Tag: design Glasgow

21
Feb

Great brand?? It’s already there…

Unsurprisingly for a branding and design house, we are often asked about the best ways to build a great a great brand?

And we always do our best to keep it relevant to the people we are talking too – ‘your brand should be shaped by your commercial objectives,’ ‘every brand is different,’ ‘branding is an extension of values’ etc, etc…

But more often than not and with the sincere desire to be helpful – we’ll say to people that they probably already have a great brand story and it’s just a case of bringing some more of it to life.

Yes, campaigns can help.
Yes, logos are important.
And yes, tag lines do make a difference.

But it’s the small intangible things that really make a difference and most of the time they’re already there.

Its the stories of great customer experiences, examples where staff went above and beyond, particular achievements, values that you live up to every day, ways that you do things that are unique to you, products that make a difference.

Everybody has these and they are the building blocks to that great brand that you want to build.

Creating great brands is less about set-piece activities and more about capturing the spirit of the organisation.

While compiling The Sustainability Report for Scottish Leather Group in 2016. (An easy task because Scottish Leather Group have outstanding sustainability achievements.) We completed a special feature on the sustainability of the workforce of Scottish Leather Group companies.

John from Scottish Leather Group was celebrating more than 41 years of Service and Social Media definitely appreciated it.

John from Scottish Leather Group was celebrating more than 41 years of Service and Social Media definitely appreciated it.

As we found – at the heart of Scottish Leather Group’s sustainability achievements was the retention of their staff where they have a tremendous record. One page of the report featured John – one of their operators, who began working with the company in 1975, we recorded a timeline of his service showing how he started as an apprentice and is now helping other apprentices.

What was incredible was that we shared this image as a piece to show what the loft could do on LinkedIn and we were inundated with comments and likes each celebrating and congratulating the well-deserved success of a Scottish Leather Group employee. It shows how the small things can truly make a difference.

A wonderful piece of brand storytelling for Scottish Leather Group and something we still get asked about today.

It is the small things that bring a tender to life, makes a presentation memorable and helps a company to build a reputation.

Bring your culture to life and you’ll bring your brand to life and the best bit is that for most of you – it’s already there.

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder and Creative Director of the loft, a branding consultancy in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

 

17
Oct

Social Media, A Practical Guide

Social media is quite possibly be the most important part of a company’s brand presence nowadays. Getting likes, being seen and having people engage with you can radically transform your company’s marketing success. A coherent, joined-up and ideas-led social presence will help you attract more clients, staff that share your values and new supporters from all over the world. This is the power of social media.

At the loft, we love social media. We love sharing details of our work, the way we help our clients and also some of the interesting things we get up-too in our studio. We use social media a lot and have therefore picked up some gems that we apply regularly and despite there being many more technical guides online we thought we’d put our feet right in the shoes of those that post on social media to share 10 quick ways to optimise your social posts.

1. Start with the Underlying Message

Before posting, always think… ‘What am I trying to say?’ This is important. Every post says something, consciously or sub-consciously, about your brand. What are we trying to say about ourselves or what we value with the post? We are helpful? We are qualified? We have more experience? Our service is faster?

Marketing is the communication and sharing of values and culture in an interesting way. Make sure what you are sharing displays the values you want it too.

2. A Positive Extension of those Values

As a rule of thumb, the majority of social posts should be sharing something positive! It should be something which people want to read. You have the opportunity to present the best side of your company, your products, your services, your team. Whether it is a client testimonial, something altruistic your team has done in the community or just sharing a very positive benefit of one of your services – more positive posts get more likes and therefore capture the attention of others.

However, more than being positive, consider whether what you are saying aligns with the culture your company is promoting. Doing this will help you be more authentic. Fun posts for fun companies, highly technical posts for highly technical companies, posts about ‘innovation in sustainability’ for companies that value ‘sustainability’ and are innovative around this area. Find the value or the idea and build your post around it. The really great companies do this very well on Social Media.

Everyday Athlete, Glasgow are great at showing their values with every single post.

Everyday Athlete, Glasgow are great at showing their values with every single post.

3. People Love People

Human stories tend to be particularly popular. Celebrating technical attributes or showing thought leadership are both good directions to pursue with social media but human stories such as celebrating ‘service landmarks,’ ‘new-starts,’ or just the good work your team does tend to be more appreciated on social media. Even the most technical companies will have service benefits that apply to human-beings. The more able you are to present the human side of even a highly technical subject – the more likely you are of engaging people with your social posts.

John from Scottish Leather Group was celebrating more than 41 years of Service and Social Media definitely appreciated it.

John from Scottish Leather Group was celebrating more than 41 years of Service and Social Media definitely appreciated it.

4. Image Tells a Story

Make sure the image you use really tells a story about the post itself. This is important.  If you are posting about a particular product, is that product in the foreground of the photo? Does it stand out? If you are posting about an event you are hosting, does the image reflect the nature of the event? One further thing – a more professional, polished image has value, but a slightly rougher image which tells the right story has a greater chance of being understood and properly appreciated by your online audience.

5. Use your Polish Strategically

Despite this, a little polish is definitely going to help. Your posts will grab more attention. Whether it’s some info-graphics to bring a statistic to life, more professional photography of your team members or some video graphics to illustrate a story. Content that has been presented with more care and attention does stand a greater chance of helping you to engage with others. It is worth getting a designer, photographer or videographer to bring some of your content to life for important posts.

