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All that glitters: gold foil inspiration

Our MOO community are going for gold and we can’t get enough of these amazing designs – from event planning to graphic design, our customers are creative, inventive and more than a little bit brilliant.

Our MOO community are going for gold and we can’t get enough of these amazing designs – from event planning to graphic design, our customers are creative, inventive and more than a little bit brilliant.

This month, we wanted to share 3 entrepreneurs whose gold foil designs are giving us heart-eyes. With unique businesses from branding to knitwear, their share the stories behind their brilliant businesses and stunning designs.

Wild Within

Steph Zangeneh Azam, owner of Wild Within Studio, specialises in graphic design and brand photography for women who make and do cool things. She helps them discover their brand vision, translate their dreams, and express the magic that is their Wild Within.

Steph explains, “in the beginning, I took any project that came my way. But as my business grew, I yearned for more… I didn’t think about finding a niche or filling a gap. I just wanted to work with women who struggled with the same business issues I had”.

When creating her business cards, Steph wanted the receiver to “feel like they’d just been handed something special, like a magical key”. She kept the message clear and the design simple – her logo on the front and tagline and info on the back.

Steph chose MOO’s gold foil finish, set up on a black matte background. “It gave the cards that bit of magic I was looking for”. Steph adds, “I love how they look and feel! It was my first time trying the gold foil and it didn’t disappoint. The cards feel solid and high-end”. Steph feels proud handing her cards out and told us the typical reaction is “WOW! Cool cards, I love the way they feel!”

Create your own Gold Foil Business Cards

 

Born & Raised

Born & Raised was founded by Rachel in the spring of 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. After graduating from Parsons the New School for Design in 2014, Rachel felt there was a huge gap in the market for accessible, contemporary and stylish knitwear for every member of the family. Starting as a baby and kidswear brand, B&R quickly grew into a full lifestyle label, known for their stylish knits that are long-lasting, luxurious and incredibly cute!

B&R is a brand on the go and Rachel’s passion for travel has kept her business on the move over the last few years, with her continuing to design and produce goods as she travels the globe.

Now settled in LA, and with all of Born & Raised’s products being made from start to finish in the USA, the brand was in need of a makeover. Their old business cards no longer reflected the aesthetic of the brand and Rachel wanted to highlight that her products were now made in the US. “I put my favorite B&R knits onto cards – they were such a beautiful, streamlined design on their own! I then added contrast by overlaying my logo in gold foil”.

Rachel’s Born & Raised business cards are square – she feels the shape really “lends itself well to the brand’s aesthetic” and the cards “have an incredibly soft feel and lovely finish”.

Rachel adds, “I receive so many comments on the cards and have seen a genuinely positive response to them. Sometimes when you order printed products online, there is a risk or a gamble that they won’t turn out exactly the way you had imagined. Luckily for me, my business cards turned out even better! I love including my MOOcards in promotional images of my work, as they really did turn out perfectly and go hand in hand with my designs.”

Shop Gold Foil Business Cards

 

Wonderlust Events

Holly is the founder and owner of Wonderlust Events. She’s passionate about events and making people smile. And, with experience in both social and corporate worlds, she tells us there’s nothing more satisfying than turning someone’s dream into reality. “Whether people come to us with an idea or with no inspiration at all, we take them by the hand and give them the support every step of the way”.

Wonderlust means ‘to be in a constant state of wonder’, and Holly’s aim is to turn her customer’s wonders into reality. The Wonderlust logo was drawn by the very talented Gabriella Croci using inspiration from Holly, while adding fantasy and magic to her ideas. When it came to designing her business cards, Holly and Gabriella wanted to show off the stunning logo in gold foil on a dark background, and for it to convey elegance. On the other side, they wanted to demonstrate simplicity, keeping it to the basics of what people want to extract from a business card.

Holly adds: “I love the feel of my business cards and the gold foil really helps my logo stand out. Everyone has mentioned the quality of the cards, how different they are and how much they love the logo.”

Make your business shine with Gold Foil Business Cards

Your brand represents your business. And we all know businesses change to catch up with trends in the industry. So while your brand helped you get to where you are today, it may need a refresh to retain your customers and break into new areas. That’s why rebooting your brand is so necessary. Don’t know where to start? Try a brand audit first.

