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A graphic design featuring a grey background with large, white sans-serif text that reads “50 Colours”, “25 Embossings” and “8 Weights”. Overlapping the text are various sized circles in a palette of muted and bright colours.

Graphic Design: Made Thought's stunning update GF Smith's Colorplan site

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Date
23 January 2014

It’s one of the big challenges of the internet age; how does a business or organisation which is inherently defined by real-world products do digital? Well, this is how. Just under a year ago we hailed Made Thought’s GF Smith Colorplan swatch book, a drool-inducing piece of print perfection. At the time there was an impressive website to enjoy as well, but recently the studio has updated the online offering and it’s a thing of beauty and joy (which is NEVER something I thought I’d say about a paper company’s website…).

The layout is stylish and simple so navigation is a breeze, but the playful touches (especially the bouncing balls of colour on the homepage) raise it above the level of another slick, minimalist website. There’s also well-used relevant video content which feels fully integrated with the rest of the site both physically and in terms of what it’s trying to do.

A grey background features white text that reads “50 Colours”, “25 Embossings” and “8 Weights”. Colourful circles of various sizes are scattered across the composition, some overlapping the letters.
Above

Made Thought: GF Smith Colorplan website update

A grey rectangular piece of textured paper with one bottom corner folded up to reveal a bright yellow underside. Small text below reads “Duplexing” followed by a short sentence about the Colorplan paper range.
Above

Made Thought: GF Smith Colorplan website update

A colour palette of various circular swatches against a grey background. Each circle is labelled with a name, including “Claret”, “Factory Yellow”, “Scarlet” and “Candy Pink”.
Above

Made Thought: GF Smith Colorplan website update

Four images show stacks of white paper in different weights against a grey background. Each stack is labelled with its weight, from “100 gsm” to “175 gsm”.
Above

Made Thought: GF Smith Colorplan website update

A video still shows a close-up of a printing press in operation, with blue paper feeding through the machinery. Below the video, text reads “Print Performance” followed by a description of Colorplan as a premium uncoated stock.
Above

Made Thought: GF Smith Colorplan website update

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

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Rob Alderson is a freelance writer, editor and strategist. He was previously editor-in-chief of It’s Nice That and WePresent, and editor of Design Week. He publishes the newsletter Undo, which tries to make sense of how AI is changing design work, the design process and the design industry.

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