Transcripts
1. Introduction: There are lots of
reasons why a brand might want to update
their look and feel. Oftentimes it's just not
possible to do an overhaul. So in that case, how do you give a brand new life without completely going
back to the drawing board? Hi, my name is Courtney Alicia. I am a brand strategist, designer and educator who spent the last 15 years helping small businesses bring
their brands to life. In this class, I'll
show you how to apply my particular style of design thinking to
a specific type of project, the brand refresh. My goal is to set you up for success no matter
what size, brand, or team you're working with, this process will give you the focus and
inspiration you need. Just to get started. You will leave
class with clarity around your current
situation and project goals. Define design constraints and opportunities for your brand. Some inspiration from
real-world brand refreshes and a plan to help you kick off your process as a way to
lead you through class, I've put together a design plan workbook that you can use to
work through each lesson. When completed, this
will act as a sort of creative brief to guide you
into your design process. For the project itself, you have two options. You can submit your
completed design workbook and share two dash three tactics that you've found to be
particularly helpful. Or you can simply use the workbook as a guide
throughout the class and focus on the creative exercise we'll cover in lesson five. You'll only need a couple of things in order to
take this class. First, you will need
some design experience. I've developed this class with experienced designers in mind. In particular, those
of you who are in the planning or beginning
stages of a brand refresh. And then second, you'll also
need a brand to work with. While the class
workbook won't require you to do any specific
design work for your brand. You will want to have a
brand in mind in order to answer the prompts and
complete the exercises. If you prefer to use lesson five's creative exercise
for this project, you will also need a
logo to work with. For this particular task, you can certainly use
the actual brand. You will be refreshing. But you can also feel
free to use something from another project
or a brand new create. Just for this class, we'll get started by
focusing on gaining clarity around your
current situation. This first lesson,
we'll provide you with a basic
understanding of what a brand refresh entails so that you can
start to determine the direction your
particular project needs to take. I'll
see you in class.
2. Defining Your Goals: In this lesson, we're going
to focus on getting super clear on the goals for your project that
you're working on. Let's take a quick
second and get some basic definitions
out of the way. In this class, we're
focusing on the brand refresh as opposed to
the brand redesign. So what's the difference? The specific line between
the two is a bit subjective, but I like to think of a refresh
as a situation where you are required to retain some aspects of the
existing identity. While a redesign allows
for a complete overhaul. It's the difference
between this and this. As you can see, the
Verizon logo retains a lot of the qualities
of the original brand. It updates various elements
to bring it into the future, but it doesn't completely
reinvent the brand. In contrast, if we look at the Brooklyn
symphony orchestra, you can see that beyond the black and white
color palette, there really aren't
any similarities. The new brand as a
complete departure from what existed previously. So why would a
company choose to go the refresh route instead of doing a full branding overhaul, there really are a
ton of reasons why someone would take the
brand refresh approach. They may have a limited budget or a limited amount of time. They might have a smaller team or only the capacity
for whatever reason, just for a smaller project. They also might have
a certain amount of existing brand recognition that they just don't want to abandon. So no matter why your particular brand is
choosing to go this route, the first thing you need
to do before you start is to get clear on what
those reasons are. The first thing you
want to do is get fully clear on your
goals for the project. Depending on your situation, you might have been
given this information by other team members. Or you may need to
start completely from scratch and determine the
project goals for yourself. Either way, taking a minute to pause and reflect on
what you're trying to achieve with your project
will really help to ensure that the end result turns out to be exactly what
you're looking for. When I teach designers
about creative briefs, the project goals often a place
where people get hung up. The instinct for many people,
designers or otherwise, can be to divine the goal as the thing you're
going to create. For example, to design a
logo or to build an app, or to create a
presentation document. But we're actually looking for is the deeper reason behind why you're creating that logo or app or presentation
in the first place. So let's go through
a few examples. Your project may want an outcome that achieves a new
design standard. For example, a goal
could be to increase accessibility within your
brand's color palette, or to make your
logo more legible. Another reason could be
to meet a business metric like to increase sales
by a certain percentage. And another example could be one that is more
audience related. Like to attract a new
segment of people, or to increase followers
on a certain platform. The reasons will
really fall within a broad spectrum
and yours will be entirely unique to your project and to the company that
you're working with. Throughout this class
am going to share two brand refreshed projects
that I worked on to illustrate some of the tactics I use when executing a
project like this. Let's take a look at each one quickly and talk
through their goals. This first product example
is for Lion tutors. They're a company that provides tutoring services to college
students at Penn State. This is the original branding
they came to me with. And we had a few goals to focus on with their
brand refresh. First, we wanted to
modernize the brand, the original logo and the
other elements had been created very quickly without
the help of a designer. With this refresh,
we want it to be a little bit more thoughtful about bringing the brand into
a more modern look and feel while retaining some
of its key elements. We also wanted to make
the logo more legible. The way the logo was designed. It just wasn't as easy
to read as it could be. The light outlines also made it really hard to reproduce
at small sizes. Then lastly, we also wanted
to create a cohesive system. They produce a lot of content, especially printed materials. So we wanted to
develop a system that would provide us
with a framework to ensure all of those
materials are consistent and cohesive
in their branding. And the next product
I want to share with you is for beginning
with children, which is a charter
school network that's based in Brooklyn. At the time they came to me, they had one parent
organization and to schools. So what you see here are
the primary logos as they existed before we
started our work together for this brand refresh. We also wanted to
modernize the brand. We needed to retain a lot of the brand elements to
maintain recognition. But many of the details we're making the
brand field dated. We also needed to figure
out how to update and the brand elements so that they looked more at home right now, we also wanted to make the
design more consistent. The three initial brands, while they look pretty
similar at first glance, we're using different
color palettes and typefaces and design
systems altogether. So we wanted to create
one cohesive system to ensure consistency
across all of the brands. Then lastly, we also
needed to create a system that would work
for multiple brands, both ones that already existed and ones that will
in the future. For a school network, we need to be able to introduce
new schools as they're created and have them fit right into the
existing branding. Now that you have some examples
as a frame of reference, Let's go back to your work. The main focus in
this lesson is to define your projects
particular goals. Here are a couple of
questions for you to think through
in order to do so. First, why was this
project initiated? Was there a company
milestone that was achieved? Was there a significant
amount of feedback received that made
it feel unnecessary? Was there something else
that I'm not mentioning? What are the core reasons why this project was kicked
off in the first place? Then next, how would you define a successful
project outcome? What would success
look like to you? Would it be
company-wide acceptance of the newly refresh brand? Would it mean full adherence to web accessibility guidelines? If you're working within a team, it could be helpful to
pose these questions to some teammates to get their
perspectives as well. Then from there, once
you have your answers, turn the results around into a statement that
they read as goals. For example, an answer
to question one can be, we saw our Instagram
follower account drop among women aged 18 to 25, but increase among
women aged 35 to 50. You may want to turn that into a goal that states increase our women Instagram followers in the age range of
35 to 50 by 30%. However, since that
metric can't be achieved entirely with a brand
identity refresh, it involves marketing and
content and other things. A better way to frame
that into a goal could be we want to shift our brands designed so that
it appeals to an audience of women between the
ages of 35 to 50. That is something
you can do with the design and it's also
something you can test. You can use focus groups and user testing to get feedback on a brand refresh in order to determine whether the
goal is being met. An important thing to
keep in mind as you do this work is that
you want to focus on what specific outcomes you can achieve with a specific
work you're doing. You'll want to keep repeating
this process until you've put together the primary
goals for the project. And you can have as
many as you need, but I'd recommend trying
to stick to three or less. Having too many goals can just
make your job really hard. So starting small works best. Then for this lesson's
project steps, if you haven't already download
the design plan workbook, then use the questions I just went through to
think through and define your top 123 goals for your project and determine
their order of importance. Then add your answers to your workbook and
feel free to post your results or ask any questions that come up
in the class discussion. Next up, we'll focus on your project's constraints as we continue to fill in
your design plan.
