Curious who helped us design the new ACB Brand? Look no further and learn about our ACB Partner, IDO Design & Animation by Dave Low, a Brussels enthusiast, who shares some sage advice you might need when starting up your brand design.
When ACB was ready to give a fresh new look to our image, we went to Dave Low from IDO Design & Animation. It was a bit complicated too – how do you combine US & Belgium & Europe, along with community, warmth and a dynamic spirit? Well, we thought it was complicated – but when presented to Dave, he immediately had that glint in his eye, and LOW-and-behold, our creative, colorful, dynamic new brand of ACB was born.
We asked Dave, how did you become a designer?
After graduating in 1992, I have always worked in a creative environment - graphics studios, a company that designed toys and games for special needs kids, a technician and lecturer at an art college, designing front-end interfaces for a tech/media company.
I started IDO Design & Animation following redundancy in 2007. At the time I was living in Ruislip on the outskirts of London and spent a lot of time commuting into the city to do agency design work. As time progressed I started to build a roster of my own clients, including the International School of Brussels about ten years ago. Since then, my work has included a lot of educational organisations as well as SMEs in Brussels and other parts of the world.
I have developed a deep fondness for Brussels after countless visits, vacations and four brilliant months living in the city over the summer of 2017. COVID has made a lot of things impossible, but being able to hop on a train in St. Pancras and be at Gare du Midi in a coupe of hours to see friends and do work is one of the things I have missed most.
And now, any advice that you wouldn’t mind sharing for those about to create or re-freshen their brand?
A brand is more than just a logo. It’s all about the messages that your organisation sends out to your customers - be it expressly written or subliminal - and their response to them. There’s emotion involved - you want to come across in a particular way. Your company will have its own values - trustworthy, fun, dependable, disruptive, edgy, caring etc. There’s almost infinite combinations, and each organisation’s will be unique.
A good designer will want to work with you to understand the message you want to send out and ensure that it is relevant, up-to-date and consistent across all mediums. Whether it is branded uniforms, a social media campaign, explainer video, a skilled designer will have the experience and knowledge of how to create collateral for you but also implement it.
I would advise to steer clear of the likes of Wix logo maker and Fiverr. There are great designers out there who will work passionately to help you promote your organisation with a wealth of knowledge to be able to bring to bear on your brand aspirations.
Working with a designer is like any other relationship. It has to be given time to flourish. Each party has to listen and learn to gain knowledge of the needs, expectations, skills and experience of the other. This in my experience is when the magic happens and you can have the “I’ve just had this crazy idea but…” conversations - which can lead to truly great work!
In a crowded market it is extremely important to have a roster of happy and engaged clients who not only come back for repeat work but also would recommend you to a colleague or friend. And as with any business, the power of 'word of mouth' - as intangible as it is - should never be underestimated.
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Reach out. Have a chat on the phone or zoom - we don’t bite and we’d be delighted to see if there’s something we could do to help. Contact Dave Low here: www.davelow.co.uk, davelow@me.com.
