NYJC & Brand YouT e r m 2 E l e c t i v e s

W A D 1 0 3 1 9 2 1 9

Mationesa Wade

Table of Contents

Brief Research

Research Outcomes Logo Development

Typeface Evolution of Brand

Brochure Design CD Cover Art

Website Design Evaluation

Brief Research

Research Outcomes Logo Development

TypefaceWebsite Design

Social NetworkingBusiness Card DesignStencils and T-Shirts

Evaluation

NYJC

Brand You- pg15- pg16- pg17- pg18 to 21- pg22- pg23 to 24- pg25- pg26- pg27- pg28

- pg3- pg4- pg5- pg6 to 7- pg8- pg9- pg10- pg11- pg12 to 13- pg14

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NYJC Brief and Aims

T h e B r i e fNational Youth Jazz Collective ap-proached the University in order to develop a rebrand of their existing organisation. They were a young collective that had been grow-ing at a steady rate, and now felt it was time that their Brand per-sonality matched their capabili-ties and standards of excellence.

They needed a complete re-vamp inc. but not limited to Logo, Website, Colour scheme and promotional materials.

Students at LCC were charged with developing the new sys-tem for the organisation.

We were given free reign to in-terpret the Brand Identity as we saw fit, and where guided by the C.E.O of the collective Izzy Barret

M y A i m sMy aim’s in this Project were to pro-vide my client with a new Brand identy that both embodied the current personality of the organi-sation, but also had fluidity to be altered as the Collective contin-ued to grow. I felt that Jazz itself came with so much personality and adjectives that a lot of empha-sis should be placed on the pro-fessionalism of the organisation.

I hope to deliver a complete Brand Identity inc. but not limited to Logo, Website as well as templates for most if not all promotional materials.

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NYJC Research

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Research Outcomes

My understanding of Jazz is strongly based in the abstract. I think Jazz can be heavily com-pared to classical music in the term that it is fuelled by emo-tion, will and intent. I hope to be able to convey these in my approach to the NYJC rebrand .

I intend to provide an abun-dance of colour, seeing how colour is such an apt repre-sentation of emotion, and in Izzy Barrets case also a repre-sentation of sound. Synesthe-sia play a large factor in how i present the brand for client.

I also want to help move the Collective from their hast-ily put together persona into something much more sophis-ticated and clean, whilst still minting a youthful feel. This will be done but adding a lot of negative space in a minimil-ist approach to their design.

Colourful Abstract SophisticationExciting Freedom

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Developing the Logo

The evolution of the logo, is in the details. I belive that though this is a Youth Collective. I want every aspect of the new brand to say maturity. I see the col-lective as a place where the young can go, to be taken cared for, and honed in their art.

The basis of the new logo is to be found in the Sound wave. Af-ter a few failed attempts i de-cided that the best idea was to combine the wave to be an extenuation of the text. This meant going in with the illus-trator surgical kit and adding

some of my own modifications.I decreased thee weight of the full length title and also dropped the J in jazz below the con-ventional line, to demonstrate its freedom from constraints.

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Developing the Logo

I endeavoured to give the logo, a bit of a slick feel. I did this by taking my illustrator path into Cinema4D, and con-structing a 3D render of it that i gave a metallic texture to.

At this stage, the 3D logo was only to be used in pro-motional tool such as CD cover’s. Keeping the Illustra-tor file for all formal docu-ments, websites and products..

Whenever placed on a white background, the 3D ren-der should be accompanied by a drop shadow to add to the third dimension pro-vided by the final outcome..

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Choosing the Type Face

The font i chose was actually chosen for me, y the logo deci-sions i made. I decided to use Myriad Pro which would be the un altered version of my logo font. This would help with conformity.

I liked the cleanliness of this font, and in an effort not to dis-rupt that, all use of this font for Brand purposes must conform to a 50pt tracking guideline..

In the need for ALL CAPS. The tracking is then increased to 150pt. This also holds true when he text is bolded for em-phasis. Only the font standard semi bold is allowed in this in-stance. Again in hopes of retain-ing its clean cut appearance..

