Fee Fi Fo Fum

Last week Urban Giants Design were pleased to receive official notification that our company brand is now protected by Trademark. It is a relief to know that we have further protected our brand and company. But are you protecting yours? Had you even thought about it? Would you know where to start?

Brand protection is an essential aspect of todays modern business, and one which every business should take very seriously, irrespective of your size. Behind every successful business or entrepreneur there are hundreds of people looking to rip you off and hitch an easy ride.

Brand Protection

Your companies brand identity is more valuable than you realise, and is likely to be your companies biggest asset. Consider this… if your clients had their memories wiped overnight and forgot who you were and everything about your brand and company, how much damage would that cause your business? It would be like starting all over again.

Terms such as “Brand Clash”, “Passing Off” and “Plagiarism” are affecting companies more often than you think, and something you should be well aware of from the second you conceive your business idea. If you’ve worked hard to develop a business, you then need to ensure you protect it. You could be in a position where you’re spending a lot of time and money on generating awareness, only for another company to be reaping all the benefits.

Trademarking your brand is just one element in the overall protection strategy. There are various ways to ensure your brand is protected. This protection begins from the moment you consider your company name and market strategy, it should be an integral part of your business plan. It should also be a key factor when enrolling new staff members, or dealing with third party organisations and providers.

Protecting your brand isn’t an expensive process, in fact it doesn’t cost very much at all. This process is more about education, awareness, consistency of application and thinking differently, which we can help you with. There are a multitude of things we can put in place and provide advice on to help you achieve this.

It’s amazing how many creative agencies will design you a logo or a brand without any knowledge of how to protect it. Just have a think if you’ve had a logo designed… did the agency who developed the identity mention anything about protecting it or how to use it? …thought not!

This blog post isn’t meant to scare companies through our front door, because that’s not our style. We aren’t trying to sell you anything, we just provide you with good honest advice. If you are scared of what you’ve read above, then this means you’re passionate about your company and are intelligent enough to realise that protecting it is important. If you are worried or have any questions then feel free to arrange a free chat with us to discuss it. We have delivered free seminars on how to protect your brand and the importance of brand protection to many businesses.

At Urban Giants we specialise in branding, with a passionate interest in protecting our clients and their commercial image. We can advise you on how to protect your brand both now and for the future. If you would like to protect your brand, or discuss the development of an offline or online brand identity and promotional brand strategy, please contact the Urban Giants Design studio.

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding?

www.urbangiants.co.uk
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For those of you who follow our studio blog regularly, you will know that at Urban Giants Design we love type and typography. With this in mind we are always on the look out for new typeface resources and good typographic design, which we like to share - a font of knowledge you may say.

Recently we brought you a type resource we knew you’d go nuts for, with Font Squirrel, which you all appeared to love, and before that we showed you Sudtipos.

After finding Font Squirrel we thought we’d have a little dig around to see if there are any other designer focused font resource sites out there which are worth a mention, and we’ve found three you maybe interested in but never knew existed.

FontSmith

FontSmith is a well designed, clean looking site, full of good professional typefaces which are clearly aimed at the design and creative sector. These fonts are to buy though. Some lovely touches of CSS and jQuery going on here.

www.fontsmith.com

FontSmith - typeface & font resource

FontSmith - typeface & font resource

FontSmith - typeface & font resource

FontSmith - typeface & font resource

FontFabric

FontFabric looks more like a creative portfolio site than a type resource, so most designers will feel at home. This site features a lot of great looking free fonts with some nice visuals of how they look in reality.

www.fontfabric.com

FontFabric - typeface & font resource

FontFabric - typeface & font resource

OurType

OurType grabs your attention as soon as you open the page, with typeface examples smoothly sliding in and out of the screen. It also has an interesting little touch with the “try” and “buy” options when you hover over a typeface option. Page transitions are also impressive and a joy to navigate, to the point I almost forget what I went there for in the first place. These fonts are to buy, they aren’t free.

www.ourtype.com

OurType - typeface & font resource

OurType - typeface & font resource

This month Urban Giants Design were proud to be approached by London based environmental agency Action Sustainability, to create a new brand identity, along with branded promotional material and marketing collateral for a new sub brand of theirs due to launch - Green Dragons.

We were even more proud when we won the creative pitch against other London agencies!

The Green Dragon brand will represent an elite group of large construction companies who will strive to source and develop an ‘eco-innovation pipeline’ of sustainable products, all linked to the construction industry. Big name organisations such as Sainsbury’s and Morgan Sindall have already signed up to the eco scheme, which looks set to have a giant impact on the sector.

The brand identity was developed with a raw, honest and genuine feel to it, with the feeling of construction and hard work. Elements of the Dragon were weaved into the typefaces characters to create a seamless blend between the two visual elements. The brand identity was then finished in green pantone to give it the iconic recycled feel.

Green Dragons Brand Identity - Action Sustainability

Whether you’re an established business or a startup entrepreneur, developing a powerful brand and marketing strategy can be cost effective and have a giant impact. If you would like to discuss the development of an offline or online brand identity and promotional brand strategy, please contact the Urban Giants Design studio.

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding?

www.urbangiants.co.uk
Design Giants | Brand Giants | Web Design Giants | PR Giants | Advertising Giants | Creative Giants | Urban Giants

At Urban Giants Design we love good type and typographic design, especially considering we specialise in branding, brand identity, corporate identity and logo design. So we are always on the look out for new and professional font resources to ensure we match the right typeface to the right job, as we firmly believe every typeface has it’s own personality and tone of voice. We don’t think it’s an accident that typefaces are full of “characters”!

There are a number of free font sites available to designers and creatives alike, the most commonly used of which is DaFont.com. However, it is often time consuming to trawl through pages and pages of typefaces in order to sort the more commercial typefaces from the amateur and less professional fonts.

A website which shares this view is Font Squirrel. They have hand selected the best commercially licensed freeware typefaces with graphic designers in mind, and offered them as an easy download from one website. You will be amazed that some of the typefaces on offer to download are actually free.

Font Squirrel - Commercial Font resource

Thanks to the people at Font Squirrel for this fine resource!

www.fontsquirrel.com

Graphic design can inspire so many different things, adding life and a bit of interest to create something unique and fresh.

Local Hartlepool entrepreneur, Diane Watson, is leading the way in graphic design inspired cushions which have a unique charm and graphic quality to them. The designs remind me of interesting contour drawings, with a nice quirky line quality and raw natural feel.

Diane is currently trading under the name of Naughty Dog, from which she exports her creative cushions around the globe via an Etsy site. From the examples below, you can see where the inspiration for the company name came from.

Naughty Dog Cushion by Diane Watson

Naughty Dog Cushion by Diane Watson

Naughty Dog Cushion by Diane Watson

Diane produces commission based designs, so you can have you lovable mutt’s face on your very own Naughty Dog cushion! I know I could do with one for my naughty little Beagle, which would hopefully stop him from drooling on my cushions. If you love dogs, you’ll love Naughty Dog cushions.

Naughty Dog are also on Twitter if you like to be sociable, so why not follow them and become part of the pack - @naughtyDOG2

Dogs are a one-off, each with their own individual quirks, which is exactly what these cushions reflect - a unique and individual, one-off design exclusive to you.

In addition to illustrations of naughty little dogs, Diane also illustrates other things, so why not give her a challenge to create something unique and personal for you.

Visit the Naughty Dog shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/florencev4

Follow the Naughty Dog pack on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/naughtyDOG2

It’s been a busy few months in the Urban Giants design studio, which is set to continue. We’ve been busy providing new and existing clients with creative support from branding, logo design, printed promotional material, branded exhibition material, social media campaigns, brochure and e-commerce websites, vehicle livery, through to branding and marketing consultancy.

Urban Giants have also made some fantastic new contacts, and are privileged to be working on some exiting new projects for companies such as Carbon Trust, Lloyds TSB, 2012 Olympics and Onyx Group.

Branding, brand identity and brand strategies are at the core of our creative delivery. Our specialist brand knowledge allows us to ensure our clients are professionally and consistently represented across all applications, communications and platforms of delivery.

