OUGD406 - Studio Brief 03 - Study Task 1 - Tower Works

Today we were introduced to OUGD406 Brief 03 and were divided into 11 groups of five class mates. I was really happy with my group and felt inspired and positive about the brief from the start. In today's studio time we were given study task 1, in which we had to re-brand a creative studio space named 'Tower Works' in the southern district of Leeds.

The study task:

In your group you must brand Tower WorksLeeds. Consider the following:

·         Graphic design: The visual identity – hard corporate identity or soft, friendly caricature?

·         Tone of voice: Is the language you use (both spoken and written) formal or relaxed?

·         Dialogue: Can your users or customers contribute ideas and get involved in the organisation? Or is it a one-way communication?

You will need to assess the ket aspects of your company:

·         The mission statement/USP

·         Values

·         Vision

·         Personality

Define the key design ingredient, it could be Colour as in Orange (the mobile phone company), Environment/Architecture (Guiness, the storehouse), Name (lovefilm), Sound (Intel), Typography (BBC, The Times), Shape (The guild of food writers)

We began by researching as group. We looked in depth at the existing branding and website paying particular attention to the logo, use of type and the colour schemes used. We found that the website was easy to navigate around but that it felt slightly too corporate and boring. We definitely all agreed that it needed a major facelift and needed to be brought into 2015. People in the class commented on the existing logo, saying that it was boring, unimaginative and not really suitable for the tone of voice etc. To an extent my group agreed with this, but we actually thought that the existing usage of type is appropriate and definitely fits in line with the context of the organisation. So, we decided to start designing by looking for various typefaces which shared similar qualities with the one already employed. We wanted our re-brand to focus on the elongated nature of the towers so we worked vertically a lot of the time. Below are examples of the various design treatments used to redesign the logo for this brand. 

We then decided on one logo and ran from there. We liked the left aligned one the most as we felt that it conceptually and contextually links the tower theme. Our colour scheme was kept pretty minimal, it may seem like an obvious choice but we wanted to represent the red brick colourings of the towers to make reference to their heritage. The colour we ended up using is fairly muted and not too bold, we felt this made the logo feel more contemporary and not too harsh. The type face is elongated and to us visually represents a tower. The original logo was very low resolution and couldnt easily be applied to a range of branding materials. Our new logo design is a high quality vector based image and can be applied to any layout or design we see fit. 

We then mocked up a quick business card concept and placed it into a template of stacked business cards. We designed our business cards on a 3 x 6 template, because we didn't want them to be standard, conventional business card dimensions. We did this to run in theme with the tower's height and general shape. We wanted the logo to dominate the design and other information relegated to the side. We included a description of the company at the top right of the card and set the type to face the opposite direction. The concept behind this was to make the cards a lot more interactive and engaging for the audience. I am really pleased with the cards and we got some positive feedback about them. 

Here are mock ups of what the business cards would look like.

We took the logo further and mocked up a sign that would appear on the outside of the building its self. I think the sign works really well, we even included a very simplistic line drawing of a few buildings from the Leeds skyline to add a further subtle element to our re-brand. 

Finally we created mock ups of stickers. We thought these would be a cool thing to design and produce and add a lighter element to the re-brand. Everyone likes a sticker, so we thought it would be interesting to push the logo even further. 

We then presented our work to the class, almost like a pitch. Everyone had to vote on their favourite resolution, the one they felt answered the brief the most successfully. We received eight votes which I was really pleased about and we came joint second with another group. Our slides: