Modern branding and website design isn’t reserved for the latest tech companies. Case in point: our client, Cahill Construction. Cahill is a 100 year old construction company that wanted to bring some focus to their brand. Contrary to the latest tech companies in San Francisco, Cahill has a long-standing history of impressive work and wanted a simple website, marketing materials, and brand identity to communicate that history effectively. Here’s how Project6 used minimalist design to breathe new life into Cahill’s identity.
Architecture minimalism: Focus on the business value. Many designers become enamored by the latest design trends and front-end technologies and apply them carte-blanche to their projects. At Project6, we like to use design as a means of drawing the user’s attention to the businesses’ core selling point (value proposition). What good will the latest/greatest design be to a business if it only creates friction between the user and the business objective? With Cahill, instead of “modernizing” the site for the sake of design, we improved the website architecture and focused on Cahill’s selling points: their impeccable client history and beautiful images of their amazing construction work. Information minimalism: simple, clean, and trustworthy. Ever heard of the phrase, “walk softly, but carry a big stick”? That’s a sentiment lost to many designers. Effective design communicates a business’s authority, trust, and value proposition without having to go overboard. Cahill has over 100 years of client work to talk about, but it was important for Project6 to select the main selling points and only highlight those. This form of minimalism helped to create a unified message that was clear, concise, and easily communicated across the brand’s identity. Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency.
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Does it matter if your design firm has won any prestigious design awards?
The short answer: It depends. The long answer: It depends and here’s why… A legitimate design award is one of many proof signals that businesses can use to determine if a designer’s skills are up for the task. However, not all design awards are created equal. In today’s internet age, just about anyone can create and market their own brand of “design award.” As the winner of many prestigious design awards, here’s Project6’s take on what makes a legitimate design award: How competitive is the award? Check to see how many designers were actually in the running for the award. Did 5 designers apply or 500 designers? Is the competition accepting public entries or were the nominees selected by a panel of experts? The Davey Awards, for example, is a prestigious award from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts that received nearly 4,000 entries of the finest creative work from the best small agencies, firms, and companies worldwide. Who are the judges and sponsors? Also, make sure that the judges and sponsors of the awards are legitimate industry professionals (not just bloggers and “best of” lists). The Horizon Interactive Award’s judging process, for example, involves a combination of an in-house awards advisory panel, an end user panel, and an international panel of industry professionals. The Davey Awards, on the other hand, is judged and overseen by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), a 700+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media. Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency. In web design, information architecture is the process of logically organizing content so that it can be easily explored by users. A lot of success on the web comes down to how easily your users (and search engines) can effectively navigate and use your site’s content. Additionally, successful information architecture isn’t a “one size fits all” solution. You can’t simply apply the so called “best practices” of information architecture to every web business and expect similar results. Each business has a unique value proposition, unique customer needs, and a unique way of delivering that value to their customer. This is a huge part of user interface design and often overlooked by many companies when they seek design services.
Here are two Project6 case studies that highlight the importance of information architecture in web design: The California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (CPQCC) Project6 had the pleasure of redesigning the CPQCC website. From an information architecture perspective, the CPQCC program is massive (they represent over 90% of all neonatal intensive care provided in California). Project6 planned and developed the CPQCC’s new site from the ground up. Our mission was to organize the CPQCC’s wealth of content into an easily usable and up to date resource of online tools, announcements, publications, news, events, and awards. The new information architecture not only beautifully showcased the sheer scope of CPQCC’s work in their sector, but it also enabled the organization to better fulfill their mission. Sindeo Sindeo also required expert information architecture, but in a very different way than CPQCC. Instead of organizing a library of content into a usable web resource (like CPQCC), Project6 was tasked with designing a website that clearly told the story of Sindeo’s unique approach to mortgage lending. This required creating and organizing engaging content that allows the viewer to experience the positive feelings of home ownership and how Sindeo could help them achieve it. Is your design firm an expert information architecture? Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency. Project6 believes that high quality print collateral and design is more important today than ever before. Today, people are constantly bombarded with marketing messages on the web and in print. Competition is fierce and the landscape is filled with companies fighting noisily for their share of the eyeballs. To stand out in 2017, there just is no substitute for impressive print design. As more business moves online, customers will value well-designed print collateral even more.
