16 Feb

Name:

Aurore Daney

Describe your role at Blue Splat:

Graphic Designer

Eye Colour:

Hazelnut

Likes:

Coffee, photography, graphic art and sport

Dislikes:

Mornings (ironically I am the first in the office), peas and colors clashing

Favourite Colour:

Blue

If you weren’t a graphic designer, what would you be?

….this is a sad thought…

If you could be a superhero, what super powers would you have?

Flying

iPhone or Blackberry?

iPhone

Apple or PC?

Apple

What’s on your iPod?

Arcade Fire

What is your favorite food?

French!

What is the thing you cannot live without?

Sleep

What’s your favourite day of the week?

Saturday morning … I can sleep in ;)

Design tip:

Be consistent and proactive with your branding

10 Feb

Have you got that Friday feeling yet? We do! Because it’s Friday we decided to compile some interesting and random facts about the graphic design and web development and design worlds!!

1. Australia has the most established users of social media in the world, followed by USA and the UK

2. The first recognised visual communication supported with pictograms and symbols was found between 15,000 – 10,000 BC, in the Lascaux caves in southern France

3. The first website on the internet was “http://info.cern.ch/” launched in 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee and it is still active today!

4. Facebook has more than 800 million active users. If it were a country it would be the third largest in the world after China (population: 1.34 billion) and India (population: 1.17 billion)

5. Statistics show that users will wait only 4 seconds to begin to see a page loading when they first visit a website and only 20 seconds for the entire page to download to the screen.

6. The word graphic means to “give a clear picture”

7. We all have similar tastes in colour regardless of gender, nationality or culture, we all order our preference of colours in a predictable order, with only a small amount of variation. In adults the order from most to least preferred colour tends are: blue, red, green, violet, orange and yellow, while in children it is more often: red, blue, green, violet, orange and yellow

8. A new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second. This proves how popular blogging has become on the Internet

9. William A. Dwiggins, a type designer, printer and typographer was the first to coin the phrase “Graphic Designer” in 1922

10. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new user’s every day.


30 Jan

What is a logo?

A logo is a unique simple visual mark that represents and identifies a business or organisation. A logo can be an illustration or symbol with the business’ name on or around them.

Why use a logo?

A logo is probably the first thing about your business that customers will encounter so it is important to make a good first impression! A logo is the simplest and most direct way to market and promote your business, letting customers know what you are all about! Your logo must be unique and recognisable to your business, when people see your logo you want them to relate it to your business and nothing else. Logo’s give brands that visual recognition that will draw customer’s eyes to print or your website.

Types of Logos

Logos are everywhere we look! From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, almost everything is branded in some shape or form.

Some of the largest and most successful companies’ say that simplicity is better and this is reflected in their logo design. As the world is moving so fast, there is less and less time to impress your target market. However, this can be done with a simple yet stylish logo that catches the right type of attention for your business.

Famous brands logos:

 

Text logos are words in their purest form. Type fonts come in all different shapes and sizes to suit the image of the business or organisation.

Symbol logos use an image to represent their business or organisation. One of the most famous would be the logo for apple, which is quite simply an apple.

Some logo’s use both text and symbols in their design. Having both text and a symbol adds clarity to the logo and gets across what exactly the business is all about!

Your logo does not have to say what your company does, restaurant logo’s don’t need to show food, clothes shops logo don’t need to show clothes etc…Just because it’s relevant doesn’t mean that simplicity isn’t better!

Take a look at a few of our own Blue Splat logo designs:

BlueSplat_Brands

 

  1. Student Adventures – We were tasked with creating a brand identity to include the parent logo (Student Adventures) along with multiple event brands
  2. Think Tank – Our brief was to create an edgy and dynamic logo for this on line based creative project
  3. Triathlon England – This fun yet simple logo was for the new Kids programme for Triathlon England, preliminary named as TriStars. Using new colours, a corporate but fun feel, along with the head of the new mascot the TriStars brand was born
  4. Joe’s Family Butcher’s – The brief was to create a simple yet eye catching logo for Joe’s Family Butcher’s.

 

Check out our portfolio for more examples of logo design Northern Ireland

 

Here are 5 top logo design tips from the Blue Splat team:

  1. Logo should be timeless and memorable
  2. Keep it appropriate
  3. Must be recognisable across all media
  4. Don’t change for the sake of change
  5. Avoid repetitiveness.
24 Jan

18 Jan

Blue Splat Mugs

Coinciding with our Christmas website “Advent Calendar”, anyone that filled in the form on the site on Christmas day received a very snazzy gift in the form of a special, little “Blue Splat” pack.

