Project Overview
Plus is a branded content channel created for D+I - Australia's leading industrial Design consultancy. It is designed to foster collaboration and build new relationships within the industry and the wider design community. It was created to highlight and champion the role of design within society and business, to build a community where innovators, businesses, educators and policy makers come together to realise tomorrow.
Project Commissioner
Design + Industry Pty Ltd (D+I)
Project Creator
Team
Gareth Procter — Design
Pablo Ostolaza — Strategy & editorial
Christopher Phillips — Portrait Photography
Eivind Borgersen — Website development
Project Brief
It all started with a modest ambition: to redesign D+I’s blog to take full ownership of the company’s leadership position in Australia. A simple, 2-week project began to change when Sonnet asked: ‘what if?’
What if we created an open platform to share and celebrate innovative thinking? Plus is a subtly branded assembly of voices to encourage collaboration and connect agents of change in business, government, education and media.
What if this was more than just a blog? Ultimately Plus is a communication tool; it gives D+I an excuse to reach out to potential clients in any industry; rubbing shoulders with global powerhouses like GE and Samsung or giving start-ups a platform to shine. Plus is a loudspeaker for D+I’s in-house designers and a compelling ice-breaker for networking. It conveys scale, capabilities, experience and gravitas. It’s much more than a blog.
What if it was also a printed publication to showcase the best of design and innovation, at D+I and beyond? Published annually the Plus Annual immortalises the very best digital content in a coffee table quality publication, for branded content that simply can't be ignored.
Project Innovation/Need
Plus is a major step forward for D+I, a company often perceived as isolated in its success, as well as revolutionary within the innovation community. For D+I, it is an attempt to forge a stronger, sharper brand around the people who make innovation possible: the designers. PLUS gives them a platform to share their insights on those forces shaping our world like Internet of Things (IoT), design thinking or preparing young designers for the challenges of our times.
For the broader innovation community, Plus is an exciting new forum to raise awareness, connect with fellow creators and generate traction for new ideas. Because the intended audience is knowledgeable in these topics, there is no need to oversimplify content and cater for too wide an audience.
Design Challenge
The steepest design challenge was to balance the strategic objectives of Plus (generate new business opportunities for D+I) with the need to maintain independence. Neither the digital platform nor the print publication could be perceived as a company brochure.
The success of Plus relied on its ability to attract contributors from other spheres of innovation and build a reputation for quality, unbiased content. All the design elements, from the name to the last choice of fonts and colours had to create a distinct but subtle connection to D+I as the soul of Plus but not its master.
User Experience
Our intention was to create a seamless experience for the audience across multiple channels. From content to design and production we meticulously obsessed over each and every detail to deliver a flawless product online and in print.
Online articles are organised by broader category (government, education, business etc.) or specific tag (IoT, Wearables, GUI etc.) to ensure that relevant content is always quick and easy to find. The same categorisation extends to the printed publication to build an a common and intuitive visual language.
Since the launch of PLUS in late 2015 D+I has continued to add new clients to its portfolio and new designers to the Melbourne and Sydney teams. Plus has elevated the profile of many contributors, gaining them invitations to judge product design competitions abroad, and has helped D+I grow its footprint in thriving sectors like IoT and graphic user interface (GUI). It has allowed D+I to make connections with industry leading figures that have contributed to the conversation and was also instrumental in helping D+I win the 2016 Good Design Award for Business Model (https://www.good-design.com/entry/plus/).
Marketing - Branded Experience
This award celebrates creative and innovative design for branded experiences intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas or services. Consideration given to the technical, conceptual and aesthetic elements, user experience, audience engagement and message delivery.
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