The Value of Print Design for Web Businesses Effective print design extends your brands reach and broadens your user base. However, many web businesses are underestimating the value that having a clean, consistent, unique print design can bring to their business. Whether you like it or not, your print collateral speaks volumes about your business. When your print collateral and brand identity are synced, it allows you to consistently speak to your audience in a clear and compelling way. Examples of areas where web business may benefit from high quality print collateral are:
If you’ve spent a small fortune building an impeccable digital brand, why not reinforce that digital message through real-world print collateral? Why create an amazing web experience for a customer, but fail to continue that experience through when they receive your products or collateral in the mail? At Project6, we use print design, as well as many other tools, as another way to influence the way people think about your brand. Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. Another interesting and challenging project for our team was to design and build a website that now perfectly represents a reputable, high-end speaker company. Committed to bringing beautiful sound as well as design to every room of a home, SpeakerCraft produces a wide range of custom installation speakers and innovative sound solutions. Their line of products includes in-wall and in-ceiling hi-fidelity audio speakers.
SpeakerCraft, which is a part of the Core Brands family, brought the Project6 Design team in to update an old website. They wanted it to not only highlight the quality of their products but to make it easier for visitors to navigate and find the information they needed. Their earlier website required manual updates so many of the listings were out of date and important dealer information was difficult to find. Another big problem with the site was it was not mobile responsive so they were missing out on serving a much broader audience. Project6’s tasks included developing a customizable design system that used a Drupal CMS. By incorporating longer scrolling pages with a flexible modular system, the design allows site’s administrators to easily update and edit content. In addition the fully mobile-friendly website provides a consistent experience regardless of what device a user is on. The end result is a clean, elegant website that conveys the SpeakerCraft brand’s true nature. Please visit Project6’s website to learn more about our SpeakerCraft project along with our other successful projects. We have experience working with high-tech, retail, educational and nonprofit organizations and would love the opportunity to help your business with our wide range of excellent graphic design services. Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. The most successful brands are not just about pretty pictures, catchy tag-lines or the ability to generate recognition but rather their value lies in the extent to which they drive customers’ buying decisions. Companies create and nurture their brand in order to influence the behavior of customers but the customer defines the brand by building a relationship based on their experience with it. Moreover since many products on the market perform very similarly, it explains why marketers often place more importance on the customer experience than with the actual functionality of the brand.
Also as many consumers tend to do business with a company they recognize and feel an emotional connection to, a well-defined brand can help to set you apart from the competition and to stand out in the marketplace. A strong brand can even help you to better survive a bad economy. At Project6 Design, we are an award-winning San Francisco graphic design agency that is committed to shaping brands and solving complex usability problems with intuitive design. We understand the ways in which design plays a pivotal role in how your customers feel about your products or services. While you may not be able to control an individual’s perception of your brand, you can influence it. Our graphic design services include branding, print materials and web design and development. We begin the process by getting to know everything there is to know about your business and what message you want to communicate. Our experience includes helping businesses and nonprofit organizations to strengthen and shape an existing brand or to create a new one. Please see our website or contact us to learn more about how we can help your company develop a valuable brand. Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency. Source: smallbusiness.chron.com/effect-brand-consumer-behavior-61767.html The team at Project6 Design knows how to help businesses and organizations create lasting impressions and to convey their story with strong branding and customer-empowered websites. In addition we are proud of the fact that we have had the opportunity to partner with so many nonprofit organizations that are doing their part to make the world a better place. One such project was to design and build the website for the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP). The philanthropic program was created to support the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol.
The Kigali amendment consists of a commitment by 197 countries from across the globe to cut their production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The agreement reduces potent greenhouse gasses used in refrigeration and air conditioning by more than 80 percent over the next 30 years. The hope is that this action will help us to avoid a projected 0.5° C global warming by the end of the century. A collaboration of 18 foundations, K-CEP’s focus is on the energy efficiency of cooling to increase and accelerate the climate and development benefits of the Kigali Amendment refrigerant phasedown. To effectively explain their mission as well as the multiple resources the program offers, they needed a website that was organized and designed to make it easy for visitors to access the information they need. Project6’s team worked with K-CEP to design and build a website from the ground up using WordPress as the CMS. The newly launched site offers easy, logical navigation regardless of what device their visitors are on. Please visit our website to learn more about Project6’s extensive graphic design services. We have examples of many of the successful projects we have done over the years and have the expertise to do the same for your business or organization. Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the innovative brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. As one of San Francisco’s leading graphic design firms, Project6 Design has been honored once again from the prestigious Horizon Interactive Awards with two new Bronze Awards for website design excellence. The 2016 winners were just announced and highlight the year’s “best of the best” in interactive media production.
