BRAND CORPORATE IDENTITY - PROJECT 3

BRAND CORPORATE IDENTITY - PROJECT 3

Week 6 - Week 10 (03/05/21 - 31/05/21)

Chan Jing Wen (0340480)

Brand Corporate Identity

Project 3

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LECTURE NOTES

Lecture 7

10/05/21 (Week 7)

It is advised to design the name card first. Shopping bag is essential to the brand since it's a shopping brand. Sometimes, boxes are introduced, and packaging inside is also important. Our collaterals can be unique, as long as it speaks the brand language. 

A dynamic identity is that the logo is never static. Even on printed things, you will see that the logo is never the same.

Though we won't be starting the brand guide that early, but brand guide is important for us to understand too because it's essential for future designers to work on the designs for the brand also. 

17/05/21 (Week 8)

Self-learning Week

Lecture 8

24/05/21 (Week 9)

All our components in our brand identity should be cohesive. This includes colour, typography, imagery etc.

For colour, sometimes there might be two systems. There might be primary and secondary colour palettes. For example, Coke is known for their red and white colour combination. However, the also have a series of other flavours outside their iconic, original flavour. The introduce a pastel range of colour to distinguish the other flavours. Sometimes, brands already have different colours in their brand. They may apply different colours in different collaterals. Also, it's very important to name your colour so others understand what colours are actually in the brand. Colours effect the brand identity. 

Typography must be consistent throughout the collaterals. Sometimes, designers design a custom typeface for the brand. Imagery including photography, illustration, should be deduced by the content and style the brand produces.

Lecture 9

31/05/21 (Week 10)

Ms Hsin shared some mock up website with us in class. 

She briefed us on our Final Project, which is to create a Brand Guideline for Darrma. The planning for each weeks task is as below:

Week 9: Research + Pagination Planning

Week 10: Layout Design (Navigation) + Chapter 1 write-up

Week 11: Finalizing all collaterals, Chapter 2 insertion

Week 12: Chapter 3 insertion

Week 13-14: Submission

 

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INSTRUCTION



PROJECT 3

Week 6 (03/05/21)

This week, while finishing my submission for Project 2, I decided to start assembling my mood board at the same time so I know roughly what colours I should include in Project 2 and also here. Below is my mood board. I want to be more classy and serene to fit the international aesthetic, but also have a touch of tradition so it will resonate with the background of the brand. For that, I wanted it to be a bit exotic, foreign, since that's how the Europeans might see us South East Asians. I also wanted it to be more innovative and versatile since that is one of the main keywords for Darrma in my opinion. 

I did two mood boards for Darrma:

Figure 1.1 Mood board 1 (Final)

Figure 1.2 Mood board 2

I went with mood board 1 because it fits more to what I see. The second one is more calm, but I think it's a bit too soft for a brand like Darrma.

After that, I worked on what collaterals and stationeries I wanted to do. Below are some of my ideas:

Figure 1.3 Examples for stationeries / collaterals

I wanted to include:

1. Price Tag
2. Box Packaging for Premium Clothings
3. Normal Shopping Bag (maybe with variations)
4. Membership Card
5. Name Tag for Staff
6. T-shirt for Staff
7. Enamel Pins

For stationeries, I wanted my business card to be vertical and my envelope to be slightly slanted to fit my logo design.

Week 7 (10/05/21)

After consulting Ms Hsin, I started to work on my collaterals. I focused on the stationeries first before moving on to the collaterals. I also relook into my colour palette and removed some unnecessary colours. 

Figure 1.4 New Colour Palette

Figure 1.5 Designs for Business Card

I decided that I liked design 4 (bottom right) better, but I wanted the logo to be slightly bigger since it's not that visible. The effect is a deboss effect for the logo.

Figure 1.6 Edited Front Design for Business Card (bigger logo)

I then created the design for my letterhead, continuous sheet, invoice, and the back side of the letterhead. Below are the designs: 

Figure 1.7 Letterhead Design

Figure 1.8 Cont. Design

Figure 1.9 Invoice Design

Figure 2.1 Letterhead Back Design

I also created a design for a notebook. Below is the design: 

Figure 2.2 Notebook 1 design

I directly did the envelope design in the mockup since I ended up going for the standard envelope design. Below is the flat lay of the stationeries I have: 

Figure 2.3 Mockup of Stationeries

Week 8 (17/05/21)

This week was self-learning week. I continued to work on my collaterals, social media page, and environmental design. 

