Happy St David’s Day
1 March 2017
Feeling a little analogue in the studio as we celebrate St David’s Day. Anyone else remember ruby lith tape?
Everyone’s a critic
Confirming the old adage about taking a horse to water, a trip to Barcelona proved that you also can’t make a 12-year-old boy look up from his phone for a moment even when you’re in the beautiful galleries of the Fundació Joan Miró in front of one of the great artist’s masterpieces!
Luckily, more attention was paid to those other great artists – Messi and Neymar – later on in the weekend.
Photography shoot for Headway Cardiff
14 February 2017
We’re delighted to be working with Headway Cardiff this year and recently directed a photoshoot with our favourite photographer. We’ve worked with David at Photodrome for many years and he’s shot a huge range of material for us from geotextiles to national recycling depots.
Headway is the national charity set up to help and support individuals affected by brain injury and we’re looking forward to seeing the images printed on the display materials we are producing for the organisation.
Google Digital Garage at Tramshed Tech
9 January 2017
Always on the lookout for opportunities to develop our digital skills we popped along to the Digital Garage at the Tramshed in Cardiff this week, hoping to gain some useful insights into the way Google thinks. It’s always good to listen to others and we were able to pick up some useful tips at a great local venue.
We heard how many businesses aren’t utilising the Knowledge Panel which is the panel which pops up on the right hand side of the screen in response to a user search. The Knowledge Panel is a great way to reinforce a brand or give potential customers a little more information about a business and all business owners should take the time to populate and update their panel.
Another useful tool which Google provides can be found at www.testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com where website performance can be measured and scored. By simply typing in a web address, Google will determine how the site performs across all devices offering a free detailed report and tips on how to make improvements.
Graphic Design Workshop
26 November 2016
We were delighted recently to be asked to deliver a graphic design workshop at the British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists’ Annual General Meeting and Development Day.
Set in the grounds of the Mary Hare School at Newbury, the Arlington Arts Centre was the venue where we helped a number of audiologists understand and gain insight into how good branding and communications could benefit their practice.
After delivering a mixture of activities and information, we received great delegate feedback and were thanked by the CEO for our successful contribution to the day.
Cyfannol Women’s Aid delighted with new responsive website design
1 August 2016
Cyfannol Women’s Aid recently launched their new website design, created and built by us here at Designworld. The responsive website, built using the WordPress framework and designed to work on multiple platforms, had to successfully communicate important information clearly and quickly to a varied audience, from service users to corporate sponsors.
Here’s what the client had to say about it…
‘Huge thank you to Designworld for creating cyfannol.co.uk – getting great feedback’
Find out more about Designworld’s graphic design for the third sector
Typography of Stranger Things
29 July 2016
There’s a lot for a designer of a certain age to get excited about with this summer’s Netflix TV sensation “Stranger Things”. But in amongst the retro 80s posters, the big hair, the throbbing synth soundtrack and multitude of movie references, literally the first thing to catch the eye is the title typography.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the series creators put a lot of thought into the opening titles, drawing on the covers of Stephen King’s early 80s paperbacks to decide a glowing red outlined form of ITC Benguiat. The font’s creator, the legendary font designer Ed Benguiat, wasn’t aware of the use until The Telegraph contacted him for this article. One of the founders of International Type Corporation, Benguiat (the man) designed Bengiat (the font) in 1978, but he has given this use his seal of approval and is quoted as saying “It’s rather appropriate… It lends itself to the feeling of the titles.”
We have been designing professionally for over 25 years, so it’s fair to say that we have used Benguiat on more than one occasion. It even appears on some of our sister company’s typographic wall art, just showing that we can still keep ahead of the graphic design curve!
Find out more about the life of Ed Benguiat in this Telegraph article.
Things you discover in the summer holidays (Pokemon special)
25 July 2016
A visit to the studio by the kids during the school summer holidays was greeted with more than usual excitement as it turns out that Temple Court is actually more than just a beautiful office space with great facilities and wonderful staff – it is actually Pokestop in Pokemon Go. This – apparently – is the best thing ever! Who knew?
Logo design is following in the footsteps of the Bishops
23 June 2016
The Tywi Gateway Project is a community driven landscape restoration project led by The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust at Bishop’s Park. Our client wanted a logo design which would connect with users, be easy to digest, and communicate immediately what the park had to offer. The illustrative nature of the logo was designed to enable it to be extended throughout all communications at the park, from brochures to signage and eventually to interactive user experience.
Event -ful two days in Nottingham
30 May 2016
We were asked again this year to work alongside BSHAA to help deliver a high quality, successful Annual Congress event. It’s always a thrill to get involved in a project from start to finish – from scribbles on a piece of paper (yes, we’re old school!) to actual production and build. The East Midlands Conference Centre in the grounds of Nottingham University was a superb venue and both the client and conference delegates were delighted with our contribution to their flagship event.