Featured Project: Linthicum Living

This week's Featured Project is the branding and business system Kitchen Sink Studios, Inc. created for Linthicum Living, Inc. Linthicum Living, Inc. provides those looking for an immediate primary or secondary residence with a home designed by a nationally recognized, independent design team and built by a true custom home builder, Linthicum Custom Builders.

Linthicum wanted to create a brand and business system that would truly set them apart from other companies in the industry while conveying the kind of attention to detail and quality they take pride in as a company. Their custom homes are superior products, and they wanted to convey that through a superior brand.

The Kitchen Sink creative team focused on the fact that each Linthicum project is unique, and wanted to convey that somehow in the brand and business system. The way we ended up doing that was through the use of high-quality photography to create literally 20 different versions of their business card and letterhead.

While each card and letterhead has uniform branding and type treatments, the photography is varied so that the company can visually reinforce just how different its projects are from location to location. The cards and letterhead are accompanied by a containment folder that complements the unique look and feel of the brand.

It was an opportunity for the Kitchen Sink team to take a different approach to the traditional business system and help brand the client in a truly memorable way.

Web Site Re-Branding 101: The Devenney Group

The Devenney Group, a Phoenix-based architectural firm that specializes in health care design, approached Kitchen Sink Studios to redesign their web site. The original, as you can see above, was a little...pedestrian. The Kitchen Sink team dug into it with a process that involved numerous meetings, concepts, sketches and photography in order to tell their story in a fresh new way. Not too flashy, clean, sophisticated and 100% custom...check it out for yourself! 

www.devenneygroup.com 

Think people don't notice how your brand is presented? Just ask IKEA

Design-geek issues such as font usage rarely see the light of day in mainstream media, but a recent Time Magazine post is a good reinforcement of how important even the smallest of details can be to your customers.

The piece linked here detailed a backlash against retail giant IKEA for having the gall to change...its primary font. That's right -- after decades of catalogues filled with unpronounceable names in a customized version of the typeface Futura, IKEA is switching to the more internet-friendly Verdana.

Now, perhaps the backlash will be somewhat confined to the design community -- "Verdana, which was invented by Microsoft, was intended to be used on a screen, not on paper," Time tells us -- but regardless, the article proves a point that many companies just don't get when it comes to marketing and brand identity.

People notice small details about a company or organization, and when presented with those details consistently, form impressions in their mind based upon them. Consistency helps define the communication, and when that consistency is removed, it makes people question what's going on with the brand. The switch to Verdana may not result in lower sales of such products as the Aspelund (it's a bed), but it certainly caught the attention of more than a few people.

So what's the best policy? Build a brand identity, maintain it, and even guard it with your life. And if you make a change, it should be for a good reason. Maybe the brand has grown stale and needs a refresher; maybe the target audience has changed over time. IKEA apparently is making the change to save money, which every now and then is a good one too.

But if you think the little details aren't important, think again. Somebody is always going to notice.