However, the real value is in thinking past one post! If you are going to engage a professional – think how you can extend the value of their service? For example, if you hire a photographer to capture the investment your company has made in a new assembly line  – then while the photographer is on site – get multiple images which shows different facilities in a little more detail and instead of a single post – create a small campaign from these 6-8 images. This will help you get a better return on investment and a full campaign worth of content as opposed to one individual post.

Leverage the time you have with a professional photographer, copywriter, animator or designer to create as much quality content as possible. These shots were little additions provided by our photographer Malcolm when photographing the entire team.

Leverage the time you have with a professional photographer, copywriter, animator or designer to create as much quality content as possible. These shots were little additions provided by our photographer Malcolm when photographing the entire team.

6. Use the Loft Social Cheat Sheet

At the end of the day, a lot of this is trial and error – but there are some rules you can use to your advantage. To really help you maximise your posts – we have created a quick cheat sheet which shows the best times, to post, optimal image sizes and character counts. Download this sheet and the information will provide a further boost to your social posts.

The loft social cheat sheet definitely provides a bit of method to successful posting.

The loft social cheat sheet definitely provides a bit of method to successful posting.

7. Headlines should be to the point

If you read our cheat sheet, you will notice that the first few lines of any social post are far and away the most important in grabbing people’s attention. There are definitely some points to be gained by writing a title that everybody understands straight away. Different brands will communicate in different ways but in the absence of any doubt – simple language works best. Understanding over flair.

8. Use all the channels

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, etc… There are so many different channels now, and it is important to pick the one that works for you. Tools like LinkedIn work well for Business2Business audiences. Instagram or Facebook works better for Business2Consumer audiences. Some are more targeted than others.

However, in all honesty, we recommend using all of the channels all of the time. Once you have picked the right image and drafted the right message – you have very little to lose by taking the time to post in all the channels. Plus, it is interesting how often more light-hearted, authentic, less technical posts are liked on LinkedIn and how often the crowd on Instagram will appreciate something a little more content-rich. Just remember to use the correct-sized images as stretched images tend not to do favours for anybody.  You will get this information from our cheat sheet 🙂

Aggregate softwares such as Hoot-Suite can occasionally be helpful here too.

Technical content can work on B2C channels and light-hearted content can work on B2B channels - give it a go!

Technical content can work on B2C channels and light-hearted content can work on B2B channels – give it a go!

9. Maximise your Content

On that note about maximising all of the channels – make sure you re-use your content too. We spoke earlier on about investing in images, graphics, videos, etc. Once you have these assets, stretch them as far and wide as possible! Get them on your website, use them for your newsletter campaigns. If necessary – use them for print documents such as your annual report or other brochures. This will give you a much greater return for any investment on your marketing outlay.

10. Repeat

Once again, you have invested the time and energy to create content, got a great image and written a strong post. Your postings may be as successful as you want, they may not be. However, you do have the opportunity to have a few more goes. So many people will have missed your post first time round – don’t be shy and give them another opportunity to engage. You may even wish to hone your posts a little – to see if you can make it stronger 2nd and 3rd times round. You have very little to lose and much to gain.

A bit of a whistle-stop tour in how to optimise your social posts – you will find many more technical posts online but we hope that the guide above gives you a practical guide on where to start.

As always if you need any advice…

contact the loft >>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

11
Oct

Creating Your Values

Values. They’ll help you hire the best staff, retain the best staff and win tight pitches. They’ll help you make quick decisions and give you the best chance to grow.

At the loft, we’ve worked with several companies – helping them to develop their values. Sometimes with company owners in isolation, sometime with management teams and sometimes with entire organisations. Questioning them, getting to know them and eventually trying to define who they are.

There are many ways to create a set off values, some ways require more time than others, some are more long-term than others.

But for this post, we’re sharing a simple method that will allow you to create your very own – right from the get-go.

Here we go…

1. You don’t have to call them values!

Not everybody likes the term values – or its sister term – ‘Mission Statement.’ If that’s the case – let’s go for ‘Beliefs’ or how about ‘Who We Are & What We Do.’ Different companies will have different ways of speaking to each other. Choose the language that feels right for you and your company.

2. What do you like about your company?

Yes, it is as simple as that. What do you like most about your business? What are the action/behaviours/results that please you the most?

Here’s a real tip – look out for are the simple things that people in your team does.

a) The staff in our accountancy firm always take the time to walk guests back to the exit in the other side of the building even though there are signs everywhere and they wouldn’t have any problem getting out.
 
b) Our creative team always delivers to tight deadlines – always! They actually seem to revel in the challenge of a tight deadline.
 
c) Our IT staff are so helpful to customers that when they’re out on-call, they even fix things that aren’t theirs to fix. They just can’t help themselves.
 
d) The analysts in our software company are usually more on-top of legislation changes than the legislators themselves.

You can have some real fun by writing them down – you may have hundreds of them. Get them down. (Post-it notes and a big board can be a great prop for these types of exercises.) It’s a great exercise to carry out and you’ll love your business even more after this.

3. From behaviour to value…

Once you have your list of favoured behaviours all down – its time to think of the value that person had that has caused the behaviour. This is how we get your values.

a) The staff in our accountancy firm always take the time to walk guests back to the exit in the other side of the building even though there are signs everywhere. (behaviours) = show me don’t tell me (value)
 
b) Our creative team always delivers to tight deadlines – always! They actually seem to revel in the challenge of a tight deadline. (behaviours) = love of a challenge (value)
 
c) Our IT staff are so helpful to customers that when they’re out on-call, they even fix things that aren’t theirs to fix. They just can’t help themselves. (behaviours) = going above and beyond. (value)
 
d) The analysts in our software company are usually more on-top of legislation changes than the legislators themselves. (behaviour) = A pro-dative approach. (values)

If you take the time, suddenly you will have a very impressive first draft.

