Conwy Brewery approached me to refresh and update their branding and labeling across their beers to unify the range and appeal to a wider market, in terms of both drinkers and retailers.

Their award-winning beers have gained a strong reputation locally in North Wales, but the dated and disjointed branding has led to a fall-off in retailer interest in the range. The new brewery owners wanted the new labeling to be recognisably Welsh, yet have a more contemporary, fresh appeal to drinkers both locally, or holidaying in Snowdonia and those beyond Wales that want to try our great tasting beers.

The new branding is designed to unify the range across their core range of Traditional Welsh ales and their more contemporary Craft and US-inspired ales.

A new illustration style was devised and created by myself for the whole range (broadening my creative skills!) to give a distinctive backdrop to the beers that would be bold and graphic, but flexible enough to tie together the various beer themes and Welsh/US brew styles. The illustrations draw inspiration from vintage railway and seaside posters from Wales and the US West Coast, but in a simplified and minimalist mix of flat-colour flowing lines. The striking landscapes of North Wales’ mix of Snowdonia mountains, coast and castles are captured in the same style as iconic American landscapes of deserts, surf and sunsets!

A new much-simplified logo draws on the fortified town of Conwy itself, with its arched gateways integrated into the ‘n’ of the custom-drawn lettering. A new tagline proudly defines the range – Proudly Crafted in Wales – whether locally inspired, or further afield. The typography for the new branding uses a unique font-family ‘Lapidaria’ that features both an ancient Celtic-infused Uncial style (used for the Traditional range) and a matching sans-serif style (used for the Craft range) to give the range a unified but distinct feel across the brew styles.

The rebrand has been rolled out across an initial range of 6 Traditional ales and 4 Craft beers, in 500ml bottles and pump clips / bar fount badges for pubs and bars. Also new to the brewery is a canned range of beers and boxed 4-packs to be sold through national supermarket chains. A range of seasonal and wholesale beers are also being developed – where the flexible and cohesive illustration style and branding are proving to be ideally suited to a whole range of new beers in the pipeline...

“Really happy with the new branding – it’s spot on. I’ve been involved with a few rebrands over the years and this is definitely the easiest to come together, you just ‘got it’. Many thanks.”

Robin Langton – Director, Conwy Brewery

Why not visit:

www.conwybrewery.co.uk

or try a pint in a local pub or supermarket!

Trefaldwyn Blue is the first creamy blue cheese from a new artisan cheesemaker - Trefaldwyn Cheese, in Montgomery in Mid Wales.

As part of the branding, the client and I wanted the branding to avoid the usual cheesy clichés of cows, milk churns or churches. This cheese is all about the flavour – small batch production using the rich milk from local Welsh pastures. The taste is bold and punchy and that should be reflected in the visual style.

Trefaldwyn (the Welsh name for Montgomery), can be a bit intimidating to pronounce, and the long word can be an issue to feature large enough on a small label. So, the design breaks the name into the three phonetic sections, which also sits it naturally into a hexagon shape – creating a very distinctive label shape and branding device, with the name used really large and bold.

To give the branding its handmade and authentic feel, the lettering was hand-cut and stamped using a basic potato printing technique. The resulting print for the logo also has the feel of the blue mottled veining and the irregular edge of the cheese itself.

The hexagon label features a blue-on-blue colourway to quickly convey the blue cheese variety, as these small-batch products will be foil-wrapped so the product may not always be visible. The label also forms a distinctive deli-counter flag for display on the cheese truckles.

The simple but bold and striking branding really stands out in-store and gives this small business a professional edge at food fairs and farmers markets.

Why not visit:

www.trefaldwyn-cheese.com

Cefn Coch Farm is tucked away high up in the hills of the Llyfnant Valley in mid Wales. The whole area is a UNESCO Biosphere, recognised for its biodiversity, clean environment and resulting rich wildlife.

The new owner and Ecologist, Joe, is focused on running the farm with environmentally conscious methods, and to build on the existing holiday cottage business by focussing on attracting wildlife-loving guests. Longer-term Joe is also hoping to sell his upland grazing beef using a farm-direct box-scheme.

To achieve this, the very dated old website has been replaced with a modern site built on Squarespace – designed to offer a clean and clear design that really shows off the stunning location, accommodation and guided ecology tours on offer to guests wanting to get a real insight into this very special area. Another key requirement was to make the site easy to navigate, visually appealing and easy to contact to make a booking.

The new multi-faceted business needed a new logo and branding too. The logo design draws on the iconic Welsh Highland cattle on the farm, a typical hardy upland breed. The strikingly simple horned cow graphic styling is a contemporary twist on traditional Celtic designs. The name styling is also customised to feature a leaf within the ‘f’ to subtly convey the eco-friendly nature of the farm business. Colours for the branding are inspired by the distinctive Oxide Red farm paint on the barns and farmhouse doors, the greens by the mosses and lichens of the woodland, and the mustard yellow used in the cottages’ interior décor.

