belfast design agency Archives - Kaizen Brand Evolution

Lean Bean – brand identity

Posted on April 16, 2020September 15, 2020 by YBmMqGwLx0

Lean Bean approached us to create a unique brand identity as the business was faced with significant growth across Dublin and Ireland. Lean Bean is a well-established Fresh Food Outlet in the centre of Dublin, serving up some of the tastiest breakfast and lunch time meals on the island. Reputation soon spread of the fast, fresh offering across the city and demand for the product dictated an increase in stores. With this in the pipe-line the owner of Lean Bean realised opportunity to re-define and re-state the brand purpose, look and feel and communications. With the naming already in the mix it was our job to deliver an identity to reflect the reputation and truthfully communicate this forward-thinking delicious offering.

In their own words:

Founded in 2017, Lean Bean is a destination for healthy food served fast. To us healthy means real food made from scratch. Lean Bean was built on the idea that today people are time poor and the food on offer is of low nutritional value. We want to change that by providing real food, real fast at an affordable price. We believe education around food is very important to our success and that people are actively making more health-conscious decisions.

First off was the logo. We created a unique word mark based on a Stencil font which provides a sense of tradition, sophistication and modernity. The way the letters fall in the stacked version of the logo allowed the typography to play over the line ever so slightly to create an interesting, stand out identity. Paired with the traditional stencil style mark we introduced a modern san-serif to bring harmony in the brand across headlines, menus and body copy that was to be used. Clarity between the two typefaces is important as you will see throughout the menu and website, a natural yin and yang balance really elevates the brand and gives it strength to roll out across any medium required.

Following the craft of the word mark we created a colour scheme to suit the offering and attract the right audience. Numerous concepts were put forward but the pairing of the fresh ‘lemon’ and the strong ‘teal’ working together provided something completely new for the industry landscape. Teal’s of course reflective of the green ingredients with the hint of Lemon to freshen things up across the brand. The completed palette is extremely ‘fresh’ and packs a real punch when placed in front of the fantastic plates, ingredients, drinks and interiors at Lean Bean.

One of Lean Beans mantra’s is sustainability, as seen here:

Sustainability

We are always trying to reduce our carbon footprint. Over 90% of all our packaging is now compostable with some of the remaining being used from either plant based or recycled plant-based material which is 90% less carbon.

This Lean Bean ethos of sustainability sparked an idea for a new style to accompany the word mark and colour palette. With this in mind we created a unique set of bespoke illustrations which are intertwined across brand textures, backgrounds, interiors and the website. The illustrations are hand-sketched and really bring an air of sustainability to the whole brand personality. This in toe we wanted to introduce a strapline to sum this up. Eat Smart was born. Eat smart encompasses once again the brand ethos of Scratch Cooking, Transparency, Healthy Living and great food. We felt it was a much easier was of letting the customer know that ‘we do healthy food’ and encouraging them to join the food revolution.

Lean Bean very much is a revolution in fast food and we continue to work with them in the brand roll out and evolution of the business.

Why hire a design agency?

Posted on October 23, 2018September 3, 2020 by YBmMqGwLx0

Kaizen Brand Evolution was born nearly 4 years ago as its own stand-alone studio under the Kaizen moniker. It is the job of Kaizen Brand Evolution to help our clients even further. If a client wants a completely new brand, we are there to help. If a client wants a new logo, we are there. Even if all a client wants is the design for their new marketing campaign, Kaizen Brand Evolution is there to help.

Since the studio came to life, we have worked with many important brands in many different industries, such as Punchestown, Down Royal, Boojum, to name but a few. But aside from the big players, we are also there when the smaller, more independent clients need us, but they are by no means any less important. If there is a smaller local business who sees that they need that extra something to bring their brand to the top level, they know they can come to us to help them bring their ambition back to life. We want to see businesses succeed because when they do it means that we have done our jobs correctly, and there is nothing we love more than seeing happy clients, both old and new.

In that regard though, why should you think about hiring a design agency? What can they do for you that perhaps you couldn’t do yourself? The answer more often than not is quite a lot, and today we are going to look at a few of those reasons, to help make your decision a little bit easier.

