Writing & Branding Involve Digital.
The Involve Digital brand will never be the same after it invited full-on Bonne Marque madness into its life. They wanted a brand and website that stood up for itself against its boring competition, that wasn’t afraid to speak its mind in an industry in which this was rare, that embraced darkness and freedom.
Our agency had full control over the Involve Digital rebrand, from their logo, branding guidelines and new portfolio. From the very beginning, Michael at Involve Digital wanted bold disruption, so mindful of the darkness through which we would be leading the visitors of the site, the homepage begins with a relatively straightforward brand statement, shown in the image above. The design presents the new brand statement at the forefront, ensuring visitors to the site learn, at the earliest opportunity, the industry in which Involve Digital operate and the type of brand they are.
The scene is set. Scrolling down the homepage shows the links for Involve Digital’s case studies:
With such an interesting project, we couldn’t just write the case study titles in simple terms. We needed control. ‘Monster’ is far more powerful than ‘Monster Group,’ which is the company for whom Involve Digital worked, doing such an impressive job that it deserved its own case study on their portfolio. It was straightforward to make ‘Monster Group’ sound interesting, but some of the other case study titles took more thought.
- ‘Teachers Mutual Bank’ became ‘Bank’
- ‘Charles Darwin University’ became ‘Darwin’
- ‘The Housing Industry of Australia’ became ‘HIA’
- ‘Nuance Power PDF’ became ‘Power’
- ‘Naked Wines’ became ‘Naked’
Each case study title screen has a unique CTA too, with ‘Monster’ having the suitably dark ‘The Devil is in the Detail’ description, tempting the visitor to see precisely how Involve Digital get great results for their clients. I will go into the actual case study content soon, but for now let’s continue our scroll down the homepage. Underneath the six case study links is what is effectively the Involve Digital ‘about page.’
Inspired by ‘The Communist Manifesto’ the ‘ID Manifesto’ is a wild and strong assertion of the unique spirit of their new brand. Although I recommend visiting www.involvedigital.com for the real experience, here’s the full manifesto:
The spectre of your future, impressive until the absolute. You people listening? Bold results imminent. Seek radical involvement across the digital landscape.
Written to inspire, this manifesto runs the risk of going over people’s heads, but it’s all about the brand. If people don’t understand everything we’re saying then it doesn’t really matter if they at least understand how we’re saying it. This website is more of a poem than an instruction manual.
The case studies are separate beasts, however. Let’s take a look:
The links from the homepage open the image fullscreen, offering the full title of the company that the case study is about. Scrolling takes the visitor to the following screen, an overview of what Involve Digital achieved for Nuance Power. We added this screen at the last possible moment, just hours before entering development.
The entire project from concept to launch, including a total rebrand, took just five weeks and three team members: Alexander Engzell (design), Antoine Wodniack (development) and myself (writing). All three of us stepped up to take a lead role in creative direction, first when concerning each of our own disciplines, and second when considering the entire project as a whole. The last-minute addition of the case study ‘information screen’ prepares the user for the bold case studies, an example of which follows:
The end of each case study greets the visitor with two links for different case studies, shown above, with a CTA to get into contact. This is the only information the user needs. They will be impressed by the results and impatient to get in contact or they would like to read another case study first. Presuming the user wants to get in contact, this is the screen that meets them:
Designed in keeping with other design elements on the site, we have reinvented the form, which, when filled in, looks like this:
I wholeheartedly recommend the full experience at www.InvolveDigital.com to see this design in its natural element, particularly ‘The Manifesto.’ For many reasons, it is a project we’re proud of, and it’s generating incredible results for the client, which is something we’re delighted about.
It’s true that we are all about the creative process and push our work to its limits, but we don’t only do this because it’s enjoyable or because we’re good at it. We do it because we have faith that truly unique and bold creativity is the most honest work possible. If the product of one’s work is true and rare then we trust the audience to have good taste. We gamble on people’s intelligence instead of expecting ignorance. This rage against cliche will repair our broken creative industry. This is why our work is so different.
