Case Studies

We designed Atlas’ original website several years ago. Back then, the client required a somewhat conservative self-presentation.

Recently, Atlas decided they wanted to alter their web image in accordance with a general change in self-presentation: less buttoned-down, more fashion-oriented, but still emphasising their international reach & the wealth of their experience in increasing the profits of the world’s largest retail brands. The aims of the company’s logo & the site’s redesign were thus to:

• Establish a fresh, airy, stylish look for the logo & website that wouldn’t go out of style quickly.
• Optimise the site’s content for search engine placement.

“Fashion” & “style” don’t mean the same thing: the first changes frequently with fads, while the second retains classic, balanced—if not timeless—elements. Accordingly, we stuck with style rather than fashion.

First of all, we changed their corporate colours from blue & orange to white & a more muted orange: this instantly made the result airier. Second, we stood the client’s logo—a globe—directly upon the stem of the ‘t’, to reconnect the idea that Atlas supports the world. Our use of the classic Helvetica UltraSlim font as a basis for the text instantly placed the client in the world of fashion: the font’s elegance is favoured in fashion magazines & advertisements.

We went for a two-pronged approach for the website, providing first a clean, welcoming home page design with an equally clean, balanced design for content pages. The home page emphasises the client’s logo, as it closely complements the client’s message to their customers. In contrast, the content pages place the graphical elements out of the way in favour of the page’s message.

The luxury of redeveloping your own website design lies in the fact that you fully know the underlying concerns from the initial round & why you made the choices you did. In the right hands, this type of consistency means that the designer can keep true to the original intent of the site whilst enhancing it with the new brief’s goals. Accordingly, we dropped the Javascript-based navigation of the original site in favour of a more accessible option, which has very positive effects on search engine optimisation. Several components are intelligently reused on the site, meaning a reduced load for the server & a more easily-managed website for the owner.