Portfolio:

Firstly, let’s assume that you are in two minds about hiring a design agency and maybe have a few in mind. You’ve got them side by side, with advantages for both. But I would ask you to stop with the general outlook and focus in on one thing about them all; their Portfolio. The size of an agencies portfolio doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the best out there, as it may be a case that they are taking all of the jobs that they can find, even if they aren’t the best to work on and don’t benefit them. The agency that you want to hire, will be the one with the big names attached to their portfolio. They will be the ones that haven’t done the reaching out but have been approached to take on these jobs. And if their portfolio is big, that’s even better as it means they have been approached by many of the top, top companies. Looking at the portfolios will give you a sense of what exactly it is you are getting and should make your decision easier on who to go with.

A Team of Creatives:

Freelance or agency? Part of the allure of going with a freelancer comes from them usually being cheaper. However, think of the reason that they are cheaper; there is only one person working on your project. This isn’t going to be great if you are in need of a full rebrand, as a lot of work goes into this and as such, they may not be able to cope with the workload. However, if you decide to hire a full agency, you are guaranteed to get a team of at least 3 if not 4 designers working on your project at the beginning. This is exactly what happens here at Kaizen Brand Evolution. When we receive a new job from a client a brief is passed to 3 or 4 designers to each give their own take on it. From there, each of these designers creates presentations that are presented to you the client, meaning you could have 3 or 4 different looking brands to choose from, instead of one brand from one person, which you may not like, setting the project back a few weeks. What is also advantageous about this, is that you may have the option to combine different aspects of each designers concept, meaning you not only get the brand you wanted but the brand you need.

Help from Beginning to End:

When you are starting out with your next project, you may only be thinking about a few things, a few immediate things to get you started, for example, logo design, website design and marketing material. However, as the project progresses and comes to its final stages, there may be more than you now realise you would like done as well, such as packaging design, poster design or even design for your first campaign. With an agency such as Kaizen Brand Evolution, we are more than happy to help you out there too. Bringing together everything that we have done over the course of the project and continuing on the work. We’re not happy until you are happy, and as such won’t leave you when you need our help.

If you are ever in need of design and branding work for whatever the reason consider looking at design agencies, despite them being slightly more expensive than for example a freelance designer, you know that it will be worth it in the long run.

If you are in need of a design agency to help you with your next project, whether that is branding, web design, rebranding or a brand audit please do not hesitate to give us a call on 028 9507 2007 or by email via our contact form, and we can set up a meeting to discuss what Kaizen Brand Evolution can do for your brand.

Phantom

Posted on October 23, 2017 by YBmMqGwLx0

Richie Lavery is an established photographer specialising in all aspects of high-end imaging, from portraiture and architectural to interior and exterior photography. Richie’s business has gained some major traction since working across Northern Ireland on high spec building projects and as part of this grown he approached kaizen Brand Evolution to develop a new brand positioning for him. The new brand would be a stand-alone, luxury property marketing business with scope to work further a field in the UK, Ireland and beyond. In preparation for the new venture Richie required a full name generation for the new business as well as a brand strategy. Following a business profiling exercise and extensive research project on the industry landscape we named the new business ‘PHANTOM’. Phantom sets a visual narrative for the business and made way for a ream of engaging brand language. With the name in place we set out on the brand identity, narrative and strategy focussing on the target audience and types of houses and assets that Richie aspired to work on. The ambition setting at the very start of the process allowed for a clear path to a successful branding project. Richie’s ambition was to be at the cutting edge of property marketing, utilising new technologies and modern methods of capturing the unique selling points of a property to entice potential ‘big spend’ buyers.

The mark itself is a typographic logo with a brand device ingrained in the letter ‘H.’ The type used is a timeless font family which translates effortlessly online and in print, always reflecting the high-end nature of the work of Phantom. We introduced a language set for the brand that plays on the meaning of phantom and that nicely ties in with the nature of the business. Statements such as ‘unreal estate marketing’ really emphasise the namesake and put a positive spin on how ‘UNREAL’ the skillset of the property marketing company are. Everything that Richie has to offer in Phantom does actually seem unreal- it’s so good. Elements such as drone fly-overs, full micro sites for a property, and virtual-reality tours of a home – all of this is absolutely unreal when you see it in action making way for the organic slogan. Once we developed the clear strategy for the new brand we began the implementation stage utilising the new brand device across Richie’s branded materials – website, vehicle, marketing brochures and business stationery. The device performs very well when used alone and is an instant recognisable mark for the brand without pulling focus from any of the other brand elements. It’s a sleek, contemporary mark that when broken down is justified – the logo build stems from the shimmer from a luxury jewel and the reflection in glass, creating the H effect. We introduced a deep stone colour palette for the brand, which echoes the nature of the work materials and textures. The brand colour palette is soft and subtle which allows the high-end photography, videography and work to really shine.

