Design Musings

When Wadebridge Bathroom Studio was sold to new owners, they approached us to update and modify their website to fulfill their new requirements and approach. The new owners changed the direction of the business somewhat, but wanted to make it clear through their site that the same high level of quality would be maintained. It was important for the new owners to let visitors to the website see that there was a lot of activity at their studio, so we added a news blog to enable easy updates, and also added subcategory pages. Each page shows a neat example of one of the brands of bathroom appliances they stock. The design was already very clean, and we stayed true to that aesthetic, using lots of white space with thin crisp borders reflecting a professional business. The information is shown clearly so that it is easy to read and navigate around.

The challenge with this project was to take a successful printed guide and turn it into a user friendly online resource. The Tourist Handbook is a publication which sits in Hotels, B&Bs and pubs, providing useful area guides and local advertisers. The client wanted to take this resource and make into a website which would both showcase advertisers and inform tourists. We worked with the existing design, carrying across the colours and style but striving to adjust the look to comfortably fit its new media. The website needed to display events in the various areas, along with accommodation and area guides. The site focuses mainly on attractions in Devon and Cornwall and is proving a success. We designed the website so it could evolve with the client's vision, and contain large amounts of information within the database. With the design I chose a classic font and a traditional palette of British racing green, cream and black. The adverts and illustrations conform to this ti

This years calendar was an opportunity for us to pour our ideas into a project for ourselves and our clients. The design needed to appeal to our varied audience so we decided on the image of a tree, in keeping with some of our existing branding. The intention was to show the seasons of the year moving around one tree. The imagery ended up being fairly abstract, but there was enough detail to illustrate the idea. We used tidy typography alongside handwritten words to reflect our friendly, yet restrained style. The palette selected is a neutral one, but we picked out those all important Saturday and Sunday dates in a pillar box red. We then paired the calendar with a matching red envelope and sent them out into the wintry weather to our clients and interested businesses for the next year. Marie Lawley