Posted by Samuel Birnie
19 December, 2016

Well, 2016’s been full of surprises.

Through it all we’ve worked with some incredible clients, new and old, said goodbye to a few Nixon veterans and welcomed the next wave of creatives. To round off the year with a festive flourish we created our very own advent calendar, featuring some of the standout projects we worked on this year.

Cornwall For Ever!

Sixteen years after we designed their original Cornwall For Ever! book, Cornish Heritage Trust came to us to build a new website. The project celebrates the people, places, history and events of this unique location, offering an interesting way to learn about Cornish culture and heritage. Our UX team wove the huge wealth of content into a vibrant, intuitive website, and we learnt loads about Cornwall along the way.

The mobile view of the Cornwall For Ever! website, designed and built by Nixon
The mobile view of the Cornwall For Ever! website, design by Nixon
The mobile view of an article in the Cornwall For Ever! website, designed by Nixon

Gaia Spa

With our first foray into the world of beauty packaging, our designs for Gaia Spa’s new product range came Highly Commended in the ‘Best New Design & Packaging’ category at the 2016 Pure Beauty Awards.

Gaia Spa beauty products, including tubs of moisturiser and bottles of bath oil.

Falmouth Freshers’ Guide

Continuing our close connection with Falmouth University, we put together a freshers’ guide for the next generation of Falmouth students. Imaginatively designed and filled with creative copywriting, the booklet offers new students real value, with perforated tear-out information cards.

A page on inductions with an icon of a calendar from the Falmouth University freshers' guide.

Duchy of Cornwall Holiday Cottages

Duchy of Cornwall Holiday Cottages came to us for an identity update, including a new website, tone of voice and photography. It was great to be part of such a historic enterprise, evolving its offer for the modern age.

The responsive website design for Duchy of Cornwall Holiday Cottages, designed and built by Nixon

​Latitude50

The whole team pitched in on our work for the self-catering holiday company Latitude50 in Rock. A responsive new website, photography and illustration, printed material and compelling copywriting all came together to create a holistic brand identity.

A full range of stationery for Latitude50 made by Nixon Design.

Cornwall Airport Newquay

Working with an airport was a new one for us, and we went all out. Our tech team built a brilliant website, with a live departures and arrivals board on the homepage, while the design team created everything from the brand logo and business cards to the on-site signage.

The tablet display of the Cornwall Airport Newquay website departures board, designed and built by Nixon
The tablet display of the Cornwall Airport Newquay website, designed by Nixon

Events and awards

As always, we were at the Royal Cornwall Show in June and have been attending conferences and events across the country, including the Cornwall Tourism Summit, Plymouth Digital, ffconf in Brighton and the Independent Hotel Show in London. In May we won our first international accolade, taking third place at the prestigious Dieline Awards in Atlanta for our Fedrigoni calendar design.

A Dieline Award trophy, won by Nixon Design for the 2016 Fredrigoni calendar.

New to Nixon

Somehow, somewhere in our busy schedule, we found the time to build ourselves a crisp new website; feel free to have a little look around. Our studio has changed too, as we say goodbye to some cherished members of the Nixon team while welcoming four fresh faces into the mix.

Photos from the Nixon Design studio in Hayle, Cornwall

Christmas and New Year

With tinsel and fairy lights dripping from the rafters here at White’s Warehouse, it’s almost time for us to close up shop for Christmas. We’ll be gone from 23 December but back fully refreshed (and perhaps a little plumper) on 3 January. We’ve got some exciting projects coming up next year, including websites for a string of alternative pubs in London, a new product range for Gaia Spa (we’re going for first this time), digital marketing for a luxury hotel in Cornwall, and marketing strategy for a major riverside development in Barnstaple.