NB Colour Print NB: Note below

NB Colour Print Ltd is a commercial print provider based in Chorley, Lancashire. The company was formed in 1991 following a management buy-out of The Primary Print Group and now offers both a Litho and Digital print service.

Having just celebrated 25 years in the print industry, NB Colour Print wanted to take a fresh look at their existing brand identity and website, which were looking both dated and out-of-touch with a lot of their young creative agency customers.

Nomination for Poster at The Drum Roses Creative Awards 2017

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New Brand

Often known just as ‘NB’, this was Absolute’s cue to create a more engaging and colourful brand language that tapped into their very northern, straight talking approach and their real passion for print. For their branded communications we stripped back the identity to just the NB, using a more contemporary sans serif typeface. We then applied a palette of contrasting vibrant colours that could easily be rotated on a regular basis to keep the new identity looking fresh.

To communicate their colourful personality we created a bank of phrases for the client that brought their abbreviated NB initials to life. These were then applied to various promotional items like posters, cups and calendars, with each staff member getting their own personalised messages on their polo shirts.

Note Below

We also introduced a new positive tone-of-voice that reinforced that print isn’t dead, but quite the opposite and it still has an important place in marketing communications for all sorts of companies. The headlines contain a bit of self mockery about the print industry and even NB themselves, but also about the services they offer. The messages were mainly used on the website, but were also carried through onto NB’s stationery, with the teams business cards having quirky copy lines about each staff member, to make them more engaging.

Nobody Better

To bring the brand to life even more, we decided to split the photography into 2 different styles. The aim of the first photography shoot was to showcase the personalities behind the scenes at NB, with the employees in the print environment and to also get close-up with some of the print equipment, ink and tools that the NB team use everyday. The second photography shoot was based down at Absolutes studios. The purpose of these print object based images was to communicate the colourful nature of the business and to reinforce the new NB tone-of-voice.

This shot of spray cans shows the bold product photography designed around colour

A set of colourful product shots, like these ink cans, were collected in a photoshoot at our photography studios

The staff photoshoot involved capturing the Production team at work

The location photoshoot allowed us to get behind the scenes and photograph the commercial printer's machinery

Now Brighter

The existing website wasn’t working for NB, it had too much content and it didn’t convey any brand personality. With that in mind we introduced the new brand assets which helped brighten up the user interface and we brought in the new tone-of-voice to clearly communicate NB’s offerings. Each page changes colour to keep it looking vibrant and fresh, with the home page changing colour when each banner rotates.

We also simplified the user journey with an easy-to-use navigation menu and clearer signposting for each page. For the frequent users, we introduced 3 constant and clickable links to allow customers to get an instant quote, directly upload their files and review their proofs online.

The team at NB have embraced the new brand, wasting no time in producing promotional items in-house and making more use of their social media platforms to communicate the new brand messages. Their customers, existing and new, have also been really receptive to their new colourful style. There’s Nowt Better than that is there?