Assignment 4: Visual Identity/Brand

Susan Kare is best known as the artist who designed many fonts, logos, icons, and images for Apple, Next, Microsoft, And IBM in the 1980’s.

ASSIGNMENT Presentation DUE December 13, 2023, Wednesday of Finals Week 

Refer to the following Resource Links:

Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv

The following are the major steps in this assignment.
Refer further below them for details on each

  1. Pick a client from the list provided (AS AN ALTERNATIVE, YOU MAY PICK A CLIENT OF YOUR OWN CHOOSING BUT MUST OK THIS WITH ME)
  2. Determine a GENERAL target audience
  3. Create a Mood Board—Use Pinterest or Designspiration
  4. Create thumbnails for a logo—Emphasis on Quantity of ideas, use one of the charts
  5. Apply active Figure and Ground elements—figure becoming ground and/or Figure/Ground Reversal
  6. Write possible slogans—either a sentence, phrase or three specific words
  7. Narrow the thumbnail possibilities down to three—develop these further
  8. Do “finished” versions of your best three logo/slogans—pair with logo
  9. Apply your visual identity/logo/brand to 3 different items/deliverables
  10. Identity Guidelines—directions indicating how your visual identity should be used
  11. Final Presentation—presenting your project ON DECEMBER 13TH, WEDNESDAY OF FINALS WEEK. YOU MUST BE PRESENT FOR THIS

If you recall, throughout the semester we have been exploring the concept of perception. Creating an effective visual identity requires your design to positively influence the target audience perception of your client’s business. This is based on your clear understanding of your client’s needs and what is at the heart of what they do. This should not be fabricated, misleading or “Smoke and Mirrors”. Instead it is emphasizing specific real traits, goals, characteristics or qualities to create a public image or perception.

It’s never about just a logo. It really is about a much bigger strategy and about transformation. So you have to have everyone invested in that, because at the end of the process everyone has to be joined together in delivering.—Cynthia Round senior vice president of marketing and external relations Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  1. The first step in this assignment is for you to pick a client. Below are 6 different companies for you to choose from. Pick two to start. You will narrow this to one single company for your final work. You will need to name your company and research the type of business they are in including their competition.
  • A Long-haul trucking Company
  • A High-tech Computer Hardware Developer
  • A Landscaping Business
  • A Home Building Contractor
  • A Bicycle Repair Shop
  • A Media Company
  1. The next major step is to imagine that you are meeting with the principle or owners about their company and gaining inside into their business. In reality, you would be referring to the interview questionnaire as a guide. In this assignment, you will need to rephrase and customize those questions so that they are appropriate for your particular company and answer them yourself based on your general research about this type of business. In reality, as well as in this assignment,  this is perhaps the single most important step you can do to assure that you will create a meaningful design in the end.
    Your goal is to understand the underlying reasons behind what makes this company unique and who is the specific audience or customer base that they are trying to reach. Without this, your design will be based on generalizations alone—not unique directions. Base what you do on your clear understanding of what your company is all about, what it stands for, what its goals are. That clear understanding will help you avoid cliché solutions. Use the answers that you decide upon from your questionnaire to guide you in your design direction. Do not begin making any designs until you have completed this step.
  2. Determine who or what demographic your company is trying to reach. Knowing this is critical for creating an effective brand. Many cool and creative looking brands fail because of not first identifying this audience specifically and then applying that knowledge in designing the brand. Use this link to help you define your Target Audience.
    Target Audience— how to define a target audience and build your brand.
    Target Audience
  3. Next create a “mood board” of images that capture or illustrate the main characteristics of your company. A mood board is a type of collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. They may be physical or digital, and can be “extremely effective” presentation tools. Graphic designers, interior designers, industrial designers, photographers and other creative artists use mood boards as an initial sep in the creative process. Its purpose is to visually illustrate the style you wish to pursue with your own work. The preferred alternative to  making a physical mood board is to use sites such as designspiration or Pinterest for this step in creating a “visual catalog of inspirational ideas.”
  4. Logo Design Process. Follow the three main steps below
    • Step 1: Organize your logo design ideas according to one of the three Logo Development Charts
      • The purpose of the Logo Development Chart is to help you create as many possible design ideas as you can
      • Draw your thumbnail ideas for each chart category on separate pages in your sketchbook. Thumbnails can actually be any size, however the key here is the time spent on developing them. Do not spend more than 5 minutes on any one. If you need to draw smaller to accomplish this, do so. The emphasis is on quantity of many different ideas, not on the quality of any one image at this beginning stage. It is Ideation. You should on average generate at least 20–30 different idea directions for a visual identity logo.
    • Step Two: Refine the concepts that you develop from the chart, by activating fig/ground relationships, (figure becoming ground or figure/ground reversal). In other words, all of your logo ideas must use a dramatic figure and ground visual balance. (implied line, shared contour, or substitution).
      • Remember, Your final logos MUST be based on active figure and ground.
    • Step Three: Pick your best three to five ideas for your company and do more detailed or finished versions of each of the three at approximately a 3–5 inch size. It should go without saying that Creativity and Uniqueness play a huge part in this selection process. Your goal at this stage is to have 3 very strong but different idea/concepts for your company. Each idea should “work” in black and white, without color first. You should think of these as “final” non-color versions. Then, finally work out color variations. At this stage, your three choices  should be 3 separate design possibilities not 3 variations of the same idea.
  5. Slogan/Tagline Design Process: Generate a list of possible slogans/taglines at the same time you are concentrating on logo marks. What you are doing is in fact exploring different directions and making a little visual of that idea (the thumbnails) and at the same time making a short written phrase that will compliment or complete the total idea. It is visual teamwork—a gestalt. The best advertising slogans are the ones that truly bring out the very reason a brand exists. (here are some of the best)
  6. Combinations or Lockups:

    • When we combine the logo mark with the name of the company or the slogan it is referred to as a “lockup” which includes different combinations of:
      • LOGO
      • SLOGAN
      • NAME
    • However rarely, if ever, does a lockup include all three (the logo, slogan, and name) at the same time. Instead, it is normal to have separate lockups for the various possible combinations (logo + name, logo + slogan, name + slogan).
    • When you combine each of “your final three” logo marks in a lockup with either the slogan or the company name, you will need to create a visual hierarchy between them that is complimentary but not competing. Knowing the individual role or purpose that each play in the overall brand will help you solve this hierarchy issue.
      • Each of these main parts of the Brand have different, but complementary purposes or functions to serve. In most cases, the logo mark is the eye catching unique visual. That is its strength. So, your next question should be “what is its weakness then?” The typical answers are that we don’t yet know specifically the name nor the specific type of company that the logo represents.
      • SO, logically the main purposes of the name and slogan are to answer or fulfill those weaknesses. They do not need, nor should they be, competing visually with the logo. Instead they need to complement one another. There needs to be a hierarchy of visual elements. Again, the logomark normally takes the visual lead in this hierarchy.
    • TOGETHER, the logo, name and slogan need to complete the entire message of the brand: 
  7. The Brand or Visual Identity System: The word “system” is key here. It implies that all the separate parts work together and compliment the whole—a gestalt. The resulting lockups of your 3 brand ideas creates the main components of an overall visual identity system.

      • These should be in both B & W as well as Color.
        • You can now begin working with and applying color to your designs. Use color for symbolic reasons. Use color to help communicate the characteristic or quality you are trying to emphasize with your overall brand. Refer to this link for color tips and guidance.
      • Include either a reduced size version (1″ x 1″ approx size) or business card design.
      • Your visual identity system must at a minimum include the following

          • Logo
          • Color Specs
          • Slogan
          • Active Figure and Ground
          • Type treatment
      •  Remember, Your goal at this stage is to have 3 very strong but different idea/concepts for your company. You should have 3 separate design possibilities, not 3 variations of the same idea.
  8. Delverables: From your final three choices, pick one of them and create 3 deliverables for your brand. (deliverables may sometimes also be referred to as design applications or collateral). What you choose to do as deliverables depends on what your company does or makes. Your deliverables are a way to demonstrate what the brand will look like on things that your company uses or creates. This is context.
    • Show any possible variations of logo+ slogan, logo only, name + slogan that would be appropriate for your company. Ask yourself, Where will the brand be seen? (business card, letterhead, etc? Will the business have a store and need a sign? Will they need an online presence? How about transportation? Where will the tagline be used? (sign, website, etc.) What kind of materials and what sizes will be used by the company advertising/promotion? (paper, wood, metal, glass, etc.) Will there be packaging, signs, vehicles, menus, wearable items, website, app etc. that might typically be branded? These are some examples (but not necessarily all) of the kind of questions you should ask yourself, You should do research about the company and its competition to help find answers and to  be particularly creative and effective with the kind of deliverables you make.
  • Branding Across Mediums 
    • Customer Touch Points aka. Design Deliverables
    • Customer/Target Audience Motivation
    • Consistency—Staying “On Brand”
    • Define the essence of the brand with Brand Guidelines
  • It is very important that applying the brand to various deliverables does not mean simply resizing the logo to fit different things. It means careful consideration for the material it will be on, whether it is seen from a distance or close up, perhaps held in the viewer’s hands on on screen only, etc.
  • It also must consider how each application fits within an overall unified and comprehensive branding/visual identity system.
  • One of your deliverables could be a Symbol Set that includes at least 5 symbols/icons that are related to your company. (for example a restaurant would have a logo but could also have a symbol set that could include an icon for drinks, meat, fish, vegetables, dessert). The 3 deliverables are your indications of a Visual System at work and your ability to create a visual personality, “look”, “brand”, “theme”. Each individual part of this theme (type, color, logo, tagline, etc.) should be clearly and separately presented in your final presentation.
    (see below).

