What is my brand?

This week,  I'm expected to lay out a definite, concise description of my brand. The aspects that I'm expected to elucidate upon include brand promise, brand values, brand essence and brand positioning. 





Brand Promise: Elegance in a bottle.
Brand Values: Ornateness- Intricate in design.
                        Quality- Meticulous and hand crafted
                        Vintage- It takes a retro twist on the Victorian era.
                       
Brand Essence: Elegance
Brand Positioning: Fred and Miah should exemplify anything ornate and decorative. It should always feel aristocratic. It will be sold in salons and boutiques.

Projects So Far

This is an update I'm making to lay out what I have been doing for this week. I've moved on to starting a project where I will be designing a cosmetics package. I've decided to do a redesign of an existing line in the graphics design booklet that I obtained for Graphic Design II. The design I wanted to do was a Victorian style type of packaging for skin care products. I have a mood board posted that was my attempt at getting a feel of what the design is all about. I took different photos of people during the Victorian era, along with silhouettes of male and female heads. I wanted to incorporate silhouettes as a logo, since it seems to complement the style I'm going to portray. Along with the mood board is a list of personas a used as a basic way of describing the demographic that I'm designing this packaging for. Additionally, I created a cereal box dieline as a preliminary for creating the packaging for the cosmetics line.

                                                          Mood Board

Name:                    Angelina Henderson
Gender:                   Female
Status:                    Married
Age:                       27
Occupation:              Florist
City of Residence:      New York City, NY

About: Angelina owns a flower shop in New York    City. She is a mother of three; two sons and one daughter. Her favorite color is maroon. She enjoys Broadway performances and often takes her children to watch some of her favorite plays. Angelina has a fascination with retro takes on old fashions, whether  it relates to jewlery, clothes or anything else she can wear. She tends to prefer anything ornate or curvy.









Name:                    Julie Guiles
Gender:                   Female
Status:                    Single
Age:                       30
Occupation:              Cosmetologist  
City of Residence:      Sacramento, CA

About: Julie works at a local hair salon in  Sacramento. Her interests range from watching silent movies and attending art gallery exhibitions, especially if it contains surrealist art. Her favorite color is white. As a cosmetologist, she always takes care of her body. She is always evaluating her salons product line to fit with what sells in the shop.        

Name:                    Guy Lewis
Gender:                   Male
Status:                    Married
Age:                       34
Occupation:              Construction worker
City of Residence:      Chicago, IL 

About: Guy lives with his wife Sharon in a two 

story duplex in Chicago. Although he does plenty

of manual labor as a construction worker, his wife

regularly encourages him to keep up to date on his

hygiene. He tends to rely on his wife's advice and 

lives for his five children. 

        
 Name:                     Jared Longsworth
 Gender:                   Male
 Status:                    Single
 Age:                       37
 Occupation:              Architect  
 City of Residence:      Jacksonville, FL

 About: Jared is a well mannered single man that 
 is a hard working and proficient architect. His 
 favorite color is blue. Although he is efficient at his          
 job, dating has always been a hassle, since his job 
 takes up most of his free time. He likes to keep 
 himself well groomed just in case the opportunity  
 presents itself where he can run into a cute girl.                    

Cereal Box Dieline

Namestyle and Symbol Project

     This is the overall process in creating a namestyle and symbol for a organ donar card that I have been working on for quite some time. I began coming up with a design inspired by the Ronald McDonald House Charities Program. The logo looks hand drawn and I liked the aesthetic, as I thought the design would be appealing to children. The design has a heart centered with the statement for the organ donar card written around the heart. The color scheme I used was red and magenta. The colors fade from the corners of the card as it approaches the center, where the heart is situated. I wanted to stylize the font to give it a pleasing look, as indicated by the flag like design on the end of the "r" in the word donar. This was suppose to act as an extension of the "r" that would guide the eye around the word card and then back near the center in order to bring the design full circle, so to speak. I also needed a popular catchphrase. Eventually I came up with "Have a heart, give a heart" as I wanted to tie something into the purpose of the card in a way that was clever and unique. I decided that Have a Heart, Give a Heart would be a  non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the importance of becoming an organ donar to help those in need of transplants.

     

     I tried experimenting more with form and function. My other ideas included a prototype playing card design and another kids donar card. The playing card design, was my attempt at creating a playful aesthetic that toned down the seriousness of being an organ donar so that the concept didn't seem too imposing on the individuals that see the card. The design was a seven of hearts card with a heart in the middle with a medal clasp around the heart. The second idea was a design in which I drew cartoons of various human organs. I was confident that I could tone the subject down by making the figures happy-go-lucky in their demeanor. 

     

     Although I liked the idea, I decided that a donar card would be better suited with a wider demographic, so I went with the playing card design. As my design became more specific, I decided to tailor the design according to gender, ergo, one card as the king of hearts for men and one card as the queen of hearts for women. The design made sense, given the types of cards I was creating. The wanted to give the design a  ink work look, or for it to look drawn out, similar to a tatoo. I broke up the form, by having the words "DONAR CARD" and "HAVE A HEART, GIVE A HEART" separated. I had the king in his card and the queen in her card each hold up a banner, with donar card written on the front. The "HAVE A HEART, GIVE A HEART" writing went on the front of the heart clasp, under the banner. 

     Color was also an important aspect of the design. I definitely wanted red to be incorporated in the final product, but deciding upon the coloration of the king and queen was a different manner. I had colored their sleeves red, but I had not yet decided what color their hair would  be. I initially went with white, but it reminded me more of Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus, something I would never associate with playing cards. I tried making them brunettes, and the design seemed to flow better. Blonde seemed to clash with the red. Additionally, the blue shawl I had draped over the queens head did not seem to be the most appropriate color. I went with red instead. I was very pleased with the final design. I cleaned it up somewhat and presented it to the class. The professor liked the concept, but commented that I could tweak it a tad bit to give it a more polished look. Overall I was satisfied with how the project turned out. Updates for upcoming projects are in the making. 

Sans Serif Tutorial

     This was what I created for a sans serif tutorial that I was assigned. The quote I used was a motto that U.S. Army General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell  used during World War II. It reflects the way I felt during that time, so I seemed to be appropriate. I used an old crumpled paper to fit with the quote; It was old, worn and tired, but still intact. 

Namestyle Project Final

   The prototypes I had started out with were fairly simple. The first two we a straightforward black and white variation. Although the pointed edges gave the font more of a feel that it belonged in an local eatery.
My goal was to create a logo for a national news channel, so I did not believe that that sort of aesthetic worked with what worked with the first prototype. The third was my attempt to use cool colors to made the font less imposing, yet professional. I used gray in tandem with the blue, along with a white streak going through the two colors to break up the form. The font was definitely news worthy, but it seemed to fit more with local news stations then a national news outlet. Since I felt I was getting closer to finding the right sort of font, I decided to only change the overall form subtly and to work more on changing the color scheme. The red and yellow  color scheme of the fourth was an attempt to go in the opposite direction of what I did with the third, but it didn't suffice in terms of being easily associated with a national news station.   The designs proceeding the fourth prototype each looked like their form had something to offer to the aesthetic, so I combined aspects of prototype numbers 2,5,6,7,8 and 9.

     What I ended up creating was the font above. I played around with the color of the first two capitalized letters. I decided to stick with red for my final font. My final thoughts regarding the font is that I find its form to be pleasing aesthetically, but it does not come across to me as something you would readily associate with the news. My desire was to create a font that harmoniously used curves and angles, but it ended up looking like an old western font.