achieve future development opportunities, impacts planning decisions and helps attract partners and investors- inevitably securing their long-term success.

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25th January 2017

5 Tips On Being The Best In Branding

Although there have been thousands of books written on the subject of branding, there are some simple points worth considering in relation to your brand.

 

1) Branding is not just for big companies

Too often brand experts use examples such as Apple and Nike to explain branding. This gives the impression to SME’s that branding is expensive and only a ‘Big Company’ issue. All companies and organisations have brands, they just don’t all deliver them effectively. The first step is to identify your organisation’s core values and see if these are been delivered to the right audiences. Your brand, in essence, is your business story. The variety of tool you use to communicate this should reflect your history, values and ambitions.

 

2) Your logo is not your brand

Your logo is simply the single consistent identifying mark that helps people recognise and remember you. Your brand can be the way your telephone is answered, it can be your elevator pitch as well as all the other items such as websites stationery, packaging and brochures.

 

3) Your brand ambassadors

Your most effective brand ambassadors are staff. If they don’t get it your customers and suppliers won’t. We encourage every company to explain the brand’s history and values to their staff so that they are delivered consistently.

 

4) A Strong Brand is a Consistent Brand

The key to good engagement with your brand is to keep it consistent. In fact, consistency and coherency are the two key goals of any brand. If you’re a small company it’s relatively easy but if you are larger Brand Guidelines are essential. Brands can be like a virus, as soon as you release a new brand into an organisation it simply spread. Without guidelines, it becomes a bad virus and can kill your brand.

 

5) Try to be brave

We live in an extremely visual world, 85% of your brand’s delivery will be in the visual arena. There are many bad brands out there and simply being another one should not be your goal. Be extraordinary and tell your story well, ensure that at every point that your brand touches other groups or individuals that it is striking and memorable.

 

Finally, don’t do it yourself – hire experts.

Nicholas Cloake (MIDI) Bid & Retail Account Director 

The IDEA team has created and implemented many well known brands and would be delighted to discuss any aspect of your brand with you. Initial meetings with our team are free.

 

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26th September 2016

Avoid confusion – Our tips for writing a great brief

In our eye’s, the single most important document we use on our projects is a briefing document. When we’re approached by a client with a new project we need to gather specific information which will give us a better understanding of the clients needs. While you, as a client, can easily just jot down some notes and points that the client gives you it is far more productive and organised to have a document that you can fill out along with the client and a list of questions and topics that will guide you in the meeting. Alternatively, some clients decide to write their own briefs which are just as helpful but may be missing some information so you may like to add to it.

So, in saying that, where do you start when writing a brief? Well as the song goes… “Let’s start at the very beginning”…

CLIENT BACKGROUND

If you’re working with a new creative team then it’s a good idea to give them a short background history so they will get a good understanding of you and your business. You should communicate to them what your ambitions are for the business so they can get an impression of your personality and the personality of your business.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

You need to give as much information as you can on the project itself. The deadline for the project is very important and from there you can work backwards as to what stages need to be completed by when. Details such as the objective of the job, your target market, any restrictions the project may have and examples of work you like or dislike which will give them an understanding of their expectations. You also need to let them know if you have any resource materials such as imagery or illustrations that needs to be used in the job.

PROJECT DETAILS

The next step is to determine the specifics of the job. The medium it will be executed in so whether it’s online (i.e. website or social media) or offline (i.e. brochure, packaging, signage, advertising) and all the information for this. So for example if the job was a brochure you need to discuss the size, quantity, how many pages might there be, any finishes you might like such as gold foil or a special paper.

Sometimes you might have fixed idea’s of what you’re looking for and sometimes you won’t, so you will need guidance from creatives on what will and won’t work and what idea’s they might have to best suit the project. By having all the above information first this will help you and the creative team in coming up with a strategy that works for you and your business.

And that’s it! Some of these points might seem obvious but by having them in a structured way in a document before you meet with your creative team will ensure you don’t forget anything and will be fully able to brief the job as best you can. You might find it opens up your mind to other avenues you hadn’t thought of or give the creatives a much better idea as to how the project might develop.

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14th December 2015

10 last minute gifts for your creative friends

Stuck thinking about what to get your creative friends or loved-ones this Christmas? Look no further! Designer Jess has put together a list of 10 Last minute Christmas gifts for your creative friends. Whether you’re looking to spend a fortune and really spoil someone, or you’ve got a budget for Secret Santa, this list should cover you.

Grovemade Walnut Monitor Stand

 

Posture is everything, and you want your designer friend to be able to raise there necks when they’re talking to you, so why not treat them to a stand for their monitor. It’s made from walnut and looks really cool on a white desk, and we all know how designers are obsessive over their desks (or is that just me?).

Field Notes

 

Every designer loves stationary (if they say they don’t they’re lying). Field notes are notebooks small enough to fit in your pockets and are perfect for jotting, sketching and writing all ideas down. These one are made from real American cherrywood too, perfect for your paper obsessed pals.

Moleskine Smart Notebook

 

Want to really impress them? A Moleskine that works with Adobe CC is a designers dream, first you sketch onto paper, use an app to capture your art and, tada, your pencil sketch is now a vector file that a designer can work with.

The Design Deck

A quirky and fun gift that won’t break the bank, are these playing cards with fun facts about the history of design. Test your designer friends on their knowledge of all things design, distract them while playing poker and take all their chips, muhahaha.

