The Role of Strategic Design
Web Design Incorporates: Art, Function and Form
The role of design in representing a brand is greater than ever before and at LERO9 strategic design is at the centre of everything we do. Regardless of whether you are creating a new site from scratch or repositioning an existing site, applying a strategic approach to planning your site is important for achieving your company’s online objectives and goals.
We never comprise on usability – in fact its our main consideration when designing your website. The visual appearance and architecture of your site is developed after carefully evaluating your brand, your market position, your competition and your target audience.
The end result is a Web site that provides you:
- With a unique, customised brand experience that is appealing to your target audience
- With a distinct competitive advantage
- That is strategically designed to reach your online commercial goals
- That is optimised to achieve the highest organic search results, giving you high visibility
Engagement is crucial for the success of any website. It is important that visitors are immediately drawn into your site, either through great content, a compelling call to action, or some other means. A broad range of people will visit your site. It’s important they get a clear understanding of what it is that you offer and an insight into the values that give life to your business – differentiating your business from that of your competitors.
One of the most fundamental principles in creating an effective website is simplicity in ‘user interface’ design – a shared characteristic amongst both our ecommerce stores and our social media and social networking sites. Essentially, ‘user interface’ describes the way people interact with a site and the way users can access its functions. Usability is a bi-product of a good user interface and a crucial part of every design, especially on websites that have a large amount of functions and users.
The home page on your website needs to funnel visitors into intended ‘key pages’ within your site. Identifying these ‘key or critical pages’ and how to guide the user through to a single purpose is done in the planning stage. We work closely with you to understand and define what the goals and objectives for each of the key pages are and prepare a set of plans called a ‘functional specification’. This document outlines in detail how your site will function and where the content resides through a series of wireframes (illustrations) of each of the keys pages. Once this is established we then focused on designing the site as it is intended to be used.
Our approach for creating sites follows the following framework :
- First Step – Being clear on what you really want to achieve, what the purpose and goals for your site are
- Second Step – Getting clear on your current reality is and what the current barriers are to being able to fulfill your online objectives
- Third Step – Put a plan in place designed to take you from where you are now to where you want to be
- Fourth Step – Support you in monitoring the performance of your site, keeping content and software up-to-date as your business evolves
Read more about our methodologies.
Brand Building
A strong brand is a tangible and powerful asset that reflects the core values and unique qualities behind your company, providing a greater competitive edge. From print collateral to the systems and procedures you implement in your front line customer service, these values need to be consistently and authentically applied at each level within your company or organisation.
A logo is only one aspect of your company’s visual identity. Through creating stories you’re able to develop a more meaningful and memorable brand interaction which helps to strengthen the intangible heart/mind relationship between your business and your customers.
The benefits to having a strong visual identity are :
- It greatly enhances the perception of your business and service
- It conveys a sense of trust, credibility and stability
- Provides greater consumer confidence
- Gives your business a competitive edge over your competitors
- Is a tangible asset that elevates your company’s profile and perception
- Give prospective customers confidence in doing business with you
Regardless of whether you’re starting a new business or you need to regain your competitive positioning with a new visual identity, invite us to create a fresh twist on your visual identity and collateral.
Visual Identity Packages
LERO9 can create a cohesive visual identity package for your company. We give careful consideration to logo development how it is used both on line and off line. From brand story development, colour profiles, typography, uniforms, stationery and how it applies to your signage.
A logo is of great importance in creating brand identity, it must be appropriate, aesthetically pleasing and a reflection of your company’s credibility.
Do you need to refresh your visual identity and regain your competitive position with a clean and stylish logo?
Please visit our portfolio page for examples of our work.