From the naming process, brand narrative and strategy to the design and implementation the Phantom brand now stands out amongst its competitors and successfully communicates the values, work, dedication and skillset of the team. With plans to first launch the new Phantom brand at the Belfast Telegraph Awards ceremony we look forward to working with Richie as his brand evolves. The Phantom branding was such an exciting project to be a part of from the very start, seeing the name generation flourish into a strong identifiable brand is something we’re very proud of here at Kaizen Brand Evolution and as the brand grows we will remain brand guardians keeping every brand touch point on power with the work done to date.

Giant serviced apartments

Posted on October 19, 2017 by YBmMqGwLx0

Giant Property approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to brand their Serviced Apartments business. Offering some of the best locations across Northern Ireland and Belfast Giant Serviced Apartments where established online running under the Giant Property brand identity. As the business evolved and reach increased they felt it needed its own brand presence and came into the studio to outline their ambitions for the company.

The first goal of Giant Serviced Apartments was to be instantly recognisable as a standalone serviced apartments brand, standing apart from their competitors and raising confidence in clients who book through the likes of Air bnb and Booking.com so that Giant Serviced Apartments website gives them the confidence that they will receive the same level of service booking directly rather than through a third party.

We created the narrative ‘stay happy’ for Giant Serviced Apartments positioning them as business that provides a positive, friendly, happy service when staying at any of their apartments across Northern Ireland. This narrative was the foundation that we utilised in creating the unique brand identity and logo device. The logo is a bold, contemporary yet soft typeface with the addition of a ‘Giant Smile’ on the loop of the G. The Smile justifies the positive reviews currently featured on trip advisor and Giant Serviced apartments social media channels. This seamless transition of type into simplistic iconography showcases the strength of the brand mark. As part of the marketing collateral and brand rollout we have adapted the smile icon to house messaging, frame imagery and business stationery. Simplistic and versatile branding is always a goal when creating an identity system for a business and we have achieved this through Giant Serviced Apartments new brand positioning. As well as the dynamic logo created for Giant Serviced Apartments we introduced a fresh, engaging colour palette removing the brand from the current industry landscape of Serviced Apartments in Northern Ireland – subdued in corporate tones.

Photography plays a large role in the branding for Giant Serviced Apartments. We collated an image bank of modern, seasonal and fun photographs, which set the scene for tourists and customers wishing to travel to Northern Ireland. The image bank is in keeping with the tourism in Northern Ireland as well as the buzz of our cities and town’s nightlife and hospitality offerings. To coincide with the dynamic imagery for Giant Serviced Apartments we brought together the brand pillars of the business and adapted the ‘Stay’ message to work with them. At Giant Serviced Apartments their goal is for each and every customer to stay happy, comfy and curious. These three pillars immediately connect with the target market and aim to sum up their reasoning for choosing a location like Northern Ireland to travel to and stay with Giant Serviced Apartments. Strategically we are able to introduce this language set into all brand marketing materials, ads, brochures and online collateral – without the hard sell. The language was introduced to connect and engage with travelling clients on their level without screaming from the rooftops about offers or seasonal pricing we have focussed on the offering with an emotional language connection.

From signage to water labelling the new brand purpose flexes its muscles across all collateral in a very visual and engaging way. The language provides the tone of voice that you would connect with when travelling on business or leisure – signing off with the line ‘leave with a Giant smile’ when you are checking out solidifies the brand strategy and showcases its strength and marriage of logo, language and longevity.

It was a pleasure to work on the Branding for Giant Serviced and as it is currently rolling out of the studio keep an eye out for the Giant smile across Northern Ireland.

Watch Tech

Posted on September 26, 2017 by YBmMqGwLx0

Watch Portfolio Management is a well-established business specialising in financial guidance with many clients reaching from the UK to Australia. Watch Portfolio Management is based in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, and is known for their financial advice that leads businesses that have gone into insolvency to find solutions. This, however, is no longer the case! Watch Portfolio Management decided they would approach Kaizen Brand Evolution to create an identity for their cutting edge software, that they primarily would use for daily tasks, as going forward they would like to be seen as a financial software business. This software is to be called Watch Tech. The interface is easy to use and finds information fast making it the best financial insolvency software on the market.