Mini Desk Henry

 

Again, for the desk obsessed, this cute Mini Henry Hoover will suck up and away all those bad ideas and keep your desk organised and clean so creativity has the room to flourish. Magical.

Mini Desk Terrarium

 

Add some Feng Shui to their desk with this blooming mini terrarium. Succulent plants don’t need that much attention in-case your friends are the forgetful types.

Dinogami – Origami set

 

Unleash the inner child in your creative friends with this Dinosaur themed Origami set. Comes with 50 pieces of origmai paper to create a jurassic haven. Rawr!

Adult Colouring Book

 

A relatively new craze, the adult colouring book. Whether it’s for relaxation, stress busting or just for an hour out, sitting down to colour is proven to promote calm and peace. Designers need a break sometimes, let your friends have it in this creative way.

Wacom Intuos Draw

 

An affordable tablet with great results, impress your creative acquaintances and give them more flexibility with this graphic tablet from Wacom, great for starting out and finding your style, this tablet can be the source of hours of creative fun.

Mini Desk Zen Garden

 

Do your creative friends need to calm down, just a little bit? A mini Zen garden for their desk can help promote both mindfulness and peace, yielding a clear mind for those crucial creative concepts.

We hope this helps, even just a little bit. Happy shopping!

A very happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

Jess 🙂

 

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30th November 2015

Our top 10 creative Christmas ads of all time

Our Top 10 Creative Christmas Television Ad’s of all time…

It’s less than 4 weeks to go until Christmas Day and that means the return of lots of our favourite festive television ad’s along with some new ones. Every year we look forward to seeing what John Lewis or M&S are going to come up with to entice us into their stores and get us feeling merry and bright so we decided to compile a list of our top 10 creative Christmas ad’s of all time and do a little reminiscing…

  1. Coca-Cola: Holidays Are Coming (1995)
  2. Guinness – Christmas Ad (2011)
  3. Kellog’s – Christmas Ad (1991)
  4. Penneys – Christmas Ad (1996)
  5. Budweiser – Christmas 1987
  6. John Lewis – The Bear and the Hare (2013)
  7. ESB Going Home (1980s)
  8. An Post – Snowman
  9. M&S Magic & Sparkle
  10. Boots – 2013

Do you agree with our top 10? What’s the one ad that signals the start of Christmas for you?

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9th November 2015

4 good reasons to tender

Although the key reason for any business to take part in a major tender or bid is to actually win it, there are certain times when purely taking part can be beneficial to your business.

1. Bidding increases your profile
The mere act of being included and taking part in a major bid can raise your company’s profile. This may reap rewards in future bids. It may also encourage the awarding authority to include you in future bids or indeed to ask you to supply other services.

2. Promoting your brand
If developed properly a well designed and thought out submission can promote your brand and deliver brand values. It provides the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge, and illustrate that you are an expert in your area of operation. It also provides a platform to include testimonials from successful projects that you have undertaken.

3. Team building
Any major bid requires efficient team building and team management. Whether you win or not, the experience of project managing the submission will help you develop an efficient process for bid management and also help you identify the real resources needed to take part in a major tender. Another benefit is the opportunity to identify key individuals within your organisation that can play a significant role in bid strategy and delivery.

4. Post Mortem
If you do not win the tender it is important that you find out why. Even it is simply a case of cost it allows you to assess your costing structure for future, similar tenders. If it is for other reasons such as experience or project management expertise, it allows you to revise business processes throughout your organisation that can be applied to all areas of operation.

IDEA have a dedicated Bid Management team that assists our clients with strategy and delivery for bid submissions. The team is led by Nicholas Cloake who has worked on a myriad of successful tenders from the London Olympics to tenders of every scale.

If you have a forthcoming tender please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Great Ideas

25th June 2015

Great Ideas!

Here at IDEA we believe that hard work certainly pays off. Sometimes the team will find a way to have a bit of creative and inspirational fun.

Only recently did our project manager, Mark, graphic designer, Emily, and managing director, Ciaran take part in ‘to Hell and Back’, one of Ireland’s toughest obstacle courses. Needless to say, it was messy and it was tough!

Our designer Laura Pittoni and her partner are home brewers of craft beers; of course the office had offered to give them a taste test on a Friday afternoon! We enjoyed the beers so much that the team had come up with the idea to have a BBQ in the courtyard. We’ve had a few days of amazing weather in Dublin this summer, so a small outside event did just the trick to relax on a late Friday afternoon. And it’s not just savoury foods that the team like to get stuck into. A new ritual has recently begun throughout the office, where home-baked treats are brought in to fight the Monday blues. Every week we get something different, like Laura’s pecan and pistachio tart, Elaine’s scones, or Jess’ chocolate protein balls. In these instances, it’s safe to say that we are not the healthiest of offices but it’s always a great start to a Monday morning!

The great weather doesn’t stop with us here at IDEA. A number of our team members are experts at yoga, and what better way to spend our lunch breaks on hot and sunny day with some yoga lessons from Elaine, Laura and Emily?

Here at IDEA we work hard with our clients; and it’s also good to relax with everybody here who shares different ideas and interests to learn new things, and in this sense we are growing as a team. We have the rest of the summer to discover our newest favourite activity; although it still remains that having a cold bottle of Laura’s craft beer is on top as our favourite thing to do on a Friday afternoon!

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