Shoal is proven to be world class
Worthing-based creative consultancy Shoal has been awarded one of the UK’s top design accolades – in the shape of a Gold Design Effectiveness Award from the Design Business Association (DBA).
Shoal also won the special International Export award making it a night of double celebration at the magnificent Hurlingham Club in London on November 4th. They are the first Sussex-based agency this decade to break the London dominance at the awards and now occupy thirteenth place in the DBA Design Effectiveness League Table.
The DBA (www.dba.org.uk) is the trade association for the UK design industry and bestows its annual awards to a relative handful of design consultancies each year that have played a major role in driving business growth for clients.
A panel of senior business leaders from Coca-Cola, Virgin, Nestle, Think London, Proctor & Gamble and The Cabinet Office, awarded Shoal a Gold award in recognition of its work for Fellowes, Inc., a world-leading manufacturer of business machines based in the United States.
Panel member Conrad Bird, Head of Strategic Campaigns, Foreign and Commonwealth Office called the project, “A heart-warming story of how customer focus, allied to great product and packaging design, turned around a division and saved jobs. Design matters – and this proves it”.
Shoal was set the challenge of designing new packaging for Fellowes’ entire family of Binding and Laminating (B&L) machines, applying a cohesive visual language across the product range to communicate benefits and features and ultimately drive sales. In tandem with this, the machines and consumables were re-named along with simple, intuitive actions and instructions to improve the user experience and increase customer satisfaction.
This, together with the re-design of the machinery itself by co-winner PDT, helped contribute to a 48% increase in sales of the B&L product range over the previous year.
“We’re delighted to win these awards and demonstrate that great creative work really can have a direct effect on the bottom line,” said Anthony Anderton, Managing Director of Shoal.
“We know that many businesses face tough times in the year ahead and will be forced to do more with less. We’ve proved that smart design and branding can help here by providing a tangible, competitive edge in meeting a whole range of commercial objectives.”
Shoal provides multi-disciplinary design and brand communication services in both print and digital media and numbers several major clients in and around the south coast and ‘Gatwick Diamond’, including Komfort Workspace plc.
The award coincides with the consultancy’s first brand repositioning since its inception in 2003 – which includes a new website at www.shoal.co.uk. Appropriately enough, Shoal’s new strapline is Effective Creative.
www.shoal.co.uk - Press release Nov 08
