buildabrand.com

A New Year, a new us!

Justin Champney — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:59:57 +0000

New Customise Tools

• A new streamlined process to customise your logo! Try our step by step logo customisation tools: name, find, edit, save, download. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 (4, 5).

New ‘My Brands” Section

• Preview, edit and delete your saved logos via ‘View My Brands”!
• Save everything you see, and come back whenever you like, from anywhere on the site.
• See how great you logo looks, anytime, with our on demand ‘Polaroid cork board’.
• Edit and save multiple logo variations, different fonts and new colour matches.
• Delete any unwanted brands to keep things nice and tidy.

New Personal Account Section

Your account history, in one secure place!

• Access your personal invoice archive, whenever you like.
• Manage your address and keep in contact.
• Using our unique logo downloading tool, mix’n'match colours and different backgrounds.
• Download your unique logo font and view all your colour references.

Our new professional logo builder makes it even easier, quicker and more cost effective to get your idea off the ground. Remember, we do all the hard work – you don’t need experience, design expertise, hefty design briefs, and absolutely no haggling on price! Just get quick, affordable, professional logos in seconds, leaving your energy, passion and accounts well in-tact.

Click here to create something amazing, today.

8 ways to kick start your idea!

Justin Champney — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:58:33 +0000

1. So long as you have a name, catchy title or just letters on a page, you can select and customise a great logo that suits you!

2. Have some fun! If you’ve always dreamt of seeing **YOUR NAME** in lights, buildabrand is a perfect place to create a unique, professional personal brand identity.

3. Once you’ve chosen one (or two or three) logos you like, then save, edit and customise. We’ll then give you a FREE Web Logo for your efforts.

4. Use this FREE Web Logo as a great starting point. From here, tap in to other free social media resources such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to get your brand seen by everyone who’s anyone.

>>>> Remember, you still haven’t parted with any money – it’s really low risk. <<<<

5. Like the look of where this is going? Purchase a Hi-res Logo Bundle giving you access to unlimited downloads of your logo, logo font and logo colours for just $35.

6. This means you can create posters, banners, t-shirts, letter heads, wordpress templates… you name it, we’ll ensure you can whack your brand new high-res logo onto it. Did someone just mention cupcakes?

7. It’s all yours. Consider it the first of many rewards for making your idea a reality. Once you have created, customised and downloaded your new brand you can keep coming back. We’ll keep it safely in the ‘cloud’ and available for you to access anywhere.

8. For the Grande Finale, we bring you the buildabrand brand spanking new business cards! We’re merging your brilliant, customised buildabrand logo with talented designers, and our professional print partners to bring you unique business cards that you can’t wait to give away.

Hear it for yourselves:

“Speed and value for money are important factors for a start-up and buildabrand hit the sweet spot.” Sunhive

“we are very excited to be on this journey and are very thankful for the part that buildabrand has played in helping us “build a brand!”. “When we saw the logo we connected with it right away. We knew that it would perfectly couple with our motto” Young Milwauke

“The big plus points for me are: Speed, Value for Money, Experience and Delivery” Netizency

“The whole process was fun and engaging. I especially liked the speed, simplicity of use” Roomcrowd

To see all of the above brands and more, head to our case studies.

For more information on WHY you should start your business, click here to read what our partners Smarta have to say.

Stand-up at the Start-Up Hub

Justin Champney — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:08:47 +0000

buildabrand were lucky enough to be selected as one of the final 9 ‘most innovative’ companies of 2011 – specially selected to showcase the diversity of new business to emerge from the government’s policy to back an entrepreneurial Britain. There’s a clear focus on innovation in technology, digital, creativity and on new engineering to make complex ideas a reality.