Here at Blue Splat we don’t like to follow the crowd so we came up with a personal “everyday essentials” pack that was designed to be both original and functional.

Containing a special Blue Splat pen (just like the one in our Christmas story), a Blue Splat mug and herbal teabag to clean away those cobwebs, a choccy bar to accompany the tea and some retro sweeties, everything you need to start the New Year off in style. The pack was a little treat from us for our clients and friends, designed to make them smile! We think it looked good enough to eat…and drink!

The pack was created to show our appreciation to all our clients and friends that supported us in 2011 and will hopefully continue to support us in 2012.

If you would like to receive a Blue Splat gift box, we will be sending them out during January to clients placing new orders… exciting!

 

9 Jan

Name:

Tyler Collins

Describe your role at Blue Splat:

I’m the main web guy, I build all the websites and make them work.

Eye Colour:

Blue

Likes:

Coffee, Red Bull, Call of Duty Multiplayer Series, Xbox, Minecraft, Cars, Weather and of course, Web Development

Dislikes:

Internet Explorer, Mornings and Aurora using the last of the milk

Favorite Colour:

Red

If you weren’t a web developer, what would you be?

Probably working in a boring call center

If you could be a superhero, what super powers would you have?

X-ray vision hehehe!

iPhone or Blackberry?

Blackberry at the moment, but I need an iPhone in my life!!

Apple or PC?

Every day of the week: PC

What’s on your iPod?

If I used my iPod, probably some Essential Mix or Essential Selection from Radio 1

What is your favorite food?

Chicken Fillet Burger with cheese fried onions and mayo. Heaven!

What is the thing you cannot live without?

Oxygen

What’s your favourite day of the week?

Fridays… Radio 1′s 12 hour dance session

Design tip:

Use Photoshop!

5 Jan

2012 Blue Splat

 Happy New Year to all our Blue Splat clients and friends!

It is hard to believe the festive season has come and gone and we are into a very blustery January (to say the least). Our Blue Splat Christmas Advent Calendar has come to an end (but you can still see the full story here), the office Christmas decorations have been taken down and most of us are back at work, counting the days until the next holiday. You could say some of us may be experiencing the January blues already!

The New Year is a time for new beginnings and fresh starts, accomplishing goals that you never got the chance to in 2011. However, it also usually means New Year’s resolutions (that are usually broken by the middle of January if they involve anything to do with the gym!). This year you may be going on a diet, quitting smoking or going for a jog before work? Or maybe something as simple as one less cup of coffee a day.

But here at Blue Splat we decided to keep things a lot simpler when making our resolution. Its one we stick to all year round, to always do a fantastic job for our clients and to ensure that they are completely satisfied!! (It’s one we promise to keep as well!!)

So, from Andy and the Blue Splat team we would like to wish all our clients and friends a healthy and prosperous New Year and to thank you for your custom and support in 2011 and we hope it will continue in 2012!

25 Dec

Christmas Day has finally arrived!! (Hope Santa was good to everyone)

Before tucking into the Christmas dinner why not check out the final instalment of the Blue Splat Christmas Advent Calendar on our Christmas website!!

Make sure to complete the form to receive your Blue Splat pressie!! (Only participants that register on 25th December 2011 will receive a present by post, entries after this date will be excluded…sorry!)

From Andy and all the team at Blue Splat we wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year!!

21 Dec
To welcome the festive season, we decided to have our Christmas party in the office this year. After filling up our kitchen with Chrtistmassy snacks and treats, along with a sneaky mulled wine concoction, the party began.

 

One of our ideas was to try and re-create our ‘little mascot’ in some plasticine we had managed to acquire in our corporate colours. I do believe the outcomes are worthy of a permanent slot on ‘Ardmans’ creative team… (I won’t divulge who created who, but I’m sure you can work it out…)

Now, the wine has been drunk, the food bowls emptied and the mince pies devoured, we are heading home for some well earned rest before work tomorrow!!!

Merry Christmas!!

 

19 Dec

The office has finally been decorated with all things Christmassy and the Blue Splat Christmas tree assembled (after lots of mince pies, very messy white snow dust and a little bit of elbow grease!!) and we think it’s looking so good we just had to share it with you all!!

Make sure to keep tuning into our Christmas advent calendar the rest of this week at the Blue Splat Christmas Website!!