Design for Bruton Museum

Ice House Design has created new graphics for Bruton Museum’s Festival of History and Heritage. They will be installed this afternoon, giving the month-long programme a prominent presence in the centre of town. Behind every museum event is a considerable amount of work that visitors may never see. Bruton Museum’s volunteers have spent months thinking, …

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Brand evolution: when a brand changes the thing that made it special

On a recent boat trip one of my sons couldn’t resist another Lego kit. There was no lack of pure joy on his face  as he carefully followed the instructions and built it. Just as there always had been. I couldn’t help thinking though, the heart had been ripped out of this toy. When a …

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Brand is fire

In Dutch, brand is fire. Brandweer for example, is Fire Brigade. This feels appropriate as the English word brand comes from the same Germanic roots: burning, flame, a piece of burning wood. Long before a brand was a logo, a set of guidelines or something discussed in a marketing meeting, it was something considerably more …

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The main thing is to make the main thing, the main thing

There’s a phrase we come back to surprisingly often: The main thing is to make the main thing the, main thing. It sounds obvious. Almost annoyingly so. But in design and communication; remarkably easy to remember and at the time, terribly easy to forget. Every piece of communication has a function. An ad might need …

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It has never been easier to make something look good

When everyone has access to the same visual references, fonts, templates and increasingly AI, distinctiveness becomes more valuable, not less It has never been easier to make something look good. Designers have access to an extraordinary range of tools and resources. Thousands of beautifully crafted typefaces are a click away. Image libraries offer almost limitless …

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Why have stars endured as one of humanity’s most powerful symbols?

Why have stars endured as one of humanity’s most powerful symbols? For a shape made up of just a handful of points, the star carries an extraordinary amount of meaning. It appears in religion, mythology, politics, national identity, military insignia, quality marks, entertainment and brand marques. Across thousands of years and vastly different cultures, it …

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