The world of Graphic Design takes into consideration everything around it. What do I mean by that, you may be thinking. Great question! Before a graphic can be designed or even conceptualized, the designer must take into account who they are designing the asset for. This becomes even more true when being asked to come up with a company’s brand. A company’s brand is their identity, their story. Brand creates a connection between the customer and the company. Therefore, a graphic designer needs to think about the following: the client’s story, values, goals, audience and competitors. Once the designer understands this, they can choose a design to serve a function. That is, colors, typography, logo, layout, messaging, and emotion will create the connection between the target audience and the company.
In the book Graphic Design for Everyone, the first two chapters deal with Understanding Your Brand. Contributing author Julia Woollams states, “The starting point for any design project is to define the outcome you want. A clear set of aims or objectives will enable you to make the design decisions that will ensure you achieve the best results.” (Woollams, p. 15). The slide show below provides a high-level look at some of the steps when considering a branding strategy.
Brand Design Considerations
Once the designer understands the messaging, mood, target audience, and competition, it’s time to begin building out the brand. According to Woollams “Once designed, a logo will be at the heart of your design tool kit.” (Woollams, p. 35). Because of the importance of the logo, the designer will want to consider multiple options for their logo design. Another consideration is the use of color. As part of the toolkit, the designer needs to keep imagery in mind. “Your logo should mean something beyond its design. Any imagery you use can represent a range of meanings, so consider them fully before you commit.” (Woollams, p. 36). Another important aspect of the brand strategy is to create a brand plan. By that I mean keep things organized to help keep track of your progress. To do this, break out your plan into three general sections: Preparation, Prelaunch, and Launch. (Woollams, p. 40-41). The following is a summary of what Woollams lays out in the section.
Preparation
During the preparation phase, you define the goals and outcomes of the brand strategy. This would also include writing the creative brief, which in turn will set the tone for how to conduct the next section prelaunch.
Prelaunch
It’s during this phase that several additional details are thought through. Broken down into four stages (research, verbal, visual, and development), each stage within this phase helps to propel you closer to the creation of the brand assets.
Launch
The launch phase is just that… the brand is released to the world for your target audience to see. During this phase, most of the emphasis is on promotion, publicity, and creating any additional assets needed to meet the needs and interests of the customers.
Citations:
Woollams, J., & Caldwell, C. (2019). Understanding Your Brand. In Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself (pp. 8–45). DK Publishing.
Local Business Re-brand…The Process
Based on all the information I learned from the great book Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself by Cath Caldwell, I thought I’d try re-branding one of the local business in my town of Lansdale, PA. The business I chose is called Small Batch Kitchen. They specialize in homemade specialty spreads, salts, and gifts. We are actually a customer and love their unusual spreads such as Blueberry Basil and Strawberry Rhubarb. The reason I chose this local business was because their logo, while simple, looked too bland. Therefore, I’ve created not only a re-design of their logo, but also a mood board to help guide my design, and finally a brand plan to pull it all together.
The business was established as a home-based business back in 2014, but outgrew it’s homebase by 2019 due to the popularity of their products. Sheila Rhodes is proud to use locally sourced produce in their product line. For a rebrand timed with the 10th anniversary of the store, I thought it would be good to tie in the sustainability and local sourcing idea along with the idea of farm-fresh ingredients. Working with this idea, I created a mood board to help envision the final logo concepts. Inspiration came from the Small Batch Kitchen website, the local farms around my area, color palettes in my home, and specifically researched stock photos. The images feature earth tones, which creates warm and welcoming feeling. The use of subtle greens and browns mixed with the bolder colors of red, blue, and green create some contrast.
Next was choosing the typography. What was the font weight going to be? Would I use a cursive font or a typed font? Or, a combination? I decided I was going to keep close to their original combination of handwritten font and typed font. However, I was going to modernize it a little. I believe this will help with the re-brand as existing customers won’t see it as a drastic change, but also as a chance to bring in new customers. Now that I found the two font types I was going to use, I needed to include imagery. The current branding is using what is known in the industry as Logotype. Knowing a simple logo will work better and do more, I used various line drawing imagery which would keep with the minimalist theme. The imagery I experimented with included: wooden spoons, mason jars, mixing bowls, herbs, fruits and vegetables, and a sustainability icon in varying configurations. No…not all at the same time. My goal here was to create the feeling of homemade and fresh ingredients but give a sense of local sourcing and being responsible. Below is a link to the brand plan I created for this project.
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