In the simplest terms, a brand audit is a chance to step back and analyze the current state of your brand. It not only looks at visual design overhauls, but also takes a look at your company’s voice and messaging. If you’re releasing a new product or shifting your focus, a brand audit can be the perfect opportunity to start fresh.

Of course, it can be difficult to determine when your company’s voice is no longer serving the brand. That’s why we talked to some marketing experts, and found out they know when it’s time for a refresh.

When should you do a brand audit?

Jason Parks, owner of The Media Captain, told MOO that business owners should always get an outsider’s perspective on their brand. “Associates working for a company are so closely involved in day-to-day interactions that their judgement can be clouded in regards to their overall brand image,” Parks said. “Show your website and your logo to five random people, and also have them look at yours versus your competitors. If you are constantly polled in the bottom tier based on the overall look and feel, it is likely time to refresh your brand.”

Pamela Webber, the Chief Marketing Officer at 99designs, has a checklist that she applies to brands to see if they need a reboot: Have they added new services products? Are they inconsistent across all social media and marketing channels? Has their target market or brand values changed? Does your logo look outdated? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then it’s time to start the brand auditing process.

How should you conduct market research?

No company should rebrand without doing some solid research beforehand. Otherwise, your consumers might have a completely different perception of your brand than you originally wanted.

Yet before diving into focus groups, it’s important to figure out what the most important aspects of your brand are, and what message you want to communicate to customers. In this step, it’s helpful to make a list of your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Next, determine if you’re successfully communicating the right message to your target audience.

“My favorite way to assess a refresh or rebrand comes from customer service,” said BrandPsyche founder, Stephanie Jiroch. “My first step is to determine what feedback is being offered in customer service tickets, comments or reviews across the web and social media.” The best buzz for your company comes from the customer, so knowing what works and what doesn’t should be at the foundation of the refresh.

David Langton, President of Langton Creative Group, suggests looking at your business pipeline to see where your company’s weak points are. “You can do qualitative research and interview current and past clients to see how your brand is doing, but often it is more important to examine your pipeline of sales and look at the close-calls, AKA the one that got away,” Langton told MOO. “Why are your prospects choosing your competitors? Your brand must align with core values that you can truly live up to. A superficial brand refresh is not going to address shortcomings in your services.”

With that in mind, has your company conducted a brand audit or rebrand before? How did you know when it was time to pull the trigger? Let us know!

In the meantime, download our new ebook for more brand refresh success stories.

Working in real estate sure teaches you how to be persuasive – but we bet you don’t know all 5 of these proven-and-practiced ways to persuade. Try one on your next appointment!

Businesses rely on persuading people. It’s how you get customers to understand, to buy and to believe in what you do. Whether you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, or founder, the things you say about your brand need to be persuasive – and that goes for everything from the content on your website, property descriptions and images in your brochures, right through to email subject lines.

But the world of persuasion doesn’t need a PhD in behavioural psychology – it’s a skill that’s entirely attainable with practice. As Robert Cialdini, author of the infamous marketing psychology book Influence reminds us, “If a patsy like me can do it… anyone can”. Often, it comes down to the way you plan and write – so here are 5 tips to try next time you’re putting some words together.

Social Proof – “everyone else is doing it”

People do as crowds do and showing what someone’s peers are up to can be incredibly powerful. It’s all about the power of testimonial – if you’re on the fence about whether or not to do something and you see someone else who’s taken the plunge and been happy, it helps build your belief that if you follow the same path, you’ll get the same benefit. Research from Nielsen shows that 92% of people trust testimonials from people who they share characteristics with (same age, location, sector…). That’s pretty powerful stuff!

How to use it:

Get to know your customers and let them do the talking for you. If you’ve built up a great rapport with a customer during a sale, when they’re in the afterglow of finding their new dream home, get a little something from them. So, we all get testimonials, right? But where are you using them? Work the format – and get it everywhere… on your website, on social media, even printed on postcards (or business cards, for that matter)

Listening – “tell me what I want to know – not what you want to tell me”

A lot of people do this backwards by instinct. When they have a message to get across, they pile in from all angles to make themselves understood. Use social media and any feedback you have to understand why your customers are using you – rather than why you think they’re using you.

