Plaid™

Here's where you get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how we do what we do at the
world's most Plaid design and branding firm.

Friday, May 11, 2007

End of a wild week of Plaid

What an awesome week. We launched a new company! And a new way of doing business.

We're still in the midst of the many logistics related to our re-branding. You have no idea how many places your logo appears, until it's time to change it. Everyday, something new comes up.

Next week should be pretty fun as well. We're planning our self promotional campaign (more on that in a few), and setting up House of Plaid.

House of Plaid will be a cool side project for us, where we'll sell limited edition design goods. Basically, stuff that we wouldn't mind owning ourselves. The first two products will be a custom sketchbook, and a messenger bag. We should see prototypes for both objects next week. Can't wait.

We'll also officially design this blog. It was originally intentionally left 'un-designed' while we established a brand for Plaid.

In the meantime, we're busy as heck turning VIA logos into Plaid logos. On our invoices. On our checks. And envelopes. And front door. And building directory. And so on...

Have a very Plaid, Plaid weekend.

Labels: collateral, houseofplaid, identity, plaid, via

posted by darryl ohrt @ 8:32 PM 0 comments

New website is live!

Last night at around midnight, we launched our agency's new website, and VIA is now officially known as Plaid.

This is a first stage launch, and there's so much more that we'll be adding in the coming months - but for now, this is a wonderful representation of who we are, and what we can do for clients. Special props to David and Paul for loads and loads of last minute content and design adjustments.

Meanwhile, we'll continue blogging about everything happening behind the scenes at our firm, here on the ThinkPlaid blog, at it's new address, http://blog.thinkplaid.com. There's some pretty fun developments coming in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Special thanks to all of the ThinkPlaid readers. (YOU!) For what I believe is the first time in history - a design and branding firm's brand has been directly impacted and changed based on real input from others in the industry, and the general public. Gotta love blogging.

Have a Plaid day.

Labels: collateral, plaid, website

posted by darryl ohrt @ 7:47 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Having a Plaid day

What a cool day in our office. So many Plaid things came to life today.

Our first batch of business cards arrived.
We received our Plaid promotional buttons.
Our new voice mail system went live. (I'm in love with the voice talent's super cute laugh. You can hear it at 203-730-6300)

And our website is almost ready, too - which is good, as the countdown clock ends in a little more than twelve hours. Programming is mostly complete, and we're making our final tweaks for our first stage launch.

We're becoming more Plaid with every day! And getting more stoked by the minute.

Labels: collateral, identity, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 10:31 PM 2 comments

Monday, May 7, 2007

redirection for old site

Once we launch, we'll need to redirect all of the ongoing traffic from our old site.

Here's what we'll put in it's place. I figure that we'll keep this live for about six or eight months, dependent on traffic stats, and then eventually just auto redirect the old url to the new one, here. Sounds more confusing than it is.

Labels: collateral, plaid, via, website

posted by darryl ohrt @ 12:06 PM 0 comments

website almost complete. we've gone blog crazy.

Paul's making fab progress on the coding for our new site. When launched, the site will incorporate THREE blogs.

1. We've organized our portfolio in a blog. Works really well. Not at all traditional, but if you think of the typical blogger tools, like tags and posts, they work great for a portfolio.

2. This blog. We intended this to be a temporary project - to share the behind the scenes of a re-branding. The original plan was that the company's site would replace this blog, when launched. But we didn't expect the kind of popularity that we've achieved here - so we'll be integrating this into the site, and keep updates to what's happening at the agency.

3. Brand Flakes For Breakfast. Our company's primary blog is now enjoyed each morning by over 100K super smart readers a month, so we'd be fools not to feature a feed in the new ThinkPlaid site, too.

Labels: collateral, plaid, website

posted by darryl ohrt @ 8:20 AM 3 comments

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

buttons ordered

One of the fun 'leave behinds' we've always used for VIA is a set of collector buttons (poorly pictured, above.) Clients love them, so we decided to update them for Plaid. Leigh completed the design, and the order has been placed with the button guy. We should have them by next week. Here's what they look like.

Labels: collateral, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 9:15 PM 0 comments

Friday, April 27, 2007

plaid slogans

We've crafted a handful of fun Plaid slogans to use in some of our collateral materials, email signatures, etc. Trade them with your friends:

Plaid. It's the new black.
Plaid goes with everything
Plaid is so slimming
Once you go Plaid, you never go back
Go Plaid or go home
Plaid never goes out of style
Plaid means never having to say you’re sorry
The Plaid will set you free
It’s a Plaid, Plaid, Plaid, Plaid world
We’re Plaid as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore

Have any other ideas?

Labels: collateral, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 2:50 PM 7 comments

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

setback on our voicemail

We've had a setback on our voicmail system. I've mentioned that we need to re-record our company's phone greeting - so that when people call us, they are greeted with a Plaid greeting.

The process takes a while, as there are a couple of vendors involved. We had planned to use voice talent with a Scottish accent - thinking it seems random and unique to callers, and yet ties to the heritage of plaid fabric.

Today, we received an audition clip. The voice talent was fine, but hearing it live, we weren't feeling it.

So now, we're back to square one.

We need a voice mail voice, that feels appropriate for our brand (fun, creative) but yet won't get tired for people who call us frequently. We're convinced that the solution is in the voice itself - not the script so much, as script humor or accents will get REALLY tired and annoying for regular callers.

Any ideas? We really need to settle on this by end of the week, if possible.

Labels: collateral, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 8:56 PM 3 comments

Monday, April 16, 2007

final logo AND business card complete!

David completed the logo. He's made what looks like minor tweaks to it - although I'm on vacation, so I'm only paying half attention.

Regardless - Giuli's getting our business cards all ready to print. Should have new cards in hand in five to ten days. We'll have cards available in three colors - blue, green and orange. Each with brown. Sweet.

Labels: collateral, identity, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 10:22 PM 2 comments

Friday, April 6, 2007

revised business cards

After overwhelming input from email, comments and friends calling for "all plaid", we've updated the back of the business card design to feature nothing but a plaid pattern. David says: "Told you so."

We're still not 100% on the logo/type treatment. We've dropped the circle for now. We're playing with some other type treatments, and will share ideas next week.

Personally, I can't stand brown and orange - but you can see the other schemes from our plaid pattern post. I'm partial to the green, or blue. Or purple! What about purple?

Labels: collateral, identity, plaid

posted by darryl ohrt @ 4:34 PM 8 comments

Thursday, April 5, 2007

new website wire frame

We've completed (mostly) the planning phase of our new website design. The wireframe for the home page is pictured above.

For clients and noobs: A wireframe is a tool we use for planning and organizing a website design. This allows us to understand content hierarchy, and how the page will be structured.

David's already knee deep into the conceptual design based on this wire frame, and we'll share his ideas as soon as he's comfy with them. We're hoping to get to an in-house critique of his work on Monday.

Labels: collateral, plaid, website

posted by darryl ohrt @ 9:32 PM 0 comments