It’s official! IC-Design Studio gets international recognition.
Representatives of a leading trends and awards platform on branding & graphic design called DesignRush.com have contacted us. They wrote us that they came across our design and they love what we’re doing! ( It’s a quote.) DesignRush’s expert team of designers would like to list our Sauter PRO – Blender package design among The Best Appliance Packaging Designs in their upcoming article. Of course, we have agreed.
Now we have been notified that the article is live! So now, it is featured in an article on the DesignRush platform. It’s an honor for our studio to be featured in this category among The Best in the World.
You can go to the article on DesignRush here
Also, Our agency now has a personal page on the ResignRush website. You can see it here: https://www.designrush.com/agency/profile/ic-design
If you have any additional questions or you want to consult us about branding your business, we are always available for contact by phone at +972-50-9218823 or you can leave a message in the contact form here. We will be happy to answer your questions and try to assist in any way we can.
Does IC-Design Studio get international recognition?
Lately, representatives of a leading trends and awards platform on branding & graphic design called DesignRush.com have contacted us. They wrote us that they came across our design and they love what we’re doing! ( It’s a quote.) DesignRush’s expert team of designers would like to list our Sauter PRO – Blender package design among The Best Appliance Packaging Designs in their upcoming article. Of course, we have agreed. So, Soon it will be featured in an article on their platform. It’s an honor for our studio to be featured in this category among The Best.
You can go to the article on DesignRush here
If you have any additional questions or you want to consult us about branding your business, we are always available for contact by phone at +972-50-9218823 or you can leave a message in the contact form here. We will be happy to answer your questions and try to assist in any way we can.
General Information
Among my prestigious clients is Gold n’Links, a company I’ve had the honor of collaborating with since 2008. In the early stages of our partnership, I spearheaded a comprehensive rebranding initiative, meticulously crafting a revitalized logo and brand identity that encapsulated the essence of their business. This strategic overhaul laid the foundation for our extensive and multifaceted branding journey together.
Over the years, our partnership has flourished, leading to a vast array of marketing endeavors. By consistently delivering innovative and impactful solutions, I have played an instrumental role in elevating Gold n’Links’ brand presence and positioning them as a prominent industry leader. This long-standing collaboration exemplifies my expertise in brand revitalization, my ability to forge enduring partnerships built on trust, and my commitment to providing tailored, results-driven strategies that drive sustainable growth.
ALITHUB
A few months ago, Roi Shaposhnik, the CEO of Gold n’Links, reached out to me with an exciting opportunity. He requested that I design a logo for a new subsidiary company he was establishing in Albania called ALITHUB. This venture was envisioned to serve as the hub for Israeli business activities in Albania, particularly in the field of technology and high-tech.
With a keen understanding of the project’s vision, I embarked on a creative journey to craft a logo that would encapsulate the essence of ALITHUB. The final design seamlessly blends elements of cutting-edge technology with the vibrant colors that symbolize the spirit of Albania. This strategic branding exercise not only visually represents the company’s mission but also positions it as a dynamic force in the Albanian market, poised for growth and innovation.
Website design
Immediately after delivering the logo design, I was tasked with collaborating closely with the web development team behind ALITHUB’s website. Rather than directly designing the website, I took the role of an external consultant, meticulously curating a comprehensive list of design directives for the development team. This strategic approach ensured that the website’s visual aesthetic seamlessly aligned with my creative vision, meeting the highest standards of brand representation.
This approach allowed for the establishment of a cohesive brand identity, stemming from the website’s design language. Consequently, all subsequent marketing materials we produced seamlessly integrated with the brand’s visual guidelines, reflecting a unified and consistent brand experience. This process underscores my firm belief in creating a comprehensive design system immediately after the logo’s conception, ensuring consistent and controlled brand representation across all touchpoints.
