designbyif

2010-11-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

The Demon Barbers
Brand Development and Website Design

We've been working with the maverick English folk band The Demon Barbers for the last few months, updating their identity and creating them a website which is quickly becoming their second home!

Here's a sneak preview before we get more details on our website!

Logo Identity
Maverick English Folk - fun for all the family!

Website Design
The website has everything a band could possibly need, gig listings, media players, a shop and a forum so they can be in touch with their audiences all over the world...

2010-11-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

Grace Stephenson Jewellery Designer and Maker
Website Header for Grace's New Online Shop

Grace Stephenson approached us at Design By If after seeing some of our previous work. She's a silversmith based in Newcastle and is about to launch her brand new online shop. Grace is just starting out, so our webheader was a perfect way of giving her a great new look but at a price that was affordable to her.

We worked closely with Grace making sure that we created something that was contemporary, playful and personal to her own designs. The pendant design is based on one of her own signature pieces.

The website is under construction so we'll let you know when it's up and running!

Web Header
Grace Stephenson

2010-11-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

New Blog Header for Soupa
A nice Autumny banner for Soupa Creative Network

We spent a few hours rustling up this fun seasonal blog header for Soupa Creative Network, an online community of Illustrators, Designers and Photographers founded by Jo Spencer. Go and check out the site for great works and pretty handmade things to buy.

Soupa Blog Header
October 2010

2010-09-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

'Susans' project featured in new design book!
Creating Great Graphic Design to a Budget - by Scott Witham

We are very excited to announce that our recent project for Susans bakery is featured in RotoVisions recent publication Creating Great Graphic Design to a Budget - by Scott Witham. We are very proud to be featured alongside the likes of WPA Pinfold, Music and Traffic Design Consultants in a book that is described as "an excellent source of design inspiration".

The book showcases many different approaches to design and print and offers tips on how to produce great design on a strict budget. You can buy it for yourself here!

Here's a snapshot or two just to prove it!

2010-08-11T03:43:00.000-07:00

Upcoming projects and new communities!

After a busy few months we are heading into late summer with many more projects lining up. More websites for Pure Records, The Demon Barbers and Laura Connolly while Pete Coe is busily arranging his next children's album 'Tall Tailes' ready for release in the new year. There are more projects in the pipeline but this should keep us busy for a week or two!

We've also just become a contributer to a new creative community based up here in Leeds called Hand Drawn Pixels. A great way for creative minds in the north to share and talk over new ideas. If you have interesting things to say go and join up!

2010-08-11T03:25:00.001-07:00

Laura Connolly
Logo and brand identity

Laura Connolly is a clog dancer and early years practitioner based in Newcastle. She is soon to feature in a BBC4 documentary on clog dancing in the North East presented by Charles Hazlewood. In the programme Laura teaches over 200 people some basic clog steps that are then performed as a flash mob clog event in the centre of Newcastle.

Laura has also recently gone solo after working at the Sage Gateshead for the past few years. It is essential that Laura gets her branding and website up and running before the show is aired so she can maximise on the publicity.

So far we have presented Laura with a range of logo identities, some of which are shown below. It was important to show her as a child friendly practitioner, but also as a trusted professional. A good mix of tradition and craft neatly blend these two ideas. Her favourite so far is option 1!

We'll keep you updated on progress...

A few Logo Options
Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

2010-08-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

Kate Rusby
Website design and development

We’ve been working on Kate’s website for the past couple of months and the site has just been launched! Happy New Website day to Kate!

The website has been completely handed over to Emma at Pure Records who has complete control over all content. This enables Kate’s site to be independent from web builders and therefore avoiding added maintenance/update charges and waiting times.

One of our web wizards Tom Pitts helped with the web development and continues to be on hand to help out with anything we need him for in the future.

Please browse the site here.

Website Design and Development

2010-08-11T03:03:00.000-07:00

Pete Coe
Art Direction and album artwork

Pete Coe is a folk singer who has been touring the folk clubs and festivals for the past 40 years. He approached Design By If to create artwork for his latest release Backbone and we were thrilled to help out! The album was launched this year at the Sidmouth Folk Festival and is going down a storm.

Fabulously talented illustrator Harriet Gray provided the stunning pencil work – have a look at some more of her work here.

Album Artwork

2010-08-11T02:57:00.000-07:00

Fancy Pants
Clothing retail

We designed these lovely pants just for a bit of fun! For your own piece of limited edition designer pant wear nip down to www.soupa.co.uk and browse the shop. There are lots of beautiful and handmade gifts and home-wares waiting to be bought!

