Tag : Visual Identity

More Skate Hut animated Gifs!

Posted by Citrus Frog at 1:38 pm

Following our last post, thought we’d put up the last four animated Skate Hut banners.

These will soon be seen across the web advertising their fantastic online store: skatehut.co.uk

That’s all for now!

B’ham Conservation Trust

Posted by Citrus Frog at 10:39 am

The Birmingham Conservation Trust is a West Midlands based charity set up to “preserve and enhance Birmingham’s threatened architectural heritage”. Their projects secure the future of buildings at risk in and around the City Center, the sort of buildings that many other charities or developers would rather not tackle.

Birmingham Conservation Trust asked Citrus Frog to redesign their visual identity to bring it into the noughties so it would appeal to a new audience of the social networking age without alienating their current supporters.

The Birmingham Conservation Trust’s (BCT) previous logo did not allow for easy manipulation for use on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Our job was to give the Birmingham Conservation Trust’s visual identity a complete overhaul and ensure that its new logo was simple to convert into many formats across the web, as well as being a strong instantly recognisable brand across their printed material.

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We started by looking at what the Birmingham Conservation Trust was really about, raising the funds to not only save historic buildings, but also to give them a new purpose, we settled on their iconic work with the Back to Backs in the City Center near the Hippodrome. These historic building are a real part of Birmingham’s past, and now serve as a living museum for the thousands of visitors that see them every year.

Taking the Back to Backs as our inspiration we set about illustrating our version of the iconic buildings. We had to ensure that this would be detailed enough to capture the full likeness of the original buildings whilst being uncomplicated enough to be instantly recognisable even as small as 24 pixels square on twitter!

The other key elements in the new Birmingham Conservation Trust’s logo were the typeface and colour palette. For the typeface we used a bold, uncomplicated and easy to read font with a little styling. The colour scheme used bright orange to represent their creative approach to their work, against a deep graphite and stark white. These high contrast colours give the Birmingham Conservation Trust a positive visual identity and also allows for strong icons to be used across the internet.

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The final two elements that were added toward the end of the design process where the “bct” on the side of the building and the crane that can be seen clearly behind the Back to Backs. The decision to add the “bct” was two-fold, firstly it would allow for the building to be used as a stand alone icon without the full “Birmingham Conservation Trust” text and secondly the very act of putting “BCT” on the side of the Back to Backs illustration would give a new sense of ownership to their flag ship project that had previously been seen mainly as a National Trust property (The National Trust run the Museum but were not responsible for the restoration project.

The crane represents the true nature of the Birmingham Conservation Trust’s work, and is a reminder of the scale of the restoration work that is undertaken for some of their projects. The juxtaposition between the finished Back to Backs and the crane represents both parts of the Trust’s work – to restore old buildings and give them a new lease of life.

Having designed the main visual identity for the BCT we then went about creating their new printed identity with letterheads, compliment slips and business cards (all on recycled or sustainable pulp of course) and also their online web presence in the form of icons and banners.

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To stay up to date with their great work, why not follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BirminghamCT

We also worked along side Nick Booth from Podnosh on this project: www.podnosh.com | www.twitter.com/podnosh

Skate Hut

Posted by Citrus Frog at 10:41 am

www.skatehut.co.uk

Skate Hut is one of the UK’s largest online retailers of Skateboards, Heelys, Scooters and all manner of extreme sports gear and streetwear.

Skate Hut approached Citrus Frog a couple of years ago to design their visual identity and their e-commerce website, since then our relationship has grown and we now regularly update the design and functionality on their online store as well as designing flyers and other printed material to designing and sourcing their latest clothing range.

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Our most recent work with Skatehut was the design and creation of their blog, this is the latest addition to their online presence along with their regular “Tweets” on Twitter.

Their e-commerce website, the Skatehut blog, and their printed material are designed to appeal to both their product target market of teenagers and young adults and also to their largest group of buyers – their parents. To achieve this we gave them a clean design with distressed graphical aspects to add a “street culture” feel to the site.

The clean layout makes for easy navigation and clear presentation of important product information, whist the distressed graphical look adds an edge to the site that will appeal to the younger audience without alienating their parents who hold the purchasing power.

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The website is very search engine friendly, and with naturally high search engine placing and help from their Google ads campaign, this website receives an average of 4,000 unique visitors a day!

Skate Hut has also taken our advice and fully embraced the Social Networking aspect of online marketing. Skatehut regularly use Twitter to not only advertise their site, but to also get their personality and ethos across to their many followers. In their latest update we integrated their Twitter feed into their main e-commerce site as well as their new blog.

Here at Citrus Frog we love Skate Hut’s attitude to really fun marketing, from using Twitter and their blog for constant up-to-date offers and news, to their cool stickers and flyers, even their business cards are cut into the shape of a skateboard!

Visit their awesome site here: www.skatehut.co.uk

Follow them on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/skatehut

Sole Creator

Posted by Citrus Frog at 4:24 pm

Adam Duffy the founder of ‘Looks Can Kill’ came to Citrus Frog with a bold idea for a new web based application which would allow his customers to design their own plimsoles.

His simple request was for a ‘Photoshop’ for footwear. We worked with Adam to help him flesh out his idea and to advise on what was achievable within his budget but which would also provide an exciting playground for his customers.

Our main goals were to unleash the creativity in all visitors to the Solecreator website with an easy to use user interface that any budding designer of any skill level could use.

So Citrus Frog set about creating an application which would allow visitors to the website to work with text, photographs, clip-art and hand drawn artwork to produce custom designs which were delivered electronically for the Sole Creator bespoke printing process. There were a number of existing shoe design applications on the internet but we managed to create an application which was streets ahead of other efforts, not only in terms of functionality and usability but also in the possibilities it opened up for would-be-designers wishing to bring their ideas to fruition.

The Sole Creator application was integrated smoothly into a fully functioning E-commerce website, also created by Citrus Frog. We were pleased to deliver a complete end-to-end experience from designing to order processing and administration of the whole process.

Wildtouch and Zeco

Posted by Citrus Frog at 2:10 pm

www.wildtouch.co.uk | www.zeco.uk.com | www.verveuk.com

Kiran Chohan is a UK based jewellery designer and manufacturer that prides themselves on the fact the all their jewellery is handmade in the United Kingdom.

Citrus Frog started working with Kiran back in 2005 when we started doing their print based marketing for their new brand of magnetic jewellery VERVE.

Since then we have gone on to become their supplier for all their print, design and web based media. We currently manage all their brands including KIRAN CHOHAN: United Kingdom, Wildtouch (wholesale and fashion), VERVE and ZECO.

For each of these unique brands we have created the visual identities, websites and e-commerce platforms, and their printed material as well as being on hand for consultation on brand values and marketing strategy.

Below: Visual Identity for VERVE, WILDTOUCH, KIRAN CHOHAN and ZECO

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Below: Websites and E-commerce for VERVE, WILDTOUCH and ZECO

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Below: A selection of printed material for VERVE, WILDTOUCH, KIRAN CHOHAN and ZECO

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Visit the Zeco website here: www.zeco.uk.com

And why not follow Zeco Jewellery on Twitter too! www.twitter.com/zecouk

Visit the Verve website here: www.verveuk.com

And why not follow Verve Magnetic  Jewellery on Twitter too! www.twitter.com/verveuk

Visit the Wildtouch website here: www.wildtouch.co.uk