The web design team at Pixel8 in Manchester has launched a new website for Geoffrey Miller Solicitors.

This national company defends drivers nationwide for all traffic and motoring offences, particularly for dangerous driving, speeding tickets and penalty points totting up.

Jamie Watson, Pixel8’s Co-Director said, “Pixel8 has a proven track record of designing successful legal sector websites, having designed sorrymate.com, a website for solicitors representing motorbike riders, Accident-Compensation.co.uk, a quirky Personal Injury website for Forbes Solicitors and a white-label website for DWF.

“We impressed Jeanette Miller with our legal sector branding and website designs, then Jeanette provided us with a brief to create a new web design and a logo design refresh that would make the brand stand out”.

Pixel8 provided a fully content managed (CMS) website featuring videos, testimonials and a unique calculator which provides a simple, straightforward method for a drivers to evaluate their offence online.

Check out the new Geoffrey Miller Motoring Offences website today! You never know when you might need them to help you! Please visit http://www.motoroffence.co.uk/

The world’s largest hotel group has once again selected the Pixel8 Design Agency in Manchester to provide corporate branding and design services.

In 2010, Pixel8 refreshed the Hotel Indigo brand for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), beating a pitch list which included three US branding giants.

Pixel8 is now carrying out a brand refresh for Crowne Plaza, the world’s fourth largest upscale hotel brand. The contract win has led to Pixel8 taking on five new members of staff at its northern quarter offices.

Pixel8 will once again report to Ed Thorne, Director Global Brand Management, Upscale Brands based at IHG in Atlanta. On selecting Pixel8 for a second time, Ed said, “Pixel8 did a fantastic job and really helped to define and create consistency across the Hotel Indigo brand. Having proved they can really push the boundaries, they were the obvious choice for our next major refresh.”

Pixel8 Director Jamie Watson said, “Once again our corporate branding and graphic design services have been picked ahead of our international competitors. This is great news for Manchester and of course for Pixel8.  Our relationship with IHG continues to go from strength to strength.”

Nigel Daws, Pixel8’s Creative Director added, “Making brands work is at the heart of what we do.  We’ve been able to demonstrate that we can develop an effective and consistent brand and create meaningful marketing collateral that works.”

Originally branded as Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, the first US hotel opened in Rockville, Maryland, in 1983. Today, there are over 400 Crowne Plaza hotels in 52 countries. In July 2009, Crowne Plaza was recognised by US magazine Lodging Hospitality as one of the industry’s top growing brands.

IHG is the world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms with over 4,500 hotels, more than 650,000 guest rooms in over 100 countries and territories worldwide. IHG Brands include InterContinental Hotels, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

IHG also operates the world’s largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club Rewards, with over 52 million members worldwide.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit www.Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489, in the UK call 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

The Pixel8 Design and Branding Agency in Manchester has created two off shoots of The Open University and are currently working on a third.

Shared Solutions is a forum to promote academic partnerships, and Back On Course is a service for people that have withdrawn from higher education before completing their studies, and offers support for returning into education.

Pixel8 provided logo design, web design and content management systems for both projects.

The websites are now live at www.sharedsolutions.ac.uk and www.backoncourse.ac.uk

Jamie Watson, Account Director at Pixel8 said, “It’s great to be working with such a progressive organisation on these exciting projects. We look forward to opening up this relationship further in the future”.

From Personalise.com, a new website providing officially licensed, personalised calendars and greetings cards to Football4Football.com, a one stop shop for all things football; it’s been a year of new opportunities for several new Pixel8 clients.

From diverse websites such as Online Performance Test Services website Blucap.co.uk, to Personal Injury website Accident-Compensation.co.uk, 2010 has been a springboard for many new propositions.

Pixel8’s new proposition process enables start-ups to work as fast as they desire! From the initial brand scoping, to logo design, web design and development through to print advertising and online marketing to support the launch, and the ongoing development of the business.

Pixel8’s brand development projects in 2010 have not just been new brand propositions for UK companies. International companies also selected Pixel8 to refresh their existing brands.  InterContinental Hotels Group picked Pixel8 to refresh its Hotel Indigo brand, and to provide social media marketing for the boutique hotel chain. US publisher Halcyon Media chose Pixel8 to refresh its Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine brand, then to design and develop a new website.

After a new brand has been developed the marketing begins! Pixel8 provides both online and offline marketing services including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Marketing to traditional marketing including brochure designs, print advertising and outdoor media.

For more information about developing new propositions or refreshing an existing brand, call the brand design and development team at Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail today.

As part of Pixel8’s ongoing calendar design work for Danilo, this year we were asked to design the official Cliff Richard 2011 calendar.

