Target Archaeological Geophysics

Release date

April 29th, 2011

Type of work

branding, brochure, cms, logo, website, wordpress

Full description

The mission

Target is a company in a niche market: archaeological geophysics. The project started with the objective to identify Target’s activity into a logo that would tell the story of Target’s mission and the importance of its work for mankind. This story should be further developed and carried out to their target audience by a website and brochure.

The story to tell

Target ‘s mission is to ensure human progress and growth does not come at the expense of valuable traces of mankind’s history.

Their techniques are based on magnetic and electromagnetic probes, and as such, are non-invasive. Careful interpretation analyses the generated maps in search of recognizable patterns left by human activity.

Their area of work is Western Europe: Ireland, UK, France and Benelux.

Logo & identity

The logo research embraced this story through an intensive 2 weeks iterative design process: I’ve documented (briefly) the steps i went through via the following image strip. I say 2 weeks, but i fine-tuned the logo up until the very end of the website release. The major research was really 2 weeks though.

Information Architecture – Content strategy – SEO

While making the content as clear and straightforward as possible was a prime objective, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) was second on top of the list. The website ‘s competitive environment is intense for keywords such as “archaeological survey, archaeological geophysics” etc. The content was rewritten and restructured to better match the way people read on the web, also in regards to S.E.O (keyword density, synonyms, etc.). We planned the website architecture by discussing the following document which underwent 5 iterations.

 

Final outcome

Here is the final homepage layout, where each decision was made so as to make sure the storytelling is coherent.

• The background pattern reflects the magnetic noise. The black zone header adds a legible visual to help the visitor visualise the topic.
• User ‘s space and time: a php script displays the current date and converts the visitor’s ip address into a geographical location : space and time, like archaeological geophysics.
• The logo tells the story of archaeological geophysics (see above).
• The section above the fold summarizes what the entire website should communicate in a simple flowchart, leading to a call for action.