Accessible design means that a wider range of people are able to access information online, and offline with ease. When working with creatives, accessibility should be their priority. Not just obvious things like colour contrast and typography, but Alt Tags and accessible language. If you are not accessibility checking communications, you could be missing a core audience. It is also becoming more and more regulated that leading brands have to adhere to best practice accessibility.

In design and marketing this translates to websites, print or marketing materials, social media as well as the written copy, images, videos and other media we use across all of these platforms. 

When creating your materials, think about two things. The first, is that it’s about context. Second, think about your intent and considerations of your audience.

Co-production is quite simply, the act of producing something, together. With a community instead of for ‘nothing for me, without me’. Why try and guess what people want, need, value, and feel when you can ask and listen to them directly, gaining real-life evidence and insights to test assumptions? That is the power of co-production.

Asking, listening and co-creation have the power when combined to create an authentic message/brand/tone that audiences will identify with and feel aligned to. It also increases the longevity of a brand and the organisation as it is designed with the target audience for the target audience.

A brand can vary widely, we cost things up dependent on the client ambitions, the risk, the stakeholder management, and the need of the business. Firstly, it depends on what the business needs; just a logo and visuals, or is it the core foundations, the strategy, the ongoing marketing support?

Bad design is expensive. If a brand is not done with consideration, quality and knowledge, it will have to be done again as it will not be reaching people, landing effectively or standing out as an authority in your market. All of which are detrimental to organisation success/reach.

If the strategy is not translated into creative design; many opportunities are missed affecting positioning, messaging and impact. A good measurement is that if you are a startup and B2C, 20% of your budget should be invested in branding. Costs can vary from £1,000 with a freelancer up to £15,000, £30,000+ with a big agency. A brand is also much more than a logo, it is your strategy, an organisations story and positioning. Get it right, and it will pioneer you forward, accelerate an organisation and last a lifetime.

Deciding who to work with on creative work, branding or design can be a challenge. If you are not experienced in working with a creative or in the industry, it’s often hard to tell apart who has the right skills and who doesn’t. One problem is that the industry isn’t ‘formally’ regulated, however, there are things you can keep an eye out for. There are national design bodies that exist to evidence professional and quality standards (we are members of Design Business association). If a studio is a member they will be committed to benchmarking their services, processes and effectiveness to create their best work. Click on the links to find out more about best practice.

Free / speculative / creative pitching – whatever you want to call it, it amounts to the same thing – doing free unpaid creative work in order to impress a client to win a job. A ‘free work’ pitching request is something that should be pushed back against. Not necessarily because it is bad for the agency (although it certainly is) but because it is not an effective way for clients to source the best agency for their needs. Agencies should be selected on their approach, portfolio, expertise of work, testimonials and awards.

Humans are natural born storytellers. Stories connect people to the world around them – and they leave their mark. A story is one of the most powerful means that we have to influence, teach, and inspire, and every change starts with a story. Everyday experiences have the power to convey culture, history, values and perspectives.

According to National Geographic, ’Storytelling is universal to the human experience, and truly great stories succeed in extracting meaning from the everyday.’ These can be written, visual, beliefs or personal experiences, providing audiences with a window to a new world, or a new way of thinking.

A good story is a vessel for information, it has the power to communicate ideas, enable us to feel, connect, convene and compel. Culture can be defined by the stories we tell about ourselves.

By embracing storytelling, brands can communicate beyond a service or a product. They can provide insight, emotion, hope.

Tone of voice is how your brand sounds. This is through any communication, be that written, or verbal – from the heading of your website, your email footer, the voiceover on your new TV ad, to which (if any) emojis you include in your emails.

Your tone of voice is part of your verbal identity, and can be just as important as your visual identity in building a trustworthy, credible brand.

There are many ways to define your tone of voice. Here at Sail, we run workshop exercises to define your TOV, which can influence messaging strategy, and acts as a guide for any of your team, partners, or external partners to write engaging, on brand copy that connects you to your audience. 

A brief is the foundation stone to any project. It’s what we constantly refer back to, to make sure we are making the right choices, to connect with the right audiences, in the right timescale. It gives you a chance to put onto paper your key challenges, insights and ambitions and sets the tone for the whole project. A brief also keeps everyone accountable and keeps focus on the task at hand, especially when working across multiple teams.

In short, absolutely! We like to say we’re small but mighty, which translates to ‘we’re a small core team, with an incredible network of collaborators with skills ranging from website development, spoken word poetry, animation and videography, marketing and activation, to copywriting that will make your business sing!’ We believe wholeheartedly in bringing in the right people, and the right skills, together for your project.