The Brief
The whole 9 yards - designing The Yard Qatar
The Yard Qatar is a privately owned creative and design agency. The agency owner and leader Jawaher Altamimi is already an award-winning and well recognized Qatar Interior and Fashion designer.
Jawaher approached Origin requesting a new identity and e-commerce website for her latest brand, The Yard.
The Yard featured three main divisions:
● The Yard Interiors
● The Yard Creative Hall
● The Yard Events
The name ‘The Yard’ represents an open space. For Jawaher, that space is where she can create and be creative.
Its three businesses are distinct yet interconnected: an architectural and interior design studio, an event planning agency, and a multipurpose creative hub.
Origin had to create a brand strategy that reflected these three unique but interwoven aspects of the business in a clear and approachable way.
In essence, these three main divisions come together to create a one-stop shop for all your creative needs in a purpose-built showroom.
The yard boasts multiple international brands and stands as their main representative. These include Robert Passal, Chad Dorsey, Lucas Rise, Hooker Furniture, Ngala, Assouline, and many others.
Origin was tasked with building and creating the brand identity and strategy as well as the e-commerce website. This was a large and complex project with very high expectations. As always, Origin was up to the challenge.
Designing for designers
Working with designers can be challenging in itself. The expectations are very high, and designers often have a clear picture of what they want before you begin—working with a designer as talented and successful as Jawaher meant working on an entirely new level.
Jawaher is a designer at heart and knew exactly what she wanted. Our challenge was to understand her vision perfectly and then translate her ideas into beautiful and elegantly crafted designs worthy of her skill and prestige.
Building a brand worthy of an award winner
Origin designed the brand logo to be modern, elegant, and minimalist.
The design concept was inspired by architectural drawings of a home with each square representing a room ready to be redesigned. Combining crisp, stylish elegance with geometry, allowed Origin to create a multi-faceted design that spoke to the audience on several levels.
The brand pattern was also structured to say ‘The Yard’ and include ‘DYARI’, which means home.
The color palette complements the elegant style choices and clean lines to create a high-end designer look worthy of an award-winning creator.
Jawaher is the epitome of a very modern, creative, and forward-thinking Qatari personality and the branding had to reflect her and her ideology. The power of this design is in its elegant simplicity, execution, and multi-layered meanings.
Origin helped The Yard create a clear message designed to resonate with a modern Arabic market. The message was about taking who you are deep down and reflecting that personality on the space you inhabit - your space is an extension of who you are.
Origin also designed bags, brochures, company profiles, email signatures, flyer templates, gift boxes, greetings cards, logo animations, packaging templates, packaging tape, PowerPoint templates, price lists, price tags, signage, social media templates, stationery, business cards, invoices and receipts, letterheads, stickers, wrapping paper, and other branded products.
Origin helped create the tone of voice for the brand. This defines how the brand acts and sounds across various platforms and during different interactions. This allows the brand to be consistent and reliable, which are important measures of any high-quality brand.
The Yard had to speak to Jawaher’s concept of freedom of expression. It had to be more than a simple brand. It had to represent a lifestyle choice - to live your truth and express yourself freely in the way you design your surrounding.
Origin was proud to achieve this by unifying Jawaher’s ideology with all the delicately woven aspects of the brand design and strategy. They were an extension of her vision and her voice.
World-class web design
Designing a website from scratch is a huge responsibility. Often, the website is the first interaction that a potential customer will have with a brand. This first interaction is critical in defining how that customer sees the brand and develops a relationship with it.
Origin follows five key pillars when developing a website to ensure it delivers world-class quality for the consumer and meets and exceeds the client’s expectations.
The User Experience Strategy or UX
The Information Architecture or IA
The User Interface Design or UI
The Development
The Security
All these elements must be carefully considered and structured to ensure the end-user has the best possible experience while using the website. It begins with strategy and defining the user’s journey through the website. Once this is plotted and thoroughly explored, the information architecture can provide everything the user will need on that journey. The interface is then designed to take them from the beginning of the journey through the information. The development process breathes life into this concept taking it from strategy and planning into reality. The final step is to ensure the process is completely secure for the user allowing them to feel safe and protected while interacting with the site.