This was one of the quickest project we’ve ever done – the logo and website were designed and approved within 3 days and it was coded in under a week.

Airline Reviews are a relatively new site – they launched in January this year with very much of a home made look and feel. They have a great premise – the website is an opportunity to leave reviews of your trips on specific airlines – both positive and negative, but you can also read other peoples reviews to help you determine which airline you would like to travel with.

To start with we looked at their logo:

Old logo
What can we say about this – you can see what we mean about something home made – it’s just text, has no impact or personality to it at all.

New logo
The new logo is drastically different. Because the website dealt with people’s comments we felt it was important to have more of a human element to it with a bit of personality. So we created a little character that does exactly that. The client has also run a competition on Facebook to ‘name the plane’.

Old website

• Ok we’re back to the home made style again – believe it or not the visual below left is the home page
• The style used is cold and clinical, again it doesn’t reflect the subject matter in any way
• No images are used at all, it’s quite off putting and doesn’t feel very trustworthy or professional
• There is no strong call to action or prompting of the person visiting the site so it is quite confusing what they need to do next
• It doesn’t grab your attention to make you want to go any further in to the site
• It looks outdated – and the way the information is displayed is very confusing

New website

• The new website design is far simpler, with a more direct style, it’s much cleaner and crisper and easier to use
• Colour has been used but without overkill – giving a distinctive personality to it
• A clear image block at the top with text explaining the premise of the site gives the site real impact
• The information underneath is direct, segmented and organised helping the visitor to decide where they want to go on the site – to read a review or to submit one

Airline Reviews website facts

• In the first 10 days since the redesign there was an 80% increase in visitors to the site
• In the first 3 days after the site went live they had 2.5k visitors
• 25% of the total reviews the site has received has been since the new design went live
• The number of unique visitors has doubled on a daily basis since the new design

Take a look at the new Airline Reviews website

Royal Caribbean offer a wide range of different cruises across the world and produce a members magazine to help promote these cruise destination and their fleet of ships. We were asked to completely redesign their magazine with a brand new tone of voice and visual style. We worked with specific itineraries and developed a far more enticing, appealing style with the articles built around the featured destinations highlighting the extra experiences you could have such as shore excursions, along with promoting the new additions to their fleet.

Caboodle worked with the client to agree the content and new visual style, we also sourced all of the images and commissioned the copywriting to tie everything together in a far more successful piece. The original magazine was 20 pages and we were also asked to produce subsequent editions.

The Brief
This was a new sister company grown out of an existing 4×4 car dealership, the client needed a brand that was modern, gritty, with its own personality and they needed a logo and website creating but had no idea where to start.

The Solution
A modern, gritty, grungy, textured feel was developed for the logo that reflected the subject matter perfectly with the text underlined by muddy tyre marks.
 A colour palette of modern earthy colours was chosen to compliment the visual style set up.

The website continued the theme of using the gritty, grungy feel and that styling was applied to the edge of images, graphics, the page background and also text underlines to help build up a set of graphics that could easily be used, along with the modern, earthy colours from the logo.

Each page of the website uses a different ‘hero’ image representing the clients product and along with highlighting the USPs (unique selling points) and testimonials a clear, simple, direct site was produced that is easy and intuitive to use.

Visit the We Buy Any Pickup website

Not knowing what to expect from this sort of event I went along with my eyes and ears open hoping to pick up some nuggets of information. I have to say that the event was amazingly well organised with some great talks.

I was fortunate to be one of the speakers on the site clinic with Dave Naylor, Karl Blanks and Kieron Donoghue. I just wanted to say thanks to my fellow site clinic buddies and to the 3 website owners of Wall Glamour, Sci Fi Blog and Eighteen Sixty Five for being brave enough to submit their sites for our critique.

I was also really impressed with Gary Taylor’s talk on Keyword Domains and Mini-Sites – this has given me a real insight and has sparked loads of ideas. Ian Pouncey’s talk on Practical Accessibility was also fascinating, as was Karl Blanks’s slot on Gruesome Conversion Killers.

So I’d just like to thank Dom again for a fantastic event, roll on the next one.

For those of you interested in my site clinic design findings then head on over to my personal blog WebsiteDesign.org.uk and see the before and after designs.

To commemorate this event they decided to refresh their brand and commissioned Caboodle Design to undertake the task.

The logo shown below was their original logo, created 21 years ago, and was certainly in need of a redesign. The curve shape made out of text, indicated the direction the silk route or silk road took, starting in China and finishing in Venice, the client wanted to retain this shape to keep some continuity between the old and new logo.

The new logo retained the curve but it was used as a graphical shape rather than being made up of text. This graphic was set between stylised, modern looking type holding the logo together. It is now a much fresher, more contemporary identity, fitting in far better with today’s lifestyle.

This logo was then applied to their stationery where images of their beautiful silk products were used to accent the back of business cards and top of letterheads and compliment slips, emphasising the huge range of gorgeous silks they sell. The rebranding was also then applied to banners and signage for shows, all printed materials, packaging and promotional items.