Typography uses the homely and characterful FF Ernestine font for a modern/rural feel – much like the business and accommodation on offer here.

Why not visit:

www.cefncochfarm.co.uk

Handley’s is a small scale producer of artisan Welsh Vinegars and Fruit Syrups, based within Mostyn Kitchen Garden, a Victorian walled garden set in the grounds of Mostyn Hall in North Wales. Their produce is all grown and made on-site in small batches without any artificial colours, preservatives or flavourings. They sell directly and in farm shops and delicatessens.

The brief for this project was twofold – firstly to create a new brand under the Handley’s name, to give greater ownership to this new range, distinct from the existing Mostyn Kitchen Garden range of jams and preserves, yet retain a visual link to the existing branding. Secondly, to produce a new range of labelling for the speciality Fruit Vinegars and Cocktail Syrups, using a taller and smaller format of bottles.

One of the biggest problems for small scale producers is the cost of adding a new flavour, amending ingredients and having short runs of labels produced economically. I worked with the client to create a smart yet simple design template that can be printed in house on standard format labels on a quality colour laser printer. This gives fantastic flexibility and control of production and labelling.

The bilingual designs use bold blocks of colour to denote the flavours, and a mix of a classy and expressive handwritten title font, combined with a smart and legible sans-serif font for key information. The resulting designs were set up in an editable template that gave the client the ability to amend or add to the range in a fixed and cohesive range style.

The new range really stands out in-store, with a fresh, smart but handmade feeling to the labels. The client has also reported great initial sales, even throughout the Covid pandemic lockdowns.

Why not visit:

www.mostynkitchengarden.co.uk

Llŷn Venison (cig carw in Welsh) is based, as you may expect, on the beautiful and wild Llŷn peninsular in north west Wales. Their small family farm is diversifying by introducing fallow deer into their land, to supplying their own venison directly to local consumers, retailers and caterers.

Their naturally-based, low-management farming ethos ensure their venison not only tastes great, but has a very low ecological footprint, favours biodiversity, and has a much lower CO2 footprint than conventional livestock production.

A new logo and packaging was required to set up the business, with a simple but smart labelling format – suitable for small-batch production – but raising the look and feel above a the standard vac-pack and over-printed label favoured by butchers and farm-direct sales.

The new logo design features the distinctive, broader antler form of the fallow deer – the less common species raised on their farm. The logotype also makes use of the combined LL unique to Welsh, to balance the name and integrate with the antler forms.

The identity in deep, rich brown is featured on natural kraft brown paper stock for the labels, cards and flyer to give a simple, rustic but premium feel to the branding. An elegant inline font Emeritus used for headlines and logo gives a distinctive and easily applied graphic style.

The simple folded label tag on brown card gives the vacuum packed produce a premium look, but is ideal for small-batch production. The reverse has space for a cut-specific label including weight, BB date, and statutory meat producer information. The inside face of the tag has space for the brand story in English and Welsh, and the tag is attached in place using smart hand-punched copper rivets.

Follow their progress on instagram

Idris Stores is the local village stores and café here in Corris. Since opening, it’s fast gained a reputation for great food and coffee and a destination stop for holiday visitors as well as the many walkers, cyclists and groups of mountain bikers needing a well earned break. 

The owners wanted a logo creating for the stores that reflected the valley location with a suitably adventurous and cool feel, inspired by Hazel’s love of retro badges collected from travelling in the US and Canada. 

Corris is nestled in a beautiful area of mid-Wales, surrounded by tall pine forests, mountain views, steep valleys and the iconic Slate landscape, with its traditional slate fencing zig-zagging through. This all needed to be captured in an ‘image’.

The resulting illustrated design was carefully crafted to work as both full-colour and single-colour versions, with simple flat colour design and zingy retro inspired tones. The integrated name styling and iconic elements break out of a strong hexagonal holding frame to complete a compact but striking design.

The final logo was applied to a number of printed elements to feature around the store. A large A1 poster features in the window – which has become so requested by customers that smaller versions are selling fast as framed art prints!

Other ‘merch’ such as an array of T-shirts in various single colour logo and shirt colour combinations, stickers, bumper stickers and tote bags are also selling out to visiting customers and locals alike.

The logo has really captured the quirky, homely feel of the café/stores, as well as the wilderness of the Dyfi/Dulas valley. 

Wilderness is a new craft brewery, open early 2018 in Newtown, Wales. The vision for the brand is to create new and distinctive interpretations of continental style beers, with a modern twist.

The identity, as with the beer itself, is inspired by and reflects the wild Welsh landscape and natural influences on the end product.  

A simple and elegant hand-drawn linework is inspired by natural forms and interpretation of ‘wilderness’ – topographic mapping lines, flowing streams, tree rings and other linear themes. This fine linework graphic is layered over bold type and blocks of strong colour to create a unique style for the brand. 

