AKSENT

Branding and advertising design is about more than just art

admin — Sat, 14 May 2011 10:29:32 +0000

I was looking for batteries the other day at Nakumatt Crossroads in Nairobi and if I was to ask you right now where you think batteries should be placed in a supermarket what would you say?

I would say near the till. All my life batteries have always been near the till. So the when i saw that Eveready have monopolized these locations at Nakumatt Crossroads I thought – “Well done.”

You see, branding is not always about logos, umbrellas, T-shirts and stuff like that. I am not saying that branding is NOT about standing out, in fact I am saying the complete opposite. Only re-enforcing it with the theory that to stand out you don’t always have to be obvious about it.

The thing is, bold is expensive. 5,000 T-shirts at $2 each is $10,000. I wonder how much a Product Placement Arrangement with the whole Nakumatt chain would cost, maybe half that? Annually?

The result? Your products are put right in front of the consumer, right where they are about to spend money – doesn’t matter how many t-shirts you do, there is very little that is as effective as that is.

So we Provide your hosting and you have mail issues

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:52:52 +0000

We should really have sat down to write this a long time ago – instead of having odd conversations about whether or not your machine is hacked or whether Access Kenya is preventing you from accessing servers outside the country… Anyway, here we go:

We do not set up e-mail on your machine – you will have to set it up on your own and manage it on your own. We only sell hosting and server side support, not client side support as well.

You might be thinking us heartless and unkind, however, if you look at the price we are charging for hosting your e-mail and domain name you will see that it makes no financial sense for me to come all the way out to you then only charge you a bit more than fuel money for the hosting.

the hosting we offer is more of a good deal, where if you are able to set up your own e-mail we can provide you with a home for your website and domain name.

We will however be happy to check on your server and make sure it is live and acting right, so if that is why you are picking up the phone, please dial. I hope that is clear.

By the way – if you need someone to set you up and get you going on your mail we will be happy to recommend someone in Nairobi or Kigali and at no extra fee.

Raptor rehab website

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:44:09 +0000

We developed a simple website for a small but hard working NGO in Nairobi that basically takes care of raptors that are not doing well. From our understanding raptor rehab kenya is pretty much a half way house for raptors.

We were very impressed with what Zoe was doing over there so we did a site for her. Please visit it and show your support!!!

Ni Sisi CSS and graphic design

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:41:33 +0000

We did graphic design and css for the new Ni Sisi website. In case you have’t heard of it, Ni Sisi is a grassroots social movement dedicated to inspiring Kenyans at every level to take charge of improving their own lives by promoting Heshima (dignity and respect for others), Diversity (inclusiveness and equality) and Self-Belief: Ni Sisi! – It is Us! And, Inuka believes It is Up to Us to transform Kenya into a country of which we can all be proud. Kenyan problems must be met with Kenyan solutions.

Now that you know who they are, head over to their website and have a look at what we did for them.

Kiligolf’s news site

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:37:52 +0000

So Kiligolf came back to us wanting another design for 2011. we have came up with a design and turned it into a website again. head over to Kiligolf.com to see what we did for the.

There are a few innovative features such as the java script animated menu, the rise up menu at the bottom of the page and the unique layout. We generally had a great time working n this website design project.

Having never been to TZ and working on this from Nairobi Kenya we think we did a great job .

Poster design for Bamburi Cement Ltd

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:36:44 +0000

We were asked by Bamburi Cement Limited – Kenya’s biggest cement manufacturer – to design a poster that encouraged employees to keep their machines and equipment clean.

N A Okello and Co advocates

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:32:49 +0000

We designed this logo for the advocate in response to a brief given to us by him.

How to design an under construction page in three easy steps

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:29:12 +0000

There is always a stage or two when you have your domain name live but your site is not quite ready yet. Or when you have to update your website and need to put the current site down. Question is, what d you put up on the site at these times?

The answer is always different but arriving at it – we think anyway – always has a simple formula. It all begins with communications. I will say again that at Aksent, design doesn’t begin until we have talked with our clients, asked questions and had questions asked of us.

Step one: Talk
Sit down have a coffee with us and let us understand what you want to communicate and how. This varies from letting visitors know when the website will be up again to allowing them to contact you meanwhile. The communication options vary based your communication strategy and objectives.

In the case of the image above which at the moment you can visit at: www.alwayspresent.co.ke – the client wanted customers to know that they were building a website and to be able to contact them should they need to.

Step two: Ideas
This is arguably still part of the talking phase but it is more focused on the actual page look and feel, it is no longer what do we want out of the page but rather how do we want the page to look and behave. As a rule we suggest you keep it really simple.

In the case of the client above they wanted an artistic page that simply had their logo and easy contacts.

Step three: Build it
The building phase should only begin now. After your designer has understood what you want and can now mesh your objectives and ideas with his/her own creativity.

Et voila! It really is that simple, stick to the steps and you will be happy with your under construction page.

WIOMSA magazine developement

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:48:42 +0000

We developed the WIOMSA magazine this past week. You can look forward to reading up on any of the following topics we have just pulled form the contents page:

News
• Massive corals the natural archives of environmental change
• What is the climate vulnerability of the western Indian Ocean “coral triangle”
• Adapting to climate variability

Features
• An assessment of mangrove ecosystem vulnerability to climate change in western Madagascar
• Marine Protected Areas and Climate Change in Northwestern Madagascar
• Incubation Temperature and Influential Factors on Chelonia mydas Reproductive Traits in Light of Climate Change

Special features
• Buying time for corals
• Coral Reef Crisis

Last word
• ‘Middle class’ reef fish feel the economic squeeze

Press ad for Chonjo Magazine

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:41:23 +0000

Chonjo magazine asked us to develop a press ad that could easily be visually identified with the magazine when one saw it on the stand.

We developed the ad below to meet this brief: