Clickcase is one of many sites that have gone live in the last year that I have not had time to blog or add to my portfolio, but it’s one of my two favourites so I thought I’d portfolio it up. Plus, they are selling awesome accessories for iPads and iPhones right here in Ireland, and you may want to bundle some under your yule tree!

I’ll be honest and say that this project was hard going. The client brief was pretty liquid, and we started from scratch in terms of name, logo and design. That can end in one of two ways: creative bliss or Shakespearean tragedy. Luckily, after 15 years of doing this, I have a pretty high batting average and get it right first go more than 98% of the time. But the first design we did for the site just didn’t come together in a way you could really hang a brand on, so Katherine and I threw it out and started over. And by “threw it out” I mean threw out the whole thing – logo, design and build. The whole thing.

Happily, it’s a bit like childbirth in that it can feel like it will never end when you’re going through it, but then it’s all over, you’re mightily pleased with the results, and it all seems worth it. Both Katherine and I and the client love the site, which features all the usual ecommerce suspects plus agile product tagging, snazzy product images, inline product question forms and lots of really nice features all over. WordPress is silently integrated to provide more robust content management for non-product pages than our cart offers out of the box. There’s also a swanky Facebook page to go with.

In an interesting sidenote, after choosing and registering the clickcase.ie domain, we were able to score the already-owned clickcase.com domain for an unprecedented $60. I have picked up aftermarket domains for clients from $250 – $750 (I won’t spend more) but getting your .com for $60 has to be the bargain of the century.

Finally, after 30 years of rejecting Apple products, I have been seduced by the kitchen potential of the Speck Handyshell and would dearly like one for Christmas. And an iPad to go with it…

(PS: Yes, yes they do have Dodo Cases. You Apple people are so pervy.)

SavieCard was a fun project because everything was built from scratch, and I got to name it, brand it, logo it, design the site for it, and do a silly amount of print for it, which normally I hate. I do like the fact that each person has a logo colour for their card back:

The entire site was built using WordPress. With hindsight, given how much the site grew from spec to launch, I would not make that choice for this project again, and v2 will be built on a different framework. At the moment it’s held together with gaffer tape and bailing wire, but it is holding…

Here’s a really common scenario:

You get a new client and they have a great product but no brand. Let’s say they make, I dunno, cow print toys or clothing or something, so you futz around for a while and decide to call the company Cowlabunga. (Just roll with me here.) You get to work and develop strong visuals for print and web and awesome messaging for use everywhere. The client loves everything, and then – after having stared at this shit for 60 hours – they have a crisis of faith.

Normally, these crises are some combination of the following:

1. They get hung up on the pronunciation. Is it cow-la-bunga or cool-a-bunga? Will people get confused? Frankly, it doesn’t matter – you say potato, I say patatoe, but everybody is clear about what vegetable we’re discussing. Is Vimeo pronounced vi-may-oh or vi-me-oh? I have no idea and care even less; I can spell it, find it, and host my videos on it, so whatever – it works.

2. They get literal with the logo. People who are new at starting or leading companies are universally obsessed by their own logo. And the telecom guy always wants a phone, the real estate guy always wants a house and everyone in anything to do with discounts always wants to dick around with currency symbols.

Even in 1971, Nike’s designer knew you don’t do that. Your logo does not need to be literal to be clear. Nobody thinks McDonald’s sells arches, and nobody thinks Nike sells swooshes.

A logo need not – and often arguably should not – be representative of the specific product the company sells or the specific service it delivers. That is not the job of a logo. Thinking that the logo is what defines a brand or is even the most important part of the brand experience means that someone has no understanding of what branding is and probably should not be trusted to market a company.

3. They get hung up on the logo. Once the logo is agreed, clients tend to think it’s cast in stone. It shouldn’t be, because you absolutely can play with it. Google does. The BBC does. The New Museum of Contemporary Art does, too, rendering the words NEW and MUSEUM in a consistent type face and sticking whatever they want between them.

The static logo is dead, and thank God for that because if I have to fuck up one more website, flyer or poster because some sponsor’s logo MUST have a 30mm white surround, I’m going to start taking hostages. Your logo is a tool, not a monolith; it’s there to be used, not preserved as a sacred cow.

I would suggest, however, that you not call your company Cowlabunga. It sounds like a foot disease.