And The Addy Goes to...Doggy Brace!
At Helix House, we love to celebrate and highlight the achievements of our team. We’re so happy to announce that our in-house designer and creative strategist, Indre, brought home silver in The American Advertising Awards, Phoenix (Addy Awards) for her innovative and clean design of the Doggy Brace style guide. If you’re new to the digital advertising world, AAF Phoenix hosts an annual award show to celebrate the best of the best in the industry. This year, Indre was named one of them. We couldn’t be prouder of her and her work. She continues to amaze us with her talents, and we are so lucky to have her on our team.
What’s Doggy Brace?
Doggy Brace is one of our eCommerce clients that sells ACL braces for dogs. They came to us last year, asking for social, paid search, and SEO, and a new website. We are all very excited to work with such a fun industry — who doesn’t love dogs? Indre took that love, listened to their needs, and created a fully-fledged website that truly represents who Doggy Brace is. [caption id="attachment_9578" align="aligncenter" width="770"]
Doggy Brace: Old vs. New Website[/caption]
What’s a Style Guide?
A brand or style guide is a document that defines the brand rules. A style guide’s purpose is to establish the same language between various branches and campaigns of one company so that those who interact with it see the same tone, messaging, and visual language no matter what. This guide is key for internal creation and for outsourced campaigns, such as website development, email outreach, or social and paid search advertisements. Depending on the size of the company a style/brand guide can include things like the following:
- Brand Voice
- Brand Colors
- Logo Usage Outlines
- Typography
- Iconography
- Website Guidelines
- Email Signatures
- Stationary
- Signage
- Menus
- Anything That Is Relevant To The Brand!
[caption id="attachment_9577" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Doggy Brace Style Guide: Typography Section[/caption]
Why Does a Style Guide Matter?
The most important part of branding is consistency in messaging and visual voice. No matter who works on the brand (or how many people work on it), it needs to sound and look like it's all coming from one place. Brand and style guides help keep that consistency, no matter the size or location of your team. You don’t have to take our word on it either. We’ll let Doggy Brace’s conversations pre and post-style guide speak for themselves.
Paid Search Conversions: March 2020 vs. March 2021
March 2021 — Post Style Guide and New WebsiteConversion rate: 2.52%Transactions: 102 Clicks: 3,655 (average daily: 117)March 2020 — Pre Style Guide and Old Website Conversion Rate: 0% cTransactions: 0Clicks: 3,120 clicks (average daily: 100)What Does This Mean?In March 2020, Doggy Brace was operating under the old website and old search campaigns. Very little was unified under one voice and brand. Although they were getting a strong number of clicks, nothing was converting. When we stepped in and after the style guide, new website, and new campaigns were launched, you can see that transitions and conversions took off, without drawing in too many more clicks. Not bad, right?
Let’s Hear from Indre, the Addy Awards Winner!
Now that you’ve let us blabber on for a while, let’s hear directly from the Addy Awards winner herself — Indre!
What’s Your Process on Making A Style Guide?
My process has the following steps:
- Learning
- Research
- Brainstorm
- Ideation
- Guide creation
Learning
It always starts with getting to know the client, their brand, and what their values, mission, and vision are. We talk about this extensively until I have a solid understanding of who they are as people and who they are as a business. Then, I jump right into the research.
Research
I look up their competitors, brands with similar values, and e brands that the client aspires to be like. This helps me gain an awareness of what already exists in the marketplace. The research part is important to see how people respond to those brands, see which one's are doing well, and learn how to stand out from the competition.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming process is where the fun begins. It involves a bunch of creative thinking and meetings with the whole Helix House team. We come up with three creative directions and I build mood boards to be able to visualize those directions better. Usually the client gets to review these directions and choose the path that speaks to them the most.
Ideation
Ideation is taking all the work we've done and developing the elements needed for the brand. We as a team jump into the work of defining the values, creating the visual voice, logo creation, color research and refinement, illustration and photography creation. This part takes the longest as each element is created and refined over time so everything flows together as a cohesive brand.
Guide Creation
Guide creation process takes all the elements we created for the brand and puts it together in one stylized and easy to digest document. Easy to digest is important, because a style/brand guide can be anywhere from 1 to 60 pages long. I want anyone who picks up this brand book to understand the company quickly and be able to represent them with ease and confidence.
How Long Did it Take You to Complete Doggy Brace’s Style Guide?
The whole process took a couple of months. It may seem like a small document, but there were hours and hours of work from the whole team put into this piece. From logo creation, to new photography this piece was created with love and care.
Finally, How Does it Feel to Win Silver For It?
It feels amazing to know that all our hard work was seen and appreciated by the Addy judges. The Helix team deserves a win!
via Giphy
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