This also comes across in the detail of the language that you use. Look again at the words you’re using – every time you say ‘we’, can you say ‘you’ instead? And do you really understand why someone would come to you over a competitor? Take the time to ask, listen and understand the real-world benefits you bring.

How to use it:

speak in your customers’ language. Look again at the words you and they use. Are they the same? Instead of saying ‘we provide the best service on the market’, how can you make it about your customer instead? Tell them what they’ll get – not who you are. Instead of saying ‘We’ve got 15 years’ experience in the real-estate industry’, try ‘You’re in safe hands – we’ve helped more than 500 people find their dream home and now, we’ll help you find yours.’

Outcome modeling: “what’s going to happen next?”

Think about this as telling someone what they’re going to get before you tell them what to do – this is the reason why someone will move forward in their buying process. Sometimes, it’s not always clear what will happen next, and the more you can help someone understand exactly what the next steps are in a chain, the more likely they are to follow it. Think of it as letting your customers see through a door before they have to open it.

How to use it:

When it comes to your marketing materials – like your email or website copy for example – don’t give empty instructions. Instead, always try and say what someone will get by following that instruction – if you’re using language like ‘click here’ or ‘sign up’ you’re going down the wrong path. Those are the actions someone will take in order to get the thing they’re after – so lead on that. Try ‘view this property’ or ‘find my new home’.

Scarcity – “it won’t be around forever!”

By making something scarce, you can give a sense of urgency, which in turn can make something seem more desirable, leading to faster action. That’s why you often see the text “only 2 items left” in red when shopping online, a countdown timer when buying show tickets, and according to the Harvard Business Review, why McDonalds repeatedly launches the McRib sandwich for just a limited time only. When people think that the opportunity might pass, they’re less likely to put it off.

How to use it:

If the price in a certain area has escalated quickly, make it clear that properties are in short supply and add a sense of urgency to the call to actions that sit alongside the property listings on your website. For example – ‘Last 2 bed under $400k in this zip code!’

Want more tips to boost your business? Try our guide to productivity

Working for yourself? Sure, it’s super-rewarding – but it can make it hard to make time for yourself. Follow our 5 tips for a more productive, more relaxed, more successful you.

Being a self-employed realtor is exciting. You get to make money doing something you’re passionate about, while keeping control over your work schedule — the amount of freedom can be a little addictive, and very inspiring.

So inspiring, in fact, that it can be difficult to remember to take care of yourself. When everything from marketing to selling is on your plate, you can find yourself more stressed than you should be – and too overwhelmed to do something about it.

That’s why it’s important to build smart work habits that not only help you work more efficiently, but ensure you look after your wellbeing – which in turn gives you the energy and skills to push your business even further.

Instead of doing more, review your goals

Tara Gentile, a small business consultant and strategist, notes that a common problem for busy entrepreneurs is trying to grow their business by doing more of the same – “more work, more offers, more email subscribers, more marketing.” But when you’re only focused on doing more, it’s inevitable that you’ll eventually reach the point where you have more tasks than you will time to do them.

Instead, set bigger goals that help you keep focused on the major steps for your business to level up. “It might mean taking a risk and hiring a team member, or cutting one product and going all in on the other,” she says. “But, however you approach it, it’s going to mean doing things differently. Doing things differently will get you out of the burnout cycle and on to growing your business.”

Understand the value of your time

As a self-employed realtor, understanding the balance between spending time on a sale and the commission you’ll get from that sale is a really delicate balance to strike that even the most experienced among us can find tricky. If you’re relatively new to the business, this is something it’s worth actively trying to establish as early on as possible – where is it worth you spending the time?

Over the course of a quarter, try and keep track of where you spend your time vs. where your sales land – at the end of the period you’re tracking, can you see where you might have over-serviced and, even better, where a little more time earlier on might have landed you a sale sooner? There are a ton of different apps that can help you track your time easily from your smartphone, so give one a try and see what you learn.