To creating the brands identity we needed to first fully understand the industry landscape that Watch Tech would be positioning itself alongside. We researched and developed clear directions to take our brand ideas based on Watch Tech’s potential competitors in the financial, security and tech sectors. Learning from our research we found what was working and what wasn’t necessarily relevant moving forward with the creation of Watch Tech’s identity. It became clear that a simple, modern identity would be best to represent this brand effectively.

Now that our styling has been determined from our research the identity soon followed. A potential branding direction that we explored was revitalising Watch Portfolio Managements shield to link Watch Tech to it’s heritage, as well as to show the software’s strength and durability when it comes to protecting your financial well being. However, the brand chosen to represent Watch Tech was our identity representing “financial growth”. This mark, illustrating a positive outlook, is a meaningful graphic that lends itself to the company’s primary objective for its clients. The brand mark uses three primary bars linked by two diagonal bars in the background giving a ribboning effect to shape into a “W” ultimately representing Watch Tech. Looking back on our research we decided to use a corporate typeface in a variety of weights to blend with our modern brand mark. This typeface joined with our brand mark comes together to create our Watch Tech Logo.

Following the design of the brands elements we were able to focus more on what our brands message would be. Watch Tech is really the first financial insolvency software to come onto the market and we decided “Pioneering financial insolvency software” would be a good direction for their brand language. Our taglines to follow this direction are “faster, stronger.” and “better, smarter.” to illustrate how superior this software is in comparison to other financial insolvency software’s and its main selling points the software can provide. Leading from this language our imagery shows the idea of exploration and moving forward to illustrate Watch Techs brand message.

With our logo and language already decided the next step in our process is to show our strategy in regards to how the logo would be implemented. The new Watch Tech logo is a strong shape with distinguishing features making it recognisable individually. It’s because of this that we decided to use the outlined shape of the brand mark as a device to house imagery. Imagery on print, signage and online would follow this strategy or be full bleed with the brand mark positioned accordingly alongside our brand messages. We didn’t just create a new brand identity for a piece of software we created a new platform and style for a new business to follow going forward.

Boojum, Cinco De Mayo

Posted on April 29, 2016 by YBmMqGwLx0

Boojum approached us to create a concept for the launch of their new ‘Win a trip to Mexico’ Campaign for Cinco De Mayo. We developed an online and printed campaign strategy that revolved around a ‘holiday tag.’ Using the tag as the device to drive the campaign it was clearly linked to the Holiday theme and strategically, ‘Tagging friends’ on social media became the staple of the competition. The tag also appears at the final stages of the competition where Boojum hold a special night where finalists have the chance to find a printed ‘Boojum Tag’ inside a Burrito on the night of the draw. Corona where the main partner in the holiday give away and we introduced some hashtag’s to coincide with the competition #boojum5demayo and #boojum&corona. The competition has proved very successful in driving new traffic to the main site www.boojummex.com (design by us) and raising brand awareness across Ireland.

Brand evolution of White’s Tavern

Posted on April 14, 2016September 15, 2020 by YBmMqGwLx0

The owners of the White’s Tavern came to us with an idea to brand the floor above the traditional Irish pub into a one of a kind bar/eatery. Stepping away from the long-standing tradition of White’s the new addition was to be tailored to a young professional audience, which would become a place of nostalgia and happiness with an edge.

We delivered a striking brand identity for the new venture titled ‘Vandal.’ Vandal’s identity is a nod to nineties street art and culture. Through considered graphic design, the bright colours, patterns and hand drawn typeface are tributes to the 90’s theme with a contemporary treatment. The theme continues throughout signage, menus, wall graphics and online.

International Society of Typographic Designers 2016

Posted on March 10, 2016 by YBmMqGwLx0

I travelled to DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) Grangegorman last weekend, 5 March 2016 for the Annual ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers) Student Assessment. Every year design students from across Ireland take part in what Erik Spiekermenn described ‘The Most rigorous and honest assessment in the world. No personal likes/dislikes can affect the outcomes.’ The students answer one of 5 ISTD briefs to which they may use a number of mediums and outcomes. When assessing we look for strong concept with comprehensive typographic exploration.

