Industry Compliance analyzes business operations and implements Work Health and Safety (WHS) policies, procedures and systems to comply with the legal WHS requirements.
Industry Compliance
Project Type: Multidisciplinary
Myson
Logo on promotional material
Logo on promotional material
Logo on promotional material
Client: Myson
Field: Home Appliances
Task: Complete branding overhaul
Year: 2003
Myson needed a brand overhaul that communicates the ambitious vision of the brand to become an outstanding player in small domestic appliance market in the MEA region.
The generic design of the old logo belonged to the early days of the firm and didn’t reflect the modern, and agile brand that it became.
By phasing out the old logo, and emphasizing on the human factor and comfort that the brand brings to consumers, I designed a new logo and uniform design language for all packages. By providing a flexible and scalable design guideline, I helped the client communicate the design specifications to OEMs across the world electronically and minimize costly print and design errors.
Thanks to its quality, customer care and branding, Myson is now considered a respectable brand in the market and sits comfortably beside reputable European, Korean and Japanese brands that have considerable advertising presence.
Usually, a small appliance package is covered by long lists of product features and selling points. While informing the customer about the key specifications is necessary, by removing the unnecessary “bullet-point” marketing copy and replacing it with a conversational communication style, focusing only on what’s important to the customer, I created a clean, clear and distinct package that stands out on the store shelves.
Cinéma Théâtre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Cinema Theatre Magazine
Client: Cinéma Théâtre Magazine
Field: Art & Entertainment
Task: Redesign
Year: 2009
Over the years, Cinéma Théâtre’s content deviated from its origins and swayed toward light entertainment. In addition, a growing number of full-colour entertainment magazines took away its market share. After changes in the magazine’s ownership, the new editor and his team looked for ways to refocus the magazine back to its original, professional roots.
I redesigned the magazine from the scratch, using the grid system, new colour scheme and new choices of type.
Owner
Field & Country of Origin: writing instruments, office supplies, South Korea, China and Taiwan
Target market: Southwest Asia
Task: Identity overhaul, package design, typography design
Year: 2005 — 2014
Label design
Product and display design
Label design
Before the overhaul in 2005, the brand consisted of 6 products. Five years into the process, sales increased 2.5 times and product portfolio expanded to more than 100 items. Also, the brand secured the number one place in mechanical pencil lead sales in the region.
Left: Similar form factor, new design
Research and defining brand essence:
I started by collecting competition products and made a model shopfront. This helped gain an understanding of how brand competes on shelves. Also, by studying competitors I learned about their positions in the market.
To find a distinctive place that brand can occupy, I made a map of the competitors’ position in the market. It became clear that the strongest advantage that the brand had was good value. The existing branding failed to communicate it.
“Good value” is a challenging message to communicate. The consumer can misinterpret it as inexpensive. Being inexpensive in itself is not a value. What “good value” does for the consumer is, it enables them to achieve their goals. This, in turn, can mean consumer friendliness, be inspiring and accessible. Consider the price of a typical premium 120 pencil wood box colouring pencil set. It can be as much as $300 (as of 2017), comparable to the price of a mid-level compact digital camera. And unlike the camera, the artist/enthusiast have to repurchase it. If the brand could assure the consumer the same quality in a no-frills package and deliver on that promise, it would help them to archive their goals.
At the early stages, the product portfolio was too small. During the design process, I suggested any sub-brand in use dropped. This helped to avoid over-stretching the brand.
Package design:
Honest, transparent-looking design represented the products like they are. This communicates the connection between the packaging to brand values and creates an easy-to-understand and uniform packaging system for retailers and consumers.
Logo Redesign:
There are many technical challenges for logo design due to manufacturing limitations. The logo must be very easy to engrave by stamping or laser engraving. It should be hot-stampable and printable in one colour. Also, manufacturers should be able to engrave it on small surfaces like a pen clip.
Brand consistency & techniques for reducing time to market:
Keeping the message consistent across all mediums and more than 20 OEMs has been a challenge. Products made and packaged by various manufacturers. Country of origins included South Korea, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.
Reproducing consistent colour and packaging standards has been a difficult challenge in the past.
To reach consistency, a brand identity guidelines made and distributed among OEMs. PDF used for throughout the entire approvals and production process. 3D models used in catalogues for pre-ordering around 6 months before the actual production begins.
Reproducing consistent colour and packaging standards has been a difficult challenge in the past.
To reach consistency, a brand identity guidelines made and distributed among OEMs. PDF used for throughout the entire approvals and production process. 3D models used in catalogues for pre-ordering around 6 months before the actual production begins.
Hansa
Hansa: Merging 3 brands into one
Field & Country of Origin: Writing Instruments, Promotional Gifts / Hong Kong
Task: Identity overhaul, package design, Typography
Design Year: 2005 onwards
Keywords: product development, package design, bilingual typography, branding, brand refresh
Engraving
Packaging detail
Brand Overhaul
Brand Refreshment. Logo on clock face
Stand Design
Shopping Bag
CD Design
Package Design
Bilingual, uniform branding on keychain
Bilingual, uniform branding on card holder
Writing instruments and case
Challenge
Back in 2005, the company that owns the brand, faced tough competition and a fragmentation of its product branding and identity. The company owned three brands, all active in gift and premium market and they all suffered from inconsistent branding.
Solution
I got involved with their project when they asked me to design a catalogue for Hansa, which eventually led me to persuade them not only to change the branding but also, abandon their two other brands and merge their product lines into one.
Results
Merging three brands into one was a tough decision for the traditional, family owned company stakeholders; however, the results were positive. After a year, Hansa sales were up 150% and it became the number one gift brand in the region. Now the brand has hundreds of products in its portfolio.
A two-tone (black & silver) uniform design agreed with the client. Since the change in branding, brand image is on par with high-range brands in the target market.
B2B magazine
B2B magazine is a dedicated business magazine based in Canberra. I did the design and a bulk of the photography for issues #110 onwards.
Technical Specifications:
During this timeframe, the magazine was produced in InDesign CC using a consistent, but constantly evolving, style sheet, defining all text from story level to paragraphs and multiple levels of headlines to character level.
Design grids were used extensively, with attention to typography’s hierarchy and avoiding widows and orphans as much as possible.
In terms of automation, a well-styled table of content dynamically generated with hyperlinks to pages created for the magazine, and some common variables like issue numbers were generated and updated automatically.
The printer’s working space, Coated FOGRA 39, used for the document and all photos, which downsampled to 350 DPI and individually sharpened, retouched when necessary.
More on this project: