May 2008 Archives

At eyesparks we create great websites. We create them as part of a team - us and the customer. The styling that surrounds the site is important as is the technology that powers it, but the most important aspect of the site is the content. My web career began properly in 1997 when I designed the first Riverdeep website. I was the design director for the company and had been involved in every aspect of product development, so I knew the content inside out. During the four years that I was responsible for the site (which had over 1 million registered users when I left) my main priority was not the look and feel of the interface but the content that it housed. Second on the list was making sure that our users could find the content they were looking for and that it was engaging and useful when they got there.

I was surprised when I returned to Belfast at the lack of interest many web agencies seemed to have in their clients' content.  It is still a problem that many 'web design' companies are more obsessed with the technological structure of the website than the message or information the client wants to deliver through the site. A mistake many make is to take a task-orientated view of the web design process - 'architecture', 'programming', 'graphics' (a particular pet hate of mine) and finally 'content'. Often they place greatest value in their 'Content Management System' which combines the first three aspects and leaves the most important area in the hands of the client.

At Eyesparks we take a much more holistic approach to web design. We understand that a website is about the people who use it (the target audience) and what they get from that experience. So we start the process by looking at how you are going to talk to your target audience through the website. What you will say and how you will say it. Then we look at how those people might expect to find that information and we design the user interface to ensure a simple, rewarding experience. We develop all aspects of the site together to ensure that visually, technically and editorially we deliver the best possible experience for your target audience. And this ensures you get the best reaction to your content and therefore a sale. 

Your brand is not You. It is what your customer perceives You to be. We help our clients see themselves through their customers eyes.

We distil the essence of your ideal customer perception and pour it into your visual identity. When I say 'visual identity' I don't just mean your logo, I mean every aspect of how you brand is represented visually to your audience.

I'll outline how we approach a branding project:

• Understand the product/service
• Understand the target market
• Build a profile for each identifiable group within the target market 
• Analyse the market to understand where this brand can fit in relation to competitors and the customers' perception of them
• Create brand statements for each identified group within the target market - ie "what this brand means to me"
• Create logo options that will satisfy all or some of the target audience
• Present logos in conjunction with visualisations of the brand statements
• Agree how the brand should move forward and what changes, if any, the client company needs to make to their culture in order to fit their new brand
• Apply the new brand across all visual media
• Produce guidelines to ensure brand consistency going forward

Almost every project we undertake in our Belfast design studio involves some aspect of branding. Are a few great examples of branding projects on our website but one that benefited from the above methodology is Outdoor Scene.