Behind the Brand with Design Garage is created to celebrate our philosophy of designing for brands and companies of all shapes, sizes and stages of their businesses. We hope each and every interview inspires you, the same way each of these incredible companies inspire us.
With the recent launch of their brand new website and business resources, we decided to kick off the Behind the Brand series with a local client with an incredible history, Clelands Timber.
We chat with Andy of Clelands Timber – a trusted building manufacturing company with roots in the timber industry dating back to 1916. Devoted to producing a wide range of premium quality New Zealand made timber products, Clelands Timber supply to New Zealand’s leading building supply stores.
What started more than 100 years ago as a humble small business, has grown into a company with an honorable legacy, wealth of knowledge and experience manufacturing building and finishing products from solid and finger jointed timber.
Let’s Talk Business
Q: For people who don’t know your business, can you explain who Clelands Timber is?
We are a New Plymouth based timber remanufacturing company producing Weatherboards, Fascia, Windows Reveals and Door Jambs. We purchase sawn timber from sawmills, run them through our high-tech machines to identify and remove any defects like knots, we then join these defect free pieces back together and machine them into their final profile like weatherboards or door jambs.
Q: What sets Clelands Timber apart? Why do customers love coming to you?
We are a pretty small company with only around 60 employees with a real family-owned feel to the business, which flows onto our customers too.
Q: What is Clelands Timber renowned for?
Quality Timber Products sums it up quite well! With this, quality service is also an integral component of Clelands Timber. We are known for our accommodating nature amongst our customers, where we take pride in making sure our customers get the support they need, offering services like flexible order quantities (we don’t have a minimum order quantity).
Let’s Talk People
Q: Clelands Timber has an honorable legacy with employees who have been involved in the company for decades, tell us more about this?
Yes, we have! Many members of our Cleland’s team have been recognised for long service, with almost half of the team having been involved in the company for 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and even 45 years of service! And, it’s tradition to celebrate this with a morning tea shout for the site or a BBQ lunch.
Q: What is the most fulfilling aspect about working for a company with this legacy?
It’s awesome to be part of a team that has such a dedicated team! Knowing that we have so many team members that have worked here for an extended time, some of these for almost 50 years, is a true indication that the company values its employees and looks after them.
Let’s Talk Branding and Design
Q: What was the most exciting part about launching your new website?
Getting visibility! Prior to launching our new website, we didn’t have any reporting with our old site, so knowing where to start changing, adding or updating content was pretty hard. Now we know exactly who is visiting our site and what they’re looking at, so that we can make informed decisions on where, what and how to improve the site and our overall digital presence.
Q: What was the biggest learning curve when embarking on a website refresh?
There are a huge number of options available with wildly varying price tags! With this, it can be quite easy to get excited at some of the features that you may not actually need right now, or your customer may not even use or appreciate.
My biggest learning curve was to keep what we were trying to achieve at this stage front of mind when reviewing all our options.
Q: What tips would you give other businesses who are looking for a bit of a brand refresh?
A brand refresh can sound like quite a large and daunting process but it doesn’t have to be.
With the help of Design Garage, we made some slight changes to our logo and looked at how the brand is presented across our print and digital platforms. To ensure that we were consistent across all of our platforms, we created a brand guide that includes colours and fonts. This was all it took to give our brand the little refresher it needed and it meant that anything moving forward would match our brand new website.
Q: What influenced your decision to get a brand refresh?
We wanted to make sure our brand was consistent with how it was showcased, whether online or in person, before we increased promoting it – a brand refresh was a great way to not only give the brand a slight makeover but capture the key elements that would mean it’s presentation was consistent from here on in.
Are you looking for a website refresh? Or simply some new marketing resources for your already well-established brand?
Let’s talk! You’re one step away from getting started. We believe ideas, big or small, deserve quality communication, that’s why one of our design experts would love to chat with you.
