We're in an industry that's forever changing, evolving, and adapting. Over the past 6 years, our brand has been associated with some amazing pieces of work which have made a real difference to audiences far and wide.
We've grown a lot over those 6 years, and we felt it was time to update our brand to reflect that growth, and truly mimic our values, our purpose - and ultimately, what makes us, GEL.
The pillars.
Day in, day out, we work with clients and their brands. As part of our Branding service, we've created a 1 day workshop which goes through several exercises to identify the pillars of a brand, and ultimately ends with the business being able to confidently answer the all important question of 'who are you'? So it was only right that team GEL got to fully immerse in this workshop.
We've changed a lot over the past years, evolving from a web development based business, into a full service creative agency, and we knew that our new branding, whatever direction it took, was to be all encompassing and a true reflection of all the types of work that we can provide for our clients and customers.
The result? #WeAreGEL
The brand.
Welcoming in our new brand, is our new way of working. #WeAreGEL. It's grown up (a bit!) - faithful to the old, but focused on the future, services we offer and the type of clients we'd like to work with. Friendly, yet professional. Simple, yet slick.
We believe that first impressions count for everything, and that couldn't be more true of how we want to position ourselves to clients and customers, new and old. The new typography and colour pallet is easy to read with good contrast, and has been replicated onto all forms of collateral we use at GEL Studios with amazing effect.
Whether our first interaction is offline (business cards, flyers, posters) or online (website, adverts, email) the look is consistent - are sure to turn heads.
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The logo.
Undoubtedly the most challenging part of the new brand visuals. There was a lot of discussion about the direction the new logo should take... but one thing that was certain to remain... the green (obviously!). As concepts were coming together though, the feeling became stronger that we needed to stay faithful to the old logo somehow. We weren't changing GEL Studios - we were evolving. So it felt only right that our logo evolved too, rather than changed. The natural choice was the 'g' of GEL - it's iconic, recognisable and familiar - a feeling we were keen to keep for the team, clients, friends and partners of the business.
The website.
Our new website is a complete change from what we've had before. A real focus on usability with and a clear, concise presentation of the services that we offer. It's also packed to the hilt with loads of really cool little features. Some of our favourites are the full screen menu presentation, audio when viewing a team member, transform scales on all button clicks, and of course, complete consistency in spacing and presentation.
The portfolio has also changed. As we've grown, the amount of work that we've completed has become vast - and in terms of managing that on a website - unreasonable. So, we've taken the decision to list our favourite pieces of work only - showing where we are now, not where we were. Fear not however, we've archived off every single one of our old portfolio entries to ensure there are no broken backlinks!
Every time you load a portfolio entry, it's shown in all of it's glory - with large, hi resolution imagery/video thats been personally curated, so you can see each piece of work at it's absolute best, and content telling you not just what we've produced, but how, and why we've done it.
The whole site has been built on the Bootstrap 4 framework, along with SCSS, and bits and bobs of jQuery here and there too. Levying the newest Bootstrap we were able to make the most of several effects such as reliable 100% viewport height - which you can see on the home page with the video produced by our friends at OTTR Works. We also did their website which you can see in our portfolio here.
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Planning the launch.
Planning to succeed is, well, succeeding! We spent a long time getting ready to launch our new brand, over 12 months in fact! Patience was tested as Graeme (Managing Director) wanted to shout about our hard work from the rooftops, and Carly (Creative Director) wanted to wait until everything was in place to do it all in one perfectly executed swoop.
Carly won that battle, and upon reflection - she was completely right. Launching just one, or several elements of our new brand, would have watered down the impact of launching it all as one.
Everything was checked, double checked and triple checked prior to site launch. We also collated a list of everywhere that our brand is used, and pre-produced assets to replace them so we could launch everything in just one morning.
The result - everything was launched and updated by midday - and at the time of writing this article - everything's gone smoothly!
Thank you to the team.
GEL Studios started as one persons vision - my vision. In the past 5 years, it's become a shared vision.
The new brand and direction represents our joint commitment to that vision. We all live and breathe our core values - all we did was put a visual identity to it - that, is the true meaning of #WeAreGEL.
To every member of my team - my work family - my friends - thank you. Thank you for being you, truly believing in me, and the work that we do each and every day. Thank you for your help with bringing our new brand to life.
To our clients, and customers, thank you for your support over the past years - we're looking forward to the future, and how we can assist with your businesses needs and goals.
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Thanks for reading - I'll write another blog post soon, (as I have to now we have a new website!).
G (Graeme).
