MontRED Blog

Taking Inspiration from Free Stock Photography Sites

deepa — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 12:16:38 +0000

Brainchild of one of our graphic designers, NOW.MontRED is a self-set challenge to come up with new graphics everyday and somehow associate them with the MontRED jewelry products.

The challenge:

1.	Use only free stock photographs (OR) Create the graphics in-house
2.	Associate the graphics with MontRED jewelry

It’s been quite a fun adventure since past three months trying to give our visitors a fresh page and a new graphic.

The graphics are anything from a neat paper chain to a stylized version of a football player. Sometimes funny, sometimes bold, sometimes lame. But essentially fresh everyday.

Rollover to see the zoom image.

Resources and Inspiration

Our constant search for free stock photography led us to a few very resourceful sites like:

SXC in particular has been a very good encouragement not only for us but also for many other web designers and photographers. In their own words, “SXC is a friendly community of photography addicts who generously offer their works to the public free of charge.”

Lot of times the photographs were the sole inspiration to the artworks. The simple keyboard photograph was edited to create “I love U” keys (see original image). The scrabble tiles were simply photoshopped to make up a sweet proposal (see original image).

Rollover to see the original image.

At our end, we never fail to give proper credit to the photographer. Whenever possible we try to inform them how and where we used their photographs.

One Deal a Day

Apart from engaging the customers with daily graphics, NOW.MontRED gives a fresh deal everyday on the jewelry product that’s associated with the graphics. After all, we’ve to sell some jewelry too!

Well in the end, I just smell a conspiracy to keep the design team on their toes with NOW.MontRED!

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Your Corner: A Place to Interact

nishith — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 13:24:06 +0000

The initial idea behind the web was that of a read/write medium. Anybody who uses the web should have the ability to write something back. That’s why the very first browser was an editor – a writer as well as a reader. Somewhere along the road, this idea of a read/write medium got lost.

In this Web2.0 (or Web3.0 or WebN.0) age, the web is once again being seen as an interactive medium. You’re no longer a passive visitor. Information is no longer a one-way street affair. More than ever before you have the power to express your opinions.

Your Corner is our effort to create a platform that allows you to engage in a conversation with us. It is a platform whereby you can communicate with each other.

Your Corner is the red box that you’ll find on our various jewelry collection pages like diamond jewelry, heart pendants etc. You can simply click on the box and start writing. Pretty simple as such.

Ask questions about the best gift for mother’s day, reply to Deepa’s question about hoop earrings, discuss the tungsten band collection, well, just express yourself.

You can check out the History to see how a particular page’s Your Corner has evolved. And if you wish to remain in the loop, you can subscribe to the Your Corner last 20 posts’ RSS feed.

For the technically inclined folks, yes, there’s a good amount of AJAX stuff happening here. This helps us to make it pretty easy for you to edit, save, check history and login without having to move away from the page that you’re viewing.

We use the jsolait library and have experimented with both XML (for Editing, Login) and JSON (for History) formats. At some point, we’ll decide to move completely towards one, probably JSON.

Please feel free to experiment with the Demo Box here. Also please send us your feedback.

Btw, one rumor that is doing rounds at MontRED is that I’m just making up all these reasons and ideas behind the read/write Your Corner. They say that the actual reason why I came up with the Your Corner idea was because I was too lazy to write the descriptions on each of our jewelry collection pages. Now I won’t deny or confirm this rumor.

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The MontRED Logo: Face of Our Brand

deepa — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:30:32 +0000

Designing a logo is one of the most challenging assignments in creating a brand identity. From the initial sketches to the final MontRED logo, it has been quite an exciting journey.

When we started designing the logo in the early part of January 2005, it was important that we first understood MontRED as a brand. MontRED is an online retailer of fine jewelry (just wanted to be sure that you know this so that we can put things into proper context).

We started with long discussions with the founding team to understand their vision of MontRED. The absolute transparency within the team made this process a little easier.

Visual Impression: Connecting with Visitors

The importance of the visual impression of the logo and the subsequent process of this impression getting registered in the mind of a visitor has been our major design consideration.

In the online world where there are plenty brands and even more websites, this consideration holds even more value.

Simplicity becomes the key factor here. The optimal and balanced use of shape, color, form, consistency and clarity can create a striking visual construal that will make the logo stand out.

The visual statement, which seeks to express the essence of an idea, and which is based on function, fantasy and analytic judgment, is likely to be not only unique but meaningful as well. -Paul Rand

Shape & Form: Performing the Balancing Act

The quest for the simple yet strong logo started off by experimenting with monograms that would help in remembering the name ‘MontRED’.

The very first sketch was a monogram with ‘M’ in the shape of a mountain and a rolling red circle suggesting growth and progress.

Around the same time, we had also started the groundwork for designing the packaging.This logo is the result of the two simultaneous thought processes, and in a way a result of my obsession to translate the logo to all possible mediums including the packaging.

Next came the set of ideas based on the graphical abstraction of fine jewelry. We had started feeling the need to associate the logo with our product range.

The following are the results of the experiments with the abstraction of an engagement ring, the shape of a diamond, the sparkle of a diamond etc.

The final MontRED logo is the effect of a series of sketches made by abstracting a ring.

Interestingly, “MO” became an icon in itself. This we thought would be useful for the favicon, jewelry inscriptions, merchandising, packaging etc.

Own a Color

Humans retain colors first in the hierarchy of visual consciousness. So owning a color allows immediate identification and distinction among visitors in a highly complex and competitive brand landscape.

Taking Apple as an example, the rainbow color gave distinctiveness and freshness to the old Apple logo designed by Rob Janoff. The new single-colored logo communicates their innovation with a simpler and direct design.

These next set of logos had an interesting use of color based on the principle that color needs no translation. These logos, however, were not able to capture the elegance of fine jewelry.

The logo with three swoosh creating ‘M’ nicely emphasized the color red but was suggestive of speed and movement, which are more appropriate for a sports brand.

Coming back to the series of sketches displaying the graphical abstraction of a ring, adding red specifically signified and emphasized the importance of the color and the logo.

So here the stark use of red along with the ring like “O” creates a resilient visual impact. The red color builds an energetic and a dynamic focus giving a spirited look to the logo.

Typography: Articulating the Text

The next thing was to determine how ‘MontRED’ should be articulated in terms of text. Writing ‘RED’ in Caps made it easier to read the name correctly.

We finalized on using AvantGarde typeface. This allowed us to emphasize the bold and simple look to the otherwise delicate ‘O’. Plus it added weight to our tag line “Our Experience, Your Trust”.

The Final MontRED Logo

The MontRED logo is a good balance of the message and the visual impression that should be associated with the brand MontRED.

The ‘O’ adds a delicate touch to the otherwise robust logo. The contrasting qualities of a jewelry piece of looking delicate and strong make are very nicely exemplified.

The logo can be reduced to the simplest expression while maintaining the personality. It retains its integrity even when transferred to various mediums.

For the team, it’s a job well done.

So now, how about some uncensored feedback? Time to face the barrage.

Hello World!

deepa — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:19:20 +0000

The MontRED Blog is live. It’s pretty cool that I get to write the first post over here.

In this blog we will talk about what we do and why we do what we do. We will talk about team MontRED. We will talk about the latest innovations that allow us to enhance your jewelry shopping experience.

We hope that this blog will be a medium of communication and interaction with you, our customers. Your comments are most welcome.

And btw, all rants and raves about the look and the feel of the site can be directed towards me. I’m the one responsible for those aspects of the site.