PROJECT 6: Branding [WEEK 3]

In the final week of this project, I had completed a massive amount of work, yet was still unsure of how to push forward to finalising my logo and completing my brand identity. I realised I had started to overcomplicate things and so thought that simplifying my logo would also simplify the brand and therefore simplify my process of finalising the brand identity.

With a simpler design, I found a lot more oppurtunities to expand my brand identity. The typeface I used for the words "The" and "Yard" were 1 of 5 I played around with in the logo before deciding on what is shown above. The font is from a font family called "Typography Pro" which is a license-free typefont which I found that perfectly fits my brand identity. I then set out my brand identity in a layout to show the guidelines of the branding design.

Due to the simplistic design, I didn't want too many colours or too many typefaces involved in the branding of this bar, so kept it simple. From here, I wanted to start using the finalised logo in a branding application. I started by looking at how and what bars brand with their logo/colour scheme and found examples where the brand identity of a bar is found on pretty much everything you would see in a generic bar.

I started with the menu, which I created from scratch using only the colours I had in the set palette for the brand. I then also produced mockups of a branded pint glass and of how I envisioned the bar to look by altering an image of a skate shop.

Menu mock up

Pint glass mock up

Original stock image of shop front

Branded mock up of my bar

With this project completed, looking back at the entire process, I can say that I am happy with the final piece, and proud that it was successfully completed to the deadline. Although possibly not done to a industry standard, the importance of this project as experience of a branding design set to a brief has helped me take a look at the idea of information graphics and branding identity, which is a part of graphics I have a strong interest in. If I were to do the project again, or if I had more time, I think it could be improved more with more experimentation of type and colour palletes,as well as some further research into branding application and the use of both print and screen design. 

PROJECT 6: Branding [WEEK 2]

On the brief for project, we had a guideline day-to-day schedule. By the time we started week 2, we were recommended to be working on colour schemes. Unfortunately, I was still focussing on developing my logotype. Due to the realisation of falling behind, I tried to incorporate colour into the development of my logotype. 

Coming into week 2, this was what I had so far. Incorporating colour was my next step, but I also wanted to keep reiterating this typography to try and build it into a potentially recognisable logotype. This long-running development helped me to really get a grasp of how in depth the design process of branding has to be due to the importance of projecting an identity that will both be recognisable and also attract.

The colour scheme I was going for, whilst simultaneously developing the logo, was decided by brainstorming colour pallettes that both connected to the word "Moon" and would also make for a good colour scheme for a bar. Along with researching other student union bars, I took colours from images of the moon, and discovered the blueish grey that are shown above. 

I started developing a colour palette for the brand by looking at deciding on colours/shades for the highlights, midtones and shadow tones. I started with black, 50% grey and white, and tried to convert these to the shade of blue I had discovered through taking colour drops from images of the moon. I started experimenting the the colour pallete on Photoshop and tried to create a colour swatch from the hex code and the RGB levels. This close look at producing precise colour swatches is something I had learnt before coming to Ravensbourne and the excercise of producing fitting colour schemes was very useful. The scheme I used is illustrated below.

From here, I started to play around with finalising my logo. Due to the large amount of development and the vast array of initial ideas I had, I had plenty of ideas to embellish. I wanted to look back at the work I had done and be very critical of my own work to try and find something that could work with the least issues. I started getting rid of the ones I just didn't like, and then proceeded to look at whether the designs worked to attract customers and whether or not it was clear enough to understand as a logo.

I ended up looking back to one particular calligraphy piece I did, and felt like it could be incorporated with my current typeface to produce a logo. I felt that I could put the rough splatter of the calligraphy piece with the sleek, almost "sci-fi"esque, appearance of my logotype but looking back on it, I decided the two styles clashed too much. I tried to develop the typeface so it could fit better (shown below) but ended up with something I felt was going over the top and ruining the necessary clarity of the logo. The splatter effect I used made the piece too complex and unclear and made it too complicated a symbol to use as something that should be identifying a brand.