Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:38:32 +0000

And today, that’s what EMC Conchango is all about. The agency focuses on the whole customer experience, which it calls ‘total experience design’. “It’s an emergent way of thinking around how we design,” explains Paul Dawson, EMC Conchango’s experience director. “Classic digital or web agencies tend to think within the constraints of the part that they have responsibility for. So if you’re designing a website, you tend to think in terms of what you can do on this website. If you take the total experience design approach, you consider the entire customer journey regardless of what their interaction points are. When you do that, you start to draw out interesting things that don’t necessarily fall within your remit but need doing. It’s a philosophy that starts to help some of our clients have a more joined-up and seamless user experience.”

In fact, it works so well that the agency, which has around 350 people in the UK and twice as many in the US, was recently snapped up by data storage giant EMC for around £42million. “The objective was to raise capital to allow us to grow a bit more rapidly. We’d been growing very steadily, about 25 per cent year on year, and the only real way to take a next step is to have acquisitive growth, where you buy other companies, and we just didn’t have the reserves to do that as a small independent company.”

The clients have stayed with the agency but now, as the European arm of EMC Consulting, EMC Conchango has global reach and opportunities to attract more worldwide business. It’s also a chance to expand the sectors it currently works in (retail, financial services, media and entertainment and energy and resources) to telecommunications as well as government and healthcare.

The studio handles around 10-12 clients at any given time. Notable ones include Virgin Atlantic, Barclays, River Island and Tesco, but Dawson points out that each is important. There are no dominant clients, and the agency prefers to work very closely with each one, in integrated teams. At the beginning of every new project they get a blank wall and a big sheet of brown paper and start researching the client’s customers to gain as much insight as possible. “With a retailer, for example, we might go to their stores and talk to some customers or observe their buying behaviours,” Dawson says, “or we go to the customers’ homes and watch them buying on the web and get them to talk us through it. Through that, we establish an understanding of the customers and then distil them into what we call ‘personas’. It’s a design tool in user-centred design that encapsulates what we are, what the customer is trying to achieve in a series of profiles.”

All about the user

From then on, everything that guides the experience planning process is based on facts. The teams use the Agile methodology for the design and development, and regularly release software to the clients, so they can monitor progress. User testing is incorporated as often as possible, but Dawson says it’s crucial to strike a balance. “Often companies do too much user testing. There’s no substitute for it but if you’ve sat through five user tests out of 10 planned that day and you’ve heard five people say exactly the same thing, you should probably stop and address what they’ve said.”

Eye tracking is used to establish specifics about how people are taking in the contents of a page. Usually, however, user tests incorporate the thinking aloud protocol as a primary research method. A potential customer is filmed to see how they are using a site, commenting on the process. The agency, a Microsoft partner, is currently experimenting with electroencephalograms. “You literally wire someone’s brain up and it tells you what they’re feeling as well as what they’re thinking. Something like Microsoft Surface, for example, would benefit from it because what’s hard to measure when somebody talks to you is how happy they feel or what their emotional state is. They can tell you but it’s no substitute for that initial spike that you’d see on an EEG.”

Dawson is looking after the adoption of new user-facing technologies, and EMC Conchango has already created several proof-of-concept applications for Surface, including one for Tesco Wine Club Fairs in conjunction with American user experience company IdentityMine. At the event, all the bottles were tagged, and when they were placed on the multi-touch table, it would recognise them and bring up appropriate information such as where they’re from and taste notes. Customers could also rate the wines and describe how they tasted. Surface made a huge impact and caused customers to dwell much longer.

EMC Conchango was also responsible for the relaunch of Tesco.com, for which the entire technology was re-engineered, as well as the Tesco@Home desktop application, built using Tesco’s API and the Windows Presentation Foundation. Among other things, it can capture a barcode with a webcam and search Tesco.com for the product, so you can wave an empty milk bottle in front of your PC and the item will be added to your basket. And just a few weeks ago, EMC Conchango helped run the Tesco open innovation day, dubbed T-Jam. “You can pretty much do anything through Tesco’s API that you can do on the website: search, browse and checkout,” Dawson says. “So this was a day spent with customers and an even evening spent with developers, taking them through the customers’ way of thinking and giving them the tools to go away and develop applications. The idea is that you come out with a bunch of people that really have a need and we help shape their ideas and bring them together with people who are able to deliver into that need. Anyone who can generate business for Tesco by making its customers happy will get rewarded. It’s an affiliate program. It’s not like Tesco is asking for ideas for free.”

Dawson, whose job as experience director also includes an innovation role, says the agency has been dabbling in computer game theory lately. They’re analysing ways to motivate people to do their jobs using the theory of computer games and are incorporating the XNA framework, the underlying platform for the Xbox. The project will also include an augmented reality aspect with camera integration, but as usual EMC Conchango only uses the latest tricks if there’s a real long-term benefit. According to the agency’s philosophy, understanding the customer’s behaviour is the best way to innovate. “There are things that attract a lot of attention. Take Mini, for example. They do a marketing piece with visual tags and Augmented Reality, and it’s great, a lot of people say ‘wow’, and it lasts for a month or two and then it’s gone. Our angle is to make it work for businesses long-term. So, if Ikea came along and said they would like to give people a new way of designing their living rooms, that’s where we would use Augmented Reality. Because it would last a long time.”