Before that, I felt like I needed clearer mock ups for the designs I have created, especially since some of them weren't included in the mock up. I also added another notebook design because I wanted variations. Below are the mock ups for the items:

Figure 2.4 Letterhead, Continuous Sheet, Back Design Flat Lay

Figure 2.5 Business Card Mock Up

Figure 2.6 Notebook 2 Design (Additional design designed this week)

Figure 2.7 Notebook 1 Design

Figure 2.8 Both Notebook Versions Design

For the collaterals, I wanted to include some patterns. Aside from the patterns I introduced in the notebook and the back design of the letterhead, I felt like I could explore more that is outside from the patterns I've already designed from the logo design. I looked back into possible patterns I could derive from the logo first. Below are the patterns I initially came up with:

Figure 2.9 Patterns derived from logo

These are the patterns/visuals that I designed that weren't from the logo design itself. I was thinking Darrma does batik prints. To fit the European aesthetic, I wanted it to be designed in a way that can be accepted by them too. Batik reminded me of tie-dye since both of them plays with dye on fabric, thus I came up with these tie-dye inspired visuals:

 

Figure 3.1 First Visual

I would later on crop this first visual into different sizes to suit the designs for different collaterals.

Figure 3.2 Second Visual Attempt 01

I wasn't really happy with the second visual because it looked ugly, so I tried a slightly different approach from the first visual. Below is the final design for the second visual:

Figure 3.3 Second Visual Attempt 02

I then moved on to do my collaterals. Below are my attempts: 

Figure 3.4 Tote Bag Design 01

Figure 3.5 Tote Bag Design 02

Figure 3.6 Tote Bag Design 03

There are 2 versions for the shopping bag. Figure 3.6 shows that the inner printing of the shopping bag is a different colour from what we see on the outside of the shopping bag.

Figure 3.7 Shopping Bag Design 01

Figure 3.8 Shopping Bag Design 02

Figure 3.9 Shopping Bag Designs

Figure 4.1 Price Tag Design

Figure 4.2 Staff T-shirt Design

Figure 4.3 Staff Identification Card

Figure 4.4 Enamel Pin Design

After doing the collaterals, I moved on to the Social Media and Environmental Designs. 

Figure 4.5 Instagram Profile

Figure 4.6 Instagram Feed

Figure 4.7 Shop Sign Board

Figure 4.8 Store Front

Week 9 (24/05/21)

I showed all my attempts to Ms Hsin and she gave me some feedback for me to work on. I initially wanted to add more collaterals, but I didn't have much time this week so I focused on the feedbacks only instead. 

Figure 4.9 Stationery Flat Lay Attempt 02

Figure 5.1 Letterhead, Continuous Sheet, Back Design Attempt 02

Figure 5.2 Business Card Attempt 02

Figure 5.3 Notebook Attempt 02

Figure 5.4 Tote bag Design 01 Attempt 02

Figure 5.5 Tote bag Design 02 Attempt 02 

Figure 5.6 Tote bag Design 03 Attempt 02

Figure 5.7 Shopping Bag Design Attempt 02

Figure 5.8 Price Tag Attempt 02

Figure 5.9 T-shirt Attempt 02

For the social media designs, I designed some posts to be posted. I also decided to build a twitter page.

Figure 6.1 Post Design 01

Figure 6.2 Post Design 02

Figure 6.3 Post Design 03

Below are the mock ups for the social media sites:

Figure 6.4 Instagram Profile Attempt 02

Figure 6.5 Instagram Layout Attempt 01

Figure 6.6 Instagram Feed Attempt 02

Figure 6.7 Twitter Profile Attempt 01

Figure 6.8 Shop Front Attempt 02

Week 10 (31/05/21)

After the consultation, I made some amendments to my existing designs:

Figure 6.9 Letterhead, Continuous Sheet, Back Design Attempt 03

Figure 7.1 Shop Front Attempt 03

Figure 7.2 Instagram Layout Attempt 02

Figure 7.3 Twitter Profile Attempt 02

I decided to include more collaterals just to experiment with more. Looking back to the merchandise ideas I had, I decided that I would include the box packaging since I only have one packaging design.