4. Drafts 2-3-4

Now you have your list – you have to decide which ones are most important to you and how many you want? Most companies have between 5-7 values.

5. Use Them With Pride

The way you decide to use your values depends on what kind of company you are? You can use them on your website, the entrance to your office, the second page of your tender or on the introductory slide of a presentation. They do help you stand out from others and you are more likely to attract the kind of people and relationships you want into your business.

6. Live them and update them

Every company will use their values in different ways and some will take them more seriously than others. Real values-led companies hire/fire/assess staff performance all based on their values. Your values should be updated in-line with the people in the company, within the management team and your own business journey too.

We wish you well in creating your values, we hope you get something out of this post and you know where to find us if you would like some help?

contact the loft >>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

28
Sep

Professional Service Websites – 7 Tips

Where to start when building that website for your firm can be a bit daunting. We thought, we’d take a moment out of our day and see if we can help? 

These are 7 tips to help those who are considering how to build their next professional services website or those who simply want to refresh what they currently have.

1. START WITH CONTENT

Many traditional website designers used to create layouts, structures and then create content to fit. We suggest the opposite – create the content first- and create a responsive structure to suit. The reason being is that content list can be a bit daunting and sometimes it is difficult to know where to start? The list may include – staff bios, service benefits, specific methodologies, images, news items, etc. It may include information on culture, values, vision, etc. Get all the information down in one place – post-it notes, scrap sheets of paper, etc. Anywhere, you can look over it all in one go.

Then work out what’s important? Prioritise which bits of content you want to emphasise? These are the bits where you use professional photography, copywriting or even video. By starting with content, you build a more user-friendly site and are more in control of the areas of your company that draw the most attention. Another really great tip is to use leverage and use the images, videos or articles (content) to share on Social Media channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter – obviously a critical part of your digital presence.

2. PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE

Professional services are all about people and relationships – your website should be big on this. Bring your people to life online, this usually means – great images of your staff, personal stories, anecdotes, anything that builds the human story. Some like technical but most don’t so keep specialist information in a separate place to more general information.

The simple act of creating a simple clean layout with just the right amount of information that a client needs to know is an effective way to build a good professional site.

3. TESTIMONIAL SHEET

Not just a website one, but definitely one that will enhance any Business Development activities – the client testimonial sheet. Many professional firms are wary about publishing testimonials, especially on their website, in fear of having their clients poached. We believe that showing others that you do a good job is more than worth the risk.

The most significant improvement to our sales process has been the introduction of a ‘client and testimonial sheet.’ More testimonials gives you greater credibility. You cannot have too many of these. Have them on your website but also a simple doc or PDF file to E-Mail to show new people that you are trying to do business with can be helpful.

We don’t believe you can really have enough testimonials.

4. BESPOKE REQUIREMENTS

Most organisations will have services that are similar if not completely identical to their competitors. Whether it is advising on selling a business, providing an insurance specification or creating a will – we nearly all do the same things on paper. However, ‘it’s not what you do but the way that you do it.’ Being able to talk authentically about the differences demonstrate greater value-add and will help you stand out compared to others.

5. TELL A STORY

As a follow-up to the last tip. Your website should have a basic message, theme or a range of ideas that differentiate you in the marketplace. 95% of professional service firms rightly say that client-service is at the heart of their offering – this is a good message – but when everybody says the same thing, you may want to consider going a little further.

How do you serve those clients better than everybody else? Are you faster? More dynamic? More friendly? More precise? Do you have more specialised knowledge? More useful partnerships? A joined-Up Approach? Obsessed about the detail? Pick a couple of ideas and tell a few stories either with your web-copy or images that will help to emphasise and bring these ideas to life.

6. MAKE CONTACT EASY

A very, very simple one but something which can be neglected at times. It is YOUR duty to ensure that the person looking at your content can reach you easily. This means contact details in all the right places – on the home-sliders, on the menu, an easily-accessible contact-page, a good quality enquiry form, social media links or numbers directly to partners. You decide what that line between ‘accessible’ and ‘desperate’ is but it should never be a chore to contact any organisation. Otherwise you don’t deserve the business.

7. CONTEXT

Professional services are all about reputation and relationships. The majority of your clients will have come through referrals.

Try wherever possible and with whatever means to tell a story – even a short one about the kind of service you provide? There are so many tools out there such as video which allow you to introduce a little more of the human side of yourself. Take a chance and get yourself out there. You’ll be one of the few that do and fortune favours the brave.

If you’d like some help – contact us >>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

25
Sep

‘1000 songs in your pocket’

1000songs

Creating a brand is a never-ending job, there are many things to be done – getting the messaging right, building your digital presence, ensuring there is consistency through all the channels, getting buy-in from multiple stakeholders, etc, etc.

And with each of those questions.

Do we do a new website? Is it time for an E-Mail campaign? Shall we revise the photography of the team? What shall we do with social media?

Where do we start???

At the loft, we believe that the question is usually more important than the answer.

Once you have a clear idea of the question you are asking, you suddenly have a focus and a much wider range of options to play with. And that question is always, always, always better when it starts with people and the type of relationship you want them to have with your brand.

