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Website design for AIS - The International School, Sydney, Australia

November 9th, 2009

AIS website image

AIS is an International School based in Sydney, Australia. They provide education to the highest academic standard, and have a practical approach to teaching and learning while catering to both international and local students with its integrated Australian and American curriculum.

AIS were looking for someone to re-design their website and found us through our graphic design blog. Several Skype meetings later they accepted our proposal and had a strong brief to work to. AIS already had a team of programmers in house and required us to design and build template HTML pages that they could use to build, edit and expand the website themselves.

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Why does everyone think they are a social media expert?

October 15th, 2009

Why does everyone think they are a social media expert?

As I scroll through my twitter feed on any given day, I can guarantee you there will be at least a dozen people promoting their Social Media workshops. These are all aimed at helping people grow their businesses through online networking tools. Any workshop which states they can ‘grow your business’ denotes to me that they must know what they are talking about and are therefore an “expert”. Read the rest of this entry »

Logo design and development for Prioritise

September 28th, 2009

Prioritise logo design

Prioritise is a small business which was established in July 2007 and is based in Devon.  It provides administrative, marketing and planning support to consultants and businesses throughout the South West. Managing Director Lucy Ash approached Eightyone Design to design and develop a new logo design and brand identity for the marketing and virtual PA company. Read the rest of this entry »

21 more items all design geeks must have!

September 14th, 2009

21 more items all design geeks must have!

Back in May we posted a blog article outlining 14 Items Design Geeks Must Have! We have had such a huge response from all of you that since then I have been collecting any item I deem to be design related, geeky and worthy enough for a second post, so take a look though the further 21 items all design geeks must have and let me know what you think! Read the rest of this entry »

How much information should be contained within your brand guidelines?

September 2nd, 2009

Eightyone Design brand guidelines

A little while ago I was given a project and confidently told “Don’t worry it won’t take you long, we’ve got brand guidelines” With a spring in my step I opened the email and glanced down at the lonely half page of A5 which was their guidelines. Needless to say the brand guidelines left something to be desired and consisted of a logo, the correct pantone colours, and accompanying font. As you can imagine the project took longer than hoped as they didn’t have any consistent form of branding and I wasn’t given sufficient information as to what was required. However, we got there in the end and the client was more than happy with the final piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Retro VW Campervan Advert Designs

August 13th, 2009

Retro VW Advert Designs

If you are a regular visitor to the Eightyone Design Blog, I am sure you are aware that both Steve and I are particularly passionate about retro and vintage artwork. Team this up with our love for VW campervans (we have blogged about our own and have another blog dedicated to them as well!) and you get some of our favourite adverts ever created! These retro VW adverts are clean, simple and each one sends a clear message to their audience. The sense of continuity is spot on and their word play and copy really does set the standard (if you can put up with the sexism!).

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Who should pay for Stock Imagery?

August 3rd, 2009

stock-photography

There have been a lot of articles written about stock photography lately, many of which believe that the use of it damages our creative industry. Rather than finding the perfect solution for a design brief, designers and clients alike log onto sites such as istock, fotolia and shutterstock, complete a quick image search which turns out average images that are far from perfect for their intended use. These photographs or stock vectors are not bespoke and have often been overused. A classic example is the ‘call us now…’ image on a contact page or catalogue showing a man or woman with a headset on! This image screams ’stock’ and should be extinct! Read the rest of this entry »

Oh No… not another graphic design spec work article!!

July 17th, 2009

Oh No... not another graphic design spec work article!!

I know what you are thinking, this is just another article (or rant) dedicated to probably one of the hottest debates in graphic design… spec work and free pitching. Well you are wrong… sort of. I agree that we really don’t need another article based on this subject as there are so many already out there (like this one, this one and this one). All of these are great and tackle the subject in various ways and showcase a wide range of attitudes and thoughts towards free pitching. However, I am hoping this article will be slightly different and maybe question (as it has us) your thoughts towards free pitching and spec work. I thought I would share with you something that has happened to us here at Eightyone Design in recent months. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s your favourite part of the graphic design process?

July 2nd, 2009

Favourite part of the design process

A client recently came to us with an excellent idea for a site and I couldn’t wait to meet with them and get stuck into designing the visual. However when I thought about building the site I could feel a mild headache coming on. This got me thinking, what’s your favourite part of the graphic design process? I realise every project is different and some projects are a pure pleasure from beginning to end whilst others are just painful from the outset. However I still think there must be one part of the process where you think “I’m really looking forward to working on that…” Read the rest of this entry »

Some examples of our latest Flickr Photography

June 18th, 2009

Some examples of our latest Flickr Photography

Back in February I posted about my new hobby - photography. I set up a flickr account and for the past 4 months I’ve been snapping away at anything thats taken my fancy! I’ve posted a few of my favourite shots below: Read the rest of this entry »