A. J. Edgar Craft

What better way to demonstrate A. J. Edgar Craft's expertise than to showcase how it effectively applied its services to itself?

After properly setting up the company, it implemented a comprehensive range of services, including complete branding (color branding, base logo, logo variants, and visual system), business stationery, and web development. The entire branding approach provided a consistently handled creative structure for the proceeding service needs and representation to potential clients. Complete branding will also benefit presentation decks, display ads, and social content.

The main focus when creating branding is the project owner's vision. It's essential to ensure the project owner is happy with the representation before considering how the branding will appeal to the audience. Once the owner's vision is clear, the service can structure branding to engage with the audience effectively.

Every aspect of the logo, brand colors, font pairings, and visual system holds meaning for A. J. Edgar Craft. The goal is to represent the brand to the audience while staying true to the company's values and ideas.

Company Colors

The company's desired color was determined and harmonized based on general public color psychology documentation. Once the initial color was accepted, the company generated accent, light, and dark color group variations and chose its preferred combination.

Base Logo

The company's initial logo concept was based on the owner's vision, incorporating several nuanced ideas that the general public may not need to understand fully. Once the company grasped the intended representation and concepts, it developed various versions for public presentation. After the owner selected a version that met their expectations, the company refined the final base logo with its brand colors.

Logo Variants

After completing the primary logo design, the company developed various logo variants tailored for business stationery and web applications. These variants are available in vertical and horizontal orientations and both large and small sizes, ensuring versatility and effective branding across different platforms.

Visual System

The vision for the company guided the development of a comprehensive visual system. This system includes graphic elements, color variations, font pairings, imagery, and layout structures. These elements are designed for consistent use across all visual platforms, whether print or digital. This approach provides a clear framework for maintaining uniformity in internal implementation and collaboration with external partners.

The company's stationery must evolve. Initially, the requirements included high-end letterpress business cards, client invoices, letterheads, and envelopes. In the future, additional physical and digital stationery assets will be necessary.

Implementing a branded visual system has enabled the company to produce its initial stationery items efficiently. This streamlined approach will facilitate the creation of additional stationery assets as needed.

A. J. Edgar Craft recognized that while content management systems (CMS), software as a service (SaaS), and various development frameworks offer immediate, general solutions for managing content and applications, significant drawbacks often overshadow these conveniences. These drawbacks include excessive bloat in system resources, frequent and disruptive updates that can interfere with ongoing operations, an inability to handle business-specific logic, and rising costs that can strain budgets over time.

The conclusion was that rather than relying on generalized development approaches, adopting a strategy focused on company-specific implementations was crucial. This tailored approach would not only enhance efficiency but also foster sustainable growth. By prioritizing customized solutions, the company could sidestep the limitations imposed by CMS, SaaS, and traditional frameworks, ensuring that their development processes remain agile and unimpeded as the business evolves. This focus on specificity would create a solid foundation for future expansion without the risk of encountering barriers often associated with more generic, one-size-fits-all solutions.

Data Modeling

The initial phase in the development process involves taking specific business logic and definitions and organizing them visually as data. This technique, called "data abstraction," allows the representation of a business or project as a set of data structures. This method is effective for implementing digital solutions efficiently.

A. J. Edgar Craft, a presentation-focused business poised for growth, adopts a NoSQL collection/document approach to enhance operational flexibility. Within the business logic/definitions structured NoSQL database, JSON schema validations ensure the integrity of data types across each collection.

Business Data API

Translating business definitions and logic into structured data has facilitated the development of application programming interfaces (APIs). The Business Administration REST API oversees various facets of the organization, such as client management, project coordination, case studies, service offerings, company philosophies, and corporate profiles. Additionally, the Frontend API distributes content to the general public and clients.

This strategic approach to data modeling and implementing business data APIs enables A.J. Edgar Craft to evolve continuously by adding features and services. It allows the organization to utilize modern digital tools while minimizing reliance and the associated costs of software as a service (SaaS), content management systems (CMS), and frameworks.

Web Content

The company has developed a structured REST API that aligns with specific business logic, enabling the creation of user-agent agnostic content representations that utilize semantic HTML. This methodology effectively segregates content, presentation, and interactivity, ensuring that web content remains accessible, easily styled, and interactable across various user-agent platforms. As a result, the content functions seamlessly with multiple interfaces, including standard web browsers, screen readers, braille displays, augmented reality systems, and any potential future user agents.

Browser Styling

The company has successfully enhanced its online presence using semantic HTML and a well-defined visual system. This approach allows for a clear separation between content and business logic from the presentation layer, enabling straightforward updates and reorganization of the website's presentation as necessary. By distinguishing layout and graphics, the company gains additional flexibility for future modifications. This separation empowers the business to efficiently manage styling across various user agents, ensuring a consistent and adaptable user experience.

Interactivity

The website JavaScript enhances the native functionality of a website rather than completely replacing it. This approach allows for the creation of mini-applications that provide interactivities that HTML alone cannot manage, particularly for business clients and administration tasks. By leveraging the functional programming paradigm, these interactive features promote excellent reliability and help minimize the bugs and issues often encountered on large corporate websites and applications.

A. J. Edgar Craft employs a structured approach in delivering its services, making it highly effective and reliable. The transparency processes and outcomes illustrate the success of collaborating with the company.