At the beginning of class, everyone will take a minute to come up to the front and show us their corrupted logo designs. Once we've had a chance to comment, regroup and we'll collect those pieces for marking.
You held on to the actual finished colour logos while you were working on the corrupted versions. Put those "real" colour logos back in the client's binder and pass the binder back to the client.
Now that you've gone through the trauma of scandal its time to get your company back up and running. This is a good time to think about renewing the company's image by "rebranding" -- and that means taking back possession of your logo and redesigning it the way you want it to look!
Your assignment this week is to do at least three thumbnail redesigns of the company logo. You may use one of the logos designed by your original group of designers or you may start from scratch.
However: remember that logo design is an evolutionary process and brand loyalty can be just as adversely affected by a bad rebranding job as by a scandal. Let's take a look together at this great article on "10 Major Rebranding Disasters"
* Bring your three (or more) rebranded logo designs to class next week, when we'll continue working on the finished art version of your final logo design.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Lesson 4: The Activist Designer
So you've created a company, you've defined your brand, you've got a logo that represents your brand and all is well with the world, right?
Wrong.
Sometimes, just when a company seems to be rolling along nicely disaster strikes. Think of the Enron collapse, or Tiger Woods' sex scandal, or the BP oil spill. A single misstep by someone asleep at the switch in your company can jeopardize the integrity of your brand and have catastrophic results. If the public turns against you, watch out - your logo may fall victim to the activist designer.
That's exactly what happened to BP after last summer's horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As public anger over the company's ineptitude grew, activist designers began corrupting BP's logo as an expression of their outrage at the corporation.
Why be an activist designer? As someone who helps companies brand and market their goods and services through your creative efforts, you understand better than most people the power of the graphic symbol. Designers have a long tradition of using their creativity to affect change in society and there is a longstanding tradition in the design community to 'flex our muscles' now and then by poking fun at the brand identities of corporations.
Which brings us to your next assignment!
At the beginning of class, get together with the other members of your group. Place each designer's work - thumbnails, finished b/w art, colour roughs and finished colour art into the client binder. (Designers, make sure your name and student number are printed neatly in the bottom right hand corner of everything you include in the binder).
Pass the binder back to the clients. But wait, clients - DON'T even bother opening that binder! Pass it along in the other direction to the next group.
Once you have the new binder of designs, remove only the finished colour art pages. Each member of the group will choose one colour logo design from the ones included in the binder. Remember, this is someone else's work that's been placed in your care. Make sure not to lose or damage it in any way!
Turn to the front of the binder and review the client's brand description. As a group you'll now decide what heinous crime the company has committed. Did they scam their shareholders out of millions of dollars? Did they use child slave labour in some third world sweatshop to manufacture their products? Perhaps their manufacturing process caused a toxic waste spill in some small manufacturing community that resulted in hundreds ( or thousands ) of innocent people and animals dying. YOU decide.
Once the group has determined what the company in question has done wrong, write it down in the binder on a new page. Write as much detail as possible, because these details will help you as you decide how to corrupt the logo - and will help the rest of us determine whether you did an effective 'redesign' when we see your corrupted design next week!
Digital students: you will be working in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you'll be working on a new piece of provided bristol board.
Use the rest of class time to begin coming up with corrupted designs. Do at least three thumbnails, then choose your best design and go immediately to the full colour final (in gouache or watercolour) and be ready to show the class your corrupted design in class next week.
Wrong.
Sometimes, just when a company seems to be rolling along nicely disaster strikes. Think of the Enron collapse, or Tiger Woods' sex scandal, or the BP oil spill. A single misstep by someone asleep at the switch in your company can jeopardize the integrity of your brand and have catastrophic results. If the public turns against you, watch out - your logo may fall victim to the activist designer.
That's exactly what happened to BP after last summer's horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As public anger over the company's ineptitude grew, activist designers began corrupting BP's logo as an expression of their outrage at the corporation.
Why be an activist designer? As someone who helps companies brand and market their goods and services through your creative efforts, you understand better than most people the power of the graphic symbol. Designers have a long tradition of using their creativity to affect change in society and there is a longstanding tradition in the design community to 'flex our muscles' now and then by poking fun at the brand identities of corporations.
Besides, even though we depend on corporate clients to put bread on the table, every once in a while its kind of fun to "stick it to the man."
Which brings us to your next assignment!
At the beginning of class, get together with the other members of your group. Place each designer's work - thumbnails, finished b/w art, colour roughs and finished colour art into the client binder. (Designers, make sure your name and student number are printed neatly in the bottom right hand corner of everything you include in the binder).
Pass the binder back to the clients. But wait, clients - DON'T even bother opening that binder! Pass it along in the other direction to the next group.