Next came a complete redesign of their website – a new ecommerce site has been developed – some screen shots are shown here. Each section within the site has a different header image reflecting the type of silk the user is currently viewing. The site also has a section on ‘silk inspiration’ where viewers can see a gallery showcasing well known textile artists using silk in their projects, along with more information on the history of silk and the process of how it is made. To view their website online visit www.thesilkroute.co.uk

“After 21 years in business we decided that our image was becoming somewhat staid and needed refreshing. We turned to Caboodle Design, who had previously served us well. Taking note of our requirements, Caboodle Design came up with a new logo that was new, exciting and exactly met the image that we wished to portray. They not only supplied a new look but also extended it to our stationery, publicity, advertising and packaging.

Caboodle Design designed our existing website, with which we were very pleased, and the resulting ‘look’ helped us to increase our mail order significantly. So when we decided to upgrade to an on-line shopping site we returned to them. Positive comments from our browsers such as ‘easy to use’, ‘well designed layout’, ‘Wow – great website’, etc. made this an easy decision.

The Caboodle Design team listened to our requirements. They took note of our individual requests and tailored the results to our specific needs. Subsequent help was always positive and timely.

The whole process was made easy and understandable with consultation at every level. This resulted in the delivery of a website that is even better than we anticipated.

Well done Caboodle Design.”
Hilary Williams, The Silk Route

The Brief
This was a new start-up company, the client wanted a brand that was elegant, pretty, charming and had its own style. They were quite keen on a pale blue, green and cream colour palette.

The Solution
After much discussions on the wedding planning theme, the following logo was produced. A wedding cake direction was chosen and a number of different cake illustrations were drawn – the following one being the chosen style. Elegant swirls on top and underneath the bands of colour indicate the cake ribbon and stand with the cake layers holding the company name comfortably in between. A real sense of personality is obtained here with the illustrated logo and its rich colour scheme.

Initially the colours suggested by the client of a pale blue, green and cream were tried but after developing the cake illustration further those colours weren’t really working so a sumptuous bright pink was selected which suited the brand perfectly.

A set of stationery was then developed taking into account the branding set up. The delicious pink was used in large areas with white text and swirls reversed out of it – again adding charm and a bit of personality to the brand.

Every year TravelMole, the travel trade website, run an award ceremony selecting the best UK travel websites. This year the Sunshine.co.uk website (designed by Caboodle) was shortlisted for the Best Travel Agency site. The awards ceremony was held at the Canadian High Commission and everybody waited with baited breath. Competition for the Best Travel Agency site was fierce but Sunshine.co.uk won!

Here is who they were up against.

Travel Agency Category

• www.sunshine.co.uk
• www.co-operativetravel.co.uk
• www.directline-holidays.com
• www.i-escape.com

The website was recently redesigned by Caboodle Design and was the product of many long hours hard work, collaboration with the guys at Conversion Rate Experts and of course with the client.

The old site (shown below) was difficult to navigate, very cold in appearance and had no real personality. The redesign made the site much easier to use, clearer, more colourful and enticing by building on the brand elements.

(OLD SITE)

The Goddard Mews development was not a brash new development, but represented a sensitive upgrading of an area that included the historic Goddard Arms Hotel.

The Goddard family had been based in Swindon since before the 15th Century, the estate was acquired in 1563, with the family remaining Lords of the Manor of Swindon until 1927. Today, elements of the walls and the entrance gateposts, the wood, lakes and sunken garden of the original estate all survive and are open to the public, so the site had real historical importance that needed to be preserved.

To kick this project off we created a logo for Goddard Mews. As heritage was so important to this development the logo created was based on the Goddard family’s coat of arms. This was redrawn and simplified so it could be reproduced in 1 colour and at a small size.

A number of additional elements were then created to help brand the development including a colour palette of red, grey and cream and a beautiful rich wallpaper pattern.

The outside of the brochure was covered in the wallpaper pattern – which was then over-printed with a varnish to highlight it giving it a real luxurious, premium look.

We commissioned a copywriter to write the text for the brochure and also included more ‘bite size’ chunks of information within the text to break it up and make it more friendly to read such as highlighting things to do in the local area and also ‘Did you know…’ factual historical based information which again got across the heritage of the area.

There were also a number of CGI images commissioned of the development, taken from architectural plans, to give an artists impression of how it would look once completed. These CGI images were used throughout the brochure and also applied to 12 individual house type inserts along with detailed floorplans – one insert was created for each house type built.

The other images used within the brochure were carefully sourced – some were taken by a local photographer, where others were from stock libraries, but all images used were specifically chosen to promote the Goddard Mews.

The end result was a strong brand, that was striking, memorable and unique, whether it was applied to the web, promotional literature or site graphics.

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
John Howard Payne

Caboodle was approached by a new travel agency seeking the creation of a new brand to help introduce it to the market place.

The Brief
Tenerife.co.uk is a sub brand of Sunshine.co.uk – therefore any branding work done needed to bear in mind the parent logo and its styling.

The Solution
After multiple different logos were produced it was decided that the best way to set this up as a sub brand would be to closely follow the Sunshine.co.uk logo. Therefore the logo for Tenerife.co.uk did just that – it took the same font, colours and graphic as the parent logo and voila! We now had a set styling for any further Sunshine.co.uk sub brands that needed to be created, of which there are many.

The logo was then applied to the Tenerife.co.uk website which again followed the Sunshine.co.uk colours but here is where the similarity stops. This website uses local experts who give advice on the best places to stay, visit and experience and therefore holds insider knowledge on the area. The website needed to reflect this so has multiple sections offering an insiders view as well as traditional travel agents information – exactly what you need when booking a Tenerife holiday.

www.tenerife.co.uk