Cyber-Duck is a fun, dynamic and innovative agency. We must pack our unique personality and values into each paragraph! These guidelines ensure we write using a single ‘voice’ that is distinctive, unique and on-brand.
Only a consistent, authentic tone can build familiarity and relationships with our key audiences. This style influences all copy, across touchpoints: from our website, social media and blogs, to campaigns, email and collateral.
We use catchy, compelling statements to convey Cyber-Duck’s unique value proposition and approach. Promoting our mission in a memorable way best conveys our benefits to users!
With an ISO accredited, user-centred approach, our award winning team will ensure your brand, website and marketing campaigns perform exceptionally, every time.
Cyber-Duck has been trusted by key clients for 11 years. We combine agile, lean and user-centred design into an proven, accredited process. Our team delivers stellar websites, apps and campaigns within weeks!
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for each campaign! Our boilerplate is a standard, reusable description of our agency’s mission, services and accolades. Please choose from our collection below, with copy we’ve tailored for different contexts. As the Scouts say… Be Prepared!
Established in 2005, Cyber-Duck is a leading digital agency that works with exciting startups and global brands such as the Bank of England, Cancer Research and Arsenal FC. As a full service digital agency, Cyber-Duck offers creative, technical and marketing services all under one roof. The company blends an ISO-accredited user-centred design process with lean and agile management principles, drawing on investment in creative R&D.
Cyber-Duck’s research-based design process blends with high quality art direction, strategic branding and marketing research. With in-house R&D and quality assurance (QA) departments, as well as proven technological frameworks, Cyber-Duck’s projects enjoy the perfect blend of creativity, market-fit capabilities, innovative technology and security.
The Cyber-Duck team has spoken as industry experts on BBC Watchdog, The Gadget Show and at many notable conferences, including SXSWi, UKTI and UX London. The agency has won some of the most sought after industry awards, including the Webby, Wirehive 100 and UX UK Awards. They were ranked as one of the top five agencies for client satisfaction by The Drum’s Independent Agencies census, as well as being listed in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 (EMEA).
Cyber-Duck’s services include:
Brand Strategy
Cyber-Duck helps companies, large and small, to develop brands that inspire
innovation
and create exceptional user experiences at each and every customer touch point.
User Experience
Cyber-Duck’s user experience experts apply their ISO-accredited user centred design
(UCD)
process to every product, website, app or brand. Creating engaging interfaces is at
the heart of what they do!
Development
Cyber-Duck develops everything from websites and apps, to software as a service
(SaaS),
ecommerce and backend systems. Test driven development, lean and agile principles
ensures rapid,
flexible delivery of the highest quality.
Marketing
More than just implementing campaigns, Cyber-Duck’s process combines innovative
growth hacking,
omni-channel marketing and user experience design. They engage your audience in
meaningful
conversations, crafting strategies that bring value to your business.
Lifelong support
Cyber-Duck offers lifelong support on a flexible basis. Their proactive team
provides
unbeatable response times, working as if they were an extension of your own internal
team.
Established in 2005, Cyber-Duck is a leading digital agency that works with exciting startups and global brands such as the Bank of England, Cancer Research and Arsenal FC. As a full service digital agency, Cyber-Duck offers creative, technical and marketing services all under one roof. The company blends an ISO-accredited user-centred design process with lean and agile management principles, drawing on investment in creative R&D.
The Cyber-Duck team have spoken as industry experts on BBC Watchdog and at many
notable conferences, including SXSWi, UKTI, UXPA and UX London. The company has won
some of the most sought after industry awards, including the Webby, Wirehive 100 and
UX UK Awards. They were ranked as one of the top five agencies for client
satisfaction by The Drum’s Independent Agencies census, as well as being listed in
Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 (EMEA).
www.cyber-duck.co.uk
Cyber-Duck is a leading, full service digital agency, working with global brands like the Bank of England, Cancer Research and Arsenal FC. They offer creative, technical and marketing services under one roof, blending an ISO-accredited user-centred design process with lean and agile management principles. The Drum ranked Cyber-Duck as a top five independent agency for client satisfaction. Their team have spoken as experts on BBC Watchdog and many notable conferences.
Cyber-Duck is a leading, full service digital agency, working with brands like the Bank of England, Cancer Research and Arsenal FC. The agency offers creative, technical and marketing services under one roof. They blend an ISO-accredited user-centred design process with lean and agile management principles, drawing on creative R&D investment.
Cyber-Duck is a full service digital agency, with clients including the Bank of England, Cancer Research and Arsenal FC. The company offers creative, technical and marketing services under one roof.
