Research: Brand guidelines

What to include:

Cover Design
A cover will make the brand guidelines more presentable and appealing for the client viewing it.

Logo Design
Create either one or several logo designs giving spacing references.

Colour Schemes
Show the client what colour schemes you have chosen with RGB, CMYK and hex numbers as reference, this can be done in a number of ways, being creative can show off your design skills.

Typeface
Place the typeface choices in a decorative but informative way, showing every letter in both upper and lower case. Number should also be included.

Web Mock-up
For our brief we are required to create a web mock-up to help illustrate how the aesthetics of the site. (This will be the primary focus of the web group, so any good ideas could maybe benefit the group)

Poster Mock-up
We are also required to submit a poster design, which should include the logo design designed.

Leaflet Mock-up
exactly what it says on the tin

Research: Brand Guidelines

The brief requires us to design and develop a set of brand guidelines for the FdA contemporary dance course. To gather ideas I have looked on the web at other company brand guidelines to gather information on how to approach creating my own. Here are a selection of brand guidelines that I felt gave good examples. Skype being the best.

http://www.ororke.co.uk/work/Simplyhealth.html

http://paulrobertlloyd.com/2010/12/styleguides_for_the_web/

http://imjustcreative.com/skype-brand-identity-book-and-guidelines/2011/08/31/

Research: Contemporary dance posters

As part of the Graphics part of the team our job is to create the promotion items, such as the posters and leaflets. Following are some contemporary dance show posters I found online, some which I liked and some I didn't.

http://www.uvu.edu/dance/groups/synergy/information.html

I like the simplicity of this poster, it is clear even from a distance what it is trying to show, and the split in the picture stops the image from being plain. The font choice is also good in my opinion as its fresh and modern, which go with the feel of the type of dance in question.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Modern-Masters-Contemporary-Dance-Poster-for-Kennedy-Center/542950

This again is a poster I like as it is very contemporary and shows what it needs without the use of a photograph, using stylish graphical type. The poster shows that a photograph or and image is not necessarily needed.

http://break-a-leg.blogspot.com/

This is a poster that I didn't like the aesthetic of. This image is to busy in my opinion, the title of the show is clear which is a good point but it all feels to jumbled with an odd lay of type and its positioning  I also don't like the drawn style protrusion coming from the subject in the photo which dose not seem to fit both the composition of the poster and font face choice overall.

http://www.class.csupomona.edu/dance/index.php/events.html

Here is an example for me of where using only type has resulted in a fail. With the bright orange background the poster becomes garish, as the pattern makes the smaller text uncomfortable to read and you don't get what it is about fast enough making it overall a confusing poster.

Live client brief

Objective:
The purpose of this assignment is to examine pre-production, production and evaluation principles that are generic in the development of a digital media artefact/s. Components of design driven solutions and fitness for purpose will be experienced. Students will understand issues relating to clients requirements and develop, evaluate and present solutions that meet the brief.


The brief

You have been commissioned by the FdA Contemporary Dance – Lewes, to create a range of promotional material for the promotion of their course and major show at the beginning of June 2012.  This is a live assignment, i.e. the commission is real and the Dance Department will use the material deemed suitable and good enough quality in their promotions campaign.  Your client is Claire Coleman, course leader for FdA Contemporary Dance There is a wide range of material you can create for the client, covering the following:- ·       At least one Style Guide each, including a logo design plus colour swatches and font choices to be presented as Branding Guidelines, to be used across the whole range of media solutions. ·       Website design for FdA Contemporary Dance – Lewes based on the WordPress CMS and focusing on the restyling of an existing ‘free’ wordpress template. ·       Social media activity (e.g. YouTube channel, Flickr images, etc) ·       Showreel using existing client content (video and still images) as well as your own filmed sequences. ·       Documentary style short film, using filmed interviews with students and teaching staff/trainers, documenting how a show is put together. Note: Filming to be arranges at times and locations to suit clients needs. The aim of the Client Brief assignment is that you undertake a professional Digital Media Design project, work as a member of a team and interact professionally with a client.  You will negotiate a brief with the client that meets their needs, and fulfills this brief within the resources and time available.  There is a briefing from the client on Wed 22nd  February and you are pitching your proposals in response to this on Wed 7th March.  Throughout this project, you need to be flexible, liaise and correspond with the client and respond to their wishes and their feedback.

There is a mix of group work and individual areas of responsibility in this project.


For this project we will be working as three groups, Web, Graphics and Video, with all groups aiming to bring one completed project out for the client.


I have been placed in the Graphics group with Caroline Floor as our group co-ordinator.

Advancements in Ideas

For the feel good briefs I wanted to create several posters that brought awareness to the Feel Good company. I thought it would be a good idea to keep all the posters with the bottle in the exact same place, with only the imagery and text in different, this would allow for a potential competition where customers could download or print of a blank template with the bottle and logo and create there own feel good moment, and if good enough could then be used as part of the campaign.

In all my designs I have kept the same bottle as it is the clearest and largest image of a Feel Good bottle i could find, also i is only there to help show how the composition of the poster designs works. If my idea was selected I will have created all the posters as vectors so that the bottle can easily be replaced with any newer designs or different flavours without difficulty.

This could be potentially what the template could look like, The  bottle be large to
draw attention to the design helping its image in being remembered.

.

Primary Ideas

For my main idea, I have opted to go for a series of posters that reflect a the company principles but in a simple ,stylish way. Having looked at other drinks companies like Red bull and Innocent I want my designs to be done in a way that incorporates some of both these companies strong points.

 I like the simple way the poster is done with the bottles and cartons
being the primary focus

This image is simple but effective, this is certainly something i
wish to try and emulate in my designs

   

Ideas Pitch

For my pitch I gave a presentation presenting the two briefs i have chosen to take further and my ideas for each.

For the Feel Good drinks briefs i showed some sketches and presented my ideas for an advertising campaign that would help bring awareness to the company brand and bottle. My idea is to create a feel good world where the  Feel Good bottle is loved by its inhabitants, with the images having a fun feel that fits the 16 to 34 year old age range.

I also presented my ideas on the Swarovski brief. My idea was to create 4 posters that represented in graphical form the lives of 4 modern woman niches that could be put together to make one larges image, I wanted to use simple colourful vector icons that each represented something about modern urban living.

The feedback I received from the pitch favored my Feel Good designs over my Swarovski ideas. With this feedback and the fact that I feel more comfortable in pursuing my Feel Good brief ideas, It will be the Feel Good brief that I will continue on with.

Here is the presentation I gave, although we were only required to look at two brief I chose three as I had thought of ideas for each.