Get organized

Staying organized can do wonders for your peace of mind when you’re self-employed. Creating a workflow that works for you is a highly personal process, but these tools can help: Evernote is great for storing documents and your notes to self, as well as bookmarking inspiration for new projects. And the phone app comes with a scanner – no more losing notes, receipts, business cards, or invoices!

To keep track of your to-do list: Asana and Wunderlist are great if you’re more of a linear thinker, or if you want a more visual way to manage your projects, try MeisterTask, Trello or Asana’s new board option.

Organizing your cashflow and invoicing can remove a lot of stress, too – Quickbooks and Xero are accounting apps for small business owners, while Harvest and Freshbooks additionally have time-tracking and easy payment tools built in.

Make time for yourself

Todd Henry, business author and speaker, says one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is letting business take over their lives. “Make sure you’re taking time on a regular basis to fill your mind with inspiring stimuli and ideas,” he says. Whether that’s checking out art exhibitions or settling in with a new Danish noir TV show, it’ll help you stay fresh and generate great ideas.

An underrated favorite is to try a series of podcasts and audiobooks. There are so many great ones to choose from, whether you’re into surreal audio dramas or nonfiction narratives about design – and they can be “read” while you’re cooking, walking the dog, cleaning the house, or in the car.

Want to make your work time more productive? Try these tips

Quality customer service isn’t just about quick wait times on the phone anymore. It now includes amazing content marketing—AKA an offering of helpful content for your consumers. Zendesk, a company dedicated to creating great customer experiences, has mastered this art.

According to their website, Zendesk “was started in a Copenhagen loft by three friends who used an old kitchen door as a desk.” Their mission was to bring some zen into the world of customer support. Years later, the company has expanded globally and has real desks in thirteen countries.

Relate Zendesk

The folks at Zendesk have even created a thought leadership arm of the company—Relate by Zendesk. This branch includes an online magazine, event series, podcast, and print magazine. No small feat. “Where Zendesk focuses on bettering customer service interactions, Relate goes up a level and delves into customer experiences,” Chelsea Larsson, the Senior Manager of Content Strategy at Zendesk, told MOO. “We talk about the trends impacting how we interact with the important business relationships in our life— customers, colleagues, and our community.”

Zendesk also hosts an unconventional customer experience conference, called Relate Live. The event promises to teach attendees how to build better relationships with their customers. Throughout the day, there are thought-provoking keynotes, training sessions, and breakouts. By the time happy hour rolls around, everyone has gained insight into how they can improve their own customer experience challenges.

Relate Zendesk

We had a virtual conversation with Chelsea Larsson about the definition of great content marketing, different tactics for facilitating conversations, and the innovative ways that Relate uses print products to connect with their customers.

Why is content marketing valuable to Zendesk, and for connecting businesses with customers in general?

We think of content marketing as a way to continue the brand relationship with customers and community members, beyond the product experience. From the Zendesk Blog to Relate to our events, our primary goal is to be a trusted resource for people who are passionate about the customer experience. When planning for new content we often ask ourselves, “Who needs this?” If the only answer is Zendesk, then we won’t publish it because it’s too self-serving.

Monica Norton, Director of Content Marketing at Zendesk, always reminds us that no one is obligated to read our content, listen to our podcast, or attend our events. It is our job as content creators to publish pieces that are personal and relevant to the people in our community so that they actually want that content.

Relate, led by Sarah Reed, was our bold step into the online publication world. We created a content hub separate from the Zendesk site, and we kept it product agnostic. That creates a safe, sales-free environment for people to explore the relationships that they have with customers, coworkers, and their community. The bonds we’ve built via the site, the events, and the newsletter have been so rewarding.

Relate Live speakers have become writers for the site, event attendees have become Zendesk employees, and more. I think this is the true mark of great content marketing—when it creates a genuine relationships between people and a brand.

What role have print products played in reinforcing the foundations of business relationships at Zendesk?

Digital experiences can be very solitary. We escape into our phones or laptops for hours, and when your head is bent over your device, it’s a bit of a social cue that says “I’m occupied.” Print pieces, however, are visible to both the reader and people around them. When they are beautiful and charming they can be conversation starters in and of themselves. We use print media like broadsheets, conversation cards, greeting cards, postcards, and our magazine in that way.

Our Relate brand accent color is gold. Not only is the gold beautiful, but it’s eye-catching and elegant. It really captures the essence of Relate. When we saw that MOO offered gold foil, it seemed like a natural choice to use that for our business cards.

Judging from the highlight reel from last year’s Relate Live, it’s clear that everyone attending wants to share innovative ideas and, perhaps more importantly, have fun. Can you talk about the idea of having icebreaker cards scattered throughout the event to get conversations started?

Relate Live is all about getting out of your comfort zone and connecting with inspiring people in your community of customers and colleagues. The icebreaker cards provide amusing and relevant conversation topics to start those discussions.

Relate Zendesk

How were the icebreakers cards used? Did they create some interesting interactions?

The cards were spread out on tables during social breaks. We didn’t want it to feel forced, so there was never a formal request from the conference organizers for attendees to use the cards. We designed them with bold type that was easy to read, and they caught attendees’ eyes at moments where their conversations needed a little help. At each event we witnessed attendees using the cards, laughing at the prompts, and easing into natural conversation after a shared experience.The icebreaker cards also play a big role in our social strategy. We’ve featured them on all social channels and they are frequently shared and across our community. They’re amazing conversation starters, both on and offline. Questions like, “Self-driving car: hell yes or hell no?” and “What was your most surprising customer service experience?” give our audience of customer experience leaders a wide range of topics to talk about. At the very least, we try and provide an opportunity to share a laugh.

Relate Zendesk

That was the thinking behind a few of the humorous cards like, “is it better to have loved and lost or to have loved the show Lost?” We also customize the cards for each local event. We find that attendees get really excited to find a card that is specific to their city. It’s like we’ve brought them in on an inside joke.

What are some of your favorite icebreaker questions that have led to great conversations? We’d love to hear them!

When you run a business, every word you use can have an impact on how people see your brand – so how can you make sure they all build towards a positive perception? Here are 5 persuasive tips to help spur your success.

Businesses rely on persuading people. It’s how you get customers to understand, to buy and to believe in what you do. Whether you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, or founder, the things you say about your brand need to be persuasive – and that goes for everything from product descriptions to email subject lines.

But the world of persuasion doesn’t need a PhD in behavioural psychology – it’s a skill that’s entirely attainable with practice. As Robert Cialdini, author of the infamous marketing psychology book Influence reminds us, “If a patsy like me can do it… anyone can”. Often, it comes down to the way you plan and write – so here are 5 tips to try next time you’re putting some words together.

1. Social Proof – “everyone else is doing it”

People do as crowds do and showing what someone’s peers are up to can be incredibly powerful. It’s all about the power of testimonial – if you’re on the fence about whether or not to do something and you see someone else who’s taken the plunge and been happy, it helps build your belief that if you follow the same path, you’ll get the same benefit. Research from Nielsen shows that 92% of people trust testimonials from people who they share characteristics with (same age, location, sector…). That’s pretty powerful stuff!

How to use it:

Get to know your customers and let them do the talking for you – include testimonials, case studies, and research on your website, on social media, and if you want a really personal touch, on postcards. Having other people talk about how great you are is never going to harm your prospects!

2. Listening – “tell me what I want to know – not what you want to tell me”

A lot of people do this backwards by instinct. When they have a message to get across, they pile in from all angles to make themselves understood. Use social media and any feedback you have to understand why your customers are using you – rather than why you think they’re using you.

This also comes across in the detail of the language that you use. Look again at the words you’re using – every time you say ‘we’, can you say ‘you’ instead? And do you really understand why someone would come to you over a competitor? Take the time to ask, listen and understand the real-world benefits you bring.

How to use it:

Speak in your customers’ language. Look again at the words you and they use. Are they the same? Instead of saying ‘we make the best products on the market’, how can you make it about your customer instead? Tell them what they’ll get – not who you are: ‘You’ll save time and money – our products last longer.’ Instead of saying ‘We’ve got 15 years’ experience photographing weddings’, try ‘You’re in safe hands – we have 15 years’ experience’.

