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Digital Design: Behold the Power of the Pixel

Last Updated on November 16, 2017 by Kompani Group Leave a Comment

The days when print design principles guided digital design are over. The web and online media have come into their own as communications venues – and as such have broken free from print conventions like “below the fold” and the idea that fewer words are better. In fact, digital design often takes a dramatic departure from print because of the way people use it, which is exactly what drives the latest digital design trends. But it isn’t just about looks as you’ll see in our latest white paper. Function, hardware, and user expectations are also big components.

For example, did you know that audiences seeking education would typically rather read one long scrollable page of content as opposed to clicking or swiping a series of pages? Or, were you aware that overall sales go up considerably when there’s one-touch purchasing? These situations and others like them are all being addressed by today’s digital designers with some interesting solutions. Streamlined icons, clear-backgrounds on buttons and links, active imagery, multiple routes to complete the same action, intuitive menus and navigations, app design, and more.

We’ve been helping clients realize the tools and trends that can influence the way their brands interact with online audiences – across industries as varied as health and medicine, to interior design, to printing technology and more. See the latest trends here to see more of what’s happening in the world of digital design.

Branding from the Inside Out

Last Updated on July 6, 2015 by Kompani Group Leave a Comment

When cattlemen first started branding cattle, they chose a mark that was uniquely theirs and easy to recognize – hence how the idea of the logo made it to modern-day marketing. But the more important thing to know about those very first cattle brands was that they were deeply personal to the ranches they represented. And that’s a lesson that applies to modern-day branding as well. Your company’s brand isn’t just a logo – it’s everything you stand for – every interaction you have internally and with your customers. It’s every piece of marketing material. It’s your internal training program. It’s the slogan on the company field day t-shirt.

Brands Begin with People.

Think of the most iconic brands in the world – Nike, Coca-Cola, Disney. Have you ever wondered how they’ve built such incredibly strong brands? Sure, they’ve spent a lot of money on advertising, media, and design to make sure they’re seen and recognized, but nearly everyone can agree there’s more to those brands than just their presence. People identify with these brands. Often, they’re fiercely loyal and devoted to those brands. Rest assured, it’s not by accident. The world’s strongest brands live their brand essence every day, every moment, and with every customer and client interaction – not because they have to – but because they can’t imagine doing business any other way.

And that’s the secret… Brands don’t direct how businesses operate. It’s the way businesses act that define who they are as brands. Nike didn’t just decide one day they wanted to stand for victory – they were already doing it through gear and apparel that was making a difference in the way athletes perform. Disney didn’t wish to be associated with magic – they were making magic happen every second a person walked through their parks, sat down at one of their movies, or played with one of their toys.

So How Should You Build Your Brand?

Begin by asking yourself what you’re already doing well. Then ask yourself how much benefit there might be in doing that one thing even better. What does your internal team believe in? What inspires them? What do your most loyal customers say about you? These are more integral to your brand than you might think. Why? Because trust matters when it comes to brand loyalty. If Coca-Cola positioned it’s brand as a health beverage – do you think it’d help sales, or hurt them? Even if someone knew nothing about the brand before, results can’t be denied. So if you can’t fulfill your brand’s promise you’re not doing yourself or your business any favors. Sure, you may get a modest initial lift from a new brand image – but when people feel duped, they’re not going to come back to the brand a second or third time.

Kompani Group Creates Compelling Brands

When we begin the branding (or re-branding) process we start by going deep. We’ll look inside your business and reveal things you may not have even known about yourself. It’s an objective third-party perspective on what your company is and what your company could be. We ask the questions that reveal all the answers you never knew you had… the result is a Brandmap.

Think about that for a minute – an actual “map” of your brand, just as though it was a technical schematic. You won’t just know “what” you offer potential customers, but also the all-important “how” and “why” consumers should choose you over a competitor. It’s quite literally operating instructions for how to build your brand, and it considers your industry, your competitive landscape, your product/service, and every way you communicate or interact with the world.

This approach has taken brand-new brands like Blooms by Heinau from start-up obscurity to a recognized brand that was recently featured on The Today Show. We’ve also helped an established clean energy provider refocus their brand on their key market – Solar. We not only renamed the company to DCE Solar, but also helped realign all their brand assets, logos, imagery, tagline, and more.

You can see some of our other results with Naming, Logo, and Identity on our website, our learn about our unique approach by accessing our brochure, today.

Wellient launches their new web site at www.Wellient.com

Last Updated on April 5, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

Wellient empowers you to take a proactive role in your daily health routine. Working for you around the clock with personalized medication reminders, adverse interaction alerts, automatic prescription renewal counts, daily follow-up upon hospital discharge, health test monitoring, portable health records, emergency response in case of accident, medication price comparisons and traditional and non-traditional medical information tailored to what you say is important to you. Stay on track, be healthier, feel better, stress less and save time and money. Wellient is easy and low-tech for you to use, but high-tech and robust behind the scenes.

By launching a comprehensive new platform of health management and information services, they are transforming your medical history into usable and potentially life-saving information. It is no secret that a bewildering and fast-growing amount of data is available on the Web. A filtering service focused on the most reliable sources of information is needed. A service that is built around your specific needs. We are out to help change attitudes and behavior in a friendly, private and easy way.

What exactly constitutes good web site design, and why should you care?

Last Updated on March 20, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

Usability and the utility, not the visual design, determine the success or failure of a web site.

Since the visitor to the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything, user-centric design has become a standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a feature, it might as well not exist.

Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.

Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher the cognitive load and the less intuitive the navigation, the more willing users are to leave the web-site and search for alternatives.
Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-pages in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users scan; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Scanning is more efficient.
Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. Users act like “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards.”
Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve visited before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.