We will be exhibiting alongside other great companies who have launched since May 2010, including the Birmingham based Caribbean Catering Company which provides training to help get young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into work, Peelable Posters – yep, you guessed it, posters and print that peel off walls and the like, Smiley Talk – a 100% safe online community for schools and children, and OE Systems, a West Midlands start-up offering portable ‘power on the go’. [For a full list of exhibitors, click here and PLEASE vote for us]

Why does the Conservative Party want start ups at their conference?

As Damian Collins MP so eloquently puts it - ‘small and start up businesses are part of the life blood of our economy and a key driver in growth’. However we stand politically, the government has set and improved conditions for new businesses and entrepreneurs [- like us, and lots of our customers!] by cutting corporation tax and scrapping hefty regulations. Phewf.

Oh, and it’s backed by blackberry, Fujitsu and Barclays.

Where and when?

Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th October 2011
Conservative Party Conference, Manchester.

10 Principles of Design within Agile

Sterling Talob Waters — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:35:43 +0000

User Interface (UI)/User Experience (UX) design Jedi Carlos Rouse joined buildabrand as our principle UX Strategist at the end of May and brought to the team a wealth of UI and UX design knowledge . Having worn many design hats at BSkyB, he’s faced his share of UI challenges and has developed some clever and beautiful solutions.

Carlos recently gave his presentation, “10 Principles of Design within Agile”, to the buildabrand team after an afternoon standup, and since sharing is a huge part of our culture here, I’ve went ahead and created a quick cheat-sheet of the takeaways.

As a bit of background for those not currently using Agile development principles, they stress the importance of incorporating simplicity, efficiency, transparency and constant adjustments into the development process. Within such an environment, Carlos makes these recommendations for designers:

Content comes first. Design around the content, rather than dropping content into a pre-established design. Get real examples of content as early as possible. Don’t use Lorem.

Functionality is key. Always design for the user. The user experience should never be compromised, but enhanced. Think of every design as a solution.

Start with pen and paper. Get all your early ideas down as quickly as possible. Figure out UI and scenarios quicker, and solve problems earlier. Good design always exposes any flaws in the original idea.

Know the technology. You don’t need to code to understand the technology and how it can be leveraged to the user’s advantage. Be careful though, the biggest mistake here is designing for technology rather than the user.

Adapt to change. “Goalposts” always move in Agile, so be ready to go with the flow. Divide work into Epics, Themes, and Stories – which for design, translates into: Creative Vision, Template Layout, and Component Design.

Don’t dwell in Photoshop. Photoshop is time consuming – especially when there’s change, thus rendering “Pixel-Perfect” PSDs useless. Try focusing on tightening the overall vision. Set the rules that govern detail.

Focus on user experience. UX is 50% of the designer’s role within Agile. Remember, the creative is all about managing the user’s expectations. Take ownership, consult the IA team and champion good usability.

Change your strategy. Try doing something different in every iteration. Make mistakes quicker, learn faster. This will increase your velocity and output.

Teach the client. The product owner only has a rough idea. As you polish it and bring it to life, teach them about design decisions. Clients need to know more about the design process.

Have fun. Agile is all about communicating and openness. Use retrospectives and showcases to vent any problems or gripes. Otherwise – Enjoy yourself!

You can see sketches of Carlos’s work on his personal site www.carlosrouse.com or follow him on Twitter @CarlosRouse.

Angry Birds: Investing in the Big Game

Sterling Talob Waters — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:58:47 +0000

At buildabrand, we love Angry Birds. The entire team has experienced various states of addiction (I’m playing it as I type up this post!). Looking at their download numbers, over 250 million as of the writing of this post, we’re not alone.

The Angry Birds franchise (Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio) has been inspirational as we make updates to our brand builder. We think Rovio tapped into an important idea when they created a game so accessible and utterly satisfying in it’s single-motion use. Finding the mark for a similar mix of engagement and simplicity is what has driven our thinking for all things user experience related as we get closer to launching the second generation of our product.

At the talk, Chris explained some of the thought processes behind the game’s design and was especially engaging in his Q&A. He even gave away a sizable Angry Birds plush toy to his favourite question (in truth, the person he decided was most helpful in answering a tough question).

