A full-spectrum freelance project for Iocolor, a small provider of fine printing for illustrated books.
Brief
The company was looking for a brand refresh and website update to support their expansion into a new product offering – custom online book ordering.
The key challenge was positioning print as a valuable product to a new digital audience, and working with their team to expand the brand and support their internal value ‘Kaizen’.
“Kaizen” [kai-zen] –
Practice of continuous improvement
Values: Quality, Trusted, Expert, Specialist, Kaizen.
Mantra: Committed to paper.
Before state
Process
Values & mission
User personas & competitive landscape
Project objectives & brand opportunities
Typography study
Information architecture
Wireframes
Visual design
User Personas – New and existing users
1 – Photographer: Andrew Macpherson
2 – Design / Architectural studio: Build
3 – Architecture firm / Gallery: Suyama Peterson Deguchi
4 – Existing customer base + spending growth
4a – Large scale publisher: Chronicle
4b – Independant publisher: Elion Paz
4c – Museum / Art Gallery: Frye Museum (501(c)(3))
Competitive landscape
A review of Iocolor identified competitors and sites that I found that fall in under the competitor label.
Opportunities
A brand with big aspirations
- Updated brand reflecting the 5 business values
- Digital transformation with connected multichannel brand experiences + online sales
- Digital & print specialists – “living in a digital space”
- Let the work speak for itself
- Connected & supportive partners of the design community
- Remain engaged with existing customers
- Community / Education / Sharing
- Environmentally responsible
The website and identity needed to be flexible enough to incorporate future initiatives and a growing number of communication channels.
Website aspiration
- Evolve the existing site stylistically
- Retain text content but also include some kind of education on print / what they do / process
- Include the new online ordering tool
- Heightened social media integration & strategy
- Expand portfolio to include case studies & more information
- Gain traction through the website
Stories & relationships
- Develop social media strategy – schedule
- Own #committedToPaper
- Provide motivation for people to interact with social media:
Competitions using Instagram hash tag – culminating in exhibition & book production - Collaborations with artists / manufacturers (clothing / beer / gallery etc)
- Happy Hour – monthly – ‘members’ can drop by for workshops/community/beer
- Continue to contribute to panel discussions and public speaking events
Brand mood board
“Where a little old meets a lot of new”
High quality photography
Consistent set of images:
- Front & back cover, open page spreads, special details.
- Book covers are always presented at the exact same angle.
Consistent lighting:
- Crisp, clean, light but visible shadows.
Detail:
- Highlight craftsmanship, tell the story of custom production work.
- Create surprise & delight by stepping outside the consistent form.
Logo study
This logo study covers over 30 fonts that had similarities to the original but also have qualities that would help move the brand forward. From this study I offered three for consideration.
Information architecture
IA (current)
About / Contact / Portfolio / Blog | Privacy
IA (client working version)
Home / Products / Services / Making a book / Featured work / About us / Contact / Login / Cart
– Keep it simple, lower level items in sub menu / page content / footer
IA (proposed)
Home / Products / Featured Work / Making a book / Sub menu
Homepage Hierarchy
Part of a time-boxed whiteboard exercise.
Wireframes
Initial homepage wireframes were generated during client meeting.
Homepage wireframe v1
Homepage wireframe v2
User persona > Competition study.
About iocolor:
Trusted / Crafted: We are trustworthy / We are craftsmen/women
Project examples:
We manufacture/print the highest quality books
Collaborative process / Case study:
We are easy to use / We satisfy the pickiest of customers
Sustainability:
We use sustainable materials whenever possible, and books recycle
Cost: Weed out the average consumer from the “Prosumer”
Our unit cost is low by printing in QUANTITY (ie. you can make money)
The brand – more than a logo
The iocolor brand is a visual language consisting of a number of core assets which, when combined, create a unique look and feel that make you instantly recognizable. Typography and photography are a big part of that.
The iocolor brand is built across several touch-points including print, digital and in-person.
Website pages
Collaboration tools & feedback
Collaboration was key throughout the project, and as well as regular team meetings we used InVision for ‘live’ feedback and versioning.
Updated (working) version – simplify
With less reliance on the color palette, and more white space the design has more punch.
Inclusion of some Northwest looking photography helps root the brand in Seattle. Here I’m experimenting with width, whitespace, rhythm and new brand elements such as the circular ‘sticker’.
Key impacts and learning
Communication
This is an ongoing project, and one particular challenge has been working with Iocolor on understanding the opportunities available to them. The use of InVision helped with this, but only along side collaborative in-person meetings.
Opportunity to scale
There’s lots of opportunity for further work here, but because of as yet incomplete technical aspects my advice for the client will be to pull-back on the scale of the project, launch earlier and add brand assets later.
Release and iterate
Using the updated brand we’ll finalize the designs for home, featured work and about us pages and launch the site – then phase-release new features such as the product overviews and book maker tool. Maybe even throw a launch party for each new release!