9. Identity or Brand Guidelines are essentially a set of rules indicating how your Brand is to be used or implemented by the client. The client is not a designer and will need these guidelines to help them know the best ways to use the visual brand elements you have created for them. The rules typically cover type, paper, color, and their sizes and how they should be applied.

Example: University of the Pacific Brand Guidelines

Your Identity Manual must indicate the following;

    • Type Treatment (indicate Typeface families for both display and text usage
      and their relative font variations). What you are attempting to do is provide direction to your client. You are trying to foresee how he/she will be adding or typing in information on or to the applications you have created for their company. (typical examples of this would be a letterhead, website, flyer, brochure, etc.) You want to indicate to them ahead of time your recommendations or directions for how they should use type to their best advantage and compliment the visual identity you have created. So, you should say what typeface families they should use and how the fonts within those families should be used for specific purposes (display, text, emphasis, headings, subheadings, etc). The typeface choices that you indicate here are meant to compliment the logo type treatment.

      • The typefaces the client should use are typically NOT the same as those in the logo itself. However, they might be other fonts within the same typeface family as that in the logo. So, you have to be specific about what those fonts should be (if in the same family) or what typeface family (if different but complementary to those in the logo).
    • Paper Treatment guidelines for usage. What paper (or other material/substrate) should be used when/where within the Brand. Indicate your choices by:
      • weight (writing, text, or cover) + pounds
      • color
      • texture
    • Color Treatment should be indicated as Pantone colors swatches in the manner shown below. (In this example The main color is the dominant color orange. The secondary color is a tint and the accent color is the complement of the dominant or main color. You may choose other variations of color theory to determine the main, secondary and accent colors. You also do not necessarily have to have a total of three colors.)
      • Below is an example of how you should indicate visual identity color in terms of dominant secondary and accent colors. These should be indicated as spot PMS colors, so be sure to include their Pantone numbers.
      • To locate the Pantone color swatch library In Illustrator:
        Window>>Swatch Libraries>>Color Books>>PANTONE + Solid Uncoated
      • To Convert a color to a Pantone Color Equivalent:
        Window>>Color Guide>>select the small circular “Edit or Apply Colors” icon located in the lower right-hand corner of the window. In the resulting “Recolor Artwork” window click “Edit”, then in the next window, click the small gridded rectangle which is located on the right-hand side under the color circle>>Color Books>>PANTONE Solid Uncoated>>OK. If you do not have your color in the color swatches, put it there now and roll the mouse over the swatch color to reveal its new PANTONE number.

Color Swatch

In the example above, Orange is the main color, the Light Orange is the secondary color and the Blue is an accent color. So the brand would primarily use the Orange and Light Orange colors with Blue only minimally as an accent.

10. Organization

  • Printed Deliverables
    • For all visual identity/brand presentations you should have a physical Presentation Folder in addition to your Powerpoint which contains actual printed versions of your work.
      • It should include:
        • all of your deliverables,
        • 3 options,
        • lockups,
        • Identity Guidelines
      • It should organize these materials in a logical order to be able to make an effective presentation of your design proposal.
      • Process Work. Document your entire process. This should include thumbnail sketches organized by the chart you chose, rough comps, possible slogan options, etc.  Arrange this at the beginning of your Powerpoint. (this part of the project is typically NOT a part of a presentation to a client.)
        • Thumbnails
        • Research
        • Development sketches
        • other slogan ideas

 Formal Presentation

ASSIGNMENT Presentation DUE December 13, 2023, Wednesday of Finals Week 

You will have 10 minutes for your presentation + 5 minutes for Q & A.

Essential Points for your final powerpoint presentations

This will be a formal presentation of your brand. This means that you are to imagine that the rest of the class is your client. With that in mind, you are trying to present your ideas in a logical order, one that will convince your client that you have made good design decisions about every detail of your proposal.