Design By If has been a member of the splendid creative network in London for the past year, you can keep up to date on design news on the Soupa blog and also find our profile here…

Fancy Pants

Gift Package

2010-08-11T02:44:00.000-07:00

Wireless Grids Corporation
Branding and website design

Wireless Grids Corporation (WGC) has recently completed a merger with Varsity Media Group Acquisition Corp., of Austin, TX. They specialize in developing cutting edge software for next-generation seamless media and file sharing across the range of mobile and fixed operating systems.

Their growing team is currently engaged in a new phase of research and development and they are evolving their prototypes into commercial products.

This progress has encouraged the team to look into their own company brand. Design By If were commissioned to re-design the company’s logo, develop their branding and then apply this to the company website.

Logo Design

Brand Creation

2010-08-11T02:33:00.000-07:00

The Demon Barbers
Album artwork

The Demon Barbers have recently released their 3rd full album ‘The adventures of Captain Ward’, with the help of the genius Tony Hall, Design By If produced the artwork. The band have been described as ’slightly unhinged’ with ‘maverick tendencies’ – what more can we say?!

You can buy the album direct from the band here

Album Artwork (cover)

2010-08-11T02:28:00.000-07:00

Damien O'Kane
Brand creation, album artwork and website design

Damien O’Kane has recently been taken on by Pure Records. He has been performing for years with his family and various bands but Summer Hill, produced by Pure Records is his first solo album. Pure Records needed a brand look for Damien as a solo performer and we were happy to oblige!

Summer Hill Album Artwork
Cover of Damien’s debut album Summer Hill with stunning photography by Sarah Photo Girl. You can listen to a few snippets on his website, and buy his album from the Pure Records shop.

Website Design and Development
With help from one of our web guru’s Tom Pitts we built Damien a shiny new website. It was important that Damien, Emma and other colleagues at Pure Records were able to easily update and amend the website on a daily basis so each have their own log in codes and now have full control of the site. Please visit the site here.

2010-08-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

Damien Barber and Mike Wilson
Photo shoot with Mark Howe

Damien Barber and Mike Wilson, nominees for Best Duo at the BBC Radio 2, Folk Awards 2010 released their album ‘Under the Influence’ in 2009. You can buy the splendid album here and listen to them here.

We are currently working on a new look for Damien and Mike starting with stunning photography by Mark Howe. Damien and Mike sing old traditional English songs with an honest, gritty approach. The photo’s are no frills representations of the guys and what they do. The photographs were taken at Kelham Island, an old industrial part of Sheffield. The featured pub regularly holds a folk club where the duo and many of their contemporaries have played. We wanted to show the Duo as they are and as they are seen by their fans.

2010-08-11T02:07:00.000-07:00

All change!
Hello faithful blog followers! Sorry it's been a while since we updated you on goings on in the studio. It's been a busy few months so we're about to inundate you with new projects and news... Our new website is about to be launched which will provide a more formal setting for showcasing our work. We enjoy the informality of the blog however so will be continuing to run this alongside to offer more of a continual dialogue of current work and news.

Can't wait!

2010-01-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Time Gentlemen Please
What better way to entice me back to work after 2 weeks of Christmas laziness than a new dance show! Time Gentlemen Please is a show based largely on English traditional dance forms written and created by Artistic Director Damien Barber and Choreographer Bobak Walker. The musicians and traditional dancers are taken from The Demon Barber Roadshow, winners of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Best Live Act 2009. Here's a bit of their official blurb...

'Used to pushing the boundaries of English traditions the Demon Barbers take a further step and invite three young hip hop dancers for a night out at their local pub ‘The Fighting Cocks’. Clog, Rapper and Morris meet B-boying, Popping and Krump in this humourous and unmissable visual feast. Think Riverdance with a false moustache, Stomp with bells on and both sitting in the front seat of a Bugatti!'

The show will be launched in Leeds at the Carriageworks on 15h May 2010.

Promotional Image
These past two weeks I have been working on a promotional image for the show. Something that shows traditional dance but firmly placed in a contemporary setting. This image will be used for dance company and theatre programmes, posters, fliers and all other supporting literature.

2009-12-17T06:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Well what a splendid year it's been... From new logos for school dinners to websites for global retail brands, we've been kept on our toes! But that's the way we like it.

So far 2010 promises to be even better with many more exciting projects lined up already. We are looking forward to meeting as many new clients, suppliers and friends as we did in 2009 (if not more) so see you all then!