Great questions are the first part of great solutions. Here are some great examples.

“We want to increase our sales with existing customers in Canada because we have the operational capacity to serve more people out there.”

“We have a brilliant opportunity for clients who are looking to scale and we want them to know about it so they can take advantage of it immediately.”

“We want to build a brand so well-known that customers have heard off us before we’ve even finished telling them our company name.”

“We want our customers to benefit from the full suite of services available with our software.”

“We want to do something to unite our team and show the outside world our company is on a new and exciting path.”

Each of the outcomes above have come from projects we’ve worked on – questions that we’ve developed with our clients.

They’ve come from people and brands we’ve worked with -helping them to build better relationships with their customers, suppliers or staff – helping them to achieve their commercial goals.

Strong and worthy questions based around people can only lead to effective solutions. As a company, we wholeheartedly believe in ‘pleasing results over pleasing methods.’

One other person who believed in this was Steven Jobs, and after having read his book, there are similarities.

What made Apple great in the first place? FaceTime gave people easy face-to-face video calling, the original I-Phone gave people an ‘internet communicator, revolutionary mobile phone and I-Pod all in one device.’

And my personal favourite – ‘A thousand songs in your pocket.’

When Steve Jobs presented the original i-pod in 2001, he had a slide which showed the question he asked his team to answer? How can we make a device that gives our customers a 1000 songs in their jeans pocket. What a great question. One which was relevant, worthy and had people at its core. Unsurprisingly, a brilliant start to what became a completely game-changing product.

Like Apple, solutions also have to be flawlessly executed and there has to be a commitment to answering the question properly but nothing will help you achieve successful outcomes quicker.

Not sure about the answer? Think again about the question.

Or we’ll happily help – contact us >>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

23
Sep

6 Things I’ve Learned

A few days ago, it kind of felt like I was the only person in the world working. A combination of Glasgow Fair, staff being on holiday and the whole South Block Building having a bit of an empty eeriness to it. As I worked away – I couldn’t help but be distracted with a conversation I had with our team the day before. I asked them to take some time and study each other to look for just one thing that they thought they admired and could bring into their own games to be that little bit better as professional designers.

Of course – as I asked this of them – my mind raced to some of the brilliant lessons, ideas and habits I had picked up from colleagues, mentors and some  inspirational people that I had listened too in previous years and how much certain ideas had helped me.

I’ve credited the people who shared these wonderful ideas with me at the end, and they are in no particular order. But for keen followers of Scottish Business – you can probably guess who said what?

“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Quite possibly my favourite bit of advice and one that completely transformed my attitude to sales, customer service & business in general. I was the guy that would arrive at the client’s office or boardroom and send the prospect to sleep with 40-50 slides of what they were doing wrong and if they only, only listened to me – they could do it so much better. I am sure my arguments were intellectually sound but you can probably guess how much business I won. A big fat zero. I got used to hearing ‘don’t call us – we’ll call you.’ Once I learned to shut-up and learn what the client was wanting to do and spend my energies helping them to find a solution to their challenges that we started to get some movement.

As a neat follow-up – “Don’t sell to the company, serve the individual.” Maybe not the exact words but the message was similar to the previous one. You have to look after the individual and not the entire company – unless your proposing a company strategy – that is their business and not your problem. Have faith that the person you are looking to work with understands their company and their requirements better than you ever could – you must remember that it is a human that signs off the order at the end of the day and you had better build a rapport with them. The better you serve and understand them – the more quickly you’ll be trusted with more.

“Don’t take health advice from a doctor that is always ill.” Another brilliant one – it is amazing how much we open our minds to the opinion of the day or the person that shouts the loudest. Quite simply – if you want to be good at sales – learn from or ask somebody who is good at sales, if you want your company to be financially robust, ask somebody who has a financially robust company, if you want rapid growth – ask somebody who has done it. There are so many talkers, gurus and ‘thought-leaders’ out there. Analyse their results in a particular area and decide for yourself whether that is what you want for yourself in that area. Otherwise, question any advice they give you.

“Go out and speak to 100 customers now!” Absolutely brilliant – it is amazing how often we fall off-track by falling-in-love too much with our own products and services. Brutally honest feedback from customers is usually the much-needed bringing back down to earth that helps us all to improve our businesses and get better.

“Treat your clients budgets as if they are your own” I think this one is absolutely brilliant for anybody that wants to build long-term relationships with their clients, and long-term business is usually the holy grail. If you are prudent and offer value to your clients in the short-term, you will more likely to be trusted with more in the long term.

“See your business in three time-zones. Too many short-term decisions and you’ll make less mistakes but never grow, too many long-term decisions and you’ll never get any momentum and you need momentum. You have to work to succeed in the present day, a month ahead and in a quarter’s time.” This one was a real eye-opener about the importance of balancing long-term and short-term success.

And finally, a little analogy that I absolutely love…

“Building a rapid-growth business is a bit like building a racing car. You want everything to be poised on the absolute limit. If you put too much horsepower in one go, you’re going to blow everything at the same time – there won’t be adequate cooling, the tyres will blow, the suspension won’t cope – it will be an absolute mess and you won’t know what to fix first. Go the opposite direction and over-engineer each of those things for power you don’t yet have – and you’ve got a tank and not a race-car. I think there are a couple of messages here – firstly, do everything in logical increments – do them quickly – but have some kind of order. And fix today’s problems today and worry about tomorrow’s problems tomorrow – if you’re really going to go fast – there will be new problems for you to solve every single day.”

