Last Thursday was the annual Design Effectiveness Awards (DEAs), held at the Brewery, London. Run by the Design Business Association (DBA) it is one of the most high profile and widely respected events in the industry.

The DEAs are the only design awards that use commercial data as a key judging criteria. In order to win, entrants must demonstrate beyond doubt the commercial effectiveness of their work.

This year we were nominated in the headline category of ‘Brand/Corporate Identity’. We knew we were in with a good shout but were absolutely delighted (and to be honest pleasantly surprised) to scoop a coveted Gold Award for our work – one of only 14 awarded across all categories. Other winners included projects for Diageo, Waitrose, McDonalds, M&S and Cadbury to namedrop a few.

Our award entry was pulled together on the back of the work we had done for Scottish tourism company, Highland Experience. Following the re-alignment of its communications strategy and relaunch of its brand, headline figures from the project ran as follows:

- Retail Sales up 40%

- Agent sales up 200%

- Online sales up 50%.

- Overall turnover up 60%

- Full ROI after 2 months

Overall the DEAs have been a fantastic experience for H&A – not only have we had the opportunity to put our work in front of the esteemed judging panel (which includes leading lights from the BBC, GlaxoSmithKline, EDF Energy, Royal Mail, HSBC & Sony amongst others) but we’ve also had the pleasure of pitting our wits against some of the biggest and best agencies in the UK.

But most rewarding of all has been gaining recognition for our approach to brand and communications which puts our clients’ business objectives at the heart of every project we undertake.

Well done to everyone who worked on the project and a big thank-you to everyone at Highland Experience who provided the fantastic subject matter. Read the award winning entry here.

Our brief was to emphasise Rettie USPs in order to differentiate from the competition. The work commissioned has been rolled out across a variety of media over the last few months, including the new Rettie and Co website built by The Weather.

Our press advertising suite and hometime blog pages were backed up by TV and radio ads by Real Radio and STV. The campaign was designed to emphasise Walker groups unwavering commitment to building both fantastic family homes and inclusive, family-friendly communities.

Walker Group – Real Radio

Visit the Birdcage website at birdcageeskmills.com

Once it started going in front of clients it was important that our website had the same look and feel, so that prompted us to take a fresh look at the website entirely.

Wireframes

With our previous website, we chose to make the blog the main focus of the site. While this worked well for showcasing our most up to date work and articles, it didn’t enable us to communicate what we do as effectively as we would have liked.

The wireframing process helped us nail down what content we wanted to bring to the forefront of the website, and the hierarchy of that content.

Design & Implementation

We already had colour pallet and visual style for the design of the site. Our typography pallet has traditionally consisted of Futura for any headings and Helvetica Neue for the blocks of text.

For this design, we wanted all of the copy to be rendered in HTML and CSS rather than relying on images for the headers. This required us to deviate from Futura as it isn’t licensed for embedding using the @font-face property.

We decided to find an alternative that suited our visual style while offering the flexibility we required in the weights available. The headers are therefore served up in Proxima Nova via Typekit. For the body copy we have used Helvetica Neue, and the accent font is Goudy Bookletter 1911, again via typekit.

In the work section, we’ve given the imagery more space to shine in a simple but functional template, and if you head to the about page you can find out all about the individuals that make up the team!

That just about wraps it up for this post. More from me soon, and I believe Ross will be posting about the design award we won last week! That’s sure to be a treat!

The projects deliverables include:
- An identity for Albany Street Residences
- Signage
- A sales pack with inserts
- Stationery
- E-newsletter
- Website

www.albanystreetresidences.co.uk