Happy Christmas Puddings!
++

2009-12-02T05:27:00.000-08:00

ASDA Marketing Academy

Great news - we've just won another great job for Asda. We'll be working with our trusty web team developing an intranet site for Asda's marketing team. Over the next couple of months we'll be designing and building an academy the marketing team can use to train their new and existing staff in a simple and structured way.

We're looking forward to starting the project... will be hefty but the web team will get their teeth into it in no time!

Academy Design Phase

We have now completed the initial design phase for the Marketing Academy. Keeping within the strict Asda brand guides is always a challenge, however after a few meetings and discussions we agreed on this basic look to the Academy header. We are not able to show you any official content so have mocked up all text and headers. They're big fans of green over at Asda!

2009-11-26T06:26:00.000-08:00

Kate Rusby

Need to tell everyone about Kate's Christmas album Sweet Bells so we made a poster. Building up her brand as we go!

Sweet Bells Poster

2009-11-26T05:52:00.000-08:00

Calendar Artwork Samples

We've been working with an online bank for the last few months updating their brand with new corporate colours, devices and finally a range of ten characters (I've shown a few of the characters we developed earlier in the blog). These characters are now beginning to be set in scenarios and used throughout their corporate literature. Here's a couple of pages from a promotional calendar we've been working on over the last few weeks... It's great to see the characters out and about!

A Couple of Sample Pages

2009-11-26T05:43:00.000-08:00

Damien and Mike

This album was actually released at the beginning of this year and somehow I managed to miss it off the blog completely... better late than never I suppose! You can buy the splendid album here and listen to them here.

Mike and Damien have been nominated at this years Radio 2 Folk Awards for Best Duo... best try to catch them in a Folk Club near you! Massive congratulations to them and well deserved in my opinion!

Album Cover

Inner Spread with Disk and Booklet

2009-10-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Moll Springs Water

There is soon to be a new bottled spring water brand based near Huddersfield. It'll probably look something like this! Maybe you could all pop back in a month or two and see how it develops... a sort of visual cliff hanger

2009-10-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Kate Rusby Goodies!

We've also been hard at work making lots of goodies for Kate. Here are some mugs that are available now and some tee's that will be available soon. There are also bags and Christmas cards to come but we'll have to be a bit more patient for those... after all it's not quite Christmas.

Tees

We're not quite decided on colours yet but here's a sneak preview so you can be saving up!

Mugs

Everyone likes a nice mug or two!

2009-10-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Kate Rusby - Sweet Bells

We've been feeling festive for a month or two already thanks to Kate's Sweet Bells album. It'll be available to buy from the 2nd of November so get buying!

Sweet Bells

Here's the cover design and a couple of spreads to whet your appetite!

2009-10-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

New Illustrations

We've been working over the last few months developing new branding for an online bank. As a part of this we commissioned Argentinian illustrator Joaquin Croxatto to create some new friendly, characters to help launch the new brand. Here's the first 3 characters.

3 Characters

2009-10-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

...and relax!

Phewee... it's been a very busy month or two so apologies for neglecting the blog. We seem to be catching up with ourselves now though so I thought I'd grab a quick moment or two to update you all on the work we've been doing with some old clients and some new.

2009-08-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Kate Rusby Brand Development

After some playing and tweaking we are proud to announce that Kate Rusby's new branding and illustrations are now ready to launch. There will soon be mugs, t-shirts, bags and all sorts of other merchandice available to buy from the Pure Records Shop. I'll keep you updated.

Until then, here's a few of the things we've been working on.

Logotype

Kate Illustration

Instruments

2009-07-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

ASDA.com

I've just noticed that the new look asda.com site is now up and running. Although we didn't do any graphic work for this site, Design by If built the temporary homepage earlier this year with the help of one of our web wizards Ian. The temporary homepage allowed Asda to thoroughly test their new look site before it's recent launch. It's good to see it finally up!

ASDA.com new look homepage

Here's a look at the new look site.

2009-07-08T02:44:00.000-07:00

New work for Pure Records...

I'm very pleased to say that I am looking forward to working on a variety of new projects with Pure Records over the next few months... branding, album artwork, websites and all sorts of fun! There are no finished pieces yet but for now here's a sneak preview of some developmental work...

Early stages of style development

A sneak preview without giving too much away!

2009-06-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Twitter Account

I'm proud to announce that Design by If has a new twitter account! I'm looking for friends so please go join me at http://twitter.com/designbyif! Thanks!

2009-05-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

Soupa!

Great news... I'm now a member of Soupa Creative Network based in London. The network is a little community brimming with really talented and creative people so I'm chuffed to be involved. Soupa was founded by Jo Spencer and Dan Conway in 2006 and has become an inspiring place for people to share thoughts, ideas and projects.