According to Chris Dark, there are a few things you need if you want to attract the attention of VCs.

1. Potential or opportunity. Seems like a given for most any business, but its importance cannot be overstated. More than just a perceived need, a company’s product or service needs to be all or a mix of: a category winner in a big market, a large opportunity in a big/global market, and/or a disruptive or game-changing technology.

When Rovio set about creating Angry birds, it was designed specifically to capitlise on the early shift to touch screens (iPhones, iPads, smartphones, and tablets). They wanted everyone (2-99 yrs old) to understand the concept from a single screenshot. Instant understanding made it more likely to be engaging to a greater audience. They also wanted a product they could merchandise. If you haven’t seen them around, you can get Angry Birds plush toys, iPhone cases and I think I even heard there’s a cook book on its way!

2. A great product. This, too, might sound like basic common sense, but let’s differentiate between a great product and a great idea. If you have a great idea, go for it! As in, go as far as you can with making it real. Bootstrap and borrow to get it up and running and get it done. With development costs as they are, Chris believes it should be possible to raise 100k from friends and family (I think I need new friends) to get a product created, then take it to a VC. In the case of Angry birds, they had over 40 million active monthly users when they received their Series A funding in March 2011. However, their situation is also a little different from a startup as they’ve been around for several years making pre-iPhone/Android mobile games.

3. A great management team in place. Chris explained that a typical team these days for a startup includes a tech leader (CTO) and a business leader (CEO). On occasion, these skills reside in an individual, but it’s not usually the case. Once the team is in place, they must continue to execute on decisions. Prior to their Series A, Rovio had tested different revenue streams and pricing schedules and had pushed ideas on distribution. Capitalising on the shift to touch screens also meant they could capitalise on new distribution channels, namely app stores. Presence and distribution are key and Rovio has worked to have Angry Birds on all platforms before developing more games.

We’ve moved (again): Welcome to buildabrand HQ!

Sterling Talob Waters — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:28:15 +0000

Combine all that progress with the addition of team members, and it became evident that we had outgrown our warm and cozy incubator and it was time to begin our search for buildabrand HQ.

In February 2011, we set up shop in Canalot Studios, where Justin (CEO and Founder), being a bit of an app freak, made quick work of adding “Foursquare Mayor” to his title. Our studio is housed in a former chocolate factory, which according to building folk-lore, was the inspiration for Willy Wonka! Transported from the gritty hustle of East London, we now have picturesque views overlooking the Grand Union Canal. Quite a change having ducks, swans, bridges and happy-go-lucky Londoners in kayaks passing by our windows. While some of our hackers would have been happy with a windowless den, our north facing studio is bright and airy. Whoop!

We’re now a stone’s throw from Portabello Road’s bohemian shops and the area’s famous and eclectic mix of restaurants. If we feel like getting fancy, the fashionable boutiques of Westbourne Grove are just as close, lucky us! We share our new hood with an interesting bunch of startups, fashion designers, music studios, artists, and architects, and special guests Innocent Drinks (also just moved here) and Tom Dixon (hip London designer). David Byard, our Senior Software Engineer, happily shared his thoughts on TechHub and our move. “I really liked meeting the other tech guys [at TechHub], and seeing entrepreneurs making a difference. It was great to bounce ideas around and see progress everywhere I looked. Having our own space has been just as awesome. In our new studio, we can be a lot more focused, have the room to throw colour and work up on the walls. Veg on the couch, share ideas, project movies… it’s perfect.”

[Show as slideshow]

Team buildabrand: Work hard, bowl harder

Sterling Talob Waters — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:45:32 +0000

buildabrand HQ has been a hive of activity as we close in on launching the 2nd generation of our brand builder (Open Beta!). Big changes has meant loads of problem solving, in turn leading to some long nights. As a surprise reward for being awesome, Justin and Dave gathered up the team for some beers, bbq, and pins at All Star Lanes. Shout out to our friends from LeapCR and DN Capital who joined in for the good times.

