INDEED

Brand refresh

This project was one that we worked with for the whole life-cycle of the brand refresh, from discovery to the launch of the new website; the full visual representation of their new brand.

Following the discovery process, during which we reviewed INDEED’s competitors, dug deep into what they saw as their brand personality, and learned from the previous designs what they wanted to keep and what their vision for the future was, Alex came up with two concepts that we presented to the INDEED team.

From the feedback, we refined the designs and finalised the bold new look, which INDEED would go on to use across all their visual communications.

Brand guidelines

Once the branding was signed off, we produced brand guidelines, encompassing:

• Logo usage
• Brand rules
• Image treatment
• Colour usage

This detailed document was then passed onto INDEED’s in-house design team, to take forward for future use.

A collaborative, streamlined new site

Having co-created INDEED’s new branding meant that the moving to the UX/UI design of the website was a much smoother transition because we had already worked on much of the website design as part of the branding process, to give INDEED a real life representation of how the brand would be received by their audience.

The final design was stripped right back, to focus on the three main pillars of INDEED’s work: Expertise, Impact and Attitude. It is now much easier to see, at a glance, what they do and how that relates to their wider mission.

Pushing the boundaries of sustainable web design

Unfortunately, sustainable web design can sometimes have a bad reputation as being plain and boring. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Through mindful content choices, smart design ideas and intelligent code, it is possible to create dynamic website experiences on a low carbon budget. Karel, Eunji, Sarah and Stefanie were the perfect clients to push us to our limits.

One of the most exciting aspects of the site is a component we call the ‘horizontal scroll’. It’s a technique whereby, as the user scrolls down, certain parts of the page scroll horizontally. This allows INDEED to disrupt the normal flow and tell an immersive, content-rich story – perfect for their audience of innovators and designers. It was originally inspired by a component used by IBM on their ‘Urgency of Science’ landing page. We were determined to create a similar effect, but with minimal script and big cross-browser support.

Dan, our Senior WordPress Developer on this project, achieved all this and more. When compared using our Website Carbon Calculator, we achieved a 67% (1.45g) reduction in carbon emissions compared to our IBM reference.

This is a testament to the fact that it is more than possible to create strong, movement-based websites without burning more than a gram of CO2 per page view. Inspired by INDEED’s mission, we see this is a good example of humane innovation – trying to do something better for people and planet.