Challenge Accepted!
Hello! I’m Sue - in-house designer at Lafan!
As a brand designer, my role is to create exciting and unique pieces of work for clients, giving their idea an identity and bringing their vision to life with type, shapes and colours. Then I can set rules and suggest boundaries so they can then take what I’ve created and make it their own. I really enjoy the conceptual and creation process, but I also really love the rule making and feel a huge sense of pride when I see my work being used as intended by others.
Quite often though a designer will also be asked to work with inherited assets on projects that have existed successfully for many seasons/years prior to our involvement, and it is then a designer’s role to “respect the rules” - and work with what we’re given. Sometimes that in itself presents challenges!
I joined the Lafan marketing team, Lafan Creu, just after the company won the contract to manage the Bwrlwm ARFOR project across the ARFOR regions - Anglesey, Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.
We were given full control over the narrative, given access to social media accounts and a set of files that already contained predesigned graphics, a simple brand guideline document to follow and a few examples of the previous designers’ published work. What a great place to start!
I was initially tasked with continuing the good work, but Lafan’s ethos is to ‘push boundaries’, so I was soon given creative freedom to expand the brand further. Throughout the duration of the contract, I designed themes and templates for all of the new projects Lafan organised for the brand - a creative’s dream!
Over the past 18 months we’ve published over 200 carefully designed posts on social media platforms all focused on raising awareness of the great service Bwrlwm ARFOR provides, but that’s not all. We’ve also created a new website, expanded the brand to include ‘sub-brands’ for numerous projects such as one off events, podcasts, networking opportunities, business drop-in services and an awards ceremony - all of which required visual elements to promote them.
I don’t often look back at work I’ve created. I’ve always felt that once the work is printed - it can’t be changed. Once my designs are published online they’re open to be changed beyond recognition by others so I’ve developed a thick skin and learnt not to be overly precious about work over the years. Instead, I like to see how well the design looks after time away and I like to follow the progress of when a design system or brand style is adopted and used by others - this usually makes me happy!
But as I started to write this post, I took a quick look back into the project folder and was pleasantly reminded of the volume and quality of the work we’ve created. To say I’m proud is an understatement, working alongside like minded creatives has been an absolute dream and I cannot wait to see where we go next.