Figure 7.4 Premium Product Box Packaging 01 Closed - Attempt 01

Figure 7.5 Premium Product Box Packaging 01 Open - Attempt 01

Figure 7.6 Premium Product Box Packaging 02 Close - Attempt 01

Figure 7.7 Premium Product Box Packaging 02 Open - Attempt 01

I also create a website design since Ms Hsin suggested that I could include one:

Figure 7.8 Website Design Attempt 01

Week 11 (07/06/21)

Ms Hsin gave some more feedback on the designs so I made some minor amendments for them: 

Figure 7.9 Shopping Bag Attempt 03

Figure 8.1 Website Design Attempt 02

Week 13 (21/06/21) and Week 14 (28/06/21)

Based on some final feedback given by Ms Hsin, Mr Vinod, and our guests from Darrma, I made the final amendments to some designs. 

Figure 8.2 Letterhead, Continuous Sheet, and Back Design Attempt 04

Figure 8.3 Business Card Attempt 03

Figure 8.4 Shop Sign Board Attempt 01

Figure 8.5 Website Design Attempt 03

Week 14 (28/06/21)

Below is my final submission:

Stationery

Figure 8.6 Final Stationery Set (JPG)

Figure 8.7 Final Letterhead, Continuous Sheet, Back Design (JPG)

Figure 8.8 Final Letterhead Design (JPG)

Figure 8.9 Final Continuous Sheet Design (JPG)

Figure 9.1 Final Back Design (JPG)

Figure 9.2 Final Invoice Design (JPG)

Figure 9.3 Final Business Card Front and Back Design (JPG)

Figure 9.4 Final Envelop Front Design (JPG)

Figure 9.5 Final Envelop Back Design (JPG)

Figure 9.6 Final Notebook 01 (JPG)

Figure 9.7 Final Notebook 02 (JPG)

Figure 9.8 Final Notebooks (JPG)

Merchandise

Figure 9.9 Final Totebag 01 (JPG)

Figure 10.1 Final Totebag 02 (JPG)

Figure 10.2 Final Totebag 03 (JPG)

Figure 10.3 Final Price Tag Design (JPG)

Figure 10.4 Final Shopping Bags (JPG)

Figure 10.5 Final Premium Product Box Packaging 01 Closed (JPG)

Figure 10.6 Final Premium Product Box Packaging 01 Open (JPG)

Figure 10.7 Final Premium Product Box Packaging 02 Close (JPG)

Figure 10.8 Final Premium Product Box Packaging 02 Open (JPG)

Figure 10.9 Staff T-shirt Front and Back Design (JPG)

Figure 11.1 Staff Name Tag for Events (JPG)

Communication

Figure 11.2 Final Instagram Feed and Profile Design (JPG)

Figure 11.3 Final Instagram Carousel (JPG)

Figure 11.4 Final Instagram Layout (JPG)

Figure 11.5 Final Twitter Design (JPG)

Figure 11.6 Final Website Design (JPG)

Environment

Figure 11.7 Final Shop Sign Board (JPG)

Figure 11.8 Final Storefront (JPG)

Final Compilation of Stationeries, Merchandises, Communication, and Environment: 

Figure 11.9 Final Submission Compilation (PDF)

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FEEDBACK

Week 7 (10/05/21)

General Feedback:

Try to create your own colour palette instead of just using the colour palettes you find online. Usually vertical business cards might look more professional compared to horizontal ones. 

Specific Feedback:

Mood board looks good. Agree that the first option is better than the second one. Think clearly on what collaterals I wish to do, but so far the collaterals proposed seems alright.

Week 8 (17/05/21)

Self-learning week

Week 9 (24/05/21)

General Feedback:

We don't have to rely on the type of mock ups we can find online for our designs. Our designs for the collaterals can look different from how it is normally designed (ie shape) as long as it suits our band. Be more creative We can consider doing look books for the brand. For name cards, 1 surface should be for branding and 1 for information.

Specific Feedback:

Name card lacks contrast, embossing effect is nice but try to play with other effects such as UV print since the embossing effect will effect the other side unless it's printed on 2 different papers then stick together. Standardize how the logo is placed. If it's crop in a certain way then maintain it in other collaterals. Don't need icons for phone, email, etc cause it's already become an instinct to people these days thus less designs apply them anymore. Envelope stands out, try to make sure the collaterals have a certain consistency. Notebook is good to have one muted and one expressive. Tote bag can introduce colour somewhere else to make it not just one colour. Paper bag maybe can introduce the prints inside since the batik seems to work as a "mystery" elements. Don't need the blue print since it speaks the same purpose with the purple one. Price tag is interesting but should show something more interesting like the purple visual. Price, size, aren't usually things that are designed to stand out. For both enamel pin and the price tag, try not to separate the logo in that way, use the full logo. The tote bag has to have an embroidery tag that says it's from Darrma. T-shirt don't have to label staff, maybe add a tagline instead. Staff tag a bit unnecessary. Store front can have pattern instead of logo again on the window. Social Media can change logo to blue yellow version since it stands out more. Have textual posts for brand story etc cause photos only don't help the brand express fully. Have a twitter/facebook page too.

