Blog

Insights on brand strategy, rebranding, and growth, grounded in real client work. No trends or theory, just practical thinking on how brands create clarity and commercial impact.

Rebranding – when should you do it?
The Art of Timing: Why Rebranding is a Business Decision, Not a Creative One Most business owners think about rebranding because they’re bored with their logo. They’ve looked at the same Slack avatar for so long that they simply want a new “look” to satisfy a restless Friday afternoon. But as any seasoned CEO knows,…
Smart Home Brand Refresh and New Website
Redefining the Smart Home: Behind the New Wondrwall Brand Evolution & Website In the world of Home AI and renewable energy, clarity is everything. When Wondrwall, a pioneer in intelligent home technology, approached us, they had a powerful product but a digital platform that was holding them back. The mission was clear: Evolve the brand, optimise performance,…
From building brands to building vans
From Building Brands to Building Campervans: What 1.2 Million YouTube Views Taught Me About Brand Advocacy By Mark Stringer I’ve spent almost 20 years at Ahoy helping people build brands as a result I thought I knew everything there was to know about “audience engagement” and “content strategy.” Then I tried to build a YouTube…
The Big Manchester Move – The New Home Of Ahoy
Having called Heaton Moor in South Manchester home for 6 years, it was time to make some changes. Although we had lots of space, we felt it was no longer the right fit for how we wanted to work, plus we had sneaky suspicion we could be missing out on some great projects (and great…
New Work, New Staff…
After a hectic couple of months here at AHOY, we’ve hired four fantastic people we’ve had on our radar for some time, all while putting the finishing touches to a range of exciting projects… We’ll have more on our current projects later; meanwhile, we’d like to introduce you to our new staff… Creative Director Tom Heaton has…
ShinDigger Thinks Bigger
One of our longtime clients, ShinDigger Brewing Co, has been making waves in the national press lately, with their efforts being more widely recognised. It’s about time… ShinDigger was founded by Manchester Uni graduates Paul Delamere and George Grant, with the duo selling home brew for £2 a pint at local house parties, and transporting…
New Work: Unique Digital
Unique Digital have made their name in the somewhat niche field of B2B content delivery software and services for cinemas, studios, distributors and advertisers. They came to AHOY in need of a revamped digital presence, but the project soon expanded to become a stealth rebrand too. The problem with Unique’s identity was twofold. For one,…
Manchester Moleskine x Design Manchester
Two years, 50+ creative contributors, one book… No pressure? A week ago today was the closing party of both Manchester Moleskine and Design Manchester. With our boy Rick already featured, along with 43 others, for the last six entrants the stakes needed raising again. With all of the festivities going on around them, the final few were tasked with live…
About That “Us Time”
It’s that time of year again when it all goes a little quiet news-wise. It’s when all those promises about “a bit more us time” become that bit harder to keep, and we’re reminded of all the blogs in our archive that are titled “… part 1”, still waiting for their second part. For us,…
Purple Exhibition
This September sees the launch of Purple, an exhibition that celebrates the life of the late, great, Prince. Curated by Robert Lomas from Design by Day, we’re really happy to be amongst the 32 studios and artists that were invited to contribute to the project, producing an A3 print for display, and then sale, alongside the…
We Like It Wednesday #10
A little over a month since our last WLIW, we’re returning with a variety of weird and wonderful stuff, like that Uncle you’d forgotten that you had on your birthday. Welcome to our big ol’ 10th edition. WE LIKE Glasto – Tom Groves So it turned out that at the end of that traffic jam near Worthy…
Dear Younger Self
To round out our series of advice articles, we asked our creative team “what advice would you give to your younger self starting out?”. Here’s what they said: Creative director — David Newton In the interests of one-upmanship, David went and wrote an entire 1000-odd word response to this. Because of how it’s written, it…
A Foot in the Door
Time to get down to the serious bit. An education doesn’t guarantee you a career anymore, especially when it comes to the creative industries. The top jobs are about as rare as finding a tenner down the back of the sofa, with even the less coveted positions being hotly contested. Don’t blanket email It should…
The Big Day
Nope, not that big day… We were thinking more along the lines of your degree show… Friends, family and potential employers, all in one room. The last year, hell, your whole degree, has been building to this one night, so… No pressure? IT’S NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL Sorry to piss on your chips in…
New Work: The Mere
Well, the cat’s out of the bag now… That’s right, over the past six months or so, we’ve designed and built the fully responsive website for The Mere Golf Resort & Spa. The culmination of collaboration and painstaking planning, it’s the largest scope user experience project that we’ve worked on to date – and we spent…
We Like It Wednesday #9
We’ve been busy getting stuck into our recent graduate advice features (here and here, with a couple more on the way) and basking in the Northern sunshine over the last couple of weeks, so it’s time to cap off all our hard work with a quick WLIW. WE LIKE APPS WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT – GBOARD…
The Humble Portfolio
The first in a long line of, well, maybe three or four articles during the degree show season tackles the humble portfolio. Disclaimer: There’s no right or wrong way to crack this. It’s completely subjective. But there are some general rules of thumb that can keep everyone on the straight and narrow. Speaking of which… …
Postr Club
This time last year, the students of Manchester School of Art’s Graphic Design course launched Prē Print Fair. Set up to raise money for their end of year degree show, it featured prints designed by both students and professionals alike, which was met by a mammoth turnout. Now, Prē Print Fair has become Postr Club, looking to build upon the…
That Time of Year Again…
Ahh degree show season… It’s a time of year that’s as set in stone as Christmas, New Year and International Pillow Fight day (April 2nd, obviously…). Around this time of year, students studying design are spending their days stressing about what they’re going to be exhibiting, wondering if it will be good enough and worrying if…
We Like It Wednesday #8
As the edition numbers of We like It Wednesday goes up, so does the difficulty level of writing the introductions – this is almost as tricky as that time we tried to get Antonio to ride a swegway around the studio… But we digress… WE LIKE Obscure japanese music videos – Lyrical school When we’re not…