      • Other options to Powerpoint include: Keynote,  Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, Web Ex, etc.) You may also need some other program (ex. XD, chart, Pinterest, Designspiration, Website, Interactive PDF, Padlet, diagram, outline, backward map, etc.) that will help you prototype or demonstrate deliverables you want to share with your client/audience.
      • The opening of the presentation should not have the logo on it.
        • The logo is the “jewel” of the visual identity. You don’t want to reveal that yet. Instead build up anticipation for it in the presentation, within the presentation sequence.
        • It may, however have color or tagline related to your proposed visual identity. Since you will typically be presenting three possible choices to the client it wouldn’t make sense to favor one of them  at this point since they wouldn’t have made a final choice yet.
          • Appropriateness
          • Consistency and extension of the Visual Identity
          • Customized (not decorated)
    • In either case, all Brand presentations should always cover the development of the following:
      • A Brief Introduction that clarifies your understanding of the company, the product line, and the target audience —“setting the stage”. intro might include a quote or other image to “set the stage“ for the client and establish the conceptual background for your visual identity. or capture the qualities that your visual identity system will represent in greater depth. This would only be used as an introductory step in your presentation.
        • This means you first need to explain to us (the client) what characteristics of their business you determined to be the most important and are representing in your design proposal,
        • 2nd; who is the primary target audience that this new identity is aimed at or attracting? and
        • 3rd; the general approach/feeling you are going for in the identity. You are also demonstrating to the client that you “get where they are coming from”, or what is important to them and what they are trying to accomplish.
      • Brand Concept (in this specific assignment one driven by active figure and ground) This is where the symbolism behind your logo/visual identity is interpreted.
      • Next, how us the process you took to get to the final identity system choice. This is the Process Work. (This process part is typically not shared with the client, only here for our assignment)
      • Identity Guidelines will need to include the following:
        • Reason for your Color choices and combinations, the color palette. Identity color specifications (see above).
        • Reasons for your Typography specs/choices
          • Typeface(s) used by you
          • 3 possible typeface choices that your client might use that would be compatible with your visual identity typefaces,
          • The fonts are that you indicate for the client to use are typically NOT the same as those in the logo itself. However, they might be other fonts within the same typeface family. So, you have to be specific about what those fonts the client should use (if they are in the same typeface family as those in the logo) or what typeface family (if different but complementary to those used in the logo).
          • Apply Basic Branding and Visual Identity Principles to all.
    • 3 Logo Design Options (not simply 3 variations of the same idea)
      • Pair each logo with a Tagline/Slogan + Company Name presented in a Lockup
      • Each logo idea should:
        • utilize/emphasize an active figure and ground visual relationship
        • show a full color version of logo
        • show a B & W version of logo
        • show a reduced size version of logo (1″ x 1″)
    • (for our class, Pick one of your brands and apply it to a a Minimum of 3 Deliverables for one of your logo options, you might have more than 3). Show  applications of the Brand at work on objects or locations (context) that make sense for your client and the audience it is intended for.
      • You need to have mock up versions of large applications/deliverables such as wearables, billboards, vehicles, etc.
      • You need to have prototype versions of applications/deliverables that demonstrate interactivity and navigation for screen applications such as websites, apps, etc.
    • Relate everything you did to what your client or your research told you was important to the business or to characteristics of your target audience. This is basic marketing. This information should be explicitly stated in the 1/2 page summary paper.
      • 1/2 page paper as a Word doc (minimum length) typed statement explaining why you did what you did in all phases of your design work:
        • why decisions were made because of client needs
        • why decisions were made because of the client/company competition
        • why decisions were made because of target audience
        • Indicate how you applied the gestalt principle of active figure and ground.
  • Presenting:
    • Poise/confidence/presence—speaking ability
    • Soliciting comments/questions from the group, critique—engaging your audience
    • Finally, check to be sure your Powerpoint presentation is in the correct order or sequence. You will explain everything that you did as either a direct response to the target audience or to your clients needs/requests. A logical and sequential Presentation of the Process that resulted in the materials/applications/products will lead your audience to a positive and logical conclusion that your design solution is correct and appropriate and the one to “go with” and ultimately make a difference for your client.
    • PRACTICE your presentation.

Your grade/score will be based on the following

  • Presentation
  • Application of Active Figure and Ground in the design
  • Evidence of Process
  • Relating your design decisions to the needs of the client and those of your target audience.
  • Design Solutions
  • Applications/Deliverables
  • Creativity/uniqueness
  • Organization
  • Overall craftsmanship and neatness
  • Meeting the assignment goals listed above

You will also do two peer reviews of your classmates presentation. These will be assigned to you randomly through Canvas.

Student Examples:

Katie Nimmo—Glory Essentials

Dana Shiroma—Bella Luna Salon

Sheng Moua—V Chiropractic Center

Ashley Richards—Southern Exposure

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