Cyber-Duck is a leading agency, offering creative and technical expertise for clients like the Bank of England and Cancer Research.
All copy derives from the detailed version. Adapt this for longer profiles, features and collateral e.g. leaflets.
Use this for very detailed web directories and press releases. For PR, please add our website’s URL in plain-text at the base.
Use this for detailed web profiles, such as partnerships, directories and event sponsorship.
Use this for web profiles that allow for less space, such as partnerships, directories and event sponsorship.
Getting shorter… only use this for web profiles if they limit submissions to a brief word count.
Our elevator pitch! Please use this for agency introductions or web profiles and pages with very limited space.
All our writers unite under a distinctive ‘voice’ to craft new content. This creates a consistent, charming experience for users! Take a look at our key personality traits and advice for packing them into copy.
Straightforward
We’re a confident bunch! Write text that’s clear, compelling and easy to understand for our key audiences.
More information and examplesOur language must be easy to understand. We’re all short on time. Nobody enjoys wading through long-winded content stuffed with ideas. But, that doesn’t mean we should dumb down expertise!
Instead, aim for clarity and simplicity. Create a compelling ‘story’ for the entire piece of content, whether it’s a blog or webpage. Then, focus on what each section should communicate and build it up. Don’t use exclusive jargon and terminology without explaining what you mean first. Avoid run-on sentences!
During the lecture, Sylvain explained how Cyber-Duck embraced processes like Scrum and Danny elaborated on how user centered design (UCD) and lean techniques are used to deliver projects, products and entire businesses.
During the lecture, Sylvain explained how Cyber-Duck embraced processes, such as Scrum, and Danny elaborated on how user centered design (UCD) and lean techniques are used to deliver projects, products and entire businesses.
Engaging
We’re all human. Our copy should be warm, welcoming and witty – matching the atmosphere of our agency family.
More information and examplesWe want to connect with people in a human way! Avoid using language that’s stiff, cold or overly formal. It simply doesn’t reflect our warm, welcoming and witty family at Cyber-Duck.
Make your copy inclusive. Refer to ‘our team’, how ‘we’ do things, and appeal to readers as ‘you’ directly. Get that authenticity by providing real examples and responding quickly to queries.
Elegant
Erratic
Ostentatious
Captivating
Grandiose
Frugal
Unconventional
Make readers think! Ask the right questions, challenge assumptions and unleash your imagination.
More information and examplesCyber-Duck is a leading digital agency that pushes the boundaries for user experiences, technology and innovation. But that’s only possible with a huge imagination! We experiment and act on our mission.
How can your writing get this across? By making readers think! Tackle creative, new topics with exciting headlines that hook readers. Ask questions, challenge assumptions and write something they wouldn’t expect.
Is the pared-back minimalist style of the Google home page right for every web service? No, it isn’t. If your web service is highly original, it should provide first-time users with some clear guidance.
Sometimes writing CSS can be very tedious.
Craig and Jenni faced a challenge from the outset of the project that they hadn’t anticipated – finding thin plastic yellow ducks!
Worried that only a small proportion of visitors make it past your home page? That may not be a bad thing. It could mean the home page tells potential customers everything they need to know.
Enthusiastic
We’re open, positive and excited about our future with technology. Plug that electrifying passion into your content!
More information and examplesLet’s plug our electrifying passion into our content! Our copy should celebrate our achievements – from awards to accreditations – without self-importance. Explain why it’s impressive and above all, what difference it will make to our audience.
With confidence in our expertise, we can provide an authoritative source of digital insight. Cite reputable sources, use specific examples, include testimonials or insight from your own work.
The Fastest Draw design agency – one of our competitors - has shot itself in the foot by ignoring responsive web design.
At Cyber-Duck, we believe responsive web design is fast becoming absolutely essential for companies across the economy.
Wearable devices are going to make life even more complicated and it will be tougher to design appealing websites.
We are excited to see how consumers will use wearable devices, such as connected watches, glasses and clothes, to interact with companies in new ways.
The myths have been perpetuated by influential people in the industry who have since publicly admitted they have not even used the tools at all.
If we can dispel the widespread confusion about the usability, capabilities and benefits of pre-processers, these tools could provide a major productivity boost.
Alongside packing in personality, we must ensure all copy produced is as perfect as possible. Get your ducks in a row with our set of 15 rules! Use these to fine-tune your phrasing and grammar to suit our audience.
Consistency is the key! This dictionary covers the agency and tech-specific words that are so easily misspelled. It even demystifies the acronyms and illuminates common errors… because we’re helpful like that.
Searching for a more in-depth explanation of user experience terminology and theories? There’s an app for that. Download our very own UX Companion – loved by 38,000 designers, marketers and more!