At Urban Giants Design we are also passionate about helping new startups. Below are some examples of brands which we’ve developed for startups and young companies this month.

NinetyFathom Brand Identity

Summit Brand Identity

PETAL Brand Identity

PACES Community Fitness Brand Identity

Seaham Windows Brand Identity

Eden Dene Property Clean Brand Identity

Whether you’re an established business or a startup entrepreneur, developing a powerful brand and marketing strategy can be cost effective and have a giant impact. If you would like to discuss the development of an offline or online brand identity and promotional brand strategy, please contact the Urban Giants Design studio.

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding?

www.urbangiants.co.uk
Design Giants | Brand Giants | Web Design Giants | PR Giants | Advertising Giants | Creative Giants | Urban Giants

At Urban Giants Design we’ve always loved type, typography and typographic design. It’s a multitude of subtleties and creative discipline which work together to create the perfect typographic illustration.

Ever wondered or wished you could view your website through the eyes of Google? At Urban Giants Design we like to do this using typography and a touch of design…

I was once told that every typeface has a character, a tone of voice and a personality - never a true word has been spoken. For those who like to be pedantic, yes every typeface does indeed have a character, in fact they have quite a few, but I’m more interested in the human sense of the word.

Reading the personality and tone of voice of a typeface is something I take for granted now as an instant response, but it’s an immensely difficult skill to truly get right. But what about reading your personality through the body of content you write, and the things you may not realise you’re actually communicating.

I sometimes use a free website resource to create an element of typographic interest to enhance something which maybe needs a creative boost, such as a document, proposal or presentation, or more importantly to get some insight into the textual content of a website. The website in question is one which you may or may not have heard of… www.wordle.net

Wordle is an interesting little bit of web-based software which generates a typographic illustration for any body or list of text you enter, or even a website. It dynamically calculates the most commonly used words, emphasing the most used with increased point size and colour change. To illustrate my point (if you pardon the nerdy pun), I have input the Urban Giants studio blog - www.feefifofum.co.uk - and here’s the type illustration it generated…

Wordle.net - Dynamic Typographic Illustration

In addition to it being a visually interesting piece of typographic design, it’s also an interesting experiment to see what you really write about, and what you are communicating to others. Not surprisingly for Urban Giants the illustrative portrayal of our studio blog above is clearly littered with words like “creative”, “create”, “design”, “art”, “designer”, “graphic”, “giant”, “photography”, “think” and “project”.

It’s a useful tool to demonstrate to clients what they are really saying with their website content. If you have a company why not try it and see for yourself, and if you’re not happy with what you find just give us a call to discuss what it should be saying. This is not a bad way of looking at your website through the eyes of Google.

Your online presence is vital to the success of your business, so can you afford not to give it a quick go to see what you’re really telling people?

Wordle works directly with websites which generate an RSS feed or similar, such as blogs, by copying and pasting a body of text, or by just entering text off the top of your head.

This is also a good tool to brighten up a CV, summarise a proposal or PowerPoint presentation (KeyNote presentation if you have a real computer!), creating a piece of artwork, a t-shirt, or to create an interesting homepage illustration to sum up the intentions for your website.

Whatever the reason for using Wordle, I’m sure you’ll have fun using it and create something interesting.

www.urbangiants.co.uk
Design Giants | Brand Giants | Web Design Giants | PR Giants | Advertising Giants | Creative Giants | Urban Giants

Addicted to your X-Box, Playstation (PS3) or Wii? Can’t pull yourself away from FIFA or Call of Duty (COD)? Have you ever fancied designing or developing your own games? Why not enrol on a games design course?

Hartlepool College of Further Education are building on their highly successful Graphic Design, Multimedia, Photography and 3D Design courses this year, by introducing two new courses for budding games designers and developers in Hartlepool.

Whether you are creatively minded or technically driven, Hartlepool College of Further Education can provide you with a route in to the exciting world of games design. The college are set to launch two new creative pathways, across two different qualification levels starting in September 2010.

Games Art is offered as a new creative specialism within the award winning Art & Design department, complimenting other creative disciplines such as Graphic Design, Multimedia, Interactive Media, Photography and 3D World. Games Art will allow you to create gaming environments, game characters, game concepts and narratives.

