We build visual identities, not websites

I have often told people that the Loft does design websites but we are not web-designers, sometime to much puzzlement. What does this mean? How can it be? Well, your average web design company tend to be technically driven joomla specialists or the like. Client gives them brief, they very efficiently use the software that they are most comfortable with and build you a website. The results tend not to be too spectacular.

The Loft does not adhere to this approach. Dont get me wrong, website design is our most popular service, but we take a different approach. Designing a website is necessary task but if it is not underpinned with the correct brand message, it is a completely pointless task. That also applies to those brochures and any other material that does not chime with your brand values. It is like the general of an army sending his troops to go fight in a battle. It matters not how prepared, well trained and equipped the army is. If the general does not send them in the right direction. It becomes a completely futile excercise. And when it comes to brands, consistency is king. All the great brands understand this. Bigger ones such as Audi and Apple, slightly less well known ones such as Innocent who make Smoothies and even smaller companies like Freelance World, Aberdeen who I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. All businesses have a culture, but what the great brands I mentioned do is take this one step further.

For starters, they all have super-consistent visual identities. Website, marketing material, logo, business card are all designed in accordance to the brand guidelines. But what all the companies I have mentioned do is ingrain their culture into new activities and excercises that further strengthen their brands.

Audi are a company that prides itself on being a forward looking company that embraces technological innovation. They are involved in activities such as the ‘Audi design foundation’ and more recently the Audi Urban Future Award. It goes one step further in harnessing a brand image.

However, this great brand building activities like this are not the sole propriety of larger companies. Freelance World of Aberdeen are very pro-active in promoting their ‘Jelly’ which further enhances their young energetic brand.

At the Loft, we see no point in building a website if the underlying brand is weak and inconsistent. It is our role to find creative ways to accentuate a brand. To help build that culture, to build that culture. Building websites is part of this, and we do it very well, but