For fifteen years, the Horizon Interactive Awards have recognized, promoted and awarded the best websites / website design, interactive, videos, online advertising, print media and mobile applications. Each year the organization receives thousands of entries from all over the world, and the competition is judged by a volunteer panel of industry professionals with backgrounds in diverse multi-media, graphic design, advertising and marketing. Our last blog post focused on the Traina Foods project, which was one of our Bronze Award winners. Project6’s other Bronze Award, in the category of Advocacy / Non-Profit, was for the extensive redesign of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK) website. Our success on the DRK project was important as they are a global venture philanthropy firm that supports early stage, high impact social enterprises. The organization believes that with early funding and rigorous support, exceptional leaders, tackling some of society’s most complex problems, can make the world a better place. Before we began the project with DRK, their website only supported desk-tops, and was cluttered and not easy for visitors to navigate or find what they needed. Perhaps most importantly it did not persuasively or effectively communicate the foundation’s powerful mission of supporting passionate individuals who can change the world. Our tasks included designing a longer page scrolling experience across the site in order to showcase individual organizations and breaking news. Project6’s team also simplified and streamlined the architecture. By creating a unified portfolio section, visitors are now able to browse both organizations and people. In addition we developed a new community section that allows DRK’s entrepreneurs and alumni to share news, resources, and upcoming events. As with most of our projects, DRK’s new site is built on a WordPress platform and is simple for staff to update and grow. Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the innovative brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. Throughout our many years in the business, Project6 Design has been privileged to be honored by many industry awards for our outstanding work. Most recently we were recognized with two Bronze Awards for website design excellence from the Horizon Interactive Awards; one of the leading international interactive media awards competitions. The recently announced 2016 award winners highlighted the year’s “best of the best” in interactive media production.
One of our Bronze Awards was for the website design project we did for the DRK Foundation website (Advocacy / Non-Profit). The other Bronze we received was for our website design for Traina Foods (Restaurant / Food Industry). Traina Foods, which is located in the CA’s San Joaquin Valley, grows, sun dries and produces premium sun dried fruit for Industrial Ingredient and Foodservice customers around the world, had a website that needed a complete redo. Project6’s task included redesigning and developing the site from the ground up. Working closely with Traina, we were able to fully and visually communicate their brand story and promise as well as making the site scalable to their future needs. By reorganizing the site content, we made it easier and more intuitive for visitors to browse the site and to locate the products and information they were seeking. Our team enabled a secure partner login so Traina’s partners could take advantage of vital sales tools. The redesign also included a customized ecommerce shop designed to sync with their in-house inventory management tools. Furthermore, we integrated a third-party store locator tool. We encourage you to take a look at the visually pleasing and colorful Traina site that now effectively communicates the family brand as well as the high quality of their products. Contact us to learn more about how Project6’s broad range of graphic design services can help your company communicate its story. Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. Since 2001 Project6 Design has been assisting high tech, retail, educational and non-profit organizations to communication their message through branding, print materials, and web design and development. We are one of the leading graphic design firms in the San Francisco area and we have won dozens of awards for our many projects.
Our expertise is to help clients strengthen or rework an existing brand or to create an entirely new one. We provide a wide array of services including brand family design, logo development, identity system design, custom graphics, infographics and icon design. Businesses and organizations have turned to us for help solving problems including a brand that no longer resonates with customers or a shift in a company’s direction that makes their current brand obsolete. In addition we can create a broad range of print materials that convey your brand’s personality and speaks to your audience clearly and concisely. Our services include trade show booth designs, marketing collateral, conference materials, book designs and stationery systems, annual reports and much more. However our comprehensive services do not stop there. The Project6 team also designs and builds enterprise-level, responsive websites. We use Drupal as our core development platform and create highly-usable interfaces that allow site administrators to easily update and edit content as well as intuitive navigation to attract customers and drive business. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about our graphic design firm and the many projects we have already successfully completed. Let us help move your company or organization forward with strong branding, effective print materials and responsive websites. Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency. |
We are an award-winning San Francisco graphic design firm that offers brand design, print design, and web design services that help our clients portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way. ArchivesCategories
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