DD Hammocks

DD Hammocks is a growing Edinburgh based company who design and sell high quality hammocks and tarps worldwide. They have been at the forefront of hammock camping since 2005. During my time at DD Hammocks I led and completed projects in a variety of areas including branding, print design, product packaging, illustration and photography.

The Mission:

Brand recognition is vital for a growing brand with a wide and varied product range. It was necessary to create a set of guidelines to maintain consistency in brand ideology, visual style and tone of voice and then apply them to product packaging, advertising and promotional materials.

The project: Various projects for DD Hammocks over 4.5 years

Tools: Adobe Creative Suite

01 Branding

Visual style and branding

DD Hammocks identity is more than just their logo – it’s the many little things that make a customer’s interaction with the brand unique.

I designed brand guidelines to keep DD Hammocks brand values, ideas and visuals as close to the founders vision of the brand as possible and keep it consistent across all media platforms.

02 Promotion

Spreading the word

Word of mouth provoked by leaflets and other promotional materials plays a big part in the on-going expansion of the DD Hammocks brand. In the example below the 3 fold leaflet uses a picture over text design as a photo of the product in a beautiful location generates more leads than a simple description. It was also advantageous to incorporate more engaging visuals as these leaflets are distributed world-wide.

Product photography

DD Bergen promotion

New product promotional leaflet, demonstrating the capabilities of this versatile rucksack, which is fully compatible with the MOLLE system.

Other promo items

Product videos and animation

03 Technical drawings and manuals

Instructions and spec sheets

Instructions and spec sheets for the best selling products designed to be as clear and concise as possible and also feature additional useful tips.

I created a range of manuals for complex to set up products like tents and hammock stands. I conducted customer research including phone interviews and practical testing of the new manuals in first time set up scenarios to ensure they are effective and have all necessary details.

Product diagrams and floor plans

Above is the spec sheet for the Jungle hammock. It gives a brief overview of the product including specifications, key features and set up options.

Above is the manual that comes with the fully modular Jungle Hammock camping system. It is designed with great attention to detail and shows all the configurations of this hammock as well as some useful tips and tricks.

04 Product packaging design

Camouflage and hammock bags

I was responsible for designing the packaging and tags for all new product ranges. Hammock carry bags differ from most packaging as they are both informative and a functional part of the product itself.

Camouflage pattern

An interesting project involved designing a natural seamless camouflage pattern which is now DD Hammock’s own Multicam (MC). It has been successfully used on a number of products and has helped to increase DD Hammock’s recognition around the world. My research, meticulous design and testing spanned over 2 years. The pattern is designed to blend in with both woodland and mountain environments and was very well accepted by the worldwide bushcraft community.

Above you can see a multicam tarp in-situ. If you are not convinced that it works – try to find the tarp bag in the bottom right corner!