Once you have the new binder of designs, remove only the finished colour art pages. Each member of the group will choose one colour logo design from the ones included in the binder. Remember, this is someone else's work that's been placed in your care. Make sure not to lose or damage it in any way!
Turn to the front of the binder and review the client's brand description. As a group you'll now decide what heinous crime the company has committed. Did they scam their shareholders out of millions of dollars? Did they use child slave labour in some third world sweatshop to manufacture their products? Perhaps their manufacturing process caused a toxic waste spill in some small manufacturing community that resulted in hundreds ( or thousands ) of innocent people and animals dying. YOU decide.
Once the group has determined what the company in question has done wrong, write it down in the binder on a new page. Write as much detail as possible, because these details will help you as you decide how to corrupt the logo - and will help the rest of us determine whether you did an effective 'redesign' when we see your corrupted design next week!
Digital students: you will be working in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you'll be working on a new piece of provided bristol board.
Use the rest of class time to begin coming up with corrupted designs. Do at least three thumbnails, then choose your best design and go immediately to the full colour final (in gouache or watercolour) and be ready to show the class your corrupted design in class next week.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Lesson 3: Designing with Colour & Focus Group Feedback
Once you have completed your finished art for the client approved logo design, bring it to class. Up to this point we've been working exclusively in black and white. If the logo is working effectively at both the full size and the 1 inch size you can now introduce colour to your design.
Digital students: you'll be developing colour options in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you may use pencil crayons or markers to develop potential colour schemes.
On an 8.5 by 11 inch page, develop three colour variations of the logo. Full colour may not be the best option. You may decide to use only one, two or perhaps more colours. Give thoughtful consideration to what you are trying to achieve, both in terms of graphic design and branding identity. Spend half an hour on this stage.
Once you have all completed your colour concepts, each design team will in turn bring their finished designs and colour options to the front where we will look at them on-screen while the design team's reporter reads the client's mission statement page from their binder. As a class we'll review and critique each logo design and give each designer/team some constructive feedback on their effort. This is much like what you would experience if the client were to decide to test your design with a focus group, which is a very typical procedure with new branding campaigns.
Based on what you hear from the client AND "the public" (the rest of the class), each designer will complete a finished colour version of their logo design.
Digital students: you'll be completeing your finished colour logo design in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you'll be creating your finished colour logo in gouache. Use the provided 8.5 by 11 inch bristol board, as we did with the black and white version.
* Be sure to include a 1" reproduction of the finished design in the lower right-hand corner.
Your finished designs should be ready for presentation at the beginning of our fourth class. Clients will be assessing the designer's work. Presentation will be assessed. Present your finished artwork with a tracing paper overlay. Name and student number printed neatly on the back in thin black line marker in the bottom right-hand corner.
Digital students: you'll be developing colour options in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you may use pencil crayons or markers to develop potential colour schemes.
On an 8.5 by 11 inch page, develop three colour variations of the logo. Full colour may not be the best option. You may decide to use only one, two or perhaps more colours. Give thoughtful consideration to what you are trying to achieve, both in terms of graphic design and branding identity. Spend half an hour on this stage.
Once you have all completed your colour concepts, each design team will in turn bring their finished designs and colour options to the front where we will look at them on-screen while the design team's reporter reads the client's mission statement page from their binder. As a class we'll review and critique each logo design and give each designer/team some constructive feedback on their effort. This is much like what you would experience if the client were to decide to test your design with a focus group, which is a very typical procedure with new branding campaigns.
Based on what you hear from the client AND "the public" (the rest of the class), each designer will complete a finished colour version of their logo design.
Digital students: you'll be completeing your finished colour logo design in Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: you'll be creating your finished colour logo in gouache. Use the provided 8.5 by 11 inch bristol board, as we did with the black and white version.
* Be sure to include a 1" reproduction of the finished design in the lower right-hand corner.
Your finished designs should be ready for presentation at the beginning of our fourth class. Clients will be assessing the designer's work. Presentation will be assessed. Present your finished artwork with a tracing paper overlay. Name and student number printed neatly on the back in thin black line marker in the bottom right-hand corner.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Lesson 2: Client Feedback and Revisions
Like it or not, one of the unavoidable realities of almost any design project is client feedback and the resulting revisions.
Client feedback can be a frustrating experience, but as creative artists we often tend to lose perspective about our own work and stop seeing it objectively. At a time like that a fresh set of eyes can help prevent a potential disaster of the sort that could result in your design being featured on yourlogomakesmebarf.com !
Once you've completed your thumbnails, pass them to the 'client' team so they can review your concepts. One client will review one designer's thumbnails, hopefully covering all the work done on a one-to-one basis.