Games Development is intended for those of you who wish to persue a more technical career in games design, by developing, building, programming, game engine development and structurally planning the technical coding elements which allow the game to function.

Both Games Art and Games Development pathways are offered as a Level 3 Extended Diploma, or as a Level 2 First Diploma.

So, if you’re game and looking to become a games designer or games developer, contact Hartlepool College of Further Education on 01429 295 111. They can give you the platform to push your career to another level, giving you the knowledge and skills to control your own future.

Middlehaven has become the venue for Britain’s largest sculpture. Longer than a 747 jumbo jet, and standing as tall as Nelson’s Column, Temenos contains half a mile of steel cable at a staggering cost of 2.7m!

The so-called Tees Valley Giants series brings five “world-class” art installations by internationally acclaimed sculptor Anish Kapoor, and leading structural designer Cecil Balmond. As to who gives out the title of “World-class” is beyond me.

Temenos, based on a large butterfly net, was unveiled on 10th June 2010 as the first in a series of what Teesside will lay claim to as the biggest public art  in the world. Whilst many will claim it to be the biggest waste of money in the world.

Given the current economic climate of the country, and in particular the North East, I personally don’t think it’s anything to be proud of shouting about a 2.7m expense for a couple of giant hula-hoops and a bit of old net. It’s not pleasant to look at in anyway, and isn’t something you can admire once, never-mind again and again.

It’s also ironic that with all of the looming job cuts across the public sector, that the same public sector has funded this project which has a name deriving from the Greek verb τέμνω meaning “to cut”. I just hope that David Cameron steps in with a bit of reality and stops the other four, before Kapoor gets rich and people lose their jobs.

Where exactly does the reported 12m for this whole development go? How much of it goes directly into the creators pocket? I think the detailed accounts for these sculptures should be printed for public viewing in the press, just to clearly define where every penny for the 2.7m sculpture went before we give them any more money to create the others.

The vast amount of money for Temenos was funded by government initiative The Northern Way, Regional Development Agency One North East, the Arts Council England, the Northern Rock Foundation, Middlesbrough Football Club and BioRegional Quintain.

Apart from football supporters and old sea dogs, who actually visits Middlehaven Dock anyway?

I just don’t get this piece of “art”, neither can I justify it’s cost. Apart from Kapoor, and those who have to defend the fact they approved the funding for this, does anyone actually think this installation is a positive thing? I’d be interested to know peoples opinions on twitter.

As a designer and creative I’m always looking for something different and new to stimulate the senses and inspire me to stay creative. It’s interesting to see what other project briefs agencies are working on, and how they resolve creative issues.

Whilst I was searching around the internet the other day, I stumbled across an interesting project for Nike. The sporting brand giant commissioned design agency Wieden +Kennedy , along with sculpture Diem Chau to create an amazing box set featuring beautifully hand carved crayons.

A metallic set of 66 Crayola crayons provided the humble, raw base with which to carve out some of the worlds most famous football stars as part of a World Cup 2010 promotion. I didn’t know that you could even buy metallic crayons, so this amazed me before I’d even seen the carvings. Unbelievably, Diem hand carved nearly 70 detailed crayons in a staggering 18 days.

Crayola Metallic Crayons

Hand Carved Crayon Players (photos by Wieden & Kennedy)

Custom designed wooden inlay box (Photos by Wieden & Kennedy)

Custom designed wooden inlay box (Photos by Wieden & Kennedy)

Wieden & Kennedy are a high quality creative agency with offices and design studios across the globe, and you can see why when you look at the quality of these presentation boxes, and the creative concept which sits behind it.

As a design agency owner, I can’t help but feel a sense of envy, as we’d love to be involved in a project such as this.

More photographs and information on this project can be found on Wieden & Kennedy’s blog, or on Diem Chau’s aptly named “The Pleasure of Tiny Things” blog.

Following the success of these creative little figures, Diem Chau has been commissioned by others to create custom pieces based on the Crayola Crayon colour of your choice. Who knows, she may create one of you if you ask her nicely enough?! She’s a talented lady.

Private commission carving by Diem Chau