As part of the identity, a quirky organic hand-drawn logo is designed to counter the bold typography of the label designs. The contained roundel logo stands out perfectly, with simple single colour ideal for applying onto even small bottle caps with great standout.

The resulting label designs stand out in this rapidly growing and highly competitive market. The simple 2-colour reproduction gives Wilderness a bold, cost-effective and flexible identity that can be grown easily with new colourways and linework illustrations as the range builds and new beers are introduced.  

The branding has also been applied to pump clips and kegs tags, email templates, stationery, website, and various marketing materials as required. 

WHY NOT VISIT:
www.wildernessbrew.co.uk

As part of Beudy Banc’s quirky and cosy getaway offering, the owners, local architect and fellow mountain biker Dafydd, has created some pretty amazing individual cabins for holiday let. These are sited on the family farm in some of the most breathtaking countryside in the UK, here in mid-Wales.

Although the business has a healthy booking rate, through listing the accommodation online with a leading booking agent, the owners want to increase the amount of direct bookings through their own website.

To achieve this, a new site – based on Squarespace – was developed to offer a clean and clear design that really shows off the stunning location, unique and cosy cabins and facilities, as well as the epic outdoor activities on offer, right from the decking! Another key requirement was to make the site easy to navigate, visually appealing and easy to contact to make a booking.

The new site construction allows visitors to quickly search and select cabins based on the occupancy size required – 2, 3 or 4 bed, then conveys the key features, image gallery and reviews in a structured and engaging format. The clean, pared back design and navigation also works seamlessly across mobile, tablet and desktop.

The theme of ‘Stay wild’ and ‘Go wild’ is captured with a brushed font to give a free and energetic feel to the key sections throughout the site. This theme is something that we can build on as the refreshed design is rolled out into other promotional channels such as postcards and emails.

WHY NOT VISIT:

www.caban.space

Machynlleth Festival has been a fixture in the town for over 30 years, drawing in World Class musicians to perform in the Taberacl venue next door to MoMA Wales. The existing identity and print was looking tired and needed a fresh and exciting new design to bring in new audiences, as well as the traditional classical music lovers that have long supported the programme of events. 

The visual identity features fine linework – a visual fusion of sound waves and the local mountainous landscape. The logo encapsulates this too, designed with the distinctive Gist font – a fine linear swash that evokes the varied music performed and mixes a traditional and contemporary feel.

The bilingual programme has been designed to make the most of the supplied artist imagery. Featuring bold blocks of colours and overlaid linear waves, the graphics subtly evoke the feel of the performance and tie them all together. Typography is a mix of bold and flamboyant titles, with clear and well structured information text. 

The compact DL format was chosen to fit into widely seen leaflet holders. However, the cover features a kick-out cover that holds the full programme on the inside flap. This can be quickly flipped out to refer to when reading the individual pages. 

As well as the impressive line-up of musical performances over the week, there are also free pre-talks, art exhibitions and talks. These are clearly flagged up on relevant pages with a compact icon for the talks, with full details listed on kick-out back cover. 

Template posters were also designed for the marketing team to create for the individual events, as well as street banners for displaying in the lead up to the event.

The Camlan Garden Centre and Garden Maintenance business have a unique approach and feel - the innovative and sustainable off-grid site  location within the Snowdonia National Park, the locally-focused plants and products sold, and in Lisa & Ian and how their personality is as much a part of the business as the Garden Centre itself.

This uniqueness needed to be reflected in the branding & visual identity of their new business. A few key brand 'ingredients' were developed to convey the brand essentials:

- Practical / rugged
- Distinctive (memorable)
- Modern, but not trendy
- Bold / Confident
- Quirky / Creative
- Environmentally sound and in touch with nature
- Reduce / Rethink / Recycle
- Fun & hands-on
- Cost effective, but not ‘cheap'

The careful selection of a bold yet friendly FAKT Slab 'stencil' font creates a highly distinctive look for the key headlines and wording. The font is also bold enough to both read over images, be the container for textures or colourful floral images to add interest, meaning and a creative, softer feel.

The logo features the FAKT typeface as well as integrating an organic L-form and roundel bi-lingual descriptor text to create a simple and compact logo suitable for single colour or full-colour application. 
A variant of the logo for the Garden Maintenance side of the business employs a hexagonal outline to differentiate it, with a nod to the 'hands on' practicalities of the work.

The toolkit of brand elements gives Lisa and Ian both a solid brand to build on over time, but the ability to apply it themselves in a cohesive and cost-effective manner as the business grows.

WHY NOT VISIT:

camlangardening.cymru

Automax’s core business is tyre-fitting and garage services, with plans to bring other facets of their business under the same brand family.

The redesign creates a bolder, more legible logo, yet retains the recognised X form of the original. The bold, tyre tread-inspired font creates great impact for the logo, and variants are used for headlines and sub-headings for all marketing materials, to create a distinctive brand look.