‘The Early Years’ calendar is a celebration of Britain’s best-loved bachelor boys’ early music career, which now spans an incredible seven decades.

With Sir Cliff Richard notching up over 1.5 million sales of his official calendars over the years (we think that deserves our ‘Congratulations!’), we jumped at the chance to be part of it!

The official Cliff Richard 2011 calendar features 12 images of Cliff during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Pixel8’s Manchester graphic design team retouched many of the images, including colour correcting and removal of any imperfections in the photographs. These were then resized to fit the square calendar format.

This ideal Christmas present for any Cliff Richard fan is now available online and in shops across the UK.

For more information about Pixel8’s graphic design services please call 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail today.

The graphic design wizzards at Pixel8 in Manchester created the official Merlin 2011 Calendar, which is now available online and in shops everywhere.

The spellbinding BBC TV drama Merlin is now into its third series. It follows the legend of a young Merlin and Arthur and the adventures they encounter in the kingdom of Camelot.

Complying to a strict design style guide, Pixel8 worked its graphic design magic and combined all the brand elements including picture frames, shields and textured backgrounds, with character images and photographs from the third series.

Hey presto, one Merlin 2011 Calendar!

What is branding?

Branding can do several useful things, all of which help to ensure the success of the product or service. In essence, a good brand aims to fulfil the following hallmarks:

Reinforcement of a good reputation

Encourage customer loyalty

Assure quality

Convey a perception of greater worth

Bring about a sense of affirmation

Brand reputations are often synonymous with how they reside in the customers mind.

How do we use visual tools to enhance a brand?

In the successful brand development, we look to a few key areas to determine whether their strategy is easily recognisable and also succinct within their target market. When we look to refresh a brand, we consider the brand positioning, i.e. defining where the brand is most relevant in terms of colour, tone of voice, product/service and age range.

We also look to how we visually tell the story of the brand, whether it’s a complete revamp, or just an evolution of an established brand, making the appropriate design decisions can be the difference between taking the brand forward, adding value and credibility, or not doing the brand justice.

In design terms, we look to incorporate every aspect of research that we undertake so that we can make informed decisions about how to approach the design process.

Being able to associate and distinguish brands by visual impact is of key relevance in any brand awareness exercise, ultimately, we familiarise ourselves with brand identity in visual terms more than we do any other way, therefore communicating the right message by the use of subtle colour combinations and form is perhaps the core importance to any successful brand development process.

Why is colour so important in the branding process?

One of the most important and perhaps impacting factors of branding is colour. Colour is a sensation, produced by the brain, by the light which enters the eye; and that while a sensation of a particular colour is usually triggered by our eyes, receiving light of a particular composition, many other psychological and physiological factors also contribute. Understanding the complexities of colour is an essential influencing factor when assigning colour themes to a brand based on their hallmarks and guiding principles.

Taking this into consideration, we have developed a study whereby we are able to utilize the theory of past colour experts, along with brand placement in order to assign colour themes that are appropriate for their requirements and the role they will inevitably undertake within a brand. In acknowledging our perceptions and emotional interactions with colour we are able to influenced by its psychological properties, our own experience is based primarily on how receptive we are to changing colour environments and/or colour schemes, coding, visual and verbal communication.

Case Study – Evolution of Coca Cola brand design

Coca Cola is a great example of how the established elements of the brand have been echoed in their current brand aesthetic. Derived from a solely black typographic logo, the diagram above demonstrates how the Coca Cola brand has gone from minimal tweaks and changes to complete movement away from traditional serif font, almost performing a full circle before arriving at their present day design, which ironically, is more or less identical in form to the logo in use in the 40’s.

Here we are able to see that the introduction of colour enhances the brand, the red has been chosen carefully to depict the appropriate emotional connotations with the brand, also with the font style being revived from 60 years ago, this helps to reinforce the long established successful nature of the Coca Cola brand. It’s easily recognisable down to the fact that it has gone through an evolutionary process as opposed to a revolutionary one. A nod to the past whilst maintaining the core hallmarks of a brand moving towards the future.

Overview

The study of colour is complex, made difficult by its variety of attributes, which include the aesthetic, psychological, physiological, associative and symbolic nature of our own personal interactions with it. When the eyes see’s colour it is immediately stimulated, the spontaneous nature of this reaction instinctively seeks to reproduce another, alongside the original, this infinite process aids us in the comprehension of the whole chromatic scale.

Our practice is supported by the integration of colour theory, based on pioneers of their field, we are able to structure our colour navigation using the processes outlined by Isaac Newton and Goethe, both of whom studied colour extensively and are responsible for outlining the correct use of colour alongside its complementaries.

