The first stage of the task was to research the three fictional brand briefs and create a digital mood board for each branding. I’ve created mood boards for each of the taxi service, eco future and influencing hull to understand each company’s overall tone, helping to establish the direction I would be taking when it comes to developing my own company and products.
For the eco related mood board, I focused on using images which focused on sustainability, nature and creating an ethical future, I researched earthy eco colour palettes, fitting typography and the overall tone of these types of company’s. When researching competitors I understood the types of visual themes they often use and the overall brand personalities they each have. The second brief that I researched was the taxi company, when researching I found the bold colour palettes which are often used and a range of efficient banners, which help to convey the type of brand, as these taxi services have to be efficient and reliable for customers to want to use them. The last brief that I had to research was influence hull, which is a business consultant agency. From my research I found out that this company focuses both on professionalism and trust, they use a lot of monotone colours within their branding such as greys, whites and black. Most of the relating imagery to the brand is serious corporate style which makes sense when thinking about the potential business audience the brand may have.
Once I had the idea for the direction of the assignment, I developed basic brand structures as this helps to transform my ideas even further. These structures are both helpful and important in making sure that the brand stays consistent and focuses on the target audience and interaction aspects. My two user personas were developed to represent the ideal customer of the brand, developing these two personas meant that the decisions and branding were based around the users needs and not just my own personal preferences. These personas also helped me to identify the needs, frustrations and concerns any real customer may have regarding my brand, always making sure to cater to the ideal target audience.
Its important that I developed a brand prism because this helps to provide a clear visual graph which shows all elements of the brands identity and how the possible customers may interpret the brand. By talking about brand aspects such as the personality, self image and customer relationship, it helps to make sure I keep consistency in the way I present the brand and how the ideal customers are seeing the branding. Overall the use of the brand prism is a visual representation of the importance between how the brand presents itself and how the customers relate to it.
Creating a brand matrix was useful as it helps to visual show the direction and attitude the brand may give off to the ideal customer. It provides the brand with its own identity, similar to identity created based of the brand personality.
Creating a brand personality chart allows for the customers to have an early on opinion based on the brand, judging of the personality traits. It allows the users to trust and connect with the brand on a further level. From the first glance at my brand personality chart, the customers will be able to see that the products are affordable, simple designs, not gender orientated and can be wore in both a formal and informal manner. Which in my opinion, is the best way to describe my branding and traits which customers can also connect well with.
