Miranda Barham Branding
Raising the profile of a start up venture with a fresh concept and vibrant new look.
A valued working relationship
we cannot claim to know everyone’s market inside out, but with an insightful brief, solid background research and a generous sprinkling of good quality design, our creative solutions transcend all industry sectors.
Going it alone
In 2010 Miranda took the brave move of setting up her own venture with a PR & Marketing Consultancy. Naturally she turned to Hatch for assistance in creating a new identity, stationery and company website.
As Ms Barham’s preferred agency of choice it was par for the course that we be introduced to her new employer with an advance in her career. Continuing our journey with the APX Group and Miranda’s predecessor we set up a new account with Bfinance, a financial services firm providing advice to companies & institutional investors globally.
The evolution of an identity
Looking at the above selection of early design submissions put forward, they really show how a variety of typeface and icon options set a different look and feel. These interchangeable elements helped our client to Pick’n’Mix her preferred final solution seen below.
OPT 1 A clever solution that lifts the letters ‘bar’ in the clients surname from the typographical baseline. This is further realised with the addition of a drop-mirror shadow which grounds the remainder of the name whilst highlighting the word ‘bar’ by dropping its’ shadow by an equal amount. This unusual treatment brings a ‘smile in the mind’ with the detached strap-line ‘raising the bar in PR’ which relates to Miranda’s general approach to business.
OPT 3 A more fluid option which uses a cool, modern, italicised typeface, again with the preferred Strategic Communications strap-line. The ‘quote bubble’ has a traditional phone icon within the negative white space, reiterating the communications aspect of the business.
OPT 4 The fourth submission has a fashionable, rounded typeface which presents a softer more approachable look and feel. The Lime roundall icon has a double-take aspect built into it’s structure. By rotating the negative ‘m’ by 45 degrees, the white space can be viewed as an uppercase ‘B’ thus presenting the clients initials.
The final elements
Following the submission of the designs above, Miranda and the Hatch team got together to brainstorm the final solutions.
To the right, the results are an amalgamation of the initial design concepts, bringing preferred elements together. Both developments A and B, use the serif based typeface from idea 2 combined with the raised ‘bar’ in the name. Also preferred for both solutions was the lime roundall from design 4 which uses the negative white space to optically beguile, forcing a subliminal stamp on the mind. This combination became a real winner, clever and simple but very memorable.
Solution A also uses a drop shadow to ‘ground’ the type to the baseline, the shadow of the raised ‘bar’ reciprocating the movement of the text. Solution B includes the tagline ‘Strategic Communications’ which covers the multitude of disciplines and expertise Miranda can offer.
Further to this, we took the strapline from design A ‘Raising the bar in PR’ and evolved it (bottom right). To feature at the foot of a webpage and on the reverse of the business card as a summary, an encapsulation of everything Miranda’s company is about and an explanation of the logo. The idea was to keep it simple and very memorable – ‘raise the bar’ says it all. The optical roundall, completes the strapline, enabling it to work well in any environment as well as in isolation.
Miranda Barham Website
A professional, clean & updateable website for a solo venture
Engaging online presence
With fresh new branding in place courtesy of Hatch Creations, Miranda’s next requirement for her solo venture was to have a strong online representation. With company websites being the new shop window for modern businesses it was crucial that the new site be conservative, professional and non fussy. This would relay Miranda’s no-nonsense approach to her style of working and appeal to the sectors she works within.
Our brief was steered by Miranda’s requirement for a branded, self contained site that she, herself could easily edit and update. The navigation should be clean and simple allowing the content to be king, in short no wiz’s & bangs!!
Our approach
Before we began planning in fine detail, we met with Miranda to get an idea of her expectations. In the briefing process we needed to establish the functionality and complexity required.
Considering the requirements outlined in the brief, our web team recommended a tailored WordPress template as a foundation. This software has been on the market since 2003, what started as a popular blogging platform soon became a leading choice for standard website creation. This solution is ideal for clients that are working to a more modest budget and the functionality need not by too overcomplicated. Below are our reasons for choosing this system as the back-end structure for Miranda’s site.
With a direction in mind we researched and provided links to online examples of WordPress themes that we felt would hit the mark. At this stage we were looking for a general style, look, feel & navigation (i.e. corporate, clean & modern) advising Miranda to disregard the dummy content and images of the template as most elements are changeable.
8 advantages of WordPress?
1. Simple to use
With it’s instinctual user interface WordPress is extremely straightforward to use. As the technology is so transparent, time spent on formatting is largely shortened. Introducing new posts, images, pages, etc. can be carried out promptly.
2. WordPress is ideal for search engine
The web coding of WordPress is lucid and uncomplicated.
This allows each search engine, ease of access to register a sites’ information and architecture. Each component, be it an image, post, or page has ‘flag’ elements, specific to its content or headline, which can be optimized for definitive keywords, allowing each search engine to maximise its ability for accurate results. Ultimately this will ensure a high page ranking when searched for online.
3. Update your website with ease
With the ability to completely update every aspect of the appearance and content of a site, the brand and its values are at the forefront making a site look as if it has been tailored especially for the company rather than an off-the-shelf template. WordPress is the backbone to the website.
4. Run your site your way
WordPress allows you to take control of your site, whether it be a minor text change or a total re-vamp. Almost every element of your website is updateable by you.
WordPress allows you the ability to login and manage
your website from any computer with an internet connection.
6. Personalise with enhance features
Adding social network, special events, maps, or testimonial features to your site is easy & affordable with widget plug-ins.
7. Self-sufficient for ease of use
WordPress does not use or require HTML input from applications such as Dreamweaver. New posts, pages, images, video & image galleries can easily be created or updated within the system itself.
8. A Multi-User System
Greater flexibility for sites requiring regular updates is achieved with appointed administrative access for several users.
A satisfied and valued customer
Our working relationship with Miranda has gone from strength to strength and Miranda’s business continues to support and promote Hatch Creations through her Partner Network.
To see how Miranda endorses her involvement with Hatch Creations or to check out her newly designed website and great new branding visit: www.mirandabarham.com