The Conference
Approximately two weeks after completing the website design, Roi contacted me with an urgent and prestigious assignment. He informed me about an upcoming major conference in Albania, jointly organized and supported by the Israeli Embassy in Albania, the Albanian Embassy in Israel, the Municipality of Tirana, and other entities fostering business collaborations between the two nations. This conference aimed to connect Israeli businesses with Albania’s thriving IT industry and local enterprises. This initiative required an extensive branding endeavor, seamlessly integrating ALITHUB’s established design language across a multitude of conference materials.
I received a comprehensive list of requirements, including precise specifications for each item and detailed content guidelines. After carefully assessing the project scope and gathering the necessary resources, I embarked on a meticulous design journey. While certain elements were ultimately excluded from production, such as hotel room door hangers and branded bottles, several last-minute additions were seamlessly incorporated. Regardless of the adjustments, every piece of conference collateral aligned flawlessly with the overarching visual identity, ensuring a cohesive and impactful brand experience throughout the event.
Conference Branding: Our Impactful Solutions
For this landmark conference, we meticulously crafted a comprehensive suite of branded collateral, each piece a masterclass in design and brand integration. From eye-catching name badges to captivating roll-up banners that seamlessly blended welcoming messages with conference floor maps, our attention to detail was unparalleled.
The event’s grand entrance was adorned with strategically placed welcome screens, setting the tone for an unforgettable brand experience. Hotel windows and the host university’s premises were transformed into vibrant canvases, showcasing branded window decals that added a touch of exclusivity to the occasion.
Ensuring a seamless attendee journey, we designed a visually stunning conference schedule that was both digitally disseminated and elegantly printed, serving as a testament to our commitment to excellence. Branded airplane amenities, including branded headrest covers, pins for crew members, and production team accessories, elevated the travel experience to new heights.
The reception area was a true masterpiece, featuring an intricately designed table map that welcomed the attendees. Iconic press walls provided the perfect backdrop for capturing memorable moments, while dynamic stage backdrops and speaker podiums commanded attention and showed professionalism.
Our expertise extended to crafting a visually compelling presentation template, ensuring a cohesive brand narrative throughout the event. Thoughtfully designed greeting cards featuring messages from ALIT and Gold n’Links’ CEOs added a personal touch, further strengthening the brand connection.
Moreover, we curated a range of branded merchandise, including stickers for Albania’s national drink (Raki), backpacks, pens, and notepads, all adorned with the conference’s distinctive logo. These tangible brand touchpoints served as lasting mementos for attendees, solidifying the event’s impact and our commitment to delivering exceptional brand experiences.
Mobile App for the Summit
Transcending the physical realm, our branding prowess extended to the digital sphere through a cutting-edge event app. This comprehensive platform showcased speaker profiles, schedules, Q&A functionality, sponsor listings, and a robust networking system with appointment scheduling and real-time chat capabilities. It also served as a gateway to ALIT’s online presence, providing direct access to its corporate website, LinkedIn page, hotel information, event maps, an Israeli time display, and a media hub with real-time coverage and captivating event photography.
While leveraging a pre-existing app template, our team adeptly customized the experience through meticulously designed home screen icons, supporting pages, and visually compelling graphic assets that seamlessly integrated with the app’s framework. The result was a resounding success – an immersive and cohesive digital brand journey that elevated the event experience and solidified our client’s position as an industry leader through our harmonious blend of physical and digital branding strategies.
The Summit of Excellence
This project was a great and captivating journey for me, and I have enjoyed collaborating with an exceptionally professional team, who had a clear vision and unwavering determination to achieve their goals. They provided me with well-organized and precise requirements, a crucial aspect that cannot be overstated in its importance.
The highlight of this experience was witnessing my creative work come to life at the conference itself. As a branding specialist and designer, there is no greater thrill than seeing your efforts manifested in a tangible, immersive environment.
I sincerely thank the remarkable teams at Gold n’Links and ALIT, the talented producer Lilach Ben David, and her crew for their unwavering commitment and outstanding achievements. I am confident that this conference marks the beginning of a flourishing partnership between Israel and Albania, paving the way for numerous successful business ventures facilitated by these esteemed companies.