National Youth Jazz CollectiveNational Youth Jazz CollectiveN AT I O N A L Y O U T H J A Z Z C O L L E C T I V EN YJ C

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Evolution of the Brand

Personality

I developed everything in stag-es when it comes to this brand. My brochures CD covers and websites all grew together and changed together. This was an effort to promote conform-ity across all media ranges..

means the organization does As you can see from the evo-lution, i started quite rigid and uniform, using photography to dictate what colour choice would be shown thru in my de-sign. But i quickly grew more abstract with my decisions.

I used a rainbow gradient a lot, not because this was actually the intended out put, but just to clarify that the designs could function with a variety of colour.

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Final Brochure

Designs

This page shows the final brochure design i decided on. I chose to display the design in a multitude of colours to show its adaptability for different mood settings. I’m also a strong fan of continuation, and i prefer when the design of a new issue follows suit of its pre-decessor. This design can be altered in a variety of ways whilst keeping the same feel..

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Final CD Cover

Designs

This page shows the final cd cover art design i decided on. Once again chose to dis-play the design in a multitude of colours to show its adaptability for different mood set-tings. In both the brochure and CD cover art, i chose to use the 3D rendered logo,i felt this added variation to the design more so then the vector based logo..

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Website Mock Ups

The website as you can clearly see, follows the same evolu-tion pattern as the CD cover art and the brochure designs. This is because the genera-tion of these designs all oc-curred in the same sequence..

I tried to introduce the same ink in water/ smoke textures i was using through out my designs to the website, again to add to the conformity of the Brand identity.

But on a bigger canvas, re-strictions and form most be put in place to keep the site clean and functional. This is illustrated on the next page with my final web design.

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Final Website Design

But juxtaposing the abstract flow of my texture with geometric conformity, i be-lieve i was able to create a web design that is both clean, functional and abstract.

Such is the practise with this Brand Persona, the colours of the main design element can change as needed, and from page to page different patterns can be formed..

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NYJC Evaluation

E v a l u a t i o nFor the purposes of an evaluation, it is my duty to be both self criticising and complementary.Finding it hard to distingushish myself as both in one body of text i shall endeavour to split this evaluation into two catego-ries, my pro’s and cons if you will.

PROS: I enjoyed working on the NYJC re-brand, and i think this shows through in the vibrance of my work. Trying to integrate abstract into the strict rules of Graphic Design was a challenge for me that i enjoyed partaking in. I think i did well in unifying the Brand Person-ality into one consciousness that both expressed youth and sophistication.

I particularly like how i incorporated some of my 3D render knowledge to add to the aesthetic of the NYJC logo. Another factor of my design that i like is it’s ability to adapt to multiple colour and shape patterns. This would help the Brand diversify, whilst keeping in tune with a complete Brand Persona.

i Think unlike previous projects, I was able to move away from my initial ideas that may not have worked so well, into a practise that was benefi-cial to the project i was working on.

Cons: It was said to me after practise that my 3D render was bait to sterile to properly connect without he youth audience, i could have probably worked on softening the logo in order to make it sync in with the target audience. Though i was be-coming more adapt at discarding ideas that failed to work with the project, in the case of my logo, i fell into the “love” trap where in, i had put so much time into the logo, that i was unwilling to budge after class criticism said that it might have been a bit to hard on the eye.

I wish i had put in more thought into my work schedule as to allow myself more time to work on inte-gral Brand mediums such as letter heads and poster design. The fact that i was unable to produce a set of promotional posters irked me the most, considering that this is gener-ally where my field of expertise lies.

I also had hoped to receive more feedback from the C.E.O of NYJC in terms of helping me to develop a Brand Identity she thought was appropriate for her organisation.

I received a lot of help from my in class tutor, but due to poor time management, most of my fi-nal designs i had conducted in-dependently, so i was unable to gather valuable working time criti-cism that may have altered the direction of my finished persona.

Overview:I am quite happy with the project in whole, i do wish i had put in more work time. But i also believe that i have accomplished quite bait in the few weeks allocated to the NYJC brief. I believe this project has helped tidy and clean up my personal style of design, and has benefited me greatly if not NYJC. I hope I learn from my time manage-ment mistakes, as well as learn to stay away from the trap of commit-ting to heavily to a design aesthetic.

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Brand You Brief and Aims

T h e B r i e fThe Brand has become so signifi-cant a phenomenon of our time that it is almost impossible to express any ideas, or even delineate per-sonalities, without branding them.

Your personality determines how you react and how others react to you. It is the part of you that makes you a unique individual and sets you apart from others.