3. Defining Your Constraints: In this lesson,
we're going to focus on clearly defining
the rules that your design process
will be limited by taking the time to get
your project perimeters really specifically
defined now will give your project the focus
it needs to stay on track. And it can prevent
a lot of additional back-and-forth when you're in the design and approval stage. When it comes to constraints, Let's start at a high
level and go through a few common scenarios that
you might find herself in. Determining which one applies to your particular situation will help to point you
in the direction of a solution that makes sense. And when it comes
to the constraints you're facing in this
type of project, there are three situations
that I see most often. The first is you cannot change any of the core brand elements, so that means logo
color, or type. Another scenario is that
you can't change the logo, but you can update, just not overhaul the
other core brand elements. And then the last common
scenario is that you can update but not overhaul the logo and all of the other
core brand elements. Most likely you'll
recognize one of those common scenarios as the situation you're in
with your current project. But you may fall into
another category. It really doesn't matter which situation you're in or if you're in a different situation altogether than the
examples that I listed, what does matter is
that you're just fully aware of what this
looks like for you. Because this information
is going to help drive the direction you take
to get to your end result, Let's take a look
at what a couple of those scenarios would commonly call for in terms of solutions. Starting with scenario a, you cannot change any of the core brand elements that includes logo, color, and type. In this situation,
the solution becomes focused on using the
elements in new ways and figuring out if there are
other elements you can add to the brand that will
have a meaningful impact. This could mean working with
different backgrounds or textures or imagery to place
your logo in new contexts. Or it can mean creating
a new graphic element to go alongside all of
your core brand elements, like a suite of illustrations. First scenario B, you
can't change the logo, but you can update, just not overhaul the other
brand elements. This situation
points to a solution that might include
updating colors and type and potentially adding additional elements
into the core brand. When you have some flexibility with your core brand elements, it allows you to
potentially explore both updating what
you already have to work with and adding in some new additional
elements as complements. Lastly, let's look
at scenario C, where you can update but
not overhaul the logo. And you can also update all of the other core
brand elements. This solution for this
situation can include updates. They're usually
minor to the logo, the core brand elements, and then may include the integration of new design
elements into the brand. This situation generally
provides the most flexibility. So even if you can't overhaul the entire identity or
redesign a logo from scratch, having some wiggle
room to adjust the elements of the lower
that aren't working on top of refining and adding to the other brand elements can provide lots of
creative opportunities, which we're going
to talk about in the next lesson with your
current situation in mind. The next thing you want
to do is to define the specific constraints
that you might work with. Your situation already provides some of the parameters
for your project. For example, if you
can't redesign the logo, that's obviously a
clear constraint. But within your situation, there's likely going
to be additional and more specific guidelines that you need to adhere to. This could include rules that span a really wide spectrum. For example, a constraint could be you must retain our
primary brand color, but you can change the
supporting colors. Or it could be, we must choose a
new typeface that has available
licensing for desktop, web and mobile applications. Or another one could
be that we find photography that features a
diverse selection of people. Your constraints really
could be anything at all, and they will be super specific to your brand and your project. At this point, your task is to detail all of the
constraints you need to keep in mind as clearly and
succinctly as possible. You want to make sure
that you're covering all your bases before you
dive into your design work. So it may be helpful
to reach out to keep people onto your team to ensure that you aren't
missing anything. Having more information, despite the fact that reaching out
may stall the process a bit, is always gonna be beneficial to your design process
in the long run. Let's take a look at
my project examples to illustrate these points. Let's start with lion tutors. So they fell into Scenario C. We generally have the
ability to update all of the core brand elements,
including the logo. But there were certain things
we were required to retain. Our specific constraints
for this project included. We needed to retain some
version of the pod design. We needed it to stick with
somewhat similar topography. For example, we couldn't turn this condensed sans serif
logo into a serif one. We needed to use the
same logo configuration, so we still needed
to keep the pot in the same place