I absolutely love these and hope some of my fellow entrepreneurs find them handy too.

A huge thank you to (and these are in no particular order…)

Jim Duffy, E-Spark
Stuart Macdonald, Seric Systems
Jim McColl, Clyde Blowers Capital
Bob Keiller, Ex Wood-Group
Colin Robertson, Alexander Dennis
Iain MacRitchie, MCR Holdings

If you’d like to work with the loft – please don’t hesitate to contact us>>>

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is an enthusiastic Creative and Business person.

‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.

He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft, a design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

05
Sep

HAPPY FACES

“We start with happy faces and work backwards…”

This was the answer I gave to a young business person who asked me recently how the loft was so busy and why we are working on so many new projects at the moment.

It is devastatingly simple when you think about it, so simple I have missed it myself, a few times in the past.

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

We picture happy clients, we visualise them giving out their business cards, showing off their websites, sharing their info-graphics on social media. We make storyboarding one of the most important parts of our creative process. We don’t start with typography or graphics or technology or what others are doing.

We take a positive scenario and work backwards.

I know this approach sets us apart from many other agencies and many other service providers.

In the loft, we leave our egos at the door, we practice and sometimes obsess about ‘context.’

How can we make our solutions work for the client? What do we need to do to achieve an effective result for them? How can we make them happy? Delighted even?

The client provides the framework and it’s our job to shine within that framework. This regularly takes us off the beaten path but it does help the people we work with, to shine.

It allows them to pass their business cards to others with absolute confidence, to provoke a person to go to the ‘contact page’ on their website or to tempt a person to pick the bottle off the shelf.

We are relentlessly focussed on those details because they are the things that matter. They are going to help our clients and by helping our clients, we know they’ll come back again and again, and sometimes refer new people too.

The method changes, but the result always remains – happy clients.

 

Richard Seymour’s, ‘How Beauty Feels’ in my favourite TED talk, he discusses creating things that are just wonderful for people – our ethos is the same.

Most people don’t remember what Steve jobs said about the technical spec of the new I-Phone in 2007, but they do remember him calling a local Starbucks and using the new device to order ‘4,000 lattes to go!’

 

This focus allows us to deliver solutions quicker, we are able to maximise client budgets, it allows us to concentrate on what’s important. The process also gives us endless scope for creative solutions.

Thankfully, we have a team of exceptional designers and suppliers who can mould their considerable talents around those bespoke requirements, talented people who have the humility to understand that the best way they can be the stars is by shaping their skills to the benefit of those that they serve.

Our approach is effective but it does require people with open minds, good intuition and exceptional basic skills. Thankfully we have just those people.

Some (crazily I believe) ask if it can be tiresome hearing how good you are all the time?

It doesn’t.

People using the word ‘love’ when talking about things you have done for them or seeing their materials shine on social media is a tremendously uplifting experience. And one that generates its own momentum to keep on going.

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The Advert we created for Petroleum Experts, found its way onto this very large 3-Dimensional, glass paperweight, something they gave to their clients for their 25th anniversary.

Or how about working with a client who in 25 years, having never worked with a creative agency, loving their design so much that they re-produce it in glass to give to their clients on their own 25th Anniversary Dinner.

That last moment is one that happened recently when Hamid Guedroudj and James Woodrow of Petroleum Experts pulled me into their office and presented me with a blue box and inside was one of the biggest paperweights I have ever seen – and one with the design that we co-created with them. A bit of a favourite moment amongst many.

When you start with happy faces and things like this happen you cannot help but have a happy face yourself.

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is the founder of the loft, a design and branding agency based in Glasgow.

The loft helps its clients build more effective brand communications and operates in a diverse range of sectors, specialising in technology, packaging design and professional services. The company is proud to include Petroleum Experts, The Wood Group, BenRiach Whisky, The University of West of Scotland and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau amongst its clients.

The loft offers people-centred brand solutions created using imaginative thought processes and delivered with a consistently high-quality and bespoke client service.

The loft is looking beyond traditional creative services and has begun to produce more integrated brand journeys for its clients – tying together disciplines such as digital, social media and customer experience – in addition to sales & marketing to help companies attract and retain customers & staff. Essentially, building a stronger bond between the person and the brand.

The loft was setup with assistance by PSYBT in 2012 and received Growth Funding the following year. Benedetto is the regional ambassador for the Princes Trust in Glasgow and also provides support to other charities including Young Enterprise Scotland, SMART STEMs and MCR Pathways.

18
Aug

‘DESIGN-ING WITH SOUL’

It’s been a busy time recently and as we get busier and busier with new projects and more successful outcomes – some have been asking about the way we work in the loft and how a small agency which focusses almost exclusively on design manages to grow in the days of more ‘digital solutions.’

So I thought I’d share 10 ideas of the ways we work in the loft – working this way in the last year has fuelled our growth, brought client wins and an awful lot of nice things being said about our work.

They are more about attitudes than the actual mechanics of design but they are our 10 gems about… ‘designing with soul’

1.       ACTION

There is literally no problem that can’t be solved with positive action. This idea is our guiding principle in the studio. A high energy and productive studio brimming with ideas will always have enough momentum to create great solutions and hone solutions to perfection. Every time we think we are hitting a creative brick wall or are torn between two solutions that don’t seem quite right – we develop them both and throw in another 3 for good measure. This loose-ness and care-free abandon removes the creative shackles and almost always produces great solutions.