On arrival we have a chance to grab some breakfast and catch up before beginning the assessments. This year I was paired with Jamie Murphy from Salvage Press, a typographer and letterpress printer and all round great guy. The briefs are outlined below.

Project 1: A life’s work

Celebrate the life’s work of Adrian Frutiger. Create a prestigious ‘publication’ (digital/physical or both) that celebrates the life and work of Adrian Frutiger.

Project 2: The Undiscovered Country…

‘Stare death in the face’ and find out everything there is to know about it. Consider international, societal, scientific, religious, historical, statistical, cultural, literary and poetic touch-points within your research, before determining your approach.

Project 3: Visualising Music

Using Philip Glass’ opera Einstein on the Beach as your source material, you are asked to investigate different ways of making visual typographic notations in order to create a music score for this work.

Project 4: Eye Witness

Your task is to translate a written, first person account of a significant event, into a typographic experience that is designed as a site-specific installation in the gallery of your choice.

Project 5: And the winner is…

Celebrate the Nobel Prize. You may wish to propose the design for a suite of publications that highlight the various categories of awards; perhaps a prestigious publication that investigates the life and work of a selection of Nobel Laureates; or a very focused approach looking at a specific category e.g. the prize for literature.

Yet again the standard of work for Ireland is exceptional with a number of students passing the bar and one merit awarded from myself and Jamie. I thoroughly enjoy the assessments and believe that this institution greatly benefits the design community, raising standards in typographic practice across the globe.

BBC Digital

Posted on February 7, 2016 by YBmMqGwLx0

Connecting Homes Roadshow

Here’s one you don’t get everyday! Lizi Daley from our Digital team has been working with BBC Digital and Farset Labs to create an interactive roadshow showing the evolution of digital technology in the home. The walk in mini home has everything from doorbells that operate lights to DIY Raspberry Pi solutions. Our job was to make what would arrive as a mobile on home on wheels to a cosy home that could display the technology and make the unit a domestic environment for the three day roadshow. Lizi had the task of mixing kitsch, shabby chic 70s style interiors with the corporate BBC Digital branding. Liaising with Farset Labs Lizi made sure online styling matched the environment she was creating that would take to the road. After a lot of wallpaper swatches, lighting research and door hunting, the vision came to life. The roadshow will be outside Belfast City Hall as well as Northern Ireland Science Park, designed, print managed and fitted by our team.

The value of Design

Posted on January 5, 2016 by YBmMqGwLx0

At Kaizen Brand Evolution it’s our job to communicate our skills and services eloquently to our clients. Selling a “non-tangible” product makes our jobs harder initially, but much easier upon completion when the work speaks for itself. Our Client Showcase page is our most visited web page, it shows live projects that have seen major success and growth from our approach of comprehensive brand design and strategic thinking. The Client Showcase page gives an understanding of the level of work we undertake daily for clients all over Belfast, Ireland and beyond. Graphic Design is not just about making something pretty, but rather creating elements that will enhance the business function they are working for. Great design should communicate a brand’s personality confidently and coherently. It’s much more than designing a logo. It’s about telling the brand’s story, communicating and engaging directly with your audience to raise the bottom line of their business.

Our team of experienced and award-winning designers here in Belfast can help you outsmart the competition from small changes in your brand, to complete brand & design packages. If you think your brand requires some design intervention, please get in touch on 028 9507 2007, or studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com to arrange an appointment. Click here to find out more about graphic design Belfast

Nurturing creativity

Posted on November 5, 2015September 15, 2020 by YBmMqGwLx0

Southern Regional College

We have embarked on a partnership with Southern Regional College to work with students who are undertaking the graphic design course. To help develop industry skills and prepare students for live in a studio we are submitting live briefs for participation. The students get exposure to client briefs and an opportunity to respond in real time. We critique the responses offering advice and guidance and also show the final client pitch so that they can see the level of work involved and how their response compares. For some their work will get in front of the clients noses, for others they get to see how they can tweak and improve connecting to be client ready. In addition we have offered time to assist with portfolio surgeries to help prepare students for the recruitment process, advising on how to collate their work and mock interviews. We feel strongly about giving back to colleges that have supported us and prepare students so that they are industry ready on graduation. We have been impressed by the student’s thinking and commitment to deadlines, their motto to communicate, connect and create is paying off!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/designcentresrc/

SRCgraphicdesign

http://www.src.ac.uk