In a cutthroat digital market, Elixel needed to rise above the competition and show customers their true value.

Keen community-builders Elixel are a rapidly growing group of user experience experts and designers. Ten years after four graduates stepped out of university and formed their first company, they now employ a team in-house and in Europe, and bring their warm, enthusiastic approach to clients around the world. Having grown their reputation and output, the directors required a new approach to communicate their expertise in User Experience (UX) and design thinking. Their website was out of date and they felt it positioned them as 'just another web design agency'.

There’s a proverb that says something along the lines of ‘the cobbler always has the worst shoes’. The shoemaker is so busy making footwear for other people, he has no time or capacity to dedicate to looking after his own! Just like the cobbler and his shoes, Elixel’s own website had slipped down their priority list and they were unable to find the necessary perspective to showcase their all-important point of difference.

What Upshot did

Strategic thinking

With a distinctly ‘tech’ angle to the original branding, the identity focused on the words elixir (a potion that brings something to life) and pixel (the single tile that makes up all digital imagery). But nobody can see pixels anymore – ten years of improving resolution makes them feel irrelevant.

Instead, the Elixel focus is all about listening, asking pertinent questions, design thinking and guiding clients to find better ways to engage with their audiences: a real human connection through digital devices. The statement ‘Creating meaningful interactions’ beautifully encapsulated the relationships they nurture, the flow they encourage between clients and their end users, and the physical act of interaction with a digital device.

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Visual identity

Moving away from a harsh square-based design-system, a more human feel was required. The fingerprint was the ultimate symbol to represent meaningful interactions – refined and styled in a way that felt personal enough not to suggest security or passwords, but graphic enough not to imply police records or antibacterial cleaners…

The rings or waves that emanated from this implied screen ‘tap’ gave us a playful visual language that wove its way through icons, illustrations, backgrounds and headlines. Colours and type choices gave a rich and personal mood to the identity and built a matured version of their previous look and feel.

Website design

Bringing the concept into their new website helped us create a sitemap and user journey that supported their goals, and a distinctive look and feel that significantly improved the impression they were giving the world compared to their previous site.

From case studies written by their clients, to helping them break down their services and processes more helpfully, the content was created purposefully and meticulously to reinforce their big idea.

Check out the Elixel website here.

“Having this new brand update and the new website and being able to tell our story in a meaningful way has really set the foundation and the benchmark for us as a business.”

Paul Bird, Creative Director, Elixel

Impact

Had Elixel simply carried on and redesigned their website, even following all the recognised and proven UX rules, they would have simply remained another agency that talked about their work and themselves like everyone else. Bringing Upshot in with our external perspective helped them do things differently.

With the benefit of knowing what they wanted to be known for, their website was designed specifically to highlight why they would be a great match for their visitors – providing functionality and language cues that communicated more distinctively, and with the added confidence that they knew it represented them, and nobody else.

Their full visual identity was designed around the idea of creating meaningful interactions and this purpose statement, alongside their values, clearly differentiated them from their competitors. Far from being a dry or manufactured series of words, these values can be lived out through their interactions with staff, suppliers and customers and are ingrained within the look and feel we created.

Mount Wise House, 1 Discovery Road, Mount Wise, Plymouth PL1 4QU

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