What’s a website?
All of our potential customers are online most of the time, some of the time on their computer and more and more on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. So if we want them to be able to find us or discover our business, we must have a presence online. Therefore, there is no doubt every company or business needs to have their own website.
That being said today there are many types of websites out there. So we will define them by type. Some of the websites are suited for more than one type:
- Corporate website
- eCommerce website – webshop
- News and media websites
- Search engines & Portals
- Web application websites – Complex website with a large variety of options for users
- Social networks
- Landing pages
There are some more types that are out there but they are less relevant nowadays.
Also, it is important to mention that we will discuss websites with back-office and data management systems. Because, every modern website needs its owner to be able to update the content, create new content without being dependant on the developer or the programmer that developed the website.
In this article, I will address only the first type of websites – Corporate site. This is the most basic and trivial website. And it suits most companies or business’ needs.
What’s a corporate website?
A corporate website is the most basic website each company and business need to have. Without it, the business doesn’t have an internet presence. Which means, that potential clients will not be able to find this business’ information, learn about the business, about its services, its values and what it is all about. The corporate website is basically a big and detailed business card. It highlights the business’ benefits, values, fields of expertise and much more.
The corporate website also must be optimized for search engines, because eventually, this what will lead people to enter your website and learn about your business.
The design of the website
In contrary to what some business owners think, its mandatory to use a graphic designer in the process of developing a website. The website may be working flawlessly, but without the introduction of a professional graphic designer into the process, the outcome will be a website that looks bad and not connected to the brand and the corporate identity of the business. So the website will not look like an integral part of the business’s image.
Developers and programmers are good at programming. But they don’t understand or care much about the design. Their main aim is to get everything to work well without bugs or malfunctions.
This is exactly the reason why a professional graphic designer must be introduced to the process as early as possible. The designer will be the one that will make the website look good and friendly to the user. But most important is that the designer will know how to transfer the business’ data, messages and values to the visitors in a coherent way and fully connected and integrated with the brand identity of the business. You can read more about brand identity here.
In some cases, the client hires a designer to create the website. So the graphic designer uses his own programmer. And the client gets to work only with the designer, who manages the whole project. In other cases, it’s the programmer who manages the project and chooses a graphic designer he trusts, to do the design of the website.
No matter who manages the project, the design of the website must be addressed by a professional. Because spending large amounts of money on a website, that eventually will not project the correct messages and will not be an integral part of the brand identity is just a huge waste of money.
So what’s better? A template-based website or a custom-made one?
Like always the answer is: Depends. It depends on your needs, objectives, timetable, funds, and content.
Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. We will mention those now.
Template-based website – Pros
- Customized design to some extent – In contrary to what some think, the premium templates available nowadays on the internet, allow the graphic designer to customize the design of the website. This by using the brand identity colors, fonts, elements, images and messages in a relatively easy way. Also when choosing the template we wish to use we have to see what each of the optional templates allows us to do and what not. The template of choice must suit the needs of the client as much as possible. This by the position and the look of the elements, the main menu and much more. All of this by the graphic designer himself, with very little help from the programmer. We can use the programmers help if needed to correct something that working wrong in the template or the template doesn’t allow the designer to make some adjustments. But the programmers can do those things with this tools and programming knowledge.
- Speed – The template can basically be addressed as a ready-made website that we tweak and change to suit our needs. So it is much easier to make changes and adjustments in a built website than to build it from scratch.
- Fewer bugs and malfunctions – Most of the websites based on a template will have much fewer malfunctions and problems found in them. Most of the good and famous templates have been updated multiple times. And every bug found in some of the version is fixed and implemented in the next update. So one can say most of the bugs have or are being fixed by the template development team.
- Ease of use – Modern premium templates has a built-in page builder and content management system. So the client can get a short session about how the website works, and manage his own website on his own with ease.
- Additional and future development – There is a huge amount of plugins available online. Some of them are free for use and some are premium and cost some money. These plugins allow us to implement additional options and functions in the website with relative ease and for a low cost.
