OUR SERVICES

We develop creative design solutions across all media formats including: corporate literature, corporate branding / visual identity, advertising and ad campaign management, brochure design, direct mail, exhibitions and signage, finished commercial artwork, stylised and technical illustration, point of sale, packaging, photography and set design, feature rich interactive content, new media, website design, ecommerce sites, database and data driven web site application development. We are also suppliers of print, promotional merchandise and corporate gifts.

We offer a full turnkey solution from concept, design visual through to final artwork and final deployment in media such as print material or online. Our portfolio extends through the following market sectors: Accountancy, Charity and Voluntary, Construction, Customer Service, Education, Engineering, Financial Services, Health and Medicine, Hospitality and Catering, IT, Legal, Manufacturing, Marketing and PR, Media, Public Sector, Recruitment and Consultancy, Retail and Sales. Endless is proud to be actively supporting and engaged in carbon neutral, ethical green and environmental sustainability practices, recycling and environmental strategy policies for ourselves and our clients.

There are two parts to our service. First, there are the disciplines we use and second, the outcomes of using those disciplines.

1. Brand Audit

2. Brand Strategy

3. Naming

4. Creative Branding

5. Annual Reports

6. Online Branding

They make up the brand value chain; break it at any point and you weaken the final outcome. As we perform each activity, the transition from one step to another is seamless.

All of which leads to a range of defined brand outcomes from audits through to implementation.

BRAND AUDIT

Brands need to be accountable. They have a responsibility to deliver on their promise. They need to be asked the hard questions.

Questions about the relationship to organizational vision, how it’s coping with the competition, visibility in the market place, alignment to strategy, internal understanding and much more.

Brand audits assess a brand in relation to the business, the competition, the external environment, the audiences and its visual expression.

It’s not a once over lightly. It involves in-depth interviews, examination of the competitions’ positioning and understanding of the relevant business issues.

The brand audit is a research-based exercise which gathers information that is fed directly into the development of the brand strategy.

BRAND STRATEGY

How come so many organizations are able to develop a logo and all the other visual bits without developing a brand strategy first?

Many organizations have a pretty good idea of what they stand for and how they want to be seen, but tend to take a bit of a shortcut, and skip the thinking bit.

The main part of the brand strategy is a description of the brand in words. This is not a case of running off a list of values and personality traits. It's the beginning of a brand story that will ensure you are positioned fundamentally differently to the competition and true to what you stand for.

But it's more than that. It also provides a blueprint for organisational and individual behaviour; which in turn is linked to recruitment strategy and performance appraisal systems.

So the word strategy in brand strategy has been chosen with care. Its first relationship is with an organisation's high level (strategic) goals, the second is with the broader objectives of the other business disciplines and the third is the framework that supports the brand’s relationship with its external audiences.

NAMING

When was the last time Shell changed its logo? When was the last time Shell changed its name?

There's a lesson here. Names are forever. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the stakes of getting the name right are high. And that's to do with the time it takes to develop the right associations.

We want a name to become synonymous with the brand. So they either embody the values or epitomise personality. Where the association between brand and name becomes so strong that audiences 'know' immediately what the brand stands for, where it is positioned and whether it is 'for them'.

Coming up with a name is hard. There are many approaches that can be taken, then there's the question of availability, getting the right URL and seeing if it will travel well internationally.

But one thing we are sure of is that naming is a strategic as well as a creative process which falls squarely within the scope of brand development.

CREATIVE BRANDING

Creatives is the popular name for designers. That rare breed who possess a bottomless reservoir of ideas and spend the day performing visual gymnastics. But creativity doesn't belong to the creatives.

Branding is a creative process. It requires the right measure of imagination at each step of the process. While this may seem truer for the Design phase, it also applies to Definition. Each brand story and brand description requires a different response, as they seek to convey the one-off nature of the brand.

And it isn't creativity for the sake of it. Creativity is the innovative tool that converts perception into a distinctive brand language and enables insight to become a compelling visual metaphor.

If design is seen as the creative leader, then photography and copywriting have to keep up. And it's not as if creativity is working in isolation. The left brain is doing its bit; providing the organisational reference points, connecting the brand dots and marrying logic to intuition.

ANNUAL REPORTS

Annual reports have a number of functions including commentary, analysis, promotion, education, declaration and proclamation. And let's not forget reporting.

The question becomes, what is the right balance between these apparently competing interests? Add to this the increasing requirements for more disclosure and the production of an annual report turns into a relatively complex exercise.

The answers to these issues need to be addressed both within a business context and with reference to an organisation's brand.

We believe that an annual report is one of an organisation's most important communication documents, which requires a combination of design excellence and business acumen to deliver the best results.

ONLINE BRANDING

www and a few more keystrokes and anyone, anywhere is able to look at you. And there is no way of telling when or why they will visit.

They come unannounced, leaving little more than an IP address and a feeling of unease. Did they get what they wanted? What will they think of us? Is our latest press release up?

Websites have unique characteristics which are not shared by other mediums. The Internet is global, accessible 24 hours a day, dynamic and interactive. Content can be changed, added to or removed almost immediately. A site can address specific audiences, perform the role of a corporate profile and enable you to conduct business transactions.

Websites and other online initiatives are not IT related activities. They are branding and communication activities. A website has to 'comply' with the brand's standards and is a part of the communication mix.

In addition to designing and building websites we also create and deliver a range of other online branding communication such as email alerts, newsletters, webcasts, banners, microsites etc.