Action means you have momentum. In design terms at least, it is better to be 80% down the wrong road than to not have started. We find that some people fail 5 times and still find the right solution before others have barely even started to get going so we put the word ‘ACTION!’ at the heart of our way of working.

2.       MAKE TOMORROW HAPPEN TODAY

This principle has as much to do about mentality as it does about practice. Making tomorrow happen today or ‘beginning with the end in mind’ means having faith in ourselves to deliver an outstanding solution to our design challenge, one that makes our client happy as well as ourselves. It means keeping faith in our work throughout the entire process, regardless whether progress is fast or slow.

It means favouring results over methods.

We avoid spending huge amounts of time changing our minds, running into creative cul-de-sacs, when we already have viable design solutions which can be completed with just a little refinement and honing. We contextualise our design solutions, standing where the client stands as soon as possible to help us gain better insights and achieve superior results.

Also, getting to a solution quicker is to the benefit of everybody and we use any time left to create stronger details. When speaking of time, it is just another resource, and when in short supply, we are amazed at how much more creative we become. We work fast in the loft, we road-test ideas quickly, we learn quickly, we fail quickly, this concentration of knowledge and energy always leads to better thought-through design solutions that are usually created in double-quick time. You can also feel the energy and immediacy in the work. Doubling the amount of time on a creative project seldom gives you a solution which is twice as good.

3.       GIVE THE CLIENT WHAT THEY WANT

This may seem far and away like the most obvious principle, but it is amazing the amount of time that studios fall foul of this – ourselves included. We are all guilty of giving the client what we think they want and not what they actually want. The reason this principle is so important is that so much time can be saved going down blind allies – we save as much as 30/40% of branding or graphical solutions by asking the right questions and really listening to what a client wants at the beginning.

More importantly, the more bespoke and personal we make a design solution the more valuable we know our service becomes. The greater the challenge, the narrower the window of design constraints, the greater the opportunity for us to really test our creative mettles. We know that the client is not always right and they should be challenged at times, neither are we alway right. We always look to educate and inform, particularly at the beginning of a process. However, we believe once a designer has their parameters, the difference between the amateurs and the pros is that the true pros always deliver regardless of how limited a brief may be! We love being pushed into tight corners as it allows us to come up with even more imaginative solutions.

4.       START WITH WORDS

Every single project we do begins with words, not images and absolutely not images of competitors work, or benchmarking. A brand, a piece of graphical work, a piece of digital work should arouse various thoughts/feelings in the people engages with it. Those words/thoughts/feelings or even stories are always the starting point for any project for us. They provide a much greater scope for imaginative thoughts and ideas. A canvas with much greater potential. We risk cutting off too much of what we can create if we limit our imaginations at the very first hurdle.

Interestingly most projects we work on start with various messages or a set of words which will be imperfect themselves, as we hone our graphical solutions, we become more able to hone the words themselves. Imagine a see-saw between words and images. As we progress into our designs – the images counter the message and vice versa with both becoming accurate.

5.       INSPIRATION IS EVERYTHING

Inspirations are absolutely everything to us. We see it as our duty to seek out the interesting – to find those abstract shapes, patterns, marks, textures, lines colours and understand why they arouse certain emotions in us. In the studio, we always begin with mood-boards – those inspiration images are everything to us.

The beauty we find in those mood-boards is pivotal to successful design solutions. When our work runs off-course, it is nearly always because we haven’t found or remained true to the beauty of those initial inspirations. Occasionally, finding the true beauty in that inspiration is where the real work in a project is – understanding if it’s the negative space in a composition, the symmetry of a shape, a particular arrangement of colour or the drama of a certain pose – these are all things that we examine when working with our inspirations. Once we raise our awareness of why something works, we take that knowledge and apply it to every technical element of the entire project.

6.       BUILD FROM THE BOTTOM UP!

This is a really important principle. We all have sky high standards, want to do our best and create something outstanding. We never try to do this in one go. The simplest, most effective design solutions that we have created, usually come from thousands of sketches and ideas that have been communicated, mulled over, rejected, re-brought in, analysed, mixed with others, etc…

Having read Jonathan Ive’s book and analysing all of the beautiful, simple and minimal Apple products; we know they are products that are not borne of a designer having one big idea but the manifestations of thousands, if not tens of thousands of thoughts, ideas and decisions made and culminated into beautiful pieces of design. This is why we see it as of the utmost importance that we put our ideas down quickly – very quickly. Then build from the bottom-up, each time, doing just enough to get us to the next stage. Every studio will be different but we work with…

words>inspirations>concept work>development work>final solution.

This involve testing out lots and lots of potential solutions along the way. We don’t perfect our initial concepts in one go, we build from the bottom up in levels, the difference is that we keep building new levels of excellence into our solutions – more honed proportions, even more eye-catching details, greater refinements.

Individual taste of our designers can plays a part in this – sometimes a desire to deduce a design to its simplest core components, sometimes it is to add greater sub-stories into a solution or sometimes just exploring a particular theme in greater depth.

Two quick tips with this principle…

We see it as incredibly important to be positive and constructive, especially during the early stages – we only see the good in our own work, we build on the good and ignore what isn’t working 100%. We see too many designers draw a couple of sketches and try and take them to a close in one go – a bit like a boxer trying to knock out the other fighter with one big punch. It seldom happens. We only see the good – the inspirational, the beautiful, the interesting – this gives us energy and encouragement to drive forward and build in the next stage. We are always looking to create, grow and build on the positive and ignore the negative. The perfectionist part or the deductive part of design for us comes only after a very lengthy creative part, usually at the end when we have a number of solutions to choose from, we never try to close with our first or even our third sketches.