To see the full gallery of shots, visit our Facebook page and don’t forget to “like” us if you haven’t already!

One Developer’s take on Technology and Innovation

Dave Shanley — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:07:34 +0000

Before jumping straight into the meat of the issue, I wanted to take a step back and look at the root of what is being discussed: technology and innovation. The two words on their own are pretty easy to process. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines technology as “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area” and “a manner of accomplishing a task, especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge”. It also describes innovation as both “the introduction of something new” as well as ‘”a new idea, method, or device”.

Simply put, technology innovation can be characterised as a tool, product or service that applies knowledge in a new way, allowing for the ability to accomplish a task through the use of a new device or method. In today’s market, I think the distinction needs to be drawn between those who are truly innovating and those who are merely repackaging currently available technology.

The difference to me lies between design problem solving and development problem solving. Both are important and I’ll be the first to say that sometimes the line can get a little blurry.

As an example of repackaged technology that comes to mind, without naming names, are the number of services entering the market that are nothing more than database management tools that launch as soon as they have a prettier interface than their nearest competitor. The products offer the ability to create, read, update and delete data, to and from a database, as well as providing a way to link this data to each other in some way. Developers call this a CRUD system, which isn’t new or innovative.

At buildabrand, we think our work is the epitome of technology innovation. Our development problem solving is fully directed at creating a product that will eliminate branding barriers for startups, small businesses, creatives and designers. We believe we’re out in front with a radical approach to address barriers related to access, cost, application, timing and more. It also means that every day we need to solve problems. We don’t always have the components to solve these problems; sometimes we don’t even have the tools to build the components to solve the problems! We end up inventing tools that enable us to invent components that fit together to create an engine that solves a problem for our customers in a way that currently doesn’t exist.

To me, this process is what technology and innovation are all about.

An excellent example of one of our recent challenges: a product of ours was making quite extensive use of the Apache Batik project to help us with rendering and conversion. David Byard (our Senior Developer) discovered that we were only really using about 3% of the Batik framework, the rest was quite useless to us and it was also quite slow. David then invented a new way to render and convert our internal documents that was cleaner, easier and way more efficient than using Batik. We named it Elementary and it’s now the a large part of our core platform. It’s also over 80% faster than Batik!

We want everything we do to push out new boundaries, raise the bar and exceed expectation both as a service provider and as a technology company. If this kind of working environment and approach sounds appealing, check out our careers page and get in touch.

Explore careers at buildabrand

Probably the Best Intern Application in the World! Ever!

Sterling Talob Waters — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:05:36 +0000

With Thomas George-Priston’s permission, we’re sharing his bit of genius with you and hope you enjoy it as much as we have. Don’t forget to say you saw it here first, before it went viral!

See the original job posting here.

UPDATE: Congratulations are in order, Tom (@tombrandish) is now an Intern at buildabrand! His creativity and get-things-done attitude are just too awesome not to have here at buildabrand HQ.

Simplicity Is Not Easy

David Byard — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:38:31 +0000

This is because a good idea – and building a brand in the time it takes to order a domain name is a really good idea – doesn’t even need 10 seconds to understand, and can therefore seem simple.

But buildabrand is more than just an idea, it’s about top quality engineering and problem solving as well.

In the last week, we have generated 30 A1 sheets of brands, fonts, colours, and logos and covered an entire wall with them, doing an intense audit of quality involving at least 50 post-it notes.

We then painstakingly distilled this audit into realities – right down to the kerning of letters. We have employed techniques from elementary colour theory to machine learning using distributed, weighted decisions trees.

Because of this, when our exclusive alpha testers develop brands on our revolutionary new UX experience, they won’t even notice that they’ve created professional brand identities in minutes, they’ll just want to create them in seconds.

And not long from now, they will.