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Allgood
Allgood is a leading British architectural ironmonger, designing and manufacturing premium quality door furniture, washroom products, and hardware since 1948. The business has a strong reputation for the quality and durability of its products and its excellent customer service.
Allgood appointed Leader in 2018 to strategically review the role of marketing for the business. How it could keep Allgood relevant in the modern construction industry while remaining true to their founding principles of innovation, quality, and service.
From the outset, Leader provided Allgood with an integrated marketing approach. This placed a strategic importance on design, led by Faye Hampson, Leader’s creative director.
The long-established vision for Allgood is ‘to become the most trusted architectural ironmongery partner’ which would be achieved by the historic company mission ‘to provide the highest quality architectural ironmongery through exemplary service’.
As trust is subjective, Leader worked with Allgood to explore how trust can be earned in this industry. This focused on the concept of quality: the quality of products; the quality of service and the quality of Allgood’s expertise from over 70 years in business.
A strategic solution
A central concept of ‘Quality since 1948’ was therefore chosen to underscore the heritage of the brand, with an emphasis on quality as the fundamental business value in generating trust. During a detailed strategy and insight exercise, the visual element was vital. Analysing how Allgood had used imagery, design, colours and branding through its history and the role this would now play in ensuring a consistent, unified brand that delivered this core concept of quality.
Brand identity and palette
The current Allgood logo had been an integral part of the business for over 20 years and Leader believed it still had a role to play. The new strapline was added and designed to fit perfectly beneath the logo. Leader reintroduced a monochromatic palette previously used to mark Allgood’s 50th anniversary, with an added accent colour of copper to bring warmth and introduce a contemporary visual contrast. This restated a timeless quality for Allgood allied to a modern design outlook.
The beauty in the detail
To underscore the extraordinary fine design and precision engineering qualities of Allgood products, a creative theme of ‘beauty in the detail’ was established. This creative approach focused on the shapes and fine detail of Allgood products to present them as much as pieces of art as functional door furniture. For every range, Leader reviewed existing and historic colour palettes, using architectural textures such as stone, wood, metal, concrete and textiles as backgrounds. While every range had a signature aesthetic, all the new photography had a consistent, coherent creative approach. The use of light and a vignette style was applied to all photography, as well as similarities in the composition – using angles to echo architectural elements and the sharp lines of a building.
Having spent time to understand and help articulate our customer proposition, Leader developed the supporting visual style very quickly indeed. The photographic design was particularly well executed, using often unconventional eye-catching product angles and backgrounds. Ideas were swiftly exchanged and pragmatically developed allowing us to launch a new website in record time.
Alistair Higgins – Allgood, Chief Executive
A brand-new website
An early statement example of the new approach was a brand-new Allgood website launched in February 2019. The website needed to communicate the new values proposition and operate as a commercial asset. It also had to elevate a design-led quality to web design, colours, and imagery.
The site features new, beautiful design-led photography of Allgood products art-directed by Leader, a growing library of newly created catalogues and company information as well as sections on the history of the business and its philosophy.
The site is also a fully functioning mood board tool, which is crucial in the specification process for clients, architects, and contractors.
Registered website users can access several thousand technical assets on the over 800 products available, including choices from the new photography.
Product range launches
Since 2018, each of Allgood’s principal ranges has been relaunched, as well as two new collections. In every launch, the creative and design approach was key, particularly the art direction of the photography with the ‘beauty in the detail’ theme. In every campaign, Leader worked on a premium brochure as a central asset. As well as a digital version, each brochure was also produced in print. Using quality paper weight and a spot UV.