- Lower cost – Because the needed programming work is much smaller the cost of the whole project is much cheaper. So this is very important, especially for smaller businesses.
Template-based website – Cons
- Customization – It is very important to decide from the beginning what do we want to have on the website. It requires us to make all the important decisions before choosing the template itself. This is one of the strongest reasons to choose an experienced professional that will know which template can suit the client’s needs best.
- Changes and further development – every additional programming or change in the template itself (not the content), requires additional development by the programmer. This process isn’t cheap and could lead to problems in the functioning of the template. The programmer has to learn how the template was programmed and developed, so he will not do any collateral damage while working on the changes. Some of the additions can be provided by plugins. But still, the right choice of template is crucial.
- Compatibility issues – When we install plugins on our website some of them can have compatibility issues between them and other plugins, and even between some plugins and the template itself. Again this is a reason why to choose an experienced professional that will know where problems can come from and how to avoid them.
- Updates – Because the WordPress system is constantly being developed and improved, there are updates coming out all the time. Some of the updates are minor and some are major updates. Some of them contain security patches, improvements, tweaks, new abilities and many more. This process is constantly happening in the plugins and even the basic template of the website. Every update, minor as it may look, can cause problems, prevent the website from working properly and even make crashes in the website. This happens mostly because of compatibility issues. What is needed to be done is before we update the website, we make a full backup of the files and the database of the website. Then if something goes wrong we can always go back and see what seems to be causing the problems. Then we can address the specific problem and fix it. So the client has to carefully select the programmer that will develop the website and do the maintenance later on. But this should not be a big issue when selecting the desired way of creating the website.
Custom-made website – Pros
- The graphic designer has full control of how the website looks – There is no template to limit us to its options. Therefore, the graphic designer can create whatever he feels will look and work best. He can even create something unique and simply be creative. Almost every client’s request can be answered. Still, there are some technological limitations that have to be taken into consideration. But mostly a designer can do what he thinks is the right thing.
- Programmer enjoys freedom – Everything has to be developed and programmed from the ground up, so the programmer can choose his techniques to program everything. This makes the work much more programmer friendly, eventually leading to very good and complete result.
- Future development and upscaling – Additionally, if we will want to continue developing the website and add options to it, the programmer can come into the process having no problems. He knows how everything works and built. It’s built and arranged in the most comfortable way for him. This is important because this will ensure the process will mostly be possible shorter and cheaper to make. In template bad websites some of the wanted features will be hard and expensive to do and very rarely completely impossible.
- Loading speed – It’s not a must but usually, custom based websites are loading faster. This because the programmers don’t have to create an unneeded code and put in a page. The modern premium templates have a complex builder that allows the designer to create all the pages. So each page has all this builder’s options and clutter in it. In a custom-made website, the code of each page is cleaner and better suits the web browsers to read and show. Still, the page loading speed will depend on the amount and the size of the elements and the images that need to be loaded. In addition, there are many plugins that help shorten the loading time of each website.
Custom-made website – Cons
- Price – This method demands a lot of design, programming and developing work. This result in a higher price tag.
- Time – Just like in the previous con, there is much work to be done by all involved in the process. In addition, the run-up time (the time after launching the website mostly for testing the way it works and to find problems) will probably be much longer since all the problems found in the run-up needs to be fixed. All of this takes time. A lot of it.
Conclusion
It’s important to consult with a professional graphic designer before starting working on something big and important like creating your website. It’s important to make the decisions about what you want the website to be and which functions to have, as early as possible. Also important to decide from the get-go what is your budget and the desired timetable.
The moment the client knows the answers to this questions, he can make a wise and argumented decision regarding the method that suits his needs and budget best.
If you have any additional questions or you want to consult about creating a website for your business, we are always available for contact by phone on +972-50-9218823 or you can leave a message in the contact form here. We will be happy to answer your questions, and try to help you decide what method will suits your business needs best (template or custom-made).
