3/4/2023 - 27/4/2023 / Week 3 - Week 6
Trinity Wong Ka Yi / 0348778
Brand Corporate Identity / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Task 2 - Logo
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LECTURES
LECTURE 4 - BRAND IDEALS
Brand ideal: a higher purpose of a brand or organization that goes beyond the product or service they offer, which is also the brand's inspirational reason for existing and how it aims to impact the world.
Brand values: delivers real engagement and directs the company towards more powerful bonds with their target audience.
Every brand ideal is predicated to the brand values. The great values form a a solid foundation, which allows the brand achieve their brands ideals.
Vision: Having a visionary mindset helps to achieve big ideas.
Meaning: Designers have to transform meaning into unique visual form and expression to be understood, communicated and approved.
Authenticity: Customers are more likely to identify with brands that are personal, memorable and authentic.
Differentation: The visual difference that brands create have to be distinct and unique.
Sustainbility: Sustainbility is achieved through commitment to a central idea over time.
Coherence: Brand must feel familiar to a customer and they should have the desired effect, which builds trust and loyalty between brand and customer.
Flexibility: Brands that are open to change need to have flexible brand identity systems in place.
Commitment: To ensure people who engage with the brand have motivation and dedication to succeed.
Value: Measurable results need to be created so that it can promote and sustain the brand.
Why are brands with higher purpose successful?
- They equip employees to explore and expand their imagination to adapt to the ever-changing reality
- they create deep relationship with customers who desire for connection, community and participation in something bigger than themselves.
LECTURE 5 - POSITIONING
Brand position: The process of positioning your brand in the mind of customers.
Types of positioning strategies:
1) Arm Wrestling
- Trying to compete with the market leader and beat your competitors
2) Big fish, smaller pond
- Focus is on a niche market within a larger market that is being underserved.
3) Reframing the Market
- Make the benefits offered by competitors appear irrelevant or boring.
4) Change the game
- Invent a new market
A brand's uniqueness must be determined by:
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- Why does it matter?
7 key steps to effectively clarify the brand's position in the market place:
- Determine how your brand is positioning itself currently
- Identify your direct competitors
- Understand how each competitor is positioning their brand
- Compare your positioning with competitors to identify your uniqueness
- Develop a distinct and value-based positioning idea
- Craft a brand positioning statement
- Test the efficacy of your bran positioning statement
How to create a brand positioning statement?
Target Customer
Market Definition
Brand Promise
Reason to Believe
The positioning statement can be created like this:
For [target customers], [company name] is the [market definition] that delivers [brand promise] because only [company name] is [reason to believe].
INSTRUCTIONS
TASKS
Task 2A: Logo Research & Analysis
For this task, we were required to observe and gather logos from our everyday surroundings. The logos gathered came from my study environment, my personal belongings, household items and more.
Fig 1.1 Screenshot of the Logo Analysis Slides.
In the slides, I included the brand name, type of logo, colour scheme, graphic elements included and typography, which are very briefly explained.
Fig 1.2 PDF of Logo Research and Analysis Slides.
Task 2B: Logo Design
For this task, we were tasked to think of 3 alternate career choices to turn into a business in class. At first, I was thinking more realistically, but Ms Lilian told us a senior made a dragon adoption center. Hence, I started thinking (a bit too much) out of the box.
For the businesses, we had to answer the following questions.
1) What is the business?
2) What services / products are you providing?
3) What is the USP?
4) Who is the target audience?
5) What is the name of the business?
Fig 2.1 PDF of 3 career choices.
After consulting with Ms Lilian and finalizing which business to pick, we had to make two mindmaps: one for the buisness, one for the brand name. The purpose of the mindmaps is to help point us in a direction when it comes to creating the logo concept.
Fig 2.2 Draft 1 Business Mindmap
Fig 2.3 Draft 1 Brand Name Mindmap
Before consulting with Ms Lilian in class, I asked other classmates what their feedback were and I realized I did the mindmaps wrongly :'D. Hence, I immediately redid it in class before it was my turn to consult with Ms Lilian.
Fig 2.4 Draft 2 Business Mindmap
Fig 2.5 Draft 2 Brand Name Mindmap
After consulting with Ms Lilian in class, she asked to elaborate more on how the business works and all the details for the business mind map. For the brand name mindmap, I could continue to explore more.
Week 3 Sketches
Fig 3.1 Week 3 Sketches, pg 1
Fig 3.2 Week 3 Sketches, pg 2
For the sketches this week, I explored logomarks and logotypes, some were more straightforward and some were more vague. From these options, my favourites were the ribbon B's. During the feedback session, people picked the ribbon B's, as well as 12, 13 and 15 to move forward with and explore.
Week 4 Sketches
Fig 3.3 Week 4 Sketches, pg 1
Fig 3.4 Week 4 Sketches, pg 2
Week 5 Sketches
Fig 3.5 Week 5 Sketches, pg 1
Fig 3.6 Week 5 Sketches, pg 2
Fig 3.6 Week 5 Sketches (assets), pg 3
After digitization, Ms Lilian suggested the best options as F4 and D9. F4 would be a great contender if I could bring the the organic flow like the previous sketches. However, D9 would be the best option and the safest bet since it ticks all the checkboxes and is very strong and straight forward. If I were to go with D9, I have to work on the wordmark that would go with it.
Week 6 Finalizing the Logo
Fig 3.7 Wordmark exploration
For the wordmark, I explored different typefaces, capitalizations, sizes and font widths. In the end, I used Pally Bold, a font suggested by a classmate.
Fig 3.8 Wordmark and colour exploration
Fig 3.9 Space rationalization
Fig 3.10 Pattern exploration
Fig 3.11 Pattern exploration 2
Fig 3.12 Gif animation process on Adobe Animate.
FINAL OUTCOME
Fig 4.1 Logo Research and Analysis - PDF
Fig 4.2 Logo Design and Guidelines - PDF
Fig 4.3 Logo Animation - GIF
FEEDBACK
Week 1:
The first one looks to most promising one and it is pretty interesting, especially the brand name.
Week 2:
The business mind map should focus more on the concept and details of the business, whereas the name mind map should be explored more, including anything that comes to mind when thinking of the brand name.
Week 3:
Explore sketches 4, 5, 12, 13, 15. Explore more on the form of the ribbon for 4 and 5, and can come up with more concepts using 12, 13 and 15.
Week 4:
Suggested choices are the 11-15, 17-20 and 22. Can try to make a gift shape with a ribbon, or try to explore other shapes with the ribbon. Another options is to explore the gift or mascots, and also think of the wordmark.
Week 5:
Go with either F4 or D9. If going with F4, try to bring back the organic flow as seen in the previous sketches. F4 has more personality to it, but D9 is strong by itself. D9 is a safe bet, since it is a strong choice and hits all the boxes, just need to add a wordmark. Remember to construct with space rationale.
Week 6:
Explore more of the wordmark. Remember to include all the process into progression. Try to use all caps instead for the wordmark. Include the colour codes for the logo. For clear space, don't distort the component used, just leave it as it is. Pattern must try to reflect the brand.
REFLECTION
Experience
There was so much work that was needed to be done for a logo and I really needed to crack out my brain juice to think of the logo ideas. For the first 4 weeks, I did not really have a specific direction I was going for, but once I reached week 5 for the digitazliation, I knew it was one of the 2 concepts, just that I had to decide on the small details that come with them. Animating the logo was my favourite part which I used Adobe Animate to do it since I forgot how to After Effects after sem break. Initially, I wanted the box to wobble too but I didn't have enough time to add it in subtlety, so I just decided to omit it. Overall, my favourite outcome was also the gif, since i suceeded in my idea of making the ribbon appear elastic when dropping down.
Observation
I noticed that each classmate had a very different direction to go with since our brands were very diverse, leading to different style and concept being used. It was very interesting to see everyone's ideas and progress every week, especially the feedback given by classmates as they can be very useful. The discussion was my favourite part in class since we also got to interact with our classmates, which would not feel the same if it was in online class.
Findings
Honestly, I did not know there was so much work going behind a logo for a brand. Especially when it came to space rationalization, I felt like I was drawing a graph in add maths :'D. I also found out that although there are many types of logos, they all have the same goal as making the brand as memorable and recognizable.
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