Have you been checking us out? We thought it was about time for a face-lift (a long overdue one). As we’ve matured so has our brand and culture. The process of this rebrand has taken over 2 years and the website has undergone 3 different concept redesigns until we decided on this one you’re currently viewing.
Over the years we have been known as Eightball Media. However, often when we’re referring to ourselves to other people we just say “Eightball”. So, we shortened our name to “Eightball” and created a wordmark logo as well as a supporting icon. It says who we are and much simpler for us to customise and play with (if you haven’t seen our logo variations – head over to Facebook. We’ve started updating our logo on special occasions.).
As for the website, the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle is definitely one we should’ve adhered to from the start. What we wanted was a modern website that won’t need to be updated again in a few years time, but we got carried away with what looks cool and trendy at the time. We had everyone in our team putting their 2 cents in – design by committee does not work, guys! Just have one chef cooking the broth. By the time we finished our designs there were a lot of other websites looking pretty similar and some pages looked too complicated and messy.
At the end of the day, we didn’t want to be like everyone else, we wanted to be us. So back we went to the drawing board. This time, not looking around at other websites and not worrying about what effects look cool, but more so about what represents us and what elements are important for us:
- We’re a design portfolio and information based site. We want the design to be simple so we can showcase our work in an effective way.
- People have liked our previous site because of the personal touch – seeing our fun, easy-going side. We want to still appear fun and creative on our new site and overall brand.
- We want it to load fast – so let’s not have too many bells and whistles.
With that we started with a pretty plain site, but with the addition of colours and custom icons we’ve injected some quirk and interest to the website. We came up with a few sets of icons to represent our overall services as well as individual steps and processes for the services. We’ve carried across these icons to become part of the overall brand and have utilised bits and pieces throughout our branding and promotional materials.
We’ve also had to update our stationery with the new look and that’s been a fun process. The outcome may have looked quite simple, but again, we did many variations before settling on the ones we have.
If you’ve driven along the M3 motorway coming out of the city going towards the Gold Coast you may also have noticed we now have a billboard on the side of our building (not like pictured, but the same design). We’re pretty proud of it. Our parents have mentioned they’ve seen it when driving past! People have been noticing our billboard!
Brand refresh isn’t just about updating the look, but also reinvigorating the company’s culture and it’s people. So with the new look and feel also come better workplace and togetherness in the office. Great team produces great work.