One other little tip that we use in the studio is that we do 30 second sketches, sometimes even 15 second sketches. Nothing cuts through the logical barriers we put in front of ourselves by having to sketch an idea in 15 seconds. It is a wonderful process; we are constantly amazed at the quality and richness of ideas that can be generated from this simple step. It also helps us to become more intuitive as designers. Intuition alongside imagination are mental muscles that we believe every designer has an interest in developing.

7.       PROCRASTINATION IS BAD!

Everybody will design differently but we are very much advocates of a high tempo, high-energy, inspiration-led design process. As mentioned, many of the most beautiful forms of minimalist designs did not come from a single idea that was perfected as a sketch but as the results of fast thinking, fast generation of ideas and decisiveness by the designer or design leader managing the process. We never treat a thought, idea, sketch or even development as precious; they are simply the building block to a ‘next-stage.’ As stated, we tend to have a lot of ‘next-stages’ which leads to better and better design solution. We make up our minds quickly and seldom change them. We see decisiveness as so important as a designer, we believe we can make just about any visual idea work with a truly committed decision and lots of persistence. In the loft, we make our minds up quickly, intuitively, and then we persist, persist, persist with a certain path or idea, almost to the point that it hurts. We see a truly great design as usually just a slight tweak away, and many of our greatest efforts only clicked at the very last moments. However, on the odd occasion when we haven’t been able to make an idea work, when we have taken a design so far down a wrong road, it is only by pushing it so far in a mistaken direction that we have gained absolute clarity about where we have fell short and why another concept may work better. The type of clarity you can’t get if you don’t travel along the path in the first place.

8.       THE ANSWER LIES INSIDE

As we progress with a project, the greater is the temptation to start looking around for other ideas or inspiration. The head-shifting Meerkat syndrome. We believe this has fatal consequences in the quality of our solutions – we lose the original purity of thought or inspiration by looking at others. Occasionally clients will ask for benchmarking activities and it is something that we look at like other studios. However, we believe designers should not be looking at other designs for inspirations unless they are very much in-line with the inspiration/idea/theme/story being explored throughout their own projects. We believe great design is nearly always about purity of expression. We believe that the answer to any problems with a piece of visual design can be found by looking more closely at our own inspirations, ideas, themes and stories, getting to know them better and faithfully exploring them for more creative solutions not lumping elements from other designs onto our own.

9.       ONCE WE’RE DONE, TEAR IT UP AND START AGAIN

To ensure that our designs have real purity – we take them apart and put them back together again. We reduce them to their core components on the wall or on our art-boards, we hone them, analyse them and ensure that there is a real consistency there piece-by-piece. Every piece of design, when reduced to its core components should have a common language running through them that is in line with original inspirations. We print our logos big in the studio then cut them into individual parts to ensure that the radiuses are all consistent, that the relationship between lines are correct, to ensure that every individual part is as consistent as it should be. We look at them in the mirror, we turn them upside down, we look at them big and small, we look at them as black and whites and as negatives. Every part of the process allows us to learn something more and be creative in a further way. This is the rigour and technical discipline that is necessary to create outstanding solutions.

10.   WE DON’T LET IT OWN US…

In the studio, or during work times, a designer must really give their all but we believe it’s so important to have a great life outside of it. Design is a joyful activity. We never live for the work, we instead treat it as work. We believe professional designers must own their projects not the other way around, we know if we are overly precious, it owns us and not the other way around. If a designer is overly precious about their work – they will not take risks with it and he/she has to take risks. They will become tired of it quicker and this lack of enthusiasm will be reflected in the final solution.

We believe a designer needs balance. So much of what we do is about inspiration. If a designer is inspired – they will batter through their work at twice the speed anyway and this immediacy also enhances the final solution. We see inspiration as a little bit like a sand egg-timer. The more inspired an environment feels – the more the designers will work but the less it will feel like work. They will be in the zone, expressing themselves in their love of what they do. The less inspired they feel – the more turgid, ponderous the work will become, the hours become longer and this is then reflected in the final solutions. But worst, it becomes part of the work/life balance.

We have no time for this image of the miserable creative who puts his entire life on the line for their work allowing all other areas of their lives to suffer. We are professional designers, we must love what we do and to love it means not to suffocate ourselves with our love of what we do or our ambitions of what we want to achieve. Yes there will be times when you will have to work harder and longer but on the most part 7-8 hours a day is more than sufficient.

Proposal logos Sextant + constellation

Even a huge amount of work goes into design proposals that eventually become rejected. We have a dustbin of work never used, that would be the envy of many…

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Every project begins with words suggesting thoughts and feelings that should be aroused when you engage with the design solution.

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Rooting out the true inspiration for The Woman’s Enterprise Info-graphic was pivotal in getting this design right.

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Starting with a wide-open imagination and building in phases allows you to quickly build great solutions.

nashira

Real exploration of the story behind the design allowed us to use Nashira to take the Bridge2Business brand to new heights…

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Nothing cuts through the fuzzy thinking more than 15-30-60 second sketches

Loft Logo

Our own logo required absolute persistence with the concept. Only an 11th hour tweak to stagger the lines created the dynamic imbalance allowing the entire composition to come together.

