Dawson Design » Uncategorized

ARRAS Restaurant

dawsondesign — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 09:39:39 +0000

Interior design and remodelling of ArrasRestaurant is now all complete and open for business, a complete renovation and new lease of life for the old coach house on Peasholme Green in York.

Working closely with Basefit interiors, Dawson Design designed and oversaw the complete renovation of the new 60 cover modern British restaurant.

A quick thank you to Curiousa & Curiousa for supplying the beautiful handblown glass pendants lights over the bar area.

Eight reasons the new National Trust website is funkier than yours

dawsondesign — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 11:30:37 +0000

Here are some cool bits from its new responsive website.

Ghost buttons…

Lovely stuff. Ghost buttons are becoming more and more common.

This nice bit of CSS helps every call to action look a little more elegant and means they don’t have to detract as much from content.

…including the best call to action ever written

There’s nothing more to say about this, other than it’s not a euphemism, and you can click through below if you’d like to go.

Colour and contrast

The National Trust is about cultural heritage, but a shorthand for that is beauty.

So, it’s very pleasing that the new Trust website has such bold colouring and contrast throughout. It really does improve the experience.

Below is a selection of elements that stood out.

A long-arsed membership landing page

I can’t capture the page in full, but go and check it out for yourself. It’s a long, persuasive and content-filled page intent on increasing memberships.

Not only is it visually stunning but it caters for a number of different personas, includes seasonal detail, testimonials, FAQs and editorial (’10 reasons a National Trust membership might change your life’).

Here are three of my favourite bits…

First person stories

Who can sell your wedding venues better than the happy bride and groom?

This is great marketing, not to mention delicious typography.

The faceless testimonials shown above on the membership page are nicely presented (where the product is worth around £100), but when the service on offer is a few orders of magnitude more expensive, and part of the ‘best day of your life’, something more persuasive is called for.

Superbly inclusive copywriting (and the second best ever call to action)

The National Trust relies on donations, volunteers and a massive amount of good will.

Creating a website that represents the open face of the organisation starts with copywriting.

This screenshot uses decetively simply copy, all very much in an active and friendly voice.

Chunky search

The search facility is really fun to use, thanks to its prominence just below the fold on the homepage, use of a chunky text field, auto-suggest and beautiful results pages.

No doubt a more prominent search bar will give the National Trust another source of data to assess regional interest in the organisation.

A fantastic jobs website

There’s a new jobs website, too, on another domain.

It’s just as enjoyable. In the new world of talent shortage, changing company culture,transparent organisations and innovation labs, the National Trust jobs website is as good as any I’ve seen at setting the right tone.

300 years before Pantone

dawsondesign — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 11:31:03 +0000

In 1692 an artist known only as “A. Boogert” sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope.

It’s hard not to compare the hundreds of pages of colour to its contemporary equivalent, the Pantone Color Guide, which wouldn’t be published for the first time until 1963.

Roomii Monster enters the Dragons Den

dawsondesign — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:24:15 +0000

Unfortunately even with our box designs looking so good, Roomii Monster didn’t get the backing they were after..!

View the pitch (45mins in) on the BBC iPlayer now.

Long Dark Nights

dawsondesign — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:09:03 +0000

With the clocks about to go back and the trees bare of leaves, why not fill those long dark nights by following Dawson Design on Twitter twitter.com/DawsonDesign or become a fan on our Facebook page www.facebook.com

NatraGems approved by Ecocert

dawsondesign — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:18:07 +0000

We’ve just produced the new NatraGem brochure for Croda Europe Ltd promoting their latest Ecocert approved product. I think we managed to find the only day of glorious sunshine in November for the location photo shoot with www.pauljones-photographer.com.

Blue guide: A practical pathway to green

dawsondesign — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 16:02:55 +0000

We have just produced the new sixty page Blue Guide brochure for Croda Singapore, promoting Croda’s cold process ingredients for the Personal Care industry. Chinese and European versions are also in the pipeline.

Corporate Social Responsibility

dawsondesign — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:24:59 +0000

Alongside the Annual Report, a CSR report was also produced highlighting Croda’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy, vision and commitments. The report communicates Croda’s environmental, sustainability and social responsibilities, together with community activities and initiatives from the past 12 months.

A Post without Image

dawsondesign — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:43:44 +0000

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New look website now live

dawsondesign — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:27:41 +0000

Drum Roll Please… after far too much deliberation our new look website is now live… Why not come and visit us and take a look over some of our new work.