For the four business areas, a logo and colour palette was defined for each, along with descriptor text below to create a cohesive brand family approach. 

The identity is applied to various marketing and business print. For the business card, a clever cut-off corner allows the card to function as a tyre tread depth gauge – and a useful, informative thing for customers to want to keep handy. The reverse of the card also doubles up as a simple appointment card. 

A cost effective A5 flyer was created to promote the garage services locally. The copy tone is confident yet friendly and helpful – allaying the often ‘blokey’ stereotype of tyre fitters and garages. The leaflet also features a clear, custom-drawn map to give simple location details for the fairly well-hidden trading estate unit.

The branding has really helped to smarten up the image of the garage and gain new customers. The branding assets have also allowed the client to develop their own website with a consistent look and feel. 

Ty’n y Cornel is located on the shores of Tal-y-Llyn lake with views overlooking Cadair Idris – the tallest local peak in Snowdonia. It offers a fantastic setting for a Wedding, and the perfect backdrop for photos of the big day.

With a wedding fair in the calendar fast approaching and plans to build on the hotel’s profile as a wedding venue, a new brochure was required to showcase the hotel’s perfect location and hospitality on offer. 

The hotel provided a recent set of striking images of the hotel to choose from, with some impressive drone shots over the lake. However, to give the brochure an authentic and focussed wedding feel, we also needed some new images to be sourced and taken to complete the picture. Formation Creative worked together with the wedding planner to style and photograph a bridal suite set up, wedding menu food and lakeside champagne images to complete an inspiring overview for the brochure content.

The landscape A4 format gives panoramic feel to the imagery, and a spacious feel to the simply laid out information. The clean and contemporary design is given a warm and elegant twist with the use of a flowing script headline font – as featured on the cover and inside spreads. A tactile ‘soft touch’ laminate to the outer cover leaves a luxurious but understated quality in the hand.

The copy information is kept easy to read, with key facts brought out as clear bullet point on each page. 

The client has been impressed with the completed brochure, with prospective couples and exhibitors alike at the wedding fair commenting that it shows the hotel at its sparkling best.

Rye & Roses is a new venture in Machynlleth, to develop a ‘micro-homestead’ and wood-fired bakery. As well as producing great fresh bread, the long-term homestead plan includes growing, sewing, fermenting, foraging, pop-up events, and courses. Owners, Tom and Jane’s vision and passion for their business is to embrace and rediscover the use of traditional skills and locally sourced ingredients, and use these methods in their own artisan produce. 

The visual identity needed to convey this vision – contemporary, but using traditional skills. 

The key element of the brand, the logo, has been carefully crafted to subtly incorporate the core elements of the business name within the negative space of the recurring R’s – in both Welsh and English versions – a loaf representing the grain [rye], and a flower [rose]. The slashes in the bread can even be seen as the thorns of the Rose above it. The compact R logo forms a strong central icon – so that either the Welsh or English name used around it becomes equally recognisable. The strong arch of the lettering also has the form of a traditional wood-fired bread oven. A strapline underneath quickly conveys the core themes of the business – Earth . Grain . Fire 

As part of the visual identity, the essential brand elements of colour, fonts and imagery are also defined. The black and golden brown form a natural, warm and earthy neutral tone. The headline typeface in the logo has a rugged handmade feel and a raised dimension that is reminiscent of Kilner jars and traditional cast iron tools. A guide to imagery also defines the feeling of naturally made, grown and crafted foods and ingredients – the textures of fresh crusty bread, close-ups of growing seedlings, muddy fingers, crops and free range hens. It all helps to create a brand that conveys honest produce, created with care and pride. 

The initial identity is being rolled out as the business develops, with initial requirements including a website holding page [while the full site is being built using Squarespace – launching soon], hand-stamped business cards, market stall banner, aprons and information cards. This will undoubtedly be a business that will go from strength to strength, so keep an eye out locally to see more coming soon. 

Gwella (meaning ‘cure’ or ‘make better’ in Welsh) approached me via Menter a Busnes to create a new identity and packaging for their innovative range of cooked & cured Welsh meats. Although ham is well established as a cured cold meat no-one has, until now, managed to successfully cure lamb – the livestock the family farms. However, after experimenting with various cures and methods, the Thomas family have created a new and truly delicious range of cured lamb, beef and mutton in a range of tasty combinations.

New packaging was required to take the business from selling at farmers markets, into the more competitive yet potentially lucrative sales in delicatessens, farm shops, foodie specialist stores and direct to restaurants, cafés and beyond.

The family farm is sited on the coastal hills with fabulous views overlooking Cardigan Bay and Aberystwyth. With a strong desire to capture the local clear air and lush green Welsh countryside that the animals are raised, it was felt early on that this should feature heavily in the design.

