This week we had a recap on what we should have done for this semester so far and what we needed to do over the next few weeks.
We have a group critique next week for our brand guidelines so putting that together is key for this week. Once that is over we will be moving on to creating a landing page and an app for our bank brand using the brand guidelines.
We looked at landing pages, what they need to contain in terms of content and how to structure them, to achieve the right layout and hierarchy. We also looked at making an interface inventory of a current banking app and how this could inform our own app and make the design process for that app easier. This also ties in with creating a component library in Figma, that will enable us to create consistency across both the landing page and app.
Mainly a practical week this week working on the brand guidelines and looking ahead to implementing them for our other deliverables.
In this week’s lecture we mainly looked at what was required for next week’s critique, a style tile for our bank brand that will then be turned into our brand guidelines document. We looked at examples of style tiles in particular the one below for Bolt.
Source (https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_identity_for_bolt_by_koto.php) Last Accessed 16/03/23
This is a very dynamic style tile, with lots of moving animations and motion. At this stage my bank brand does not have this level of motion. My style tile will be a little more static but this is a good example of the layout of a style tile and how to make it visually interesting and show off the main points of the brand. Especially the application of the brand, colours, imagery it gives a really clear view of what to expect from Bolt as a brand.
We also looked a a number of tools we could use to ensure that the application of a brand would meet the necessary accessibility standards that are required especially for apps and websites. Where there are legal accessibility requirements in place. This is very important for my brand in particular as I want to have accessibility as one of my key components. We looked at plug-ins designed for Figma that could check for Colour Contrast to ensure text is readable against my chosen background colour. We also looked at going that bit further and considering colour-blindness and people with a vision impairment causing them to have low vision. These plug-ins will be invaluable for me moving forward with this project to ensure its accessibility, but also moving forward in my career as I am an advocate of making accessible products so ensure my own creations are accessible is a great place to start.
When I started checking my Brand’s colour palette for accessibility I did find a contrast issue, I could not get a triple A contrast rating using my lighter gold colour with either black or white text. I also tried it with all the shades of blue I had within my palette but I could only get as good as a double A rating and in most cases a straight fail. With accessibility such a large part of my brand, this was simply not going to be good enough so I had to change the colour to a lighter more yellow shade to ensure a much better triple A rating.
With this issue sorted I set to work putting together several of the elements I had created into a brand style tile for next week’s critique session. As I am least confident about my wording I decided to include my strapline, mission statement and brand story as part of the style tile. I also included all the alternate forms of my wordmark (horizontal and vertical), and my new earth logomark (more on that below) in two different colourways. I also included example imagery I would like to use and several different applications for my brand, such as on phone screens, T-shirts, a tote bag and a bank card mock-up as well. I felt that these items showed off my brand at its best in its current incarnation, and I look forward to the critique to get feedback from both my lecturer and my fellow classmates as to how I can improve the brand further.
You can see my bank brand style tile below: