The Pixel8 graphic design agency in Manchester has designed and printed large format vinyl graphics and graphic designs on canvas for Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust.

The Trust, which manages 19 sports facilities in Manchester, went through a massive gym refurbishment at two of its locations, Sportcity and Belle Vue leisure centre.

As the incumbent design agency for Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust, Pixel8 we were on hand to enhance the Trust’s brand awareness at both venues; and also to help with installing the large format graphics.

Pixel8 were asked to use the “swoosh” element from the brands logo design to create a full colour, large format printed vinyl graphic design, to be placed  on one wall, and a single colour vinyl graphic design on the facing wall at the Belle Vue venue. The full colour printed vinyl graphic design measured over 26ft wide, whilst the single colour graphic design measured over 40ft wide. Both of these graphics stand 11ft high.

Large format printed vinyl graphic designs were also installed at Sportcity. The first in the main gym area measured 30ft long and over 6ft high above a large mirror. The second was applied to the upstairs gym area, it measured over 17ft wide by 13ft high.

As a finishing touch, Pixel8’s design team created full colour artwork for a series of ‘inspirational’ graphic designs on canvas featuring images of people working out in the gym.

All of the full colour designs were printed in-house using Pixel8’s large format colour printers.

Pixel8 will be providing additional large format graphic designs for the Trusts’ remaining 17 gyms in Manchester as each one is refurbished.

For more information please call the Pixel8 design agency in Manchester on 0161 228 6489, 0845 230 1336, contact us by e-mail or visit our graphic design portfolio.

In order to design and develop a truly great corporate brand, we need to acknowledge that we are all consumers, so above all the marketing hype, the fact is that we all identify with brands!

You’ll find it useful to make a note of all the things that you think contribute to your favourite brands, so that you can relate better to brand management.

What is a brand?

The word brand is used to describe the coming together of a number of elements that, collectively, create an identity. The corporate or product logo is probably the most obvious starting point in creating a brand. The colours, shape, font and icon design all convey a message and set the tone for the proposition. A brand is frequently described as having a personality and this is often conveyed through the tone and overall look and feel of everything associated with it.

When one thinks back to a happy memory, the association is not just a static picture, it evokes all the senses and this is what a brand is aiming to do. Associate, relate, empathise.

Once we understand all of the elements that go into creating a strong brand we can start to put emphasis on the importance of brand positioning. In the first instance we need to understand who the customer is.

In the same way that we get along with different people, we like, we empathise and we identify with different brands. By understanding who our customer is and what they want to achieve from their branding, we can start to position the brand to appeal to them.

Corporate rebranding exercises often take place because the needs of the target customer have changed, so the brand needs to change or be repositioned. Brand management is really about understanding the values associated with a brand and therefore its appeal to the target audience. This understanding leads to online and offline marketing techniques that strengthen, support and ultimately increase the brands perceived value. Research has shown that the stronger the brand, the stronger the long term viability of the business – customers are often much less price sensitive to brands and therefore a strong brand is often far more profitable than its competitors.

A brand can be a company name such as Virgin (corporate brand), a company name within the Virgin Group such as Virgin Atlantic or a product name such as Virgin Coke. We call the overall brand the Brand Umbrella, this sits above all the sub or product brands, offering overall values that carry across all of the brands. Each of the sub brands may be in different sectors but are all likely to have a strategic fit.

Naming a Brand

There are no easy answers to this, it’s a little like naming your children! It’s emotive and ultimately in the hands of the entrepreneur or decision maker. The brand name must have appeal to the target market – should it be straight forward, aspirational, clever, quirky? Brand renaming exercises can be very high risk, alienating existing customers. When considering brand names make sure that the names of choice are easy to pronounce, remember and recognise. A brand name can either be suggestive of the product benefits, the company image or its’ positioning within the marketing place – think Easyjet, Virgin and Costcutter respectively.

Different research techniques are currently used to test a brand’s validity with its target audience. A mix of qualitative (attitudinal) and quantitative (statistically valid) research techniques are often adopted. Given the budget many companies will start the brand development process by creating a positioning statement. This describes the key positioning for the brand, from the customer’s perspective. With new or developing brands, the positioning may not be clear, so in depth research is conducted to understand the positioning that best suits the target market.

Some of the challenges include:

How to keep consistency across all marketing communications, therefore building brand awareness, whilst keeping the brand fresh and vibrant.

Customers change, but is the brand evolving at right pace? – Too fast and you alienate the core, too slow and the brand becomes obsolete.

Is pricing right for the brand? – Too high and you alienate your target market, too low and you devalue the brand.