A half-day of photography gave us some fantastic images, conveying the stunning farm setting and healthy animals. These formed the basis of all the marketing – including 3 packaging variations, for each meat type, banners, leaflets, business cards and forthcoming website. The existing logo was also redesigned to give it greater impact and legibility, and a much stronger sense of their Welsh heritage (the double LL are neatly integrated, as it is pronounced as a distinct sound in the Welsh language). The logo also features traced silhouettes of their actual animals, true to the breed.

The new branding and bilingual packaging is already helping to sell the new product into outlets around Wales, after a very successful launch at the Welsh Winter Fair.

Keep a look out for packs, and make sure you try it!

This independent Estate Agent has been in the local property business for well over 100 years. Respected for their honest and personal approach and unrivalled local knowledge, the business has a great reputation and brand values. 

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, the new owner approached me to help make the business more recognisable, and to stand out – locally and online. 

A new logo has been created, incorporating a ‘crest’ interlocking the WLJ to form a distinctive compact icon. The inclusion of the 1905 founding date and descriptor underneath also allow the logo to communicate the heritage and core services more clearly. A new colour palette evolves the existing dark green, but adds a fresh vibrant lime to give a punchy yet sophisticated feel with a contemporary edge. 

A new tagline has also been developed – ‘Trusted, locally & online’ to communicate the core values of honesty and personal service as a traditional physical business and team, but also their relevance and strengths in an increasingly online-based industry. 

The use of local imagery of the stunning south Snowdonia landscape also forms a strong part of the identity. These panoramic, powerful but often tranquil images really help to convey the beauty of the area, as well as giving a timeless and aspirational edge to the communications.

The new identity has begun to be rolled out across advertising, sales boards, stationery, property details and window display materials. A brand new Wordpress-based website is in development too, once these sleek new page designs have been converted into code…

To launch her new bakery business, Mrs L needed a visual identity to give her cake-making skills a distinctive and professional edge, whilst being easy and cost-effective to apply. 

Having secured funding for the design work through Cywain, the Welsh Food & Drink sector development programme, the identity also needed creating and approving within two weeks from the initial brief. Best get started then…

The client already had a preference for a dark grey to form part of the identity, and liked the idea of a cake stand to be symbolic of cakes without being too prescriptive of the kind. A cookie-cutter inspired roundel form incorporates the name style, new icon and strapline into one contained logo. The compact round shape works perfectly for applying to anything from social media such as Facebook and Instagram icons, as round stickers for packaging, as well as stationery, banners, vehicle or website.

To complement the logo and create a striking backdrop, repeating graphic pattern have been created using typical baking utensils – spatulas, whisk, piping bag, spreading knife – arranged in interlocking repeats and vibrant radial designs. The patterns are applied in a palette of bright pastel shades to complement the core brand blue and grey.

A combination of Monserrat and Crimson Text fonts gives a modern, clean and sophisticated feel to complete the look. The overall result is a unique and flexible graphic identity that can be rolled out onto a whole range of marketing, display and packaging use as the business grows. 

The local primary school is a Federation of two small village schools – Corris and Pennal, sharing their [award-winning] Head between both sites, as well as pooling resources and teacher skills to enhance the children’s learning, sharing and local identity.

With pressures of pupil numbers needed to keep these small schools viable, the Head saw the benefit in making the schools more visible and welcoming to parents and pupils – with new School signs.

The illustrated design cleverly uses the same basic structure for both signs, but includes the local landscape features, tree planting and colours in simple block graphics for a cool, child-friendly and unique visual style for the schools. The typical Dyfi forest pines are tighly-packed overlapping triangles, steep bracken-covered valley sides and clear streams. The Pennal landscape is more open fields, dotted with round oaks and a slate stone hump-back bridge… all reduced to geometric shapes and flat colours.

The bright colours, bold and friendly typefaces, clearly-related logo holding device and school motto in hand-written font all help to define what a great partnership the schools have.

The panels are produced on weather-proof Dibond for cost-effective and long-life service, with locally-sourced Oak posts to give a natural and durable appeal.

The resulting signs had the children squealing with delight when we shared the designs in the classroom – a sure sign that we got it right!

Carreg Dressage are one of the leading specialist equestrian centres in Wales, training competition dressage horses and riders to the highest level.

With a view to attracting fewer, but more discerning clients in this demanding equestrian field, Carreg Dressage required a refresh to their visual identity to give it a more premium, professional edge, and work to create a more engaging, informative and functional website and marketing approach.

To begin, the existing but rather dated feel of the logo was refreshed. The interlocking CD letterforms are refined to subtly suggest a riding hat and stirrup, in a new fresh green and classic grey brand colour combination. Underneath, the strapline ‘FORWARD, LIGHT & BALANCED’ encapsulates classic dressage values and teaching that Carreg have built their solid reputation around.

The stationery has a timeless simplicity, also featuring striking equine photography from World renowned photographer Tim Flach, and Hugh Hughes on the reverse. In line with the green credentials and ethos of the business, the business cards are printed onto a tactile and eco-friendly 100% cotton ‘card’, made from recycled T-shirts!

