On the 3rd November 2012, Donegal the current All-Ireland Champions played a game against Ulster in front of 18,500, this was a Match for Michaela. 8 weeks earlier we got an invite from Ulster GAA to be a part of an organising committee for this special night.
Already the Michaela Foundation had been Lairdesign’s nominated charity for 2012 so it was a cause very close to our hearts. At the very outset if we could have written down the perfect night, it would have been the night that happened.
Our role was the branding, promotion and advertising culminating in a souvenir programme and O’Neills fastest selling jersey ever. As an event it certainly pushed us to the limits but it was an absolute honour to be involved.
17th December 2012
As a business BA Components based in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone have never sat back and said “we have this sorted”.
15 years ago we created the BA diamond and today it is still central to their communication bit in various different forms. It is just a good example of strong design and branding that very little needs to change.
The latest addition however to the BA family is Better by BA, this is an internal initiative aimed at “doing things better” production, delivery, quality basically everything they do. In the fifteen years we have worked with BA, it has not always been about what we can do from them, we have learnt so much from the team in BA, we are always told that business is about people and relationships, get that right and you can always make things ‘better’.
15th December 2012
We are not really into awards, no seriously we are not, that is a story in itself but we love it when a client gets on and we have had a hand in it.
At a black tie event in the Titanic Building Ulster GAA scooped two awards for this years Ulster Championship campaign – Add A Splash of Colour to Your Summer.
I think these awards were significant for a couple fo reasons, it shows how far the GAA has come interms of how it promotes itself and without blowing our trumpet too much, we have played quite big part in that, certainly in Ulster and also further afield.
The second main reason is the budgets involved – in terms of marketing, it can be easy when the budgets are there but the sign of a true innovative business is one that can achieve maximum impact from a minimum spend. Ulster GAA do this brilliantly, it is not about the budgets but getting the message to the heart of your customers.
If you would like to hear the full story why not give us a call.
14th December 2012
We bet you are looking at the web more and more on your phone – well stats say you are! At the minute most websites will appear exactly as you would see them on a computer only in miniature, impossible to read and navigate.
Responsive design is where the website changes to suit the device, be that handheld, iPad or desktop. The main advantage of building your website in this way is that you no longer need to develop a website for desktop users and a separate mobile site on another domain. We simply build the one website that displays your content in the best possible format on all devices.
A high profile example of a recent re-design was the new Microsoft Website. Microsoft re-built their corporate homepage from the ground up and is now an excellent example of Responsive Web Design.
Image Credit: trentwalton.com/2012/10/03/a-new-microsoft-com/
We are now introducing responsive design to most of our projects, look at the Lairdesign site on your phone to see what we mean.
The bottom line is that clients need to consider this for the future, the rate of people viewing the web on a hand held is spiralling at an amazing rate, we need to make sure that our clients are ready.
Footnote: The term “Responsive Web Design” was coined by Ethan Marcotte, he wrote a fantastic book on the topic, Responsive Web Design.
13th December 2012
Trinity College Dublin is one of the World’s great universities and they were that impressed with our sister brand Squareball www.squareball.com that they asked us for some help on the overall presentation, marketing and development of their range.
The range is managed by a company in Dublin called FashionFlo and like many projects that we are now involved in, it is not about being asked to do a specific piece of work, our strength lies in being able to go in to a business, listen to their story and where they hope to go do. We come back with a proposal, not one of those text book reports but achievable tangible outputs that make a difference to a product or a service.
The output in this particular instance is a catalogue but the elements included photography, styling, branding and ideas on the garments themselves.
12th December 2012
Typical ‘boys and their toys’ but when we were approached to design a brand for a new sports car, what do you think we did? DeNoble Motors has acquired the production rights for a fabulous sport car which was designed and built in the late 1990’s.
Laurence Noble is planning to resurrect the car when after only 44 cars were produced the original company collapsed with financial difficulties. The flaws were not in the car but in the business model and Laurence believes he has what it takes to make the car a success. As well as a vision for the car he and his design team had a vision for the brand.
We listened to the story and produced what we felt was needed, the logo design reflecting the two sided nature of the car, beautifully elegant on one side and ferocious when it needs to be. We are only a short way down the road on this exciting journey and can’t wait to sit in the car carrying the DeNoble brand.
To hear more about this story and our thought process behind the logo why not give us a call?
11th December 2012