The Harvard Business Review sites 10 Brand Commandments as follows:

1. Thou shalt not overpromise
2. Thou shalt not brag about insignificant competitive advantages
3. Thou shalt not get too elitist, arsy or obtuse
4. Thou shalt not lie
5. Thou shalt not follow directly in the path of your competitors
6. Thou shalt not shun fun
7. Thou shalt not be inscrutable
8. Thou shalt not be a fence straddler
9. Thou shalt not kill ideas indiscriminately
10. Thou shalt not get bogged down with too many shalt-nots

Online Brand Reputation Management

Companies seem very slow to embrace brand reputation management online even though the viral effect of online communication can be almost instant. Moreover, this doesn’t have to be a negative, reactionary strategy, managing reputation online is just as relevant in good times as in bad.

With the emergence of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the voice really is in the hands of consumers online. Many of the techniques adopted to communicate online are similar to those employed to optimise the brands’ online visibility (see search engine optimisation). Most of us are online and use Google to search for a product, service or information on a daily basis. It’s quite common to search for a company name only to find adverse stories written about the company, featuring on page one of Google’s search results.

Many companies never really know how much damage this is doing and all too often large corporations underestimate the negative effect it’s having on their brand. Whether real or not, articles written by seemingly like minded people online are perceived as credible and therefore effect our perception of the company or brand in question.

To learn more about developing a successful brand, visit corporate branding or call Jamie Watson at the Pixel8 Design, Marketing and Branding Agency in Manchester, UK on 0161 228 6489 or contact us by e-mail.

The graphic design team at Pixel8 were asked by BDi to design artwork for their company vans as part of a ‘re-vamp’ to their corporate branding.

As BDi’s core structure was based around CCTV, Access and Guarding, it was essential that we reflected these services in the design. We got the ball rolling by taking the new style that had been developed and applied to the website design, echoing elements into the van design to ensure that the brand had consistency throughout all of their new applications.

We were delighted to be involved with BDi at this stage for this new venture and wish them every success with the new look and feel in the future.

Pixel8 recently received sign off for the Starters Orders logo design, a new canteen area to be situated within the National Squash Centre in Manchester. It is currently an ‘njoy’ café, but the Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust wanted new branding for the café in order to fit in with it’s sporty surroundings.

Our logo designers initially provided the Trust with several different options for the logo design, as well as colour options and supporting strap lines. This was then narrowed down to two choices until the final logo was selected. From here we have produced a number of visuals to develop the brand, including how we envisage the café to look, Point of Sale (POS) graphics, menu boards, uniforms, right down to the little touches such as napkins and mugs.

Building work is currently taking place but we’ll keep you up to date with all developments.

Our graphic design team has completed a new logo design for Tipton Training, on behalf of Paul Tipton who is one of the most respected providers of advanced dental training courses in the UK and Internationally.

We have also started work on Tipton’s print design work including business stationery which incorporates the new logo.

The new logo uses a contemporary typeface, with the icon based on a technical drawing of how a perfect smile is calculated.

Our web design and SEO teams are now developing a new website for Tipton Training which will be launched within the next few weeks.

This week we had something to really smile about, as we will once again be working with one of the UK’s top dental experts Dr. Paul Tipton.

Tipton Training have asked us to design a new logo, create a new website design with search engine optimisation (SEO) and to design new print materials including business stationery and marketing leaflets.

Based on our previous successful creative graphic design work we carried out for Paul whilst at St. Ann’s Dental, it’s a job we’re really looking forward to sinking our teeth in to!

As part of our ongoing work for our client Solutions for Housing, we were asked to produce graphic designs for a full colour 8 page introductory newsletter, which reflected the new corporate branding and new website design which we also created.

We were challenged with fitting large amounts of copy in to the document which was supplied to us, as well as fitting in images. However, this is bread and butter work for us at Pixel8, so we easily managed to accommodate everything the client wanted.

The Pixel8 graphic design agency in Manchester were challenged to create a vibrant world football logo for a new sporting venture.

We chose to represent the global powers of football through the illustration of the world globe covered in the flags of the great footballing nations. Combined with a urban, grunge typeface, we think we found the perfect solution for the World Football Internacional (WFI).

We are looking forward to working with WFI on future graphic design projects.

It’s that time of year again where the Pixel8 graphic design agency is proud to have completed the calendar design and artwork for the official Manchester United 2010 Calendar Block, Desk Calendar and Pocket Diary.

The new Premier League Champions range will be hitting the shelves in time for Christmas, and it’s sure to score a success with all Red’s fans across the world.

Next on our list of graphic designs for MUFC are the Manchester United 2010 Wall Calendar, and the Manchester United 2010 Football Planner.

To see more of our latest designs please visit our MUFC portfiolio page.

The Pixel8 graphic design agency were delighted to be asked to create new design concepts for The Gentry Grooming Co. range of cosmetics.

Not only because it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our wealth of packaging design expertise, but we are hoping that it might just rub off on some of the the guys in our design studio.

We created a number of product design solutions and await the decision to create the final artwork and see the product on the shelf!