These ingredients of great imagery and classic typography forms the basis of the identity and its application in all forms of communications – from the stationery to the website and across marketing from event posters to Facebook. The new website, based on the flexible and intuitive Squarespace platform, is now the hub for information about the business, training, facilities, events and social media updates. 

Since launching the new website, it regularly receives excellent feedback from customers, both existing and new, as well as generating new bookings for courses - from the week it was launched. 

TAKE A LOOK AT
www.carregdressage.co.uk

A lovely project that required a simple and cost-effective design solution, but one that has made a huge difference to the all important first impression and commercial success of these hand made products.

Sandra has been making these hand felted soap exfoliators for some time, but sales were slow and few. The problem was how they looked in any retail outlet – a jumble of woolen colours that people just weren’t sure what to do with them.

The solution was to create simple packaging using readily available cellophane bags (to keep them clean and fresh, but show off the vibrant natural colours) and a dual sided tag, to display the product name and soap scent in English and Welsh. The suitably crafted looking design and branding feature a new Padbury’s logo and descriptors in stylishly handmade script fonts.

The natural kraft card looks great against the bright coloured felt,  creating a distinctive look across packaging, PoS cards, and on the website too.

The custom-designed and built one-page website smoothly scrolls between the sections for a sleek and fluid feel. Customers can learn about the quality and natural soaps and felting techniques, as well as buy online with a simple PayPal e-commerce function.

The small investment in design has made a huge impact already, with several garden centres, homeware and gift shops in the region, as well as Natural Resources Wales outdoor centres and CADW Welsh castles in the Snowdonia National Park placing orders for their gift shops.

WHY NOT VISIT THE WEBSITE

www.padburys.co.uk

Corris Craft Centre is more like a small scale village, with 12 artist/maker workshops, café, Tourist Info centre, play park and toilet facilities, as well as the underground King Arthur’s Labyrinth attraction and ticket desk located at the back of the site to guide visitors around. It was becoming obvious that their existing, visually cluttered and ageing signage was really failing at the task.

After a detailed assessment of the requirements, the smart new signage is designed to improve the visitor experience in a number of ways.

From the new entrance banners, through to wayfinding posts and toilet signs, the signage makes great use of the main brand colours. The striking orange for Corris Craft Centre itself and the deep burgundy for KAL ensures excellent visibility and helps visually distinguish and guide to each of the attractions. The bold use of the colours and brand typefaces also helps carry a cohesive visual identity into the centre itself.

Clean, clear typography and subtle use of text colour is used to differentiate the bilingual directions and guide visitors around easily. New custom icons for the toilet facilities also add a crafted and unique feel to the functional directions.

Importantly, the powder coated panels and chunky coated timber posts are designed to look good for years to come, even with the notoriously wet Welsh weather!

Initial feedback from both the resident retailers and visitors has been very positive, with a noticeable reduction in “where’s the...” enquiries to staff.

Sometimes, I just find a client that really needs some design help with their business. This was the case when I had (fantastic) lunch at the local deli-café in Machynlleth.

Blasau’s Italian owner makes an incredible range of tasty artisan breads, sandwiches, and freshly prepared lunches using quality local ingredients – and it really shows in the flavour. The deli is based in a quirky and charming 16th century listed building too. However, the menus printed on white A4 paper in poly-pockets, looked like something you’d find in a truck-stop greasy spoon. Messy, ugly and difficult to see what was on offer, they really let the place down.

The new menu design is printed on single A3 sheet of thick, tactile and suitably natural brown kraft paper. The clear and bold typography makes it easy to see all the food dishes on one side, with drinks and cakes on the reverse. It’s clearly laid out and elegantly easy-to-read, featuring bold headings and traditional feeling serif typefaces that work together perfectly.

To finish off the improved new menu, a handmade display box was made to house them. The raw wood grain of the ply front face was laser engraved in the same font, for a stylish presentation piece that compliments the timber-beamed interior of the café.

The stylish script for the Blasau name provides a distinctive style for the masthead, and a great basis for a defining logo for the café. The listed building is currently known as Royal House, which must stay, so any applied ‘branding’ must work comfortably with this – watch this space…

An A5 folded leaflet, created to give an overview of the facilities, history, and hospitality for this historic Coaching Inn at the gateway to South Snowdonia.

The Brigands Inn offers great food, a warm welcome and has a fascinating history - once the drinking den of the feared local outlaws of the 16th Century, the red headed Brigands of Mawddwy. 

The bilingual content and cosy photography is pulled together into an easy reading format that opens out to reveal what the place has to offer – a place to relax, enjoy great food, stunning scenery and a comfortable stay. The simple design lets the content tell the story, with easy reading Welsh and English content sitting side by side. 

