Business at the front, a little Casual at the back.
Hi Novoda! We're Casual Business, an independent design studio set up by Kat and Jon after decades of working with global brands in agencies and in-house. We’re a small but mighty team, working closely with brand owners with big ambitions.
In the last 2 years of our existence we've been fortunate enough to work with some lovely people, in companies big and small, in the areas of Fintech, Education, Retail and Food & Beverage.
How it all started
We started Casual Business to do something better, something born through real passion and not just the need to make a living. We relate to the Novoda story as we are consciously moving away from clients with big budgets that don't align with our values, towards working for clients that excite us and make us want to create meaningful work.
We launched a few months before the pandemic hit and through it have remained a tight-knit, hands-on team, offering our support, ideas and direction to a variety of businesses.
Small but mighty
Working remotely meant we also built a trusted network of like-minded individuals from strategists to animators, developers and designers which allows us to build a dream team depending on our clients' needs and budget.
This helped us to remain small, working for clients all over the world as an extension of their teams and on projects that we truly love.
What we think.
We see Novoda as a company that completely aligns with our world outlook and we'd be delighted to serve as your strategic and creative partners during this exciting time in your history.
How we work
Our favourite kind of projects are the ones where we are involved from the very start and can walk hand-in-hand together with our clients, learning, adapting and improving along the way.
We believe that's exactly what Novoda needs. We don't pretend to have all the answers, you know your business better than anyone and it's our job to help you tell that story, through close collaboration, mutual trust and brutal honesty.
Some shoutouts from some lovely people who happen to be our clients.
Mr Q
We've recently completed a similar project for a company of your size, called MrQ. Through rapid growth they were looking for someone to help them uncover their story and revamp their startegy and brand identity. We'll break down our approach further down as it is a tried and tested method that has delivered great results.
In fact, here's Savvas giving us a little shout out at the end of this process.
Bowl Grabber
In the past year we branded and designed packaging for up and coming wine brand Bowl Grabber, helping them market premium wine to a new, more casual type of buyer which in turn helped them become one of the fastest growing wine brands on Ocado.
We’ve asked Nick the founder to tell us how he felt about his experience of working with us and he kindly obliged.
"Kat & Jon had the daunting task of updating our homepage (2020) while stress-testing our new brand guidelines. Everyone on the team was very happy with the result, and they have contributed a lot to the Hotjar brand in a short time. I'd gladly recommend them, they're casual but they mean business. ;-) "
— Bernard Magri, Former Creative Director, Hotjar
February 2020
Nuff about us, now back to you.
What you told us the project objectives are
To help you establish one story and revisit the brand strategy for Novoda based on your newly identified, three north star goals
To create alignment and involve key stakeholders in the strategic and visual development of the brand
To define a unique personality and visual identity for the brand that makes it stand out and create a design-system in close collaboration with your team that can be easily adopted in-house
Bring everything together in an impactful way through the design and execution of a brand new website to showcase Novoda's new attitude and face to the rest of the world
What you need.
To build a cohesive brand experience.
A brand experience starts from your management, down to your employees, your marketing communications and of course, your brand identity and website. We can feel the excitement and energy on your part to tell your story and move towards the goals that you've identified and we would love the opportunity to help you communicate it in an impactful way.
What creates a cohesive and consistent brand experience is the brand strategy; Successful brands create a powerful presence by aligning all brand touch points to their story and crafting a clearly defined personality.
Step 1
Research & Diagnosis
As a first step, we would take a deep dive into your brand and your business that will allow us to better understand the current situation, identify main challenges and give us enough information to develop a brand strategy and visual identity. We will do that through a short series of interviews with your key stakeholders and members of staff to understand their needs & ambitions and document their views towards the current brand.
This will also give us a better understanding of the internal culture, which is an important part of the brand and a better understanding of your vision and future business strategy.
We can use our insights to help you build the creative brief, making sure we all agree on the work that needs to be done and get ready to go!
Step 2
Storytelling workshop
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” Jonathan Gottschall - The Storytelling Animal.
Storytelling helps us to build a common understanding about your business goal without using abstract jargon and complex terms.
It helps us to define a relevant brand proposition and a brand promise to be shared with internal and external stakeholders.
It facilitates a discussion around the competitive edge that the product/brand should own.
It builds an alignment around what the brand priorities should be all about.
Through the storytelling workshop we will aim to
Understand Novoda's ambition about the brand
Investigate the core qualities of other players in competition and what differentiates us within
Discuss and decide about a core audience definition
Analyse this audience and discuss about Novoda’s role in their lives
Explore the alternative brand attitude options to define brand’s character and tone of voice
Refine the product/brand proposition to channel that brand role/purpose with the appropriate attitude
Define the other stakeholders that have influence on this core audience and their roles
Discuss what kind of a collective storytelling can our brand initiate and amplify
Step 3
Building Alignment & Brand Strategy
This step is about consolidating our insights to build a brand strategy based on our understandings from the previous steps and according to your future business strategy.
We will define the Brand strategy framework and identify what elements to work on that better fit your growth plans, such as: Purpose, Values, Vision, Brand Positioning and Personality.
Here we will also present different brand scenarios using moodboards to better visualise the concepts and start developing the initial thinking around the brand’s visual development and Tone of Voice, again collaborating closely with your team.
Step 4
Design & Implementation
The final step is bringing the brand strategy to life and creating a visual expression and a Tone of Voice suitable for the brand that is fit for growth. This will affect three areas of your business - your communications, your website online experience and internal culture.
We will build the brand foundations and show the brand on pre-agreed application for a final presentation to bring everything together (strategy & design) and get sign off from key stakeholders.
The final step would be the design of your website to bring all these elements together and become the final touchpoint to a cohesive brand experience.
