Open began back in 2001 and specialize in office and industrial fit-out projects that range in value from £100,000 to £7m plus. A values-driven organisation to it’s core, Open live by their name.
Intuitive website for new visitors – New visitors to the site can now easily key information and see beautiful case studies of Open’s work. We took a show don’t tell approach due to the highly visual nature of their work. There was a consistent primary navigation that allowed users who might be lost to quickly orient themselves through a large and complex website.
A branded design system – Previously, Open had a somewhat generic identity and website interface – they could have been anyone. As part of a wider brand project, we delivered a new website with a comprehensive 2 pixel design system that they could use and adapt to quickly build future pages and tell their story in a more compelling way.
Clarity of message – merging together the separate entities Open Contracts and Open Ltd, meant they could both increase the online equity with one clear website rather than two disparate ones. Which was better for their rankings and their client to understand who they were and what they did.
Over at Borderless HQ, we’ve always loved interior design, so when we were invited to pitch with Matt from Made Noise for the chance to work with Open – we went weak at the knees! Made Noise was engaged from pitch to project completion to undertake a full strategic rebrand to look at their logo, tone of voice, messaging, marketing roll-out, website user experience, design and brand toolkit. As part of our work, we ran a series of creative and user planning workshops to help understand their audiences needs.
We helped shape and explore what success would look like for their new website, in terms of the content but also the look and feel. Being heavily involved and familiar with the design process, the team at Open had some clear ideas for what they wanted to say and how they wanted to be seen. Together we developed the information architecture and a clear content plan to support their SEO, migration strategy and their website visitor’s needs.
The new brand developed by Made Noise was based on a flexible, but modular grid system that can be adapted to suit a variety of formats and creative needs. We took this challenge on and designed the whole website to work on a 2 pixel grid structure that responds beautifully regardless of the device.
Open already had a brilliant set of images from their client’s projects so we created a design that would help showcase their creative work and support their new mission.
Alongside designing the new website, we also helped with the ideas and management surrounding the new content for the website. As part of this work we helped with briefs and ideas for case study photography, image editing and also training with the client to ensure the imagers were optimised for speed and beauty. We also provided friendly advice on content and how to maximise their copy with the new WordPress CMS we developed for them.
We liked: it’s not often you get to work with such a driven team who already had such a great set of images and insight into design. We loved this experience with Karen and Gabriela and still enjoy working with them to this day.