A custom drawn map and information sourced to inspire visitors to discover the local area makes the leaflet a useful piece to keep hold of, or hand to someone as a recommended place to stay.

For their new Gluten Free Fruit & Brandy cake, Welsh Cottage Cakes realised that they would need a new packaging format to give this new cake a more premium look, and appeal to the more ‘foodie’ consumers of the rapidly growing ‘Free-from’ speciality foods market.

In line with the roll-out of the new branding, the new pack style breaks from the cheap sticker over cellophane labelling of the main (as yet unrevised) range. The new design feature a smart new card inlay that encases both sides and underside of the cake (also covering the paper baking liner) to give the packaging far greater standout and a more premium feel. More space allows for bold branding, evocative fruit and brandy imagery and brand-driven copy about the authentic, honest baking and quality ingredients that make their cakes taste so good.

The simple but effective new inlay format offers a distinctive new look to position Welsh Cottage Cakes as a leader in authentic Welsh baking, and a great basis for rolling out the rest of the range in the new style.

*Two pack sizes were developed – the larger features the Welsh Cottage Cakes logo prominently on a top tab. The smaller pack size was developed specifically for a distributor that wanted to minimise the WCC logo as a more generic product within their range, hence this version not featuring the Welsh Cottage Cakes branding.

WHY NOT VISIT:

welshcottagecakes.co.uk

Fine Iron are specialists in architectural wrought ironwork. Based near Brecon in South Wales, the team create high quality, traditionally styled metalwork for private and commercial projects nationally and beyond.

For their range of Porches & Verandas, Fine Iron needed a new brochure to better showcase their range of designs, and clearly communicate their handmade craftsmanship and bespoke approach.

To move on from their existing single leaf landscape A4 sheets, a new portrait brochure format was proposed, to work well both in the hand and on screen as a PDF flip-book format to link, send or embed directly into their website.

The cover features a beautiful bronze metallic paper stock with clear spot UV ironwork design, for a subtle and prestigious feel. Inside the spreads feature large-scale imagery of example installations, detailed design options and engaging new copywriting to convey the made-to-measure approach and exacting attention to detail.

The new brochure format certainly helps to convey the range in a suitably stylish and clear manner to Fine Iron’s discerning clients.

See the full brochure flip-book here.

Website and branding for Bike Corris – a new business offering bespoke mountain bike guiding and accommodation packages in the Dyfi Valley in the stunning southern edge of Snowdonia National Park in mid Wales.

The fully responsive website design works beautifully across desktop and mobile devices, making the most of the client's own superb ride photography with full-screen parallax scrolling, for a seamless and engaging experience that makes any keen mountain biker want to get out and ride. 

To establish the quality, personal approach to the guiding and local accommodation, the project also included creating a dynamic new logo, as well as establishing the wider branding look & feel, image selection and editing, and engaging copywriting for use across both printed and online marketing.

VIEW THE SITE: 

bikecorris.co.uk

2017 is a big year for Corris Caverns, with their three tourist attractions all hoping to benefit from Visit Wales’ year of Myth & Legend theme. To maximise the impact, a refresh was required for their key marketing materials.

King Arthur’s Labyrinth is an underground attraction based in the old slate mine caverns, with themed tales to bring alive the legends of King Arthur and Welsh cultural history. New for 2017 is a lighting & projection finale to the visit – but as this was still just a ‘vision’ in the mind of the MD, it needed a new visual representation creating to capture visitors’ imagination! A 'burnt hole' graphic really stands out and gives the right fiery impression. Overall styling for the campaign materials is based around a dark montage of themed imagery, expressive type styling to convey the mythical theme, and evocative headlines and copywriting.

Corris Craft Centre required a new DL leaflet and ‘bedroom browser’ to promote the various designer-makers and their hands-on workshops. The simple hexagonal image grid is based on the architecture of the workshops themselves, with images breaking out to give additional interest and impact. The distinctive shapes, along with the consistent use of their core orange brand colour and typeface gives a contemporary look that ties in perfectly with the new on-site signage too.

Finally, Corris Mine Explorers required a new leaflet and posters. The fascinating underground adventure explores this ‘virtual time capsule’ from the area's industrial past – the slate mining caverns of Braich Goch, pretty much as left they were when the mines closed in the 1970's. The new leaflet makes the range of trips on offer far clearer, from introductory 1hr taster to a 4hr trek for more adventurous visitors deep into rarely visited parts of the mine. To get a full understanding of the offering, I took a 2 hour trip with a group and Mike the guide – absolutely fantastic and highly recommended!

A lovely 'quick & free' job (literally) for the good of our village. As part of the local schooling in Corris, we are lucky enough to have a pre-school too. The Cylch (pronounced 'kill-kh' roughly translated as 'circle' in Welsh) is 'a place for children aged 2–5 to learn through play in a safe, secure and stimulating environment, through the medium of Welsh'.