If there are fewer clients than designers, some clients will have to review more than one designer's work. And of course the reverse situation: if there are fewer designers than clients, some clients will have to team up to review one designer's work.
Client feedback will be two part:
1. Fill out the Client Feedback form provided to you at the start of class.
2. Carefully tape the tracing paper overlay sheet along the top edge of the thumbnail page(s) and write specific comments and revision sketches on the tracing paper IMPORTANT: Indicate which thumbnail sketch is your preferred design by checkmarking it on the tracing overlay.
Once the designers have received their feedback, they can begin working on the revised final linear of the client's preferred design in pencil on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper.
This final linear rendering should be done at a larger size. Do a single clean linear drawing of the client's favourite design - with revisions - at approximately 4 or 5 inches wide by whatever the proportionate height will be.
Digital students: once your clean linear drawing is completed, scan it in and begin working on the final b/w art in Adobe Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: once your clean linear is completed, transfer the drawing to the provided 8.5 x 11 bristol board and render it cleanly in black media (ink and brush, tech pen, black marker) use rulers and set squares as well as french curves to ensure your artwork looks as professional as possible.
* Be sure to include a 1" reproduction of the finished design in the lower right-hand corner.
Your finished designs should be ready for presentation at the beginning of our third class. Clients will be assessing the designer's work. presentation will be assessed. Present your finished artwork with a tracing paper overlay and cover sheet. Name and student number printed neatly on the back in black thin line marker in the bottom right-hand corner.
Client feedback can be a frustrating experience, but as creative artists we often tend to lose perspective about our own work and stop seeing it objectively. At a time like that a fresh set of eyes can help prevent a potential disaster of the sort that could result in your design being featured on yourlogomakesmebarf.com !
Once you've completed your thumbnails, pass them to the 'client' team so they can review your concepts. One client will review one designer's thumbnails, hopefully covering all the work done on a one-to-one basis.
If there are fewer clients than designers, some clients will have to review more than one designer's work. And of course the reverse situation: if there are fewer designers than clients, some clients will have to team up to review one designer's work.
Client feedback will be two part:
1. Fill out the Client Feedback form provided to you at the start of class.
2. Carefully tape the tracing paper overlay sheet along the top edge of the thumbnail page(s) and write specific comments and revision sketches on the tracing paper IMPORTANT: Indicate which thumbnail sketch is your preferred design by checkmarking it on the tracing overlay.
Once the designers have received their feedback, they can begin working on the revised final linear of the client's preferred design in pencil on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper.
This final linear rendering should be done at a larger size. Do a single clean linear drawing of the client's favourite design - with revisions - at approximately 4 or 5 inches wide by whatever the proportionate height will be.
Digital students: once your clean linear drawing is completed, scan it in and begin working on the final b/w art in Adobe Illustrator.
Creative Studio students: once your clean linear is completed, transfer the drawing to the provided 8.5 x 11 bristol board and render it cleanly in black media (ink and brush, tech pen, black marker) use rulers and set squares as well as french curves to ensure your artwork looks as professional as possible.
* Be sure to include a 1" reproduction of the finished design in the lower right-hand corner.
Your finished designs should be ready for presentation at the beginning of our third class. Clients will be assessing the designer's work. presentation will be assessed. Present your finished artwork with a tracing paper overlay and cover sheet. Name and student number printed neatly on the back in black thin line marker in the bottom right-hand corner.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Lesson 1: The Importance of Good Branding & Design
From an article on About.com by Laura Lake:
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers."
Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.
The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:
- Delivers the message clearly
- Confirms your credibility
- Connects your target prospects emotionally
- Motivates the buyer
- Concretes User Loyalty
Read the rest of the article here
Because a company's logo is so important to identifying it's brand, what are some of the essential elements we need to consider when beginning the logo design process? Graphic designer David Airey provides some great tips on his blog, LogoDesignLove Carefully read and consider the points raised in the article.
After you've read David Airey's post, take a look at these "20 unique, memorable, and creative logos designed by talented artists from all over the world" collected on toxel.com
In this short clip we see some top design industry professionals apply these principles of branding and logo design to meet their client's needs - and they show how to do it under extreme deadline pressure!
Now that you understand a bit about the importance of good branding and logo design you're ready to begin working your way through the process!
Step 1 - Divide into groups and choose who will be the leader, who will be the reporter, and who will be the recorder (the recorder will be responsible writing all the notes in the group's binder). The other group members are the group's cheerleaders.
Spend 5 minutes determining your roles.
Step 2 - Your group is about to start a corporation and together you must choose what type of industry it will be from the list below. Discuss the options and vote on only ONE type of industry!
