Background

Base was formed in 2009 as a sister company to Algiz Media, a Glasgow-based agency specialising in graphic design, web development and audio-visual work. Branding has been at the heart of Algiz since its establishment in 2003 and the company's belief in the power of a strong brand was the catalyst for the creation of Base.

Having met the design and branding needs of a variety of businesses in both the public and private sectors and realising that branding is vital to the success of any business, Algiz wanted to provide clients with not only a strong corporate identity in the form of logos and stationery, but with the means to maintain that identity and foster customer relationships built on a trusted, instantly recognisable brand. It was this commitment to brand along with the desire to put more marketing control back in the hands of individual companies and corporations that led Algiz to develop Base.

What base is

Base is an online brand management application that was developed in order to give large corporations and SMEs a straightforward, cost effective way to create branded, agency-quality marketing material for their organisations. Base enables companies to create marketing materials in-house without having to employ a professional designer or rely on outside design agencies and without sacrificing the creative or aesthetic quality of company marketing literature.

This is accomplished through the use of professionally designed, editable templates. Base sets itself apart from desktop publishing programs and other online design sites offering purchasable stock templates because Base templates can be fully customised for your company. Brand guidelines, including colours, fonts, logos, images, etc., can be preloaded into Base for use in professionally designed, bespoke templates created specifically for your business. Input company logos, images, text and colours into fully branded templates designed for your company to create customised, easily shareable documents in the form of brochures, adverts, newsletters, etc.

What base does

Base ensures that the look of your brand is consistent and professional across all departments and in all formats through the use of professionally designed, bespoke marketing material templates including newsletter, brochures, adverts, etc. Templates can be built to meet your specific requirements for marketing literature.

  • Base provides the foundation for using your existing logos, images and brand guidelines most effectively in the form of professionally designed templates, such as newsletters, adverts, leaflets, and more.
  • You will be able to download a high res PDF of your documents that you can send directly to commercial printers for production.
  • Base allows you to quickly share with colleagues the documents you have designed for further editing or review.
  • All company-specific assets (logos, images, brand guidelines, templates, etc.) are stored within your Base account and accessible anytime from any computer or mobile device with an internet connection.
  • Base is not a graphic design or desktop publishing program, so you are not required to come up with your own layouts or document designs. With Base you begin with a professionally designed template created specifically for your company or selected from the Base template library. However, you can easily import/export InDesign files into Base to create your own customised marketing templates.
  • Several new Base features including e-shots, viral campaign integration, interactive presentations and iPhone apps will be available soon.

Technical information

Base is an online application that requires no additional software. All updates and new features will be installed as they become available with no additional charge so that you always have the latest version of Base.

If you sign up for a bespoke Base package, you will have the ability to designate what we call 'Super-users' on your Base account. This means that you can decide which individuals in your organisation have access to edit company marketing materials within Base. Additionally, you can specifiy which elements of your Base documents are editable and by whom, as areas within Base templates are 'lockable.' For example, if you are a super-user, you can set your Base account permissions in such a way that allows your assistant or another colleague to change images within a given Base template, but not text, or vice versa.