Today I'd like to blog about a recent collaborative project with autografik (a really great bunch of brand communication guys based here in South Wales).

A few months ago a new client approached me. They were looking for someone to reskin their website - the website is http://www.recipetracer.com/ (and that address may well still be showing the old version of the site). The reason why they were looking for a reskin is quite obvious - the design is very basic - additionally there is some series application logic running behind it which meant that, initially at least, I was being asked to look only at the front end styling.

Page Numbers Not Recipes

The concept of Recipe Tracer is great - most of us have got quite a few recipe books on our shelves - Jamie Oliver's this, Gordon Ramsey's that etc - but, when it comes to the crunch, which flipping book has that amazing chilli recipe in!? What page is it on? In steps Recipe Tracer...helping you find the recipes locked up in the great cook books you own.

I love the concept - it made sense to me and it made sense to my wife Jess when I first described it to her. There is problem though; it is a slightly tricky concept to get across; most people would expect a website like this to return recipes - this concept doesn't - it returns page numbers - and the brand and website design need to pave the way for visitors to understand this.

The Current Design

So, let's talk a look at the (still) current design, where this all started from:

I think we can admit that the design is pretty basic , there's not much going on and there is nothing which is working particularly hard in trying to explain the key messages.

We produced an initial concept, to help get the ball rolling in the relationship (not speculative work though!) but we did stress that if we took it forward later then we would have to spend more time investigating the current business model, the brand, the target audience etc - turning over all the stones. 

The Initial Concept

Hopefully you can see with this initial design that we were heading in the right direction; immediately the website was fresher, more approachable and with much clearer information areas and call to actions (well, as much as you can from these snippets of graphics - you get the idea!).

The client was very happy and Jojet was chosen to provide the complete the overall reskin project.

However, I wasn't happy.

My issue was this: Recipe Tracer is a website about searching YOUR existing recipe books - it's an aide memoir to help find those hidden recipes in the books on your shelves. It is NOT simply a recipe finding website - there are plenty of those - this is different - it's about page numbers.

I was happy that the initial design was helping convey with greater clarity this key fact BUT, in my opinion, there was still a larger problem. I wasn't happy with the name, brand, logo, identity. This was the elephant in the room.

The Brand Issue

For me the name "Recipe Tracer" (and the visual identity which flowed from it) was not helping convey the delicate core concept of what the site was about; unlocking what was in your recipe books. And if it was not helping website visitors understand this concept then it was part of the problem; not part of the solution. People have uber short attention spans online and anything we put in the website shop front must be pulling it's weight - otherwise it should not be there.

Branding

My company does not do branding, graphic design, identity & print work - Jojet is completely web & Internet focussed - that is the area of expertise - Internet strategy and everything that that encompasses. However, this does not stop me from being aware of brand and where it is lacking. For me brand is an essential bedrock on which, for example, websites and Internet strategies can be built - if that brand bedrock is not in place then you are building on shifting sands. Simple as that.

Ugly Baby Syndrome

So, instead of toeing the line with the client - pretending that everything was ok (bearing in mind that they have never raised the issue of their identity - it was not part of my remit), I took it head on. I suggested strongly that they speak to Autografik. 

...now this is a very delicate thing to do...the client had lived with this name and identity for a very long time - and they weren't about it change it on my whim. I was running the risk of insulting their baby:

This is my boy Geno...he's my lad so, obviously, I think he is gorgeous. You might not think so - that's fine - we tend to view things differently when we are so close to something.

But the client (bless em!) was open minded enough to say "ok, Joel is recommending we have a chat with these branding guys - we trust Joel so let's see what Autografik have to say for themselves - after all, we don't have to go along with their recommendations...".

The Meeting

The client met with Autografik and were pretty quickly happy for them to press ahead and do some more in-depth research into whether the name & identity was right for them. Autografik will be much better placed to describe their process in detail but what I can say is this: they lead the client on a journey of brand discovery using tools & research - they do not (and, perhaps, cannot?) tell the client that what they have is simply wrong - the client must discover this for themselves. And this is exactly what happened.

Brand Research

Autografik used various tools & techniques to help research the current brand (e.g. questionnaires to people identified as being in the target audience). The process alone (and the results presented) allowed the client the safe space to realise that there was a current brand/name issue; the baby was ugly and we needed to accept that, do something about it and move on.

New Identity

With that bridge crossed the task at hand was very much to focus on creating an identity which really draws together the key elements for the client and resonates well with the target audience.

As you can hopefully see - the new name & identity went for a much clearer name along with fresh colours and illustrative imagery helping to support the overall culinary theme. The name "whats in my cook books" also added with helping website visitors quickly grasp the key proposition of the website.

New Design

With a solid brand bedrock in place the website design was then allowed to properly flourish:

The new design inherited colours from the brand as well as other guidelines which Autografik set down - this massively helped with realising the brand as we website. Helping eliminating the dangerous guess work - creating a much better structure - based on the solid foundation of well research brand.

To Conclude

This is not to say the design is perfect - is it ever? There is always room for improvement and on future iterations we hope to further refine and develop the website. More research and client feedback will help there.

The key point though is that it's important to deal with the elephant in the room (in this case it was brand) - my company focuses on Internet Strategy and such issues like that have to be addressed if we wish to look to the bigger picture and the results which that can obtain. Simply pretending the brand was ok was not an option - if you see something is broke, fix it.

The newly skinned website should be live shortly but, in the meantime, if you want to keep up with WIMCB (what in my cook books?) then you can connect with them on twitter, facebook or their blog.