Art direction: giving your interface a look without betraying your brand
Your product works. Does it look like you?
We produce several graphic routes, you decide between proposals you can actually see, and we refine the one you keep. The visual style guide is reworked afterwards, aligned with that route. Graphic design is part of the design work like everything else, and we settle it before the screens are frozen.
When art direction is called for
We are rarely called in just to make things look nice. More often it is one of these situations:
- Bringing back together materials that have drifted until the brand is no longer recognisable.
- Setting rules for logo usage so materials stop going off-guide.
- Updating a style guide that never followed the arrival of new materials.
- Turning brand values that are already written down into shapes and colours.
The problem
A palette that turns into a rainbow no longer lets anyone identify you at a glance. A style guide that lists colours without saying what each one is for produces off-guide materials, made in good faith. Art direction settles these questions before they reach production, and the visual style guide then records the rules.
How we work
Design graphic routes
We produce several distinct graphic directions, not variations on a single idea. Each one carries the brand's values and respects the codes of your sector, because an identity that ignores its sector forces users to relearn where they are.
Iterate with your team
We test the proposals against your constraints, your existing materials and the opinions that diverge internally. Disagreements about the look get settled at that point, on routes everyone can see.
Refine the chosen route
We take the approved direction and refine it until it works on real screens. You leave with the creative routes and the moodboard.
Align the style guide
The guide is reworked on the approved direction: the colour range with the use of each colour, two type families at most, pictograms, image rules, and the uses to avoid. RGB codes for web, CMYK for print.
We have done it on real products
Bordeaux.fr: a portal that informs Bordeaux residents as much as it serves them, with no compromise on accessibility and eco-design
RGAA 95%, RGESN 86%: stepping behind the scenesFrequently asked questions
It depends on how many routes need exploring, how many materials need covering, and how much existing work has to be taken over. Art direction for a single interface does not carry the same weight as a brand overhaul rolled out across web and print. We quote once we have seen your current materials and understood what you want to keep.
Three, as a rule. We present them together, we test them against your constraints, and we iterate on the one you keep.
The creative routes and the moodboard, then the visual style guide reworked on the approved direction. If the project carries on into interface design, you leave with the desktop and mobile mockups, and the design kit that goes with them.
Yes. We look at what still works and what gets in the way, then the guide is reworked to align with the approved art direction.
Art direction is the research work that leads to a graphic direction. Visual identity is the logo and what surrounds it. The <a href="/en/glossary/visual-style-guide">visual style guide</a> is the document that records the rules of use. We do all three, in that order.