Karen Haller is an Applied Colour Psychology Specialist.  She helps business owners to communicate their brand’s authentic business personality in colour, further strengthening their marketing message to increase brand recognition by standing out from the competition and increasing sales.

BEFORE: Recognise & Relieve old logo & brand colours

In analysing the old Recognise and Relieve brand colours Karen Haller found that the brown colour palette is from the colour family related to the Autumn season. The monotone variants of brown give an overall subliminal message of safety, seriousness, reliability and support.

Looking at the brand’s core values – aiding positive change, healing and self awareness in a calm and nurturing environment, the old brown monotone colour palette may have, over time, reflected a feeling of heaviness, reluctance for change and seriousness.

Karen felt the colour family which best suits the brand’s core values and aims is Summer. Cool blue based colours with gray added which reflects the cool, calm and elegant sophistication of this brand.

AFTER: Recognise & Relieve new brand colours

Some keywords related to these colours are honesty, calm, nurturing, reassurance and self healing. Perfect for the Recognise & Relieve brand.

LOGO OPTIONS: Recognise & Relieve logo designs

When designing the new Recognise & Relieve logo Tamlyn created three designs considering the brand colours and brand values to reflect the service which Recognise and Relieve provide.

The first and second logo designs reflect an evolution and simplification of the current Recognise and Relieve logo. The idea of using the figure was to reflect the services that R & R provide, the figures needed to symbolise pain and yet relief at the same time. The idea was to use a single flowing line to create the figure, symbolising continuity and strength.

The third logo is a purely typographic logo. Emphasis has been placed on the ampersand, but using a paler colour than the type allows it to not overpower the main typography, whilst joining the “i” and “l” show unity.

The fourth logo option is more of a mix between a feminine and serious approach. In order to balance the soft feminine curves of the ampersand  with an element of seriousness we have used an all caps typeface. The ampersand has again been enlarged to create a unity between the two words.

And the final logo?

After several iterations Tamlyn and Marina came up with the following. You can see that the font is now a quirky font to represent Marina’s quirky personality.

So you see logos aren’t just pretty graphics we dream up! When creating a logo design we take our time to explore a range of ideas which translate the values of the company and the service the company provides. Through a clever combination of graphic elements we create unique and meaningful designs every time!

We have been working hard on our newsletter, as we always do. And it’s ready to send! In this one the illustration was done by Tina and Amy worked on the graphics for the rest of the newsletter. Other newsletters often feature illustration work by Tamlyn – who drew our owls! Those of you who dont subscribe, you’re missing out! We almost always do special offers, games and prizes. Our latest creation involves a theme – “Make Do and Mend” which goes with the whole “January Austerity” feeling. No point in being frivolous and overly extravagent – it’s just not the done thing! So, in our newsletter we have listed “8 free or almost free ways to improve your presence online.” We do like the number 8!

We also like the number 3 – so watch out for the 3 offers within the newsletter.

Read it here and let us know in the comments below what you think!

You may have seen Keren’s blog post about Pinterest last week. Well over the weekend I blogged about her “Owl” board and found some inspiration for my first illustration of 2012.

Here are a few of my favorite “owly” delights from Keren’s Pinterest board.

And here’s my “Twit Twoo” illustration, inspired by all the “owl” talk here at Top Left Design. Hope you like it!

Good professional photography is essential for this genre of website, and thankfully, our clients recognise this with the beautiful images they have supplied to us in the past.

Read our blog post on professional photography in web design for more about that.

So without further ado, below are a range of fantastic food business websites that have been designed by Top Left Design.

Carmen Bar De Tapas

Carmen Bar De Tapas is an intimate tapas restaurant located in Clapham, London. The decoration and the friendly attentive staff create an atmosphere that will make you feel right at home.

A perfect venue to enjoy a romantic dinner for two, while also catering for larger groups of family and friends – It is a place to come and relax, and enjoy food as it is meant to be.

Goo Goo Gourmet

Goo Goo Gourmet offers an innovative delivery service for baby food. They understand that parents are busy, and offering this service takes away some of the pressure that comes with parenthood!

The Nut Hut

Nuts – the perfect snack! And with The Nut Hut, you can order customised selections of various tasty nuts and dried fruits online. They also do hampers for special occasions, and have a couple of physical stores set up in shopping centres throughout London.

Caldesi

Caldesi is an authentic Italian restaurant and cooking school based in Marylebone, London. Their website reflects the historic character that also comes across in their restaurant and food!
We had the pleasure of attending one of their cooking classes recently, and were shown how to make pizzas from scratch – delicious!

Limoncello

Limoncello are a catering company based in East London’s bustling Shoreditch area. They make and deliver lots of nice food, including but limited to sandwiches, buffets, canapés, breakfasts and packed lunches!

Aprirose

With this site we made a super cool script where you click on the person’s face and the box expands to show more information – check it out:

Fish Financial

For each member of the team, there is a unique testimonial which you get by clicking on the Read Testimonial link – genius!

Long Way Round

We kept with the textured postcard look and feel on this page that you can see on the whole site, and included nifty little “more” links.

OLIM

The profile pictures taken by their photographer were a unique landscape shape which makes this one a little bit different. And we have the little “More” link as well!

Petrus Financial

A cool little rollover script allows you to meet all the team by rolling over their heads!

Prescience

More outdoorsy shots of the team here.

Professional Financial Centres

The team here each have their little note card which we think is a nice touch!

CWB IFAs

Close up shots for all and another rollover script for support staff.

Association of Women Art Dealers

This allows an at a glance look at the current members of AWAD

Here is an illustration I did at the end of February for Top Left Design’s Facebook fan page. We used it for the  banner image on the page and you can see it in all it’s glory here. Keep a look out for more themed Facebook banner illustrations soon from the team here at Top Left Design.