A wee blether

On our 10th birthday we turned to our neighbour, mircrobrewery Barney's Beer, to bottle some Good Ordinary Pale Ale to celebrate the occasion.

With our friends Blush Publishing we created 100 limited edition beer labels for the ale, and we said ‘thank you’ to partygoers with letterpress beer mats!

Our stash has slowly disappeared so we’re planning to create a batch of ‘good times’ beer. Why celebrate new client wins with going to the pub when you can have your very own brew?! Of course we’ll make sure we keep a few for visiting clients…

This week I’ve been doing some research for the brief and looking at labelling for this and a wine project. I’ve come across some great designs on Oh Beautiful Beer and  Lovely Package and these are my favourite designs.

1. Tickety Brew. Sweet idea. Designed by Carter Wong who also worked on the naming and brand identity design.
2. Brew By Numbers is a label by Duke Harper for a brewery London. The clean design and textured label are a great fit for the brand.
3. Beer labels for the 2nd Barcelona Beer Festival. I really like the typopgraphic treatment, colour palette and general consistency.
4. Bocanegra is a craft beer made in Monterrey. Designed by Manifiesto Futura.
5. Harumph! is a package design and brand for a fictional beer company designed by Nick Gonzalez. The labels and bag are a great addition!

When our brew arrives from Barney’s Beer I look forward to taking some shots and sharing them. Good times.

Traditionally (a strange word to use for something as recent as mobile website design!) companies would have a full website, and a separate mobile version to support users on the move, whereas responsive design allows a single site to be served. The website adapts to suit the device, so your content will be clear and easy to read, regardless of being viewed on mobile, tablet or desktop.

With traffic increasing steadily from smaller devices, not to mention varying screen sizes and resolutions, responsive design is often the best way to go. Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean the death of traditional mobile sites; the approach you take will very much depend on your business and target audience. For example I’ve previously designed a mobile site for a major cinema chain, and in that case responsive was not the way to go due to the complexity of the site structure and level of content.

We’ve developed several responsive projects recently, not least our own lovely new site! To see the technology in action, if you’re reading this blog on a laptop or desktop, resize your browser window, and the layout will adapt as the browsers shrinks. For more examples why not check out our responsive sites for Association of English Cathedrals and Mobile Acuity? You can also see more great examples over at Media Queries.

Ultimately, what’s important for you is having an online presence that is easy to use and suitable for your audience. Would you like more information about responsive design, or have been considering how to expand your current offering into the mobile and tablet space? Why not drop us a line and pop in for a cuppa and a chat?

I recently received ‘The Hobbit’, which was cloth-bound, and a book called ‘Paper – an Elegy’ from Sarah Jane, with a letterpressed hardcover. I find both of them a thing of beauty and have them on display in our living room.

My husband requested ‘cultural artefacts’ for his birthday – a title, albeit a little eccentrically, he has given to a physical copy of something creative i.e. a book, CD or LP. I also folded (or ruined some may argue) three old cloth-bound books into Christmas tree shapes for myself and for friends as I want to keep the physical artefact around and out on display to be enjoyed.

So when I stumbled upon the photo book company called ‘Artefact Uprising’ this week, you can imagine how I was hooked when their landing page greeted me, summing up exactly what I feel perfectly.

To celebrate 25 years of supporting business growth in Scotland, Lanarkshire Enterprise Services Limited (LESL) is holding a competition to find Scotland’s next big start up.

LESL is a provider of business support to SMEs across Scotland.

Working alongside PR agency Hot Tin Roof, IfLooksCouldKill was approached to develop a brand identity and online presence to support the launch of The Enterprise Challenge.

With the start up community at the heart of the challenge, it was important for us to create an identity that would appeal to this target market, encourage entries and eventually uncover the “next big thing”. Given the rewards on offer, the client settled on a simple “badge” style logo device, paired with a simple but strong visual language that features heavily on the challenge’s single page website.

Open to any start up or young business that has the capacity for rapid growth, the focus is not necessarily on a new or innovative technology, but on the best business model and prospects for success. It’s aimed at entrepreneurs with an advanced business plan, and with the foundations to build on this quickly and effectively.

Ronnie Smith, CEO of LESL, explains: “The future of the Scottish economy relies on a new generation of start up businesses that can develop and grow, creating new products, services and jobs. Our goal for The Enterprise Challenge is to encourage new business ventures, get them market ready, resourced, funded and ready to go!”

On 1 May 2013 the challenge was officially launched by Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Energy, Enterprise & Tourism, at the Alba Innovation Centre in Livingston, Scottish Enterprise’s incubator for early stage technology companies. I went along to the event, and learned about the range of rewards, which include:

• Minimum six month rent-free period in one of the three business incubators managed by LESL
• PR support from Hot Tin Roof
• HR support from Gravitate HR
• Legal support from Morisons Solicitors
• A FreeAgent subscription

Lots of other useful goodies will also be awarded to the winning business, and IfLooksCouldKill is pleased to be supporting them with a brand identity, print and website design package.

Is this the kind of challenge that could help you and your business? Enter now. The deadline for entries is 30 May and winners will be announced on 28 June.

Now celebrating 10 years in design and digital, IfLooksCouldKill has grown into quite a different creative studio.

We’re excited to be marking this change with a new website, and with a nod to our original motto, ‘launch early, refine often’, we’re getting busy with phase two. Over the coming months we’ll be posing for a shoot, making a film, sharing more projects and filling our journal with the latest from the studio.

Inspiration this week comes in the form of Sarah’s Friday Favourite, Scott introduces some of our responsive design projects and Jonathan tells us about The Enterprise Challenge.

I hope you like what we’re doing so far and that you’ll pop back from time to time to say hello.