As a result, it is also how peo-ple remember and define you.

During the development of ‘Bran-dYou’ you need to ask your-self some basic questions.

What are your values? What do you love? What do you hate? What are you great at doing? What are you most proud of? What do you want to be? What is impor-tant and valuable to you? What do you want to be known for?

By delving deep into yourself during this process and work-ing hard to define who you

are and what you stand for, your ‘brand message’ will become clear.

The aim of this workshop is to create a visual representation of yourself. Think how your personal-ity can be reflected through type, colours, and visual elements.

M y A i m sI hope to use this project to help establish myself as a Brand, through the practised meth-ods of creating Brand Iden-tity, personality and visual.

I hope to have, at the end of this project; a fully functioning Brand identity as a freelance designer. Through the use of Social Net-working i also hope to begin the process of publicising and adver-tising myself as a Personal Brand.

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Brand You Research

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Research Outcomes

In the previous page of Image Research I displayed on the left the 2010 logo trends and then on the top right the 2011 trends however accurate they are at the beginning of the year. I then followed both these trends with some the the Ori-gami style logos i have gath-ered. As this was the direction in which i intended to follow.

Color is prevalent, but tinted down. Where black has been used as the strong neutral, now brown or grey is in place. Blues and greens are softer, and pinks are starting to ap-pear. Rainbow-like colour has moved out beyond any preex-isting symbolism and is often used to represent the concept of full spectrum, more choic-es, or additional capabilities.

Also, brightness in hue has be-come pervasive, likely due to the public’s eye being thoroughly trained now for light-projected, on-screen colour. We now live in a RGB, not a CMYK world.

Other degrees of lightness: Shapes are airier, lifting off the page. Designs are rising out of their 2D resting places and suggesting that they would re-ally like to go places. In some logos, line weights are slimmer.

There’s plenty of transpar-ency, too, as if light is now able to flow right through.

Bill Gardener from Logo lounge says

“It feels like what people be-lieve a logo to be is also becom-ing more transcendent. A logo is no longer a single piece of flat art. It can be a favicon, an icon, or an entire set of marks that work together to support the team. Its boundaries have become less strict as well. There was a time when most logos could be enclosed in a simple hand-drawn square, cir-cle or similar geometric shape, but now many logos drag out-side those outlines. They just don’t want to fit the old mould”

I found favour in a lot of the Origami styled logo’s and decided that this was a route i wanted to pursue.

Origami is a traditional Japa-nese art of folding paper into various shapes such as ani-mals, flowers, furniture, and human figures without cut-ting, pasting, or decorating.

Because paper art is so fantasis-ing, the graphic design indus-try has brought this new trend in logo designing. Many com-panies are using this logo con-cept to portray an image of be-ing modern, sharp and elegant

Sophistication MaturityCreativity Capability

Depth

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Developing the Logo

I was quite fortunate in this part of the project, in that i knew i wanted to use my initials to create my logo. M.W a reverse of one another, was actual-ly quite graphically pleasing.

I definitely knew i needed the sharp edges of the M and the W. Rounded edges connote a softness I was willing to sac-rifice in order to promote effi-ciency and professionalism the sharp pointed edges signify.

I actually came to the the con-clusion of a star quite early on in my experimentation, but still continued to play around with the forms until i decided to keep hold of the four pointed star my initials could create.

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Since the 3D design worked so well in my last project, i decided to implement it into my person-al logo.This had the added benefit of tonal gradients which helped make my logo more dynamic..

Developing the Logo

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This page shows my colour experiments, decided to let my logo that i was especially proud of dic-tate the colour scheme for my Personal brand. Judging from my experiments i decided that Red on White worked best. The red is striking, and i think putting it on white as well as being aestheti-cally pleasing, helped distinguish me from most Youthful designers who favour dark backgrounds.

Developing the Logo

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I realised during my logo im-plementation that the 3D de-sign didn’t conform well with the origami style i wanted my logo in, so i reverted back to my original illustrator based logo to add the “folds”..

I’ve decided on Red on White for my logo design. A Whit logo whenever it is required to be placed on dark back-grounds. And a dark grey for black and white print. .

The logo is accompanied by a drop shadow. This drop shad-ow is to be removed for black and white print as well as on dark backgrounds where there will be little visibility.