I've put a few projects up there that are not included here in the blog so go have a nose around my new Soupa page to see some new things. Here's a sneak preview...

Zjaki

Logo identity for a Jazz singer based in Leeds.

2009-05-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

Lost skills...

After recently spending some time with some great illustrators while on a trip to China, i've been inspired to pick up my pencils once again... it's been some time so look out for the odd scribble here n there. Here's one to get you in the mood...

Pencil on paper

2009-05-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

Susans

A new catering company based in Whitby, North Yorkshire. Susans will cater for any special occasion from weddings to just a simple picnic on the beach. Her classic logo identity is dressed with modern almost punk like branding. Her one request was that the logo feature a Yorkshire Rose and a Thistle - the final logo has three Yorkshire Roses (one for Susan and each of her daughters) and a Thistle (representing her late husband Alan).

Logo Type

Sticker

Susans sticker can be used to brand anything from an envelope to small children!

Business Cards / Price tags

Due to budget and space restraints we made Susans business cards double up as price tags - the space on the reverse can have either contact details or prices scribbled down.

Illustration

Packaging

Susan will sometimes be sending her tasty treats off in the post so she will wrap up her wares in this pink paper and fix/brand it with a nice sticker.

A5 Flier

Blog Header

Susan has set up a new blog so we can see what she gets up to. Her first event is on the 29th - 31st May in Nottingham where the new branding will be rolled out so i'll be looking in to see if it all goes to plan!

Discarded logos

Here's a couple of the logo ideas we left behind...

2009-05-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

Munchin

Munchin is soon to be launched in canteens in up to 160 primary schools in Kirklees in an effort to encourage children to eat healthily. There will soon be exciting things like floor stickers, wobblers, place mats and posters... will keep you posted!

Logo Identity
This is the chosen logo identity - the children themselves were part of the judging panel!

Discarded logo option...

Here's one that got away - this one was one of my favourites, it seems a shame for it never to be seen!

Munchin is now up and running.

Munchin has now been launched in primary schools all across Kirklees. Many corridors and canteens are in the process of being updated and children and parents have been given letters, leaflets, postcards and menus illustrated with the new Munchin brand.

Here are just a few of the items we've produced over the last year.

Pasta and Potato bar launch postcard

This postcard is to promote the opening of Pasta and Potato bars in various schools across Kirklees. On the reverse is a popular pasta recipe to encourage and enable parents/guardians to continue their children's healthy eating at home.

Healthy Eating Certificate
The children will gain stickers each time they order one of their five fruit or vegetables a day from the canteen. When enough stickers have been collected one of these Healthy Eating Certificates will be awarded. I'm thinking of setting up a similar system in my office!

Sticker detail

Floor Graphics
Many schools will use signage throughout the school promoting the canteen and it's healthy food. These floor stickers are just one of the ways they can do this. There are also wall mounted Menu Boards, Theme Boards, and Freestanding Boards available.

Internal Literature
The staff at the council catering company now have all manner of branded internal literature from binders, binder inserts, dividers, corporate stationery and even calendars. This way it is easier for them to organise themselves and the schools.

Binder Cover and Dividers

Calendar

2009-04-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Mgami

Games platform

Logo Identity

Character development

Business Cards

Website template

Mgami required a versatile web template from which they could edit and update their information.

2009-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Kate Rusby

Singer from Sheffield - Mercury Music Prize Nominee

Kate has had her curly haired scribble logo for over ten years - for her birthday we gave her a brand new body, legs, arms and even some seasonal accessories!

Logo Type

A simple development from Kate's own handwritten version

Illustrations for Kate's merchandise

Illustrations for Kate's Christmas merchandise

Kate's tea towel design

Kate's Christmas cards

Kate's Christmas wrapping paper

Kate's Christmas stockings

2009-04-30T08:25:00.001-07:00

Goji

Online Goji Shop

Logo Identity

Goji Illustration

Online Shop

2009-04-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ensembli

Web based news application launched in 2009.

Logo identity

Business Cards

Welcome Screen

Active Screen

2009-04-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Demon Barbers

5 piece band - winners of Best Live Act at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2009

Logo Identity

Made from cut card

Business Cards

Compliment Slip

Poster

Tee's

2009-04-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

Pure Records

Cawthorne Concerts

A4 leaflets

2009-04-29T10:41:00.001-07:00

Right then... to get going i'll pop up a few past projects... please be as nosey as you like.

2009-04-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hello there! I'm planning to keep everyone updated with what's going on in the studio and a blog seems to be the most versatile way of doing this... so bear with me for a day or two while i play around in between jobs!