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Hello
Although the sun has finally come out to play, June is a black month for us at Persona as we say goodbye to one of our most loved team members. After three mind-blowingly creative years, our longest serving senior designer Andy, is leaving Persona for pastures new.
Andy has been instrumental in leading the way at Persona over the last 3 years - there are far too many highlights to include here, but some worth of mention include:
• Taking us to the finals of the YDA digital design awards
• Runners up in the Franchise Marketing Awards for
 exhibition design
• Heading up our Transformers and Ironman movie tie-ins
with Toshiba
• Creating a large part of our overall design portfolio
So it's with a heavy heart we say goodbye to Andy and we wish him good times in his travels ahead.
Andy and Mark have been a formidable design duo at Persona for some time, so it's worth taking one last time to check out the last of their collaborations below.
We now enter a new era of creative thinking at Persona, with Mark at the helm and a growing team alongside him. Things are about to get very interesting; stay tuned... |
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Growth Investment launch new CMS web site
If you're a small, growing business that could benefit from some equity investment, you won't find a better place to research and contact the right people than the new Growth Investment East Midlands web site which was launched this month.
www.ginem.co.uk
Following a formal tendering process, the EMDA-backed organisation commissioned Persona as their brand stewards and communications agency.
Our remit has been fully integrated and so far we've delivered a new visual identity, marketing material, advertorials and event signage. You can see snippets of our work with Growth Investment on our blog.
The key channel though is the new web site at www.ginem.co.uk which has been developed on our Content Management System (CMS) for easy maintenance and longevity.
The site has a clean, professional and modern design that's aimed at entrepreneurs, along with a suitable wealth of no nonsense news, articles and resources.
It's worth bookmarking this one, as already the site content is updated regularly with events and videos.
Don't forget, if you need to regain control of your web site and could benefit from a more user-centric communications strategy, speak to us and we can have a friendly chat to see if we can help. |
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Diva Telecom continues to build brand equity
This month we've completed an update to the ever-growing Diva Telecom brand.
Since we first worked with them (almost 3 years ago), Diva have always been keen to keep their brand and communications fresh - a strategy that has clearly worked, as they're enjoying phenomenal growth (including a new home in their super-environmentally friendly offices).
In parallel to the growth of the product and service ranges Diva Telecom carry, we've produced a new suite of illustrations to bring life and identity to each one. The bright, modern styles keeps within style we previous set in the brand, justifying the approach we took (which was to plan for scale).
The new designs are already in use on a refreshed web site at www.divatelecom.co.uk |
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Exhibition stand design extends to China
The recent exhibition stand we produced for Picsolve has been so sucessful that it's been sent out to their Far Eastern division in China and we've been commissioned to produce another one for the European market.
The design of the stand included a number of innovative ideas and combined with the striking artwork throughout is clearly world-class. Some of the things we did on the project:
• Engineered a new wall hanging / hook system to create
a seamless and roll-top finish.
• Built a centre console in-house for their kiosk, that
can be packed down into standard flight cases.
• Embeded mini-touch screens to make the stand
interactive; including artwork. |
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User Centred Design is no card trick
Question: How often do you visit a web site and click through all the levels of navigation and read all the content along the way?
Answer: Well unless you have lots of time on your hands, chances are that like most people, you don't.
Nearly all web users (novice and experienced alike), scan through pages and follow the signposts (links/buttons etc) that catch their eye and make sense to the information journey they are on.
So why is it that so many web sites are structured in a way that simply doesn't reflect what it is you are after? It's usually because the site was designed from the inside out, rather than using a User Centred Design (UCD) methodology - which is just what we happen to be specialists in.
When working on a new or redesigned web site, one of the first things we'll produced is a sitemap - a structural view of the content we'll be presenting and that users will be navigating. It's imperitive to get this strcture right early on in order to avoid costly mistakes or an ineffective web site. One technique we common use is known as 'card sorting'.
We've always been fans of this method, as it makes sure a site is structured logically for REAL PEOPLE and not just a top-down heirarchy.
Auditing your content against a card sorting excercise is a quick and cheap way we can work with you on to identify any missed opportunities.
If you want to know more about how card sorting works, have a read of this blog post by our user experience architect Marianna and then feel free to get in touch and arrange an audit. |
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