In order to secure future funding and staffing levels required, the facilities needed better promoting to the local and surrounding communities. With no logo in existence, I was asked by the committee if I could help by creating a simple new identity for use on signage and marketing materials to create greater awareness of the Cylch. 

To be authentic, I created the basis for the new logo using 'playschool' poster paints, by hand – the simple swirl incorporating the 'circle' theme and C of Corris, with the colours inspired by the natural surroundings of trees, sky and the river Dulas. The resulting logo is striking and compact in its simplicity.

The colours of the logo also form the colour palette for the fuller identity too, along with a child-friendly VAG Rounded font for text.

A suitably child-like identity for a great local group.

Situated on the stunning Mawddach Estuary between Dolgellau and the Cardigan Bay coastline, Graig Wen has firmly established itself as one of the top 10 ‘Glamping’ sites in the UK, featuring in the Cool Camping guide and highly rated by numerous Sunday Papers and lifestyle magazines.

To promote and raise awareness of the secluded site to holiday-makers already in the area, a new leaflet was needed. A leaflet dispenser-friendly DL format was required, but to give the content more space, an extended 8-page variation was devised to make the most of the stunning photography of the views on offer, and a feel for the family-friendly outdoor adventures on site and locally. Although there’s a lot of content to convey, the pared back design and typography gives it a real sense of space and calm.

The choice of a tactile uncoated paper also helps to lift the feel of the print from the usual glossy tourist leaflets.

A second part of the project was to give the site’s Mitsubishi L200 some graphic decals to help raise awareness of the site whilst out and about. The logo and new strapline ‘Cool Camping & Cottages in South Snowdonia’ is applied in a tasteful but bold way across the bodywork, with simple graphic icons used to quickly convey the various types of camping and accommodation on offer. Now the pick-up is regularly getting spotted by campers all over the Snowdonia National Park.

Having worked initially on a simple local advert for Claire, she had become increasingly frustrated with the website she'd created herself and asked me to help.

It soon became clear that her current identity was not really reflecting her business well either.  To build a stronger and more engaging message about how hypnotherapy can help almost anyone, across a range of common conditions, a new brand identity was needed.

The full project includes a refreshed logo and colour palette, a cohesive and professional choice of fonts, and new, more engaging imagery and text content used online and in print. 

I suggested we base a new website on Squarespace, to deliver simple, stylish and responsive design on any device. The system offers a great cost-effective platform for easy and intuitive updating and management of the site from a users point too. 

To complement the new website, new business and appointment cards were created. A new A5 leaflet flyer has been designed to drive interest to the website, where an online scheduling and appointment booking system has been integrated, offering online bookings at 10% discount.

Claire has been hugely impressed with the new look, and is seeing an increase in bookings already, as well as enjoying the feeling of pride in seeing her business looking so good.

Having gradually built up a loyal customer base locally in Machynlleth, as well as a growing reputation for quality new & second-hand books, talks and regularly changing gallery of local artists and photographers, owners Geoff & Diane decided it was time for a website to widen their audience and engage better with their existing customers.

Their requirements were pretty straightforward – it needed to reflect their shop and identity, showcase their range of stock and services (but not yet sell online), and provide a means of promoting and listing their regular events. 

Crucially, the site had to be easy and intuitive to use and update, by the visually literate, but not particularly tech-savvy shop team.

The new site was built on Squarespace, selected for its simple but sophisticated content-focused design and intuitive user interface. It also offers reliable security and cost-effective build time, both real benefits for a small business that wants to focus on running the shop, not their website.

The resulting site is perfectly suited to the needs of the business and is proving a great platform to talk to their growing customer base. It certainly helped to organise and publicise a packed schedule of events when putting on the first ever [and hugely successful] Machynlleth Pop-up Poetry Fortnight.

VIEW THE WEBSITE

penralltgallerybookshop.co.uk

When two of Coventry's most established Quantity Surveying firms merged, they required a fresh new identity to take the company forward.

The design of the new logo and graphic identity system gives a clean, architectural feel with the bold use of slabs of sophisticated colour and clean geometric details.  The precise and professional look reinforces the companies' solid reputation, as well as appealing to their audience of large corporations, architects and the wider construction trades.  

The identity was applied across a wide variety of stationery and business branded merchandise, website and signage.

A timeless and stylish identity that still looks good over a decade later.

With a dated old red and blue logo from when the plumbing business started over 15 years ago, PlumbQuest really needed a new look to represent the high quality workmanship and service they provide in and around Northampton and Milton Keynes. 

A new logo incorporates piping-inspired shapes into a distinctive and dynamic radial form, to reflect the themes of heating, swirling water and the Q of the name. The modern icon and type styling gives a professional and forward-looking feel to the identity. 

The two tone logo works well on both black and white - giving flexibility to be applied effectively to key items such as workwear, stationery and website, as well as a pared-back application the very cool looking silver VW Sportline vehicle.  Certainly not your average plumber's van!