Use Design in Your Business

This is the Year of Irish Design and, continuing her fascinating series on the opportunities that good design can bring to Irish food and tourism businesses, AILEESH CAREW focuses on a very famous - and illuminating - example. 

Design opens up valuable opportunities for businesses. Its importance is often underestimated, but good design can bring some significant business benefits. Research in 2013 from the Design Council UK states that for every €1 invested by a business in design generates over €20 euro in increased revenues.

The effective use of design gives customers a reason for buying from you and not from your competitors. It's a valuable source of differentiation - a well-designed product or service will stand out from the competition. Customers are often willing to pay more for well-designed products that can offer benefits such as greater usability, increased functionality and improved aesthetics.

This article explores some of the benefits Ballymaloe Cookery School has seen from investing in re-design of their brochure.

First things first – why would a well-established business feel the need to invest in a new brochure? At Ballymaloe Cookery School it was felt that the brochure needed a fresh new look to bring it up to date and it needed to be more interesting and attract attention – “something that people would be drawn to and pick up”.

The brief to John Gavin of True Output was to ensure that images and text communicate the history of the school, that the Cookery School is both traditional and cutting edge and that Ballymaloe Cookery School is “more than just cooking... it’s all aspects of the world of food”. The brochure also had to have a practical function and clearly present the schedule information, list other Ballymaloe events and activities and direct readers to the website.

Having been lucky enough to visit the school last December I can personally say I was in awe of the culture of excellence in everything they do, but more than that – there is a great energy there – the passion for the ingredients and turning them into wonderful meals, celebrating food and good living, emphasis on teaching and generosity in everything that they do.

I asked John how he went about capturing life at Ballymaloe Cookery School and the passion within. He started by spending time at the school to truly understand the design brief.

“The concept of the brochure is based around taking an inventory of the utensils, objects and ingredients students would encounter if they enrolled on a course. We went to the school, styled and photographed a broad range of objects and produce in grouped scenarios. The use of a restrained utilitarian typography style echoed the recipes, kitchen lists and technical information found at the school.”

Has it made business sense?

Feedback from Toby Allen at Ballymaloe Cookery School is very positive and according to him re-design of the brochures has supported their overall business aims. Some of the benefits seen are:

• “The design solution has helped raise our visual profile and aligns more closely to what the cookery school is all about.”
• “The clarity of the structure and layout of the information means our clients can digest and understand everything in an easier manner.”
• “The brochure helps drive more traffic to the website where there is additional information and booking facility available.”
• “The work carried out has given us more options for communicating. We now have a full brochure and also a mini folding brochure which is more cost effective to print and distribute.”
• “The visual look has helped us to easily integrate it into other marketing materials and advertising while maintaining a strong coherence across all our communications.”

The resulting brochure is timeless, the photography is beautiful and it is a brochure that captures both the history, passion and development of the Ballymaloe cookery school. Seeing the benefits realised so quickly demonstrates in this case that design does matter.

True Output: www.true-output.com

Ballymaloe Cookery School: www.ballymaloecookeryschool.ie

* ID2015 is delighted that the inaugural Irish Tourism Industry Awards have included a special award to highlight good design in Tourism. For more information http://www.irishtourismindustryawards.ie/categories/

* Irish Design 2015 partners include Founding Partner - MCO Projects; Accommodation Partner - The Doyle Collection; Venue Partner - OPW; Exhibition Partners – DAA. Technology Partner - IBM

An overview of the core programme of events can be found at www.irishdesign2015.ie

Aileesh Carew is the Tourism Advisor for Irish Design 2015. Her role is to provide advice and management of the tourism programme for the year of Irish design 2015, to communicate and animate interest in the Year of Design – nationally & internationally - and engage with tourism industry partners to raise awareness for Irish Design 2015. She has spent most of her career managing hotels, most recently opening Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois, putting it on the international map as one of the best small hotels in Europe. A graduate of Shannon College of Hotel Management, with an MBA from Copenhagen Business School and Business Management Coaching from Scandinavian Leadership, she loves to travel, read cookery books, occasionally cooking from them, eat out and spend time with her family.

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