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Paul Waller By Paul Waller Designer
It's more than just merchandise: Developing a visual language
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Since my last post we have been busy 'snagging' our site, building on our visual language, and pulling together potential merchandise. Like any brand we realise that it needs to continually evolve and be refined.

So what is our next step?

Now we have the foundations, we need to continue to develop our visual language and make it as engaging as possible to our audience: potential clients and contemporaries. We need to ensure that there is visual consistency across the board. We maintained a consistent visual brand message across our responsive website by ensuring that this was not watered down when viewed on mobile, tablet or desktop devices. Whatever device it's viewed from our visual communication is always cohesive and our identity is always easily identifiable.

With the rules in place (we know what we can and can't do with our logo, for example) we can begin to develop our visual language across a variety of formats and 'be creative' in how we reproduce our identity across all aspects of our collateral.

Extending our identity in to our office environment through vinyls, furniture and signature colour, through to merchandise such as mugs, USB keys, caps, pens, coasters, glasses, and hey while we're about it, why not a plectrum? They're all up for grabs.

endjin brand guidelines

However, it's not just a case of slapping our mark on a wall or a piece of merchandise. These are add-ons (nice-to-haves) that we would not necessarily include in the initial design phase. This is not because they're overlooked, but because our thought processes were geared towards theoretical decision making centered on longevity: how are we going to build our brand and what design processes will we enlist to achieve our aims and objectives?

Every aspect of the design has to be considered from size and rationale, to whether or not what we are doing is going to be of any use to anyone. There's no point in having bags or caps if you're not going to use them.

endjin Strategy Creative Development & Cloud Icons

In developing our visual identity we have had to consider whether or not it will be recognizable. I mentioned in my previous post that we began to develop a unique visual language that needed to work if you took our logo away. That's where our iconography and colour ways take center stage in our design process.

We're still in the early stages (some 6 months in) and we're happy with how the visual language is evolving but we also know that we have a lot of work ahead maintaining and refining our identity.

Paul Waller

Designer

Paul Waller

Paul had over 25 years of creative experience in design; delivering user and customer experiences across 3D, print, physical, and digital disciplines. At endjin, Paul enabled customers and the team to visualise abstract concepts. Whether it was UX for websites or apps, compelling dashboards or impactful reports, television props for the Great British Menu, illustrations and animations for promotion and marketing campaigns, or logos and iconography for design systems, Paul was responsible for making concepts look and feel great, in a way our customers can understand.

Paul became passionate about accessibility, data visualisation and data storytelling. He collaborated on several Power BI Data Story Gallery examples, including: House Price Analysis - 30 Years, 30 Million Data Points: Unlocking England and Wales Housing Insight, Global Brand Insights: 20 Years of Financial Trends, Learning From Disaster - Titanic Passenger Diagnostics, and Accessible Data Storytelling: World Bank Heath and Wealth Report.

Paul was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2024, and passed away in February 2025. He was endjin's first employee and made a huge contribution to the company, our customers, and the wider community. He was the best, and we miss him every day.

how quickly time passes, and you must try to savour every moment, be it at home or, in your professional life. Capitalise on your ambitions, but don't forget your family.

Paul Waller, 30th September 2013

In collaboration with the ElevenLabs Impact Programme and The Scott Morgan Foundation, endjin created a professional voice clone of Paul, using hours of recordings of internal meetings from our archives, and Paul's public videos; we did this in the hope that it would help Paul communicate with his family, friends and colleagues as his condition progressed, but Paul passed away before he could make use of it. To honour his memory, and with the permission of his family, we have used the voice clone to narrate all of his blog posts for posterity.

We hope you enjoy reading and listening to them, as much as Paul enjoyed creating them.

If you found any of Paul's work useful, please consider making a donation to MND Association or The Bikeability Trust in his memory.