within the logo. The green was a very recognizable
piece of their brands, So that needed to stay
though it could be updated. And then the lion
character was also a really integral part
of peace of their brand. So we knew that illustration is still
had to be incorporated. They were open to redesign them, the character down the road, but just not when we first
worked on this project. Now let's look at
beginning with children. For this project, we also
started with Scenario C. And specifically this is what our constraints
looked like. First, we really needed to
retain the icon design. This was something
that founder found very integral and
meaningful to the brand. So it was just not an option to consider
different designs. We did have a little bit of room to do some refining though. We also needed to retain the primary blue color
that the brand feature. We were able to tweak it a bit, but it generally needed to
stay in the same color range. We needed to use
consistent typography for all the sub-brands, which was great because that's something we wanted
to do anyway. We needed to make
any and all changes with a system in mind
because part of the impetus for doing this brand refresh was their intention to build more schools and
a bigger network. Then lastly, we also needed to make sure we include full
brand names and the logo. Each of the school names
are pretty long and they included taglines
in different formats. So we needed to find a way to keep all of the texts as is. So I hope these examples will
give you more of a frame of reference to work on this part of the project for yourself, for your project steps, your goal is to
clearly define all of your projects constraints
in a way that will help you to keep your
design work on track. Once you start, the first
thing you will do is determine which of
the three brand refreshed scenarios your
product falls into. Then you'll list all of the specific
constraints you need to keep in mind as you design. And then you'll fill all this out and your design
plan workshop. And just feel free to share any insights or questions
that came up for you. Thanks again for joining
me in class today. Next up we're going to
work on uncovering and identifying the opportunities
that your project presents.
4. Identifying Your Opportunities: Now that we've
established all of the constraints
for your project, we'll take the time
in this lesson to identify what your design
opportunities are. This part of the process
will help to shape what your initial steps and your
design process could be. It can be really
frustrating to have to deal with a lot of
design constraints. But rather than letting
that hold you back, reframing the situation
to find the openings those constraints create can be super helpful and positioning your design process to maximize
its creative potential. In our last lesson, we clearly defined your
project's constraints. In this lesson, we want to
use those constraints to develop a list of potential directions you
can take the design. At this stage, you can be as broad or specific as you want. I personally find it
helpful to start with a specific list to jumpstart
the initial design process. But most likely you'll
discover new ideas and opportunities once you start
to work with this step, you really just want
to give yourself a jumping off point so
that you're not staring at a blank sketchbook or screen
with no idea where to start. So depending on how you
personally work best, you may want to try
to get as specific as trial royal
blue accent color, or be as general as find
stock photography options. Let's look at my
project examples to illustrate what I mean. Despite the list
of constraints I had to work with
in each situation, I still was able to
identify lots of things we can explore to lead
to a better outcome. Let's start with
lion tutors based on this initial starting point and the constraints we talked
about in our last lesson. Here's what I came up
with for opportunities. We could redraw the pie icon. This could mean just cleaning
up some of the design. Or we could create an
entirely new illustration as long as we were able to
use it in that same space, we had some freedom there. You can also explore
new typefaces to replace the original, the existing logo use
a default system font. So we had the opportunity to find a more well-designed
typeface that had a lot more flexibility than looking at the
details of the logo. I knew we could
increase the letter spacing so that the
logo is more legible. Another opportunity is
that we can explore using different greens
for their primary color. We knew it needed to remain somewhat true to
the existing color, but it wasn't untouchable. So this was a good
opportunity to explore. We also could explore expanding the color palette to include
more supporting colors. And then we also
could explore adding an additional
supporting graphics to add texture and visual interest. Eventually, we knew we'd be able to redesign the line character. So we're still keeping that in mind even though it wasn't
happening right now. As you can see,
that provides a lot of different design
opportunities in a situation where it
seems like on the surface, we can't change all that much. There really is a
lot that we can do. So I think just getting all of those opportunities
down on paper, once you have the rules in
place for what you can't do, really can help jump-start the creative process and give you some
directions to go in. So like I said before, you're not just staring at a blank screen and
not sure where to go. Now let's look at
beginning with children. I had a really
similar experience with this in terms
of the process. We had a lot of
constraints and we had to resolve some
complex design problems. But we still have
the room to explore quite a few different things
when it comes to the design. To start with, we
could redraw the icon while we weren't permitted to rework the content in any way, We couldn't make this icon
different subject matter. We could clean up the
design to be more legible and to be a
little bit more modern, we had a really great
opportunity to create one cohesive logo
system for all of the existing and
future organizations. We could also explore
revising the topography. We didn't have any strict
constraints around typography, so we had a lot of room to try different typographic
redirections. We also could create an
expanded color palette to support the brand's
primary colors. Then lastly, we can
again explore creating some additional graphics to support the primary
brand elements. So as you can see, what can feel like a
really limiting project to begin with can turn into a much more exciting one if you take a little bit
of time to plan ahead, now, let's circle back to
your work for this lesson. To move your own process along, you want to start by doing
some brainstorming around the design opportunities you
see in your own projects. Then you can use your
design plan workbook to organize them into a clear
and comprehensive list. And then just update
your workbook with that information so you have it all together in one place. And as always,
feel free to share any questions or insights
that come up along the way. Next up, we'll take a look
at some real-world brand refresh case studies to give you some additional inspiration
for your own work. See you in class.
5. Analyzing Case Studies: In this lesson, we're
going to focus on getting some inspiration outside of your project to help
jumpstart your creativity. Now, I'm going to
take you through several real-world examples
of brand refreshes. Many of these brands
you'll be familiar with. And they run the
gamut in terms of how extensive the changes were. Taking a close look at some of these examples may just spark some ideas for new
design opportunities that you hadn't yet considered. So let's dive in. First, let's take a look at some brands you probably know, starting with MasterCard, which was designed
by a pentagram. Here's what their
new logo looks like. You probably recognize
the red and gold circles. This slide, you can see
the entire evolution of the brand since
it started in 1966. As you can see, those
circles have been an integral part of
the design since 1968. So it makes sense that the designers didn't
depart from that graphic. It's simply to
recognizable, to abandon. They created an expanded
color palette and also introduced a new
typeface called FF mark. Here you can see the
newest version of the circle graphic in isolation. In this case study,
they explained that they spent a lot of
time playing with these colors to
ensure they popped on all sorts of different
background colors. A lot of the work went into what seems on the surface like
a really small detail. Here's just one example of their new brand in the
context of the app. So let's take a look at what
changed in this refresh, they shifted the type
placement from inside the circle graphic to
outside the logo graphic. They brighten their
primary colors. They expanded the
overall color palette. They updated the
primary wordmark, they updated the
brand typography, and then this wasn't shown, but they also developed a
library of supporting graphics including icons, illustration,
and photography. Now let's take a look at Zagat, which was designed by Franklin. This is what their
current logo looks like. And this is where
it evolved from. Current logo actually circles back to the brand
that existed prior to this one and evolves a
bit with updated topography. You may or may not be super
familiar with this brand. It is a national brand, but you'll especially maybe recognize that if you have spent any time in New York City, That's the only reason why
I'm really familiar with it. If you are familiar with these guidebooks won't
look too different to you. The type has just been
given a bit of a refresh. So they stayed pretty true to that classic recognizable look. The biggest change for
them can be seen in their advertising at this time, they were pivoting into
more of an online space. So they created a whole
visual language based on emphasizing the differing
voices of their users. So a prominent use of
variable topography and powerful photography
became a huge cornerstone of the refreshed brand. Here are another couple of examples of that
visual language. So to summarize what
changed in this refresh, the word mark was updated, the typographic system
was updated and expanded. They developed a
cohesive grid system. They minimally updated the
brand's color palette. They put an emphasis on
copywriting and language, which was their biggest change. And then lastly, they developed a strong graphic language led by typography and photography. Next, let's look
at Absolut vodka, which is an interesting
brand refresh example, because they're updated brand is completely centered around
their bottle design. And it was designed by
brands union Stockholm. Their logo really didn't change. The general shape of the
bottle didn't change, the main color didn't change. These are elements that make the brand's super recognizable, which they clearly did
not want to get rid of. So instead they focused
on the details of the bottle itself and both added elements and are moved
elements to give it a refreshed look on the
front of the bottle. The most visible change
is in the script. They eliminated a
lot of the texts and also made the script
much more legible. As you can see from the
left where they started. There was all these
flourishes in the script that make it
a lot harder to read. On the right, you just get that Swedish vodka tagline or
descriptor really quickly. So they really increase
the legibility there. On this next slide, you can see some of the details
they introduced. They added a lot of texts, details including nods
to their location, the name of the man who created the company that eventually
became absolute, and an illustration of
the original distillery. They also introduced a
paper label to the design. So overall, let's
look at what changed. They added lots of bits
of texts to reference their philosophy,
location, and history. They added an illustration
of the original distillery. They enhanced the legibility
of the script typeface. They added embossing to call out their connection to Sweden. They adjusted their
proportions of the design and they also
added a paper label. So now let's take a look at Google's most recent
brand refresh, which was designed in house. They kept a lot of
the integrity of their original design so that it is still recognizable as Google, while just giving
it a little bit of a more modernized look. The biggest visible
change is a switch from serif typography to censor
if as you can see here, despite the simple
evolution that we can see at this first glance, the team at Google
really put a lot of technical work into
this brand refresh. They very carefully
constructed this Google G, which you see on the right. They adjusted the
tones of the red, green, and yellow
and their palate. They created a custom typeface
to complement their logo, and they also redesigned all of their product
iconography. A lot of details went into the technical production and implementation of
this brand refresh. But overall, the main
changes that we can see include an
updated logo type. They tweak the color palette. They designed a custom typeface. They designed their
Google gee icon, and then they updated all of their product iconography for our last well-known case study, let's take a look
at Dunkin Donuts, most recent brand refresh, which was designed by
Jones Knowles, Richie. The most impactful change was
probably what you see here, the shortening of
the name to Dunkin, which was a move
that really align the brand with a nickname
people were already using. Here you can see how
the logo of fault, it's simplified for sure, but the colors and topography
are largely recognizable. Jk are made a custom update to their iconic rounded san-serif
called Dunkin sands. They added a complimentary surf called of course, Duncan surf. The brand refresh was applied to all of the prominent
touchpoints of the brand from their packaging to their in-store experiences. Overall, this brand
retained most of the recognizable elements
of the original brand, but just gave them
new life through some small tweaks that
had a really big impact. The primary changes included that they shorten the wordmark. They created custom typefaces. They introduced a complimentary
sans serif typeface. They designed and introduced
a new system of iconography. And then they also updated
all of their packaging, signage, and store designs. Now that we've taken a look at some more well-known brands, Let's also take a look at my
project so that you can see the full evolution of where we started and
where we ended up. First. Let's start with line tutors. This is the brand
that we started with. Let's revisit the
opportunities we came up with for this project. We ended up exploring
most of these things before arriving at a
file null solution, I'll take you through all of
the new brand elements so that you can see how
it evolved first typography and knew that
finding a typeface that stayed somewhat true to the condensed sans-serif we started with, would provide a level of continuity that
they really wanted. But I also knew that finding a well-designed typeface with
lots of styles would have a big impact both visually and logistically when designing their huge library of materials. We ended up landing
on interstate. For the color palette, we
kept the original green, mostly the same with some minor
tweaks to the brightness. Then we developed a more
usable palette by adding in a lime green as a highlight
color to neutrals, the Navy and the gray, which can be used prominently to ground the brighter colors. And then we also added a
light blue that can be used as a light background color
or as an accent color. And then here's the revised
logo that we ended up with. We use the same layout
as the original logo, but updated the typeface, color usage, pod
design, and spacing. And all of those little tweaks made a really big difference. We also made the pot a bit of a more prominent feature
of the brand by turning it into an icon that can be used in all sorts of