Finished Logo Design

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Choosing the Type Face

Choosing my Typeface was surpassingly difficult. A lot of the fonts i liked didn’t sit on a page well with the sharp graphics of my logo. In the end i went for Copperplate LIGHT. and Regular for emphasis. The spacing guidelines is actually quite fluid seeing as i want-ed all my titles to be of equal with. So depending on the Title, the tracking may change..

B y W a d e M

B y W a d e MMationesa Wade

Mationesa Wade

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My website was bar far the hardest thing I had to produce for this assignment. I seemed to be permanently unsatisfied with my design choices, and kept starting again from scratch.

Worse still, in my frustration, i never seemed to save any of the unacceptable ver-sions i had generated, so come time for presentation i could only find two mock ups on my hard drive. The one on the right became the template for my website..

Website Mock Ups

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Final Web Design

The first page of my web-site would be a splash page which is simply my logo cen-tralised on a white back-ground. This holds true to the Graphical uniform of my brand.

Clicking on the Logo rollover would then take the user to my homepage in which they are then given 3 links in which to explore my site. “Designs” “Il-lustrations” and “Contact”. The homepage is then un-reachable from these 3 pages

Whilst “Designs” and “Illus-trations” are self explanatory. There is something to be said about my contact page, which acts as a Profile as well as a link to the social networking sites i established myself on.

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Social Networking

For the purpose of this assign-ment, i had to establish myself on a few social networking web sites. Thew one i chose were Twit-ter, Blogspot and Deviant Art.

In the cases of Twitter and Blogspot, placing my Brand personality on to these pages i did with surprising ease, as both these platforms allowed me to customise the appear-ance of my personal pages .

DeviantArt comes with less lib-erty and i was forced to conform to the required schemes al-ready in place by this platform. The only customisable aspect in terms of appearance would be my avatar in which i used my logo on a transparent back.

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Buisiness Card Design

For my business card, I went with a two sided approach, The front retain-ing the same Graphical style i had been using through my Brand Identity.The back of the card then contains my personal information and contact de-tails. along side my logo placed to the side and cropped for aesthetic purposes..

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Stencils and T-Shirts

For the purpose of my Brand promotion i decided to then create some T-shirts which i could then be wearing in my social network-ing Profile pics. This required me to make a stencil first which was easy enough. I should have screen printed my shirts, but short for time and far from uni, i decided to paint them with a fabric spray instead..

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Brand You Evaluation

E v a l u a t i o nOnce more for the purposes of an evaluation, it is my duty to be both self criticising and comple-mentary.Finding it hard to distin-guish myself as both in one body of text i shall endeavour to split this evaluation into two catego-ries, my pro’s and cons if you will.

PROS: This has been my most enjoyable project yet, and hopefully for rea-sons other then my own personal vanity. Working with myself as a cli-ent, it became a lot easier to practise the Re-Brand. This project came in at the perfect timing, as i was just beginning the process of self styl-ing myself as a brand indecently. So to me it almost felt like LCC and Company London where helping me achieve a set of personal goals i had already dictated for myself.

Interestingly enough, my previ-ous branding project held great sway in the way i conducted my-self during the Brand You exercise, both in design principals and time management. I found myself shy-ing away from things i just “liked” and instead going with design practises that worked and befit-ted my project, this however did take some time getting used to.

Cons: One of the hardest things i had to put into my mind in this project was justifying some of my own de-sign choices, not to any tutors, but to myself. Early on, i made a lot of decisions based solely on per-sonal preference, which i was able to convince myself was OK, see-ing as i was the client in question.

One example of this would be my 3D rendered logo, which as you can see from Work PDF, didn’t actually sit well with the design principals i had wanted to asso-ciate myself with. Another folly i was prone to falling for was my own Ego. So desperate was i to make my personal brand “cool” i don’t know how well i actually achieved the personality i had wanted to infuse into my identity.

Overview:The main question i had to ask my-self in terms of personal branding, was does the Brand Identity follow the client, or does the client follow the Brand. In this instance, i sup-pose it was a little bit of both and neither t the same time. My de-sign decisions were based on a lot of what i liked, but known the personality i wanted to present my

identity with, a lot of what i liked ended up being the right decision.

At the same time, Mationesa Wade as a brand, and as a person are two distinct entities. Entities that co-exist and feed of each other, but if had learnt anything through social networking, how you present your-self, is not necessarily who you are.

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