In the end, EMC Conchango’s experiences are all about the brand utility. A project works if it’s functional and fits into people’s lives, and at the same time is tightly associated with the brand. It’s a simple concept and certainly not revolutionary, but if you give a customer something useful, chances are they’re going to be happy and tell others about it. A win on all sides.

Paul Dawson
Job Experience director at EMC Conchango
Age 37
Education BA in English and American Studies; subsidiary degree in Biophysics
Previous career CD-ROM, GUI & website designer at A.L Digital
Online blogs.conchango.com/pauldawson and twitter.com/poleydee

 

The Logo Design Process for Ultimate Potential

I will guide you through the process of creating the logo for one of my recent clients, Ultimate Potential. This article offers insights into, not only the thought process behind creating the logo, but also the creation of the logo itself.

Big Bocca – Illustrative Logo

Creating a logo for a company that thrives on creativity seems like it would be a no-brainer project. Well that isn’t always the case. This illustrative logo for an italian animation studio will show you a very quick turnaround and the design politics we sometimes have to deal with in our artistic pursuit to create the best work we can.

Silhouette Logo for a Steak House Restaurant in Adobe Illustrator

This tutorial goes through the methods behind producing a logo for a steak house restaurant. It discusses some common mistakes when designing a logo, and then goes through the preliminary sketching process, setting up your Illustrator document with a stock photo reference, all the way through the completion of the logo.

Drawing a Good Logo

UX Developer Nathan Smith discusses his method for creating an iconic logo design.

The process of redesigning a logo

Kristof Saelen discusses an effective course of action for updating an existing logo.

Jelly Remake

This is a great tutorial that shows how to create a candy-like logo and covers some good basic techniques you can use in Photoshop.

Skull logo Tutorial

Learn about the pen tool, pathfinders, and transforming objects while making a fairly basic but cool looking skull tattoo Logo.’

Cloud Logo

Creating clouds in Photoshop seems to be quite popular these days, so in this tutorial I am going to be teaching you how to create a cloud logo for your site.

Making a Logo

A very detailed and well analyzed and detailed article from Mihai Panu-Ionascu about logos and how create a logo.

How to Design a Logo.

This is more like a guide line then tutorial. Jacob Cass from Just Creative Design explains how to design a logo in a must read detailed post.

Simple Multimedia Business Logo.

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a glossy and professional logo for a multimedia business website.

Leaf Logo

Using photoshop preset shapes you can create an amazing leaf logo with a Web 2.0 style.

Piranha’s Revenge – Illustrative Logo

Artist Von. R. Glitschka discusses his creative process for designing an illustrative logo.

Logo Design Process Tutorial

Dryicons has some of the best icons on the web. Now, on these tutorial they present a logo tutorial: from sketching logo in paper to designing it in illustrator and printing in it paper again. "This tutorial is intended to benefit both our potential clients, so they can have a fully comprehensive overview of our logo design process and methods; and many of our users, interested in the process of designing and developing a logo."

Transformer Logo Tutorial

Using trace counter method create transformer logo in Illustrator. The goal is to recreate the new Transformers Movie Logos into highly customizable vector objects.

Designing a Cake Shop Logo

Need a logo for cake shop? This tutorial very nicely show how create a artistic cake shop logo .

Create a Planet Logo

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Sony Ericsson Logo

In this tutorial, the artist makes Sony Ericsson logo in about 20 minutes. Besides doing this, you will learn how to save time, change layer styles and re-use copies of your original effects and forms. So let’s go.

Simple Vector Logo Design

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Creating a Crazy Cool Logo

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Fitness Logo

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Dark Logo in Photoshop

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Creating the Brand Identity for a Sports Team

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Digg Logo in Illustrator

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Create an Origami Logo

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Simple Vector Logo Tutorial

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Day 30: Designing a Logo

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Awesome Logo Using Anime Charater

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Create a Logo Identity

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My logo design process

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Logo Presentation tutorial

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Logo design for Giacom

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Logo design and card for Hilcon

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Volks Logo in Gimp

Create the Famous Volkswagen using Gimp.