3. Objection handling – ”what if it doesn’t work out?”

Many business professionals view the path to persuasion not as one of imposing ideas, but rather one of removing barriers or objections. Instead of telling someone to buy a cellphone, they show them that it’s not too expensive (try the a payment plan) and that they don’t have to worry about the device breaking (opt for an insurance plan).

Objections – or reasons why people don’t buy from you – usually fall into 4 buckets: price, quality, time, and effectiveness. If you can address the most common ones for your business in your marketing materials, you’ll help smooth the journey.

How to use it:

You might already be doing this one – it’s the kind of thing people tend to tackle in their FAQs. Returns policies, shipping costs, size and compatibility information are all the kinds of details that can help. If you’re in fashion, you might offer free returns so people can buy two sizes and return the one that doesn’t fit. Make jewellery? Give clear sizing guides to help reassure people that they’re making the right choice.

4. Outcome modeling: “what’s going to happen next?”

Think about this as telling someone what they’re going to get before you tell them what to do – this is the reason why someone will move forward in their buying process. Sometimes, it’s not always clear what will happen next, and the more you can help someone understand exactly what the next steps are in a chain, the more likely they are to follow it. Think of it as letting your customers see through a door before they have to open it.

How to use it:

Don’t give empty instructions, instead try and always say what someone will get by following that instruction – if you’re using language like ‘click here’ or ‘sign up’ you’re going down the wrong path. Those are the actions someone will take in order to get the thing they’re after – so lead on that. Try ‘find your size’ or ‘join our group’.

5. Scarcity – “it won’t be around forever!”

By making something scarce, you can give a sense of urgency, which in turn can make something seem more desirable, leading to faster action. That’s why you often see the text “only 2 items left” in red when shopping online, a countdown timer when buying show tickets, and according to the Harvard Business Review, why McDonalds repeatedly launches the McRib sandwich for just a limited time only. When people think that the opportunity might pass, they’re less likely to put it off.

How to use it:

If your products are limited edition, make it clear on your product pages. Put expiration dates on your offers, and If you don’t currently make it obvious that your products are in limited supply, do so.

Want more tips to boost your business? Try our guide to productivity

Your stickers are too cool. Seriously. For a fast way to put a personal touch on everything from laptops to pens (often via your products, packaging, of course), it’s got to be stickers. We love them, and we’re inspired by the creative ways you’ve used them every day.

Here are two of our brilliant customers who’ve extended their brand into these sticky little creations. We hope they’ll inspire you as much as they did us.

Ravnita Rayet

Stickers Ravnita Rayet

First up is Ravnita Rayet, an illustrator, animator and designer from London, UK. Since she graduated with a degree in Animation Studies, she’s been running a creative platform selling prints and showcasing her work, and her stickers are the final touch on her packaging. She adds them to prints she sells to, as she put it, “seal the deal…” get it? We swooned at her super-cool illustration style – and we think you will too.

She told us: “The stickers were based on a set of illustrations I designed called the ‘Lips Series’. It’s my signature art style and I wanted to create something pocket size for anyone that didn’t want an A3 print. I love the versatility and how they can be used on anything. Put them on your phone, travel cases, laptops – they’re super cute!”

  • Stickers Ravnita Rayet
  • Stickers Ravnita Rayet
  • Stickers Ravnita Rayet

And it’s not just Ravnita that loves her stickers – they’ve been making waves everywhere her products land. She said: “I am overwhelmed by the love and support I have received. The stickers are making their way around the globe way quicker than I expected and it’s so exciting to see how people use them. Spread the love with a sticker.”

Really seal the deal – shop stickers

 

Drifter Organics

Stickers Drifters Organic

We love a mother-daughter business venture – so when we heard about Micaela and Dawn-Marie Hoo’s skincare brand, Drifter Organics, we really wanted to share them with you. Based in San Francisco, US, they create organic, cruelty-free products. As they say “We believe you shouldn’t put anything on your skin you wouldn’t trust eating — whether you ingest it or rub it in, your body absorbs everything.”

  • Lip balm stickers
  • Stickers Drifters Organic

Micaela does all the creative direction, graphic design, photography, illustration, and hand lettering for Drifter Organics. She created the phrases and designs with her trusty Sharpie on paper, scanned them in, vectorized them in Illustrator, and added color. She says: “We wanted fun marketing materials to dress up our shipping boxes and what is more fun than stickers?”

Stickers Drifters Organic

“Shipping boxes on their own are so plain. We love the extra pop of happiness colorful stickers bring. Who can’t help but smiling when their package arrives decked out in stickers that read, “Hooray!” and “Smooth skin, here I come!”? It’s also an on-brand way for us to include “fragile!” on our packages to let the handlers know there’s something fragile in there. People love the stickers! It really enhances the personality of Drifter Organics. Small details like these are easy to overlook, but they really tie the brand together and contribute to the full brand experience.”

Give your packaging some punch – shop Stickers

When your company’s built around basing staff in your clients’ offices, how do you keep hold of your brand? We met 100 Shapes, a UK-based UX design agency to find out.

Working in a new discipline – the digital design art of User Experience – and running a business model that involves working closely within client organisations is a recipe for a business that might struggle to keep a hold of its own identity. However, 100 Shapes are managing to do just that. Chris Elphick, their co-founder, told us their story.

UX is a relatively new discipline – how did you and your co-founders decide it was the right move?

The other founders and I met while we were working at the BBC. All of us had little side-hustles that we enjoyed working on whilst we were there. We’ve got different backgrounds and complementary skills and decided to take the plunge and come together to form our own agency – we’ve been going for 5 years now and we specialise in creating digital product and business systems for large organisations.

100Shapes

What’s special about the way you work?

Our process is our product. We want to take our clients on the journey of designing their product with us – if they’ve been part of the process, they become invested in the product, and the final outcome. To make sure we deliver on this, we have a user-centred design process. From the initial idea generation, through to research and testing, we involve the people we’re designing for from start to finish – it’s really collaborative!

100Shapes

This allows us to design a product that really responds to the needs of our customer. We incorporate feedback into our day to day structure – our designers are often on site with our clients and embed themselves into their internal team, in their offices. We’re focused around getting feedback and creating a product to the highest quality.

100Shapes

We take the time to understand our clients – we must think about everyone and everything involved in the process of creating our tools. We understand that we’re dealing with legacy software, huge teams of people and big budgets with a lot of success riding on the final product. It’s a complicated mess to solve, and we love problem solving!

100Shapes

How do you use your brand to help explain who you are?

We work with people at all levels in our clients’ organisations, some of whom won’t be familiar with what UX is, so we aim to de-mystify it through our branded materials and comms. We also aim to approach the value of UX from different angles depending on who we’re talking to. So, if we’re with a CEO level client, we try to explain the return on investment of UX through our presentations.

When we’re with a manager who has a team, we’ll focus our time on explaining our process and how involving members of their team in the design process will create a better tool for them.

100Shapes

As you grow, how do you keep hold of your own identity?

We love being visible within the organisations we’re working with. We make sure our brand has its own identity and that it speaks for itself – we want people to associate us with our UX process. We have branded notebooks, laptop cases, sketchbooks and lanyards – we embed ourselves into the companies we work in, but those materials follow us everywhere

There are a couple of things we’ll always keep hold of, however we grow: first, the quality of our design. Second, the company culture – it’s what makes us, us. We ran a workshop to produce our company values – giving guidance to new employees – and printed them on packs of Postcards It was great to get everyone involved in producing this as it’s what ties us all together – not only as designers but friends, too.

We live and breathe digital, but there’s something about having a physical, tangible object – it gives you a feeling you don’t get from digital. Committing something to a piece of print, whether it be a fully formed design or a scribble, gives you that permanence in a way that digital can’t. And we give our company value Postcards to everyone in the team to remind them of why we get up in the morning, and why we love what we do.

100Shapes

What have you got coming up that you’re excited about?

We’ve got an on going relationship with ITV, we’re part of their “Technology Modernisation Programme”, designing all of their internal tools which is so much fun. We’re also working with a luxury UK fashion brand on a similar piece of work. On top of this, we recently expanded the office and we’re about to expand again! Watch this space!

Interested in branding? See how Lucy Frost branded her tattoo studio

Make your own Postcards