Johannes Itten, a pioneer of colour strategies, devised 7 simple methodologies for coordinating colours by utilising the hue’s contrasting properties. Using the basic principles outlined by these, we are able to determine the relationships between appropriate colour applications, which will make the process of identifying a new accent colour(s) as accurate as possible.

In many ways, colour drives our decisions within the context of brand development, enabling us to create a brand that resonates with the hallmarks and guiding principles. Having re-organised the priorities of the colours and made distinctions between their application, we are able to develop an informed guide as to how best to implement new/revised colours into the brand process going forward.

By exploring the theoretical implications of colour and combining it with the brand hallmarks we are able to make an informed decision on the appropriation of the revised colour palette. The ability to identify the specific colour groups that will work successfully is perhaps one of the most pivotal elements in defining a brand.

For more information please visit brand design or call the Pixel8 Branding Agency in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail today.

Warner Estates has 9 major campaigns running throughout the year. Autumn Fashion was one of the campaigns they were running from September to October.

The campaign featured a live catwalk at fashion events in three major shopping centres in the North West of England. To promote the events Pixel8 designed the campaign using images from a fashion shoot supplied by Republic, and went on to design a grungy, rustic brown, chocolate design incorporating different shades of leaves to represent the Autumn season.

The campaign was designed to really stand out and attract all ages, particularly students, and fashion conscious shoppers who love to shop and be stylish.

For more information about Pixel8’s graphic design and branding services, call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

Calendar industry leader Danilo, which supplies over 10,000 retailers globally, asked Pixel8 in Manchester to create a new brand, and to develop a new eCommerce website that would allow consumers to personalise officially licensed calendars and greetings cards online.

Pixel8’s brand design team developed the Personalise.com brand then worked with their in-house web design and web development teams to create an eCommerce website that would:

A)     Appeal to a wide consumer audience as the website offers calendars and cards ranging from Manchester United and Hello Kitty to Wallace and Gromit and Hollyoaks.

B)      Allow people to order personalised official calendars and greetings cards easily.

Pixel8 developed bespoke backend software for the website that produces print ready artwork after personalisation. Using a simple four step process, consumers can now get their favourite celebrities from the worlds of music, football, TV and film personalised on calendars and greetings cards which are despatched within 24 hours.

The website allows people to put their name, or a loved one’s name on a Manchester United shirt held up by Sir Alex Ferguson or on the billboard outside Old Trafford. Hollyoaks fans could find Gemma Merna (plays Carmen McQueen) asking them to be her valentine in February or Ashley Taylor-Dawson (plays Darren Osbourne) requesting a meeting under the mistletoe in December.

Jamie Watson, joint managing director of Pixel8 said, “Danilo saw there was an opening in the market for personalised, officially licensed calendars and greetings cards, so we have set them up to fill the niche.

“Pixel8 has produced numerous award winning licensed calendar designs for Danilo over the last decade and was well placed to help them diversify with this exciting new brand. The bespoke software we created for Personalise.com has several other applications, including the creation of uniform marketing collateral for multi-site franchises. This is an avenue which Pixel8 is keen to explore.

Danilo produced its first design, an Elvis calendar, 32 years ago, and is now licensed to produce the official calendars for top brands including major football clubs, Top Gear, Cliff Richard, Glee, Toy Story 3 and Hollyoaks.

For more information please visit www.Personalise.com or call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

Pixel8 Art Director Angelina McPherson talks about designing the Warner Estate’s Christmas campaign:

“We started with a photo shoot which included the winners from the children’s ‘Face Off’ competition from each shopping centre. I then began sketching ideas on how the children will pose for each individual photo based on the creative/marketing messages and requirements.

I then Art Directed the photo shoot, setting up the photo shoot scenes, working with the photographer and coordinating the running of the shoot to make sure we covered all shots.

Next I designed the concepts based around an illustrated Christmas tree icon which had three separate colour schemes, Ruby, Turquoise and Purple. Each colour reflects a different part to the campaign. For example, the ‘Win/Competition promotions will always feature on the turquoise design, Santa/Gift promotions to feature on the purple design etc.

The campaign also required a ‘Kids’ fun element to it. So we created a character called ‘Elfis’. The kids will be handed a Trail form where they have to find Elfis hiding in various shops. Once the children have found all 6 hiding Elfis’ they win a sticker and some sweets. We will also be coordinating and organising the Santa’s Grotto event, skating baubles and Elfis.

There will also be a competition running at each shopping centre for shoppers to enter to win Christmas hampers, Nintendo’s, PS3’s etc. We have also designed all the Outdoor Media. This consisted of rear bus advertising, inside bus panel advertising, train station posters and press advertisements.”

To see more graphic designs by Pixel8 see our grahic design portfolio. For more information please visit graphic design, corporate branding or call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail