This week we did not have a lecture instead our lecturer spent the class, speaking to each student individually. I found this incredibly useful especially after last week’s group critique, since which I had made some significant changes to my bank brand. I was able to clarify certain aspects of the tasks I was unsure about and am now confident about what work I need to complete over the Easter break and to remain on track with my deliverables for the May hand-in.
This week offered the chance to sit down and have a chat with my lecturer about how my brand is progressing, clear up anything I didn’t fully understand and work out what I still needed to complete for this module.
During the past week I have done quite a bit of work on my brand, moving from a more traditional banking brand colour palette of predominately blue, to a much more modern and mould-breaking colour palette with a loud vibrant yellow as my primary colour. It was therefore very important to me to get some feedback on the change to see if it was a move in the right direction. I was happy with the new palette and the feedback seemed to suggest it was a definite improvement so I am happy to continue on down this path to complete the rest of my deliverables.
I also had some questions about the design and format of my brand guidelines document, I had got a lot of the key information and components of this document in place, I just wasn’t sure how to present these in a single document. I had looked at some of the examples we had been given and felt that they took different approaches, some very paired back with simple instructions where others had more emphasis on design. This had left me confused and not sure how to proceed with the document. This week I had the opportunity to ask the questions I needed answered and get some clarity on the layout of a brand guidelines document. Through our discussion I was able to clarify that the key point of a brand guidelines document is to offer someone who needs to create a design for the brand the tools and rules to do this while staying consistent and on brand. It is a predominantly a working document, so its main purpose is to inform those who use it on how to go about creating designs and other material for the brand.
Design is important within the document, it needs still needs to be well-designed, be easily useable and have all the necessary information. This means considering readability, the amount of information per page and providing good solid examples of what the brand requires. While my document had most of the right information, it did have some issues with readability. It also contained large chunks of text with no break which is hard to read and difficult for someone who just wants to get the information they need quickly and easily.
To cure this issue I have split a lot of my pages into two or more pages reduced the width of any pieces of text and removed a lot of unnecessary wording. I have also added more examples throughout the document rather than having them in a separate section at the end. I have also included more images related to what the brand is about to visually match with what the text is saying and reinforce the message throughout.
I am now much happier with my document and believe it is now approaching a working and usable document that could be used within a real environment.
I have been struggling over the past few weeks with my brand and especially to come up with a fifth element to the design. I have decided that my brand is not easily suited to a particular pattern or icon set, but more to a specific style of motion across all its digital applications and the impression of motion in static applications.
I have already got this in my logo with its angle suggesting forward movement so my motion guidelines and examples will match this always moving forward message. My brand strapline is “For an Ever-Changing World” so using motion within my Earth logomark of the earth spinning at a low speed will indicate to user this message as well, so to combine the two I took my logomark, wordmark and strapline into Adobe After Effects to create a short animation to provide an example of how to use movement within the brand. This is thew same movement style that will be replicated across our app and landing page.
Its main focus is always moving up and from left-to-right as these are the two pieces of motion most related to forward movement. The Earth is also spinning clockwise again to suggest moving forward (even though this is not scientifically correct). I have also used opacity to bring in both the brand name FUTR and the strapline. All movement is slow and calm, it is to show that even though the world is constantly spinning and things are ever-changing, we are able to manage it, nothing is rushed its all very calm and that is the feeling I want customers to have when they see the brand’s motion. I want them to feel they can trust the brand to deal with whatever happens calmly and with confidence. I want all the motion used in brand applications to feel like this, that everything is under control and confident. We may be a vibrant and innovative brand, but we still provide security and solutions no matter what.
Below you can see the short animation I created:
After completing this I realised I had not got the spacing in the combination mark correct so had to go and correct it, to ensure consistency and that my own designs remained within the brand guidelines. For the combination mark the earth logo must be one and a half times the spacing between the “T” and “R” of FUTR. As you can see the video above did not meet these guidelines so needed to be edited.