Week 10 (31/05/21)

General Feedback:

Fill in the brand information so everyone can work on the next assignment.

Specific Feedback:

Most collaterals seems fine. The colour of the design at the bottom for the letterhead is a bit distracting, can tone down a bit. The first IG post is quite nice, but the 6 photos at the bottom of the layout don't seem to match the top ones. Social media should have more text since the bottom 6 posts speak the same concept. Store can crop out the mannequin as it doesn't resemble Darrma. Can introduce a website landing page if I have time. Twitter cover doesn't really suit the style I'm going for.  

Week 11 (07/06/21)

Specific Feedback:

The photos in the website feel a bit different from the vibe I've established for the other collaterals. Try finding images that are more fun and lively. Shopping bags are usually very thin paper so it's hard to do an embossing effect. Maybe try using the UV printing effect since it's used for other collaterals.

Week 13 (21/06/21)

Specific Feedback:

The photos in the first section are too distracting, try finding photos that are able to showcase the product better. 

Week 14 (28/06/21)

General Feedback:

We can choose to amend our designs based on Ms Natasha, Ms Nuni, and Mr Arman's feedback, but we don't have to think about it too much because the portfolio should showcase the designs that we are more happy with. 

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FURTHER READING

How To Create A Powerful Brand Identity (A Step-by-Step Guide) by Nate Butler

How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity (A Step-by-Step Guide) (columnfivemedia.com)

Creating a strong brand identity requires deep thinking, a team with strong communication and design skills, and an intimate understanding of your brand. Branding is more than just the logo, colour palette, infographic style. The author says that branding is how the brand looks, feels, speaks to people. IT sometimes even include how it sounds, tastes, feels and even smell. 

Different brands may include different brand identities, but some basics include:

1. Logo
2. Colours
3. Typography
4. Design System
5. Photography
6. Illustration
7. Iconography
8. Data Visualization
9. Interactive Elements
10. Video and motion
11. Web Design

The key to a strong brand identity is to make it distinct among the competitors so it catches people's attention. It must be memorable, has a visual impact. The brand identity should also be flexible so it can grow and evolve with the brand but it has to be cohesive so everything looks good together. Finally, it has to be clear and easy to apply. 

Creating a brand identity requires a few steps:

Step 1: Complete You Brand Strategy. Think of what you want to achieve and how you're going to achieve it. It includes Brand Heart (purpose, vision, mission, values), Brand Messaging (brand voice, personality, tagline, value prop, brand messaging pillars) and Brand Identity (logo, colour, typography, etc.) To design strong brand identity, you need to first complete the brand heart and messaging as it helps you understand what you want to communicate. 

Step 2: Dig into Your Current Brand Identity. Before starting a brand project, you want to be able to understand the core of your brand. Understand the current state of your brand's identity and how it might be tweaked to align with the brand goals going forward. You might need perspective from brand employees, stakeholders, customers. 

Step 3: Know Your Personas. Brand identity is the "face" of the brand. Whatever shown should be true to the brand. However, the author mentions that we can't solely focus on what a brand wants to present. The brand must consider what the customers want to engage with if not it won't be effective since the brand doesn't resonate well with them. 

Step 4: Identify Your Competition. If you want to be different, you have to understand what your competitors are doing. You will be able to compare and see how you can make yourself stand out from them.

Step 5: Write Your Creative Brief. You need to keep your team on the same page before creating a visual identity that aligns with your brand.

Step 6: Brainstorm Your Visuals. You want to take the text-based information and translate it into visual concepts by this stage. The challenge is to figure out how to communicate the emotions set into visuals. Think about what those words make you visualize. It can be abstract but it has to bring the message out. 

Step 7: Design Your Individual Elements. This includes logo, colours, typography, design system, photography, illustration, iconography, data visualization, additional elements.

Step 8: Build Your Brand Guide. It helps to maintain a consistency later on down the road. It should be stored in an easy-to-access place so everyone in the team knows how to follow. It should also be constantly updated.