Agriculture and Prepared Foods
Transportation
Arts & Entertainment
Pharmaceutical
Banking & Investment
Hi Tech & Consumer Electronics
Spend 10 minutes on this step.
Step 3 - Once you have voted on what your company's business will be, choose an animal that you feel would most effectively represent the company's products or services as a company mascot. For example, "Eagle Airlines" or "Tiger Investments". You may choose a real animal or mythological creature as your corporate mascot. Remember, everyone in the group must discuss, vote and choose only ONE animal for the whole group!
Spend 10 minutes discussing and choosing an animal mascot.
Step 4 - Once the entire group has agreed on an industry and an animal mascot, its time to discuss as many details as possible about what it is your company does. Remember everything we discussed and learned about branding. Your company description should include...
1.What products and/or services do you offer? Define the qualities of these services and/or products.
2. What are the core values of your products and services? What are the core values of your company?
3. What is the mission of your company?
4. What does your company specializes in?
5. Who is your target market? Who do your products and services attract?
6. What is the tagline of your company? What message does your tagline send to your prospects?
Spend 15 minutes on this exercise.
Step 5 - Each group in turn will stand up and the group's reporter will present the new company to the rest of the class, explaining who and what they are. Once we've gone all the way around the room, each group will hand off their binder to the group to their right. That group will now be their design firm, commissioned to design a company logo for their "client" that effectively describes the client's brand identity.
Step 6 In the time remaining (and for homework) each team member should begin working on rough thumbnail sketches, as we saw in the youtube video. Plan to do research online and/or in the library. Make copies of existing company logos you find that are representative of the client's competitors. Research images of the client's mascot animal and do at least three sketches of the animal (may be realistic, stylized, symbolic or cartoony).
Be ready to present rough sketches to the client at the beginning of the next class for review, feedback and assessment.
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers."
Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.
The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:
- Delivers the message clearly
- Confirms your credibility
- Connects your target prospects emotionally
- Motivates the buyer
- Concretes User Loyalty
Read the rest of the article here
Because a company's logo is so important to identifying it's brand, what are some of the essential elements we need to consider when beginning the logo design process? Graphic designer David Airey provides some great tips on his blog, LogoDesignLove Carefully read and consider the points raised in the article.
After you've read David Airey's post, take a look at these "20 unique, memorable, and creative logos designed by talented artists from all over the world" collected on toxel.com
In this short clip we see some top design industry professionals apply these principles of branding and logo design to meet their client's needs - and they show how to do it under extreme deadline pressure!
Now that you understand a bit about the importance of good branding and logo design you're ready to begin working your way through the process!
Step 1 - Divide into groups and choose who will be the leader, who will be the reporter, and who will be the recorder (the recorder will be responsible writing all the notes in the group's binder). The other group members are the group's cheerleaders.
Spend 5 minutes determining your roles.
Step 2 - Your group is about to start a corporation and together you must choose what type of industry it will be from the list below. Discuss the options and vote on only ONE type of industry!
Agriculture and Prepared Foods
Transportation
Arts & Entertainment
Pharmaceutical
Banking & Investment
Hi Tech & Consumer Electronics
Spend 10 minutes on this step.
Step 3 - Once you have voted on what your company's business will be, choose an animal that you feel would most effectively represent the company's products or services as a company mascot. For example, "Eagle Airlines" or "Tiger Investments". You may choose a real animal or mythological creature as your corporate mascot. Remember, everyone in the group must discuss, vote and choose only ONE animal for the whole group!
Spend 10 minutes discussing and choosing an animal mascot.
Step 4 - Once the entire group has agreed on an industry and an animal mascot, its time to discuss as many details as possible about what it is your company does. Remember everything we discussed and learned about branding. Your company description should include...
1.What products and/or services do you offer? Define the qualities of these services and/or products.
2. What are the core values of your products and services? What are the core values of your company?
3. What is the mission of your company?
4. What does your company specializes in?
5. Who is your target market? Who do your products and services attract?
6. What is the tagline of your company? What message does your tagline send to your prospects?
Spend 15 minutes on this exercise.
Step 5 - Each group in turn will stand up and the group's reporter will present the new company to the rest of the class, explaining who and what they are. Once we've gone all the way around the room, each group will hand off their binder to the group to their right. That group will now be their design firm, commissioned to design a company logo for their "client" that effectively describes the client's brand identity.
Step 6 In the time remaining (and for homework) each team member should begin working on rough thumbnail sketches, as we saw in the youtube video. Plan to do research online and/or in the library. Make copies of existing company logos you find that are representative of the client's competitors. Research images of the client's mascot animal and do at least three sketches of the animal (may be realistic, stylized, symbolic or cartoony).
Be ready to present rough sketches to the client at the beginning of the next class for review, feedback and assessment.
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