Design the Firefox Logo in Photoshop

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Euroleague 3D Logo
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Professional Logo

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Umbrella Corporation logo

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Futuristic Web Logo Design Tutorial Using Photoshop

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Logo Frustration

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Create a Retro Logo

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3D gradient logo in Illustrator

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Skype-like logo in Pixelmator

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Making the ATI LOGO

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Creating the Logo / Identity for “Blackberry Creek Community Church”

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Step-by-step logo

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Logo Design Collections for Inspiration

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40+ Beautiful Fish Inspired Logos

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35+ Logo Inspiration With Clever Use Of Symbols

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Logo Design Gallery / Portfolio

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Beautiful And Creative Logo Designs For Your Inspiration

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5 Branding Basics Every Logo Designer Should Know

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Drawing Inspiration From Creative Logos

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Logo Design Process for Just Creative Design’s Award-Winning Logo

LogoPond

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15 wonderfully simple logo designs

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Here follows a selection of famous trademarks created using handwriting…

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Drawing Inspiration From Creative Logos

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33 logos in 33 minutes

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Logo Design & Branding Trends 2009

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15 inspiring ambigram logos

An ambigram, also sometimes known as an inversion, or flipscript, is a graphical figure that spells out one or more words not only as presented, but also in another direction or orientation (from Wikipedia). Here follows 15 inspiring examples, with some further ambigram resources.

Logospire

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The Identity Archives Project

The Identity Archives Project is a searchable database of logos and brand identity designs, it’s useful for getting inspiration on particular topics such as "technology" or "web 2.0".

Logos & Logotypes on deviantART

deviantArt has a section on user-submitted logos/logotypes that you can browse through for logo design inspiration.

Logo Faves

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LogoSurf

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LogoMoose

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LogoSauce

LogoSauce is a logo design gallery. Check out the "top 6" section to view the most popular designs on the site.

10 successful logo redesigns

When a logo is used for a number of years, the brand awareness that is amassed can prove a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal of large corporations. With that in mind, logo re-designs often implement subtle changes to refresh the look whilst considering customer recognition. This blog post features 10 successful logo redesigns, as shown on the Brand New website, and highlights specific rationale I agree with.

Logo Design Trends 2009 – Showcase

lo8os

lo80s is a highly-categorized logo design gallery. You’ll find categories like "Symbols" or "Household Items" on here.

logoed

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30 Dual Element Logos

All of these logos combine two or more individual concepts to create one seamless design. Some are a little more obvious than others, but all equally impressive.

Inspire Yourself: 58 Creative Logos

These are 58 creative logos you can inspire yourself from. Nevermind how different the logos are – they show the current trend in modern logo design. The logos we’ve selected below have been created and optimized for Web.

30 Brilliant Vector Logo Designs, Deconstructed

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goodlogo!com

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35 Green, Leafy Logos

A trend that you may have noticed recently is the use of leaves in logo design. In some cases the companies using these logos are in a “green” industry, which makes this style of logo a natural fit. Other companies are not in this type of industry, and some of the logos (I believe) are fictional and created for logo portfolios. Even if that’s the case, they may serve as good design inspiration.

FAVEUP

FAVEUP is a design inspiration gallery that has a wonderful Logos section. Users are able to vote on designs that are featured on FAVEUP.

Logo Galleria

Logo Galleria (currently) has over 400 logos featured in their gallery.

50+ Kick Ass Logos for Inspiration

"I looked at over 2000 logos on various inspiration sites to grab the 50+ best logos (in my opinion) to fuel your logo design inspiration. Some more resources below the post."

Logo Of The Day

Logo Of The Day features one logo a day picked by a panel of judges.

How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

5 Vital Logo Design Tips

What Makes a Great Logo

This is an excellent article on the fundamental elements of a good logo design.

What makes a good logo design?

David Airey shares his thoughts on what makes a logo design great.

how do designers create unique identities?

Logo designer and author Jeff Fisher ponders on the ways designers go about creating unique brands that stand out from the crowd.

Logos with a meaning

This article on creativebits examines logos that have a symbolic meaning to them, such as the FedEx logo and Sun Microsystems logo.

LogoBee’s Top 10 Logo Design Tips

Logo design company, LogoBee, shares some basic things to consider when creating a logo. Wired News tells us the history of Google’s legendary logo

The World’s Best Logo Designers

How and where to seek professional Help

How To Choose A Logo Designer

In this article David Airey, a logo designer himself, offers his personal perspective on the selection of logo designers, provides some insights in his workflow and explains why you should think twice before choosing logo designers from the Google’s Results front page.

99 designs

99designs connects clients needing design work such as logo designs, business cards or web sites to a community of more than 33,000 designers. I like to just look around on this site for inspiration as there are literally thousands of logos created in projects where the clients and the community discuss how to improve selected candidates. It gives a good idea of the creative process and the most important things to focus on.The conept they have and the application supporting it is just brilliant! I would consider making a design competition here if I needed a new logo… The number of logo suggestions provided even for task that doesn’t release alot of money is impressive!

10 Great Logo Design, Branding and Identity Books

As designers we often look for inspiration for our work. logocritiques compiled a short list of some useful logo design and branding books. The people behind these books have some useful insight and inspiration for their readers. If you don’t already own them, I suggest you consider adding them to your library. Support tripwire magazine if you buy a Premium Theme

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