Hop! Skip! Jump! Halifax
Hop! Skip! Jump!
Indoor Playground
Brand Identity design
Characters Development
Promotional Materials Design
Signage
Website Development
Hop! skip! jump! is a new children’s indoor playground located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In fact it is the largest in the Province.
When the owners were looking for a company to create a strong brand identify for the business, they identified New Design Group as the agency they wished to work with. Having designed children’s company brands in the past, including names such as Koala Kidz in Vaughan, Just Ducky Yonge Kids in the Yonge neighbourhood of Toronto and Yes I Can Nursery School, also in Toronto, it’s fair to say that New Design Group knows how to create a children’s brand that appeals to parents and kids alike.
The owners of Hop! skip! jump! came to New Design Group with some clear ideas about their new brand and logo design. As parents they wanted to dedicate the venue to their own kids and were keen to somehow incorporate them into the logo design.
They also needed a complete set of branded marketing materials, from business cards to birthday party invitations, in addition to a modern website and a social media presence.
As with all brand strategy discussions with clients, New Design Group provided a questionnaire to the company which would form the basis of the creative brief. Once clear about the branding objectives, the graphic design team created 3 concept sets of the future brand identity materials, each containing a unique logo, business card, letterhead flyer, card and signage design presented on a storyboard.
As with all children’s industries, the visual brand identity had to charm both kids and parents and to clearly demonstrate what the brand was all about – bright colours and cute characters were the order of the day.
The final logo chosen was of 3 colourfully dressed kids jumping around having the time of their life – the 3 were modelled on the faces and personalities of the owners ‘ children. This logo was carefully designed to be scalable so it would look great on outdoor signage as well as on birthday invitation designs.
The logo was incorporated into an electronic letterhead, business card, electronic fax cover sheet and a customised email signature allowing the company to portray itself as trustworthy and professional in all business dealings.
As part of the marketing materials package, postcards were created to be used to promote different occasions such as the Grand Opening. With a character based logo, the graphic designer has the opportunity to show the characters involved in a range of different activities as this design demonstrates.
This is an important branding strategy and one which works particularly well for kids’ organizations – it further reinforces what the company offers whilst maintaining brand consistency.
kids indoor playgrounds are ideal venues to host children’s birthday parties. The provision of colourful and fun branded birthday invitations to parents shows Hop! skip! jump! as an organised and efficient company, with the added benefit of increasing brand awareness amongst other families.
This design also includes the social media page addresses to encourage people to engage with the company via any of these.
Hop! skip! jump! wanted a simple discount card design to persuade people to bring their children to the playground. Here the bright design featuring the happy characters is bound to make all kids want to be taken there!
In addition, New Design Group created fully branded flyers and free admission passes.
Branded marketing materials are essential to promote any business and increase brand awareness. But the brand promise must extend to the company’s premises too. Imagine the disappointment if children arrived at Hop! skip! jump! and found a dull grey room!
Consequently New Design Group created a large outdoor sign design featuring the company logo. Inside the venue, the bright colour scheme was complemented by a huge hanging banner design featuring those cheeky characters.
using a WordPress Content Management System, New Design Group created a visually appealing bright website showing the logo on the homepage and the characters doing different activities within the interior pages.
Navigation is super simple and visitors can find everything they need from the homepage: information about birthday parties, group events, activities and programme, and importantly the option to send a booking request for a party. Contact details submitted via online forms are stored on a database which can be filtered by field (date, name etc).
Links to social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) are also shown on the website to allow social media lovers to follow the company on their preferred platform.
To complete the branding of the digital marketing platforms, New Design Group set up a Twitter and Facebook page for the company including the Branding Graphics.
hop! skip! jump! were proactive in seeking out New Design Group as the graphic and web design agency in Toronto that they wanted to work with. And at the end of the branding project, the owners were highly delighted with the brand identity created: the fun logo design, the fun, friendly yet professional tone of voice, and all of the printed and online marketing materials.
Once again New Design Group showed itself as a branding agency that really understands children’s company brands and one which produces creative, original and memorable brands that send out a clear and strong message to the viewer.