Contributing our unique insights into user experience, development, marketing (and more!) is an important part of our brand. We get the entire team involved. It’s an opportunity for distinctive voices and ideas to shine! But there’s a few guidelines ready to support how we write blogs.
Always write in the first person for opinion pieces. Tell us what you think – it’s a chance to explore your digital passions!
Web designers can be inspired by cars, fashion, architecture, consumer electronics and even spacecraft.
My sense of aesthetics is influenced by classic cars. For me, the Jaguar E type is one of the most evocative cars on Britain's roads. The elongated bonnet and rumbustious curves immediately conjure up the golden age of motoring.
The Web community quite rightly heaped praise onto it as an early example of a large-scale website taking a mobile first approach to design.
For me, it is heartening and exciting to see such a large-scale website taking a mobile-first approach to design.
The 2012 dConstruct conference website has had good reviews.
The 2012 dConstruct conference website is a personal favourite here at Cyber-Duck.
After writing a paragraph, try to make it tighter. Remove unnecessary words and sub-clauses.
Last week I had to be in London for a client meeting. The journey took me through Liverpool Street and as I was leaving the station, I saw something that made me pause and take a deep breath.
Leaving Liverpool Street station last week, I saw something that made me gasp.
David Baron, also from the browser industry, was next up. He gave a detailed description of how Mozilla Firefox handles animation performance; this was useful information, though I wish he’d included more advice on tools and how we could compile data from our own animations, as this would help us to make better design decisions.
I found David Baron’s detailed description of how Mozilla Firefox handles animation performance useful, but I’d like to have heard more about how to use tools, compiling data from our own animations and making better design decisions.
Go for a high level of readability with short paragraphs optimised for the web. But don’t use slang!
The band were wicked/sick.
The band were outstanding.
We nailed it
We are on a roll
We had a blas
Awesome
Try to relate the topic you are discussing to people's everyday lives and concerns.
The technology people use to access the web is constantly changing; new web-enabled devices of all shapes and sizes are released every day, which means traditional, dedicated mobile websites are difficult to maintain.
It won’t be long before our cars, our watches and even our glasses will be able to access the web and the traditional, dedicated mobile website could well be obsolete.
Even with the best idea ever, a blank page can be pretty daunting. Get past that blinking cursor by flowing through our checklist. It shares tips about writing for the web and each type of blog post, from events to insights.
Cyber-Duck’s Insights blog covers our agency’s news, events, insights and more. We want to provide relevant, engaging content about the fast-paced, fascinating digital landscape.
Communicating our distinctive culture, process and work contributes to our readers’ decision-making process. Fresh content really adds value! But writing insight blogs also benefits our team. It’s a chance to research and reveal our passions, while developing writing skills.
By applying our straightforward, engaging and distinctive traits, we can write blogs that appeal to a diverse audience. This matches our full service nature! Depending on the topic, our writing appeals to:...
More Less More LessWe write for the web. People read differently online. Typically, they scan web pages for information. Jakob Nielsen found many take in just 28% of the words on average. How can we make those words count? Take another look at our traits and conventions, alongside these top tips.
More Less More LessGive posts the best chance! Create headlines that are punchy and attention-grabbing. But don’t tell the whole story. Entice visitors to read the article itself. Our headlines are in all caps, with 5-10 active words that cross two lines maximum. Here’s some examples.... should be written using the same basic structure deployed in news stories:
More Less More LessOf course! The best posts we publish have compelling copy and photography that work in harmony. Our Visual Language guidelines provide plenty of tips and tricks. ...
More Less More LessAnnouncements are more formal and objective reports, with a pinch of our colourful style. We write these to inform readers about noteworthy developments for our agency. This series of questions helps guide the copy and structure for popular announcement types. ...
More Less More LessEvent blogs are chatty and informative. The best posts avoid simple recaps of each speaker. Instead, we draw out key themes and provide our own take on their insights. This series of questions helps guide the copy and structure for each event type. ...
More Less More LessOpinion pieces are personal articulations of an individual’s views, ideas or experiences. Although respectful of our agency’s traits, style and conventions, authors’ individual voices are more distinct. ...
More Less More LessNow you are well-versed on our slogans, writing style and conventions… it’s time to read more about our brand strategy. What’s our personality? How do our visuals communicate our brand? Read our guidelines below. Enjoy!
INTRODUCING CYBER-DUCK
The story behind Cyber-Duck, sharing our mission, philosophy, personality and more
Visual Language
Our visual communication system feat. logo, colours, typography and more
Applying Our Brand
Best examples of our visual language and tone out in the wild feat. print and digital collateral