Big, small, upside down, colour, no-colour, every project is a step into the unknown and learning as much about your design will help you reach a great final solution.

Big, small, upside down, colour, no-colour, every project is a step into the unknown and learning as much about your design will help you reach a great final solution.

Commerce

It is so important to enjoy what you do…

Leven 1

Love your clients and what they stand for!

Loft Love

Be proud of what you do…

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And always celebrate the journey…

These 10 ideas only work for us at our energetic, inspired and productive best and this only happens if we are happy outside of our work going in and that means owning our work and not letting it own us. This is so important as many in the creative industries fall into this trap.

On a final and more positive note, many have spoke of the demise of design and communication as part of todays creative landscape and it is true that the majority of agencies growing in this area are digital companies but there are newer, more exciting opportunities for the type of designers who will find the above information interesting.

Alongside areas in new digital mediums, communication is becoming more and more prominent for companies/individuals who need to engage with ever more distracted and busier customers, staff, shareholders, board members, etc than ever before. In the last year, I have spoken to clients who are looking for what we do to illustrate their business plans, to present investment information to funders, to present information in a court of law.

For those that can provide delightful solutions to complex communication problems, there are likely to be no limits in what we can do. I hope you’ve enjoyed glimpsing into the loft studio as much as I have enjoyed sharing it.

Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is a designer and founder of the loft – a specialist design studio based in Glasgow.

The loft takes the true essence of what organisations do and with his team brings those stories to life with a coherence, simplicity and delightfulness that helps companies to create outstanding brand communications.

‘Design with Soul’ is more than a company tag-line to Benedetto, it is a way of life.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role. He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

12
Jul

A Golden Age for Designers

As I write this post, I don’t think there has ever been a better time to be a designer.

I am Benedetto Bordone and I run The Loft, a design and branding studio based in the heart of Glasgow. Like most of my peers, I have witnessed the down-sizing of the creative budget, the commoditisation of basic services and as a designer’s designer (I started my career as a 3D designer and not a graphic designer,) the reducing importance that design seems to be given at agency level in contrast to digital/development/marketing.

However, I remain more optimistic than ever about the future of design and this is why…

– Noise. We are bombarded every single day with more people trying to get our attention – whether it is via digital channels – E-Mail, Social Media, Search Engines or more traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio or the television. Everybody wants our attention. The beauty about this for a creative is that although there may be no shortage of people offering commoditised services to make the noise – it is only those that are capable of making sounds worth listening too that people truly engage with. Those that can make the complex – simple, those that can make the intricate – beautiful, those that can make poetry from prose. The more commoditised and sub-standard communications on the market, the more the good stuff shines like a beacon. Why are we all so drawn to certain brands? Because there is a purity about the way they communicate and only the best know how to get this across. The more savvy clients in this smaller and joined-up world know this and are more than willing to pay for it.

– New Channels. Digital has already created an entire new ball-game and range of tools for designers to express themselves – Websites, E-Mail Campaigns, Social Media Content, apps, etc have all provided new opportunities. However, there are incredible cross-over opportunities on the horizon with new technologies such as 3D Printing, Augmented Reality, Artifical Intelligence – companies are going to soon be able to create a whole raft of products that bring their brands to life in ways that just weren’t possible before. The modern-day Polymath is going to be more and more critical in bridging the gap between technologies to communicate messages to new people in new ways. Going way beyond the company website, business card, company brochure, etc. There is an incredible range of opportunities here for those designers that wish to look just a little left-or-right of centre.

– Storytelling. A picture speaks a thousand words and most people don’t have time for a thousand words. Metaphorically speaking – give them a good paragraph and they may read the full text. Only the most skilled creatives can write that great paragraph. In the last 18 months we have had so many things land on our desks that sit squarely outside what you would expect for a design and branding agency. We have been asked to illustrate complex business plans, we have been asked to graphically create memorable sales systems, to bring life and make effective – flow charts and operational procedures. International legal firms have even discussed with us how we can use graphics and info-graphics to more effectively communicate their cases in court. For the open and prepared mind, there is a raft of new opportunities out there.

– Leadership. Designers can be the new leaders. For the designer that can be both creative yet commercially literate – there are huge opportunities. Brands now communicate over a huge number of different channels, almost relentlessly. The communications must be on-message, be true to the values of the organisation, be authentic and be worth seeing or being listened too as well as being relentlessly consistent. This is an incredibly important job and work that great designers, with their heightened intuitive faculties, are better equipped than anybody else to do. Sir Jonathan Ive is now “one of two of the most important people at the world’s most valuable company – Apple.” His presence extends way beyond that of the designs of the products; he is the ‘guardian of the brand’ and what it means to people. Many may not consider themselves in this way and Sir Jonathan Ive may be a man with very special abilities, however the opportunities are there for every creative and this role is going to become more widely available in the future.

Every industry or sector must go through periods of renewal and creative services, it seems ours is following that course, but for the designer that has a commitment to excellence, a positive attitude and retains a very open mind. If they unwaveringly focus on the people they are serving and concentrate a little more on the result and a little less on the method. I think they will eventually come to see that today we do indeed stand on the precipice of a golden age for design.

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.”
Benedetto

BB

Benedetto is a designer and founder of the loft – a specialist design and branding studio based in Glasgow.

The loft takes the true essence of what organisations do and with his team brings those stories to life with a coherence, simplicity and delightfulness that helps companies to create outstanding brand communications.

‘Design with Soul’ is more than a company tag-line to Benedetto, it is a way of life.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role. He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.