different situations. And then we went a
little bit further and we created a pattern
out of the Paul logo. We kept the design
pretty subtle. So the print is more of an
accent which gave the brand some texture to work with and added a bit of
visual interest. Then lastly, we did
eventually hire an illustrator to redraw the
line in a more modern style. This didn't happen
at the time of all these original brand
element updates. But I did want to
show you this because the brand just doesn't really
feel complete without it. Here's a look at where we
started and where we finished. We implemented new topography. We redesigned the primary logo. We updated and expanded
the color palette. We created a pop icon and we created the
pop print patterns. And then eventually we did
redesign the lion mascot. Lots of little tweaks
really added up to a totally refreshed
and modernize look, even without having the
freedom to do a full redesign. Now let's take a look at
beginning with children. Here's the branding we were
originally presented with. And then here's our list of
opportunities to explore. As with line tutors, we took a look at all of these ideas to arrive
at our final solution. Let's go through
all of the brand elements so that you can see how the refreshed
brand took shape. First, we did end up tweaking the icon
design a little bit. We kept the general content and structure of three people
plus an open book, but we did close the
gap in the book. And then we adjusted
the spacing a bit. And probably the detail with the most impact is
that we changed the square with rounded
edges to a circle. This alone was a pretty
significant contributor to the modernization
of the logo. We also did a lot of work
on the color palette. First, we shifted the
overall structure of the palette to a
single primary color, a suite of highlight colors, and a single neutral. Primary blue seen in the original brand shifts to the highlight color
for the foundation, which is the overarching
organization behind the network. Then we kept the general
integrity of the original color, but we did brighten
it up a little bit. We also established
a color system within the overall palette where each sub-brand uses the same
primary color and a neutral, then each one has its own distinct highlight
color to differentiate it. Here you can see a
few examples of what those individual palettes look like when they're split
out on their own. First typography, we chose
center number two and open Geometric Sans-Serif
with lots of styles to give us flexibility. All of the naming
challenges we had. And then we added some
variety with the addition of a serif and a condensed sans. We created a system of a few logo styles to be used
in different environments. This typographic logo
design with set-up for all logos to
work on three lines. Whether they had a
descriptor or not, though most do, then this
would be the primary design. We also created a more
streamlined logo that included the icon and stripped
out everything else plus the most
essential type. Another piece of the system is a badge design that allowed us to incorporate their tagline, as well as the symbol
icon to be used on social media and in other
super scale back applications. So here's what the whole
system of logos looks like. And then to support the
primary brand elements, we also broke down the pieces of the icon design and turned
them into a graphic pattern. We then built a
library of variations using the various brand
highlight colors, including a multi-colored
version that incorporated all of
the highlight colors. This is where we started and
this is where we ended up. The things that changed were we cleaned up their icon design. We changed the icon shape. We created a new
typography system. We updated the brand's
primary colors and also expanded
their color palette. And we created a
pattern library. This really wasn't
a brand overhaul. We didn't reconceptualize
the entire brands, but it was still a pretty
large and challenging project. Haven't gone through
all of that. I hope that these
examples provide you with some more inspiration as you get ready to start
your own project. For this lesson's project steps, take a little bit of time to do your own research and find at least one other
brand refresh example in the real-world that
you find inspiring. And if you're not
sure where to look, I have a couple
of ideas for you. Your starting point can
just be a Google search for brand refresh examples
or something like that. You'll tend to find a lot of
different things this way. You can also try Pinterest. It can be hit or miss for
things like this sometimes. But depending on what
you're looking for, you might have some
luck with that. Then lastly, I would check out design publications like Print, Communication Arts,
or brand-new. Then once you've
done that research, you use the related questions in your workbook to guide
you through analyzing what you think that inspiration
might have operated on in terms of constraints,
goals, and opportunities. And if you can't find
that information alongside of the project on the actual website where
you found the design example. Just use your best
judgment to try to analyze what those
things might have been based on what you know about those specific details of
how this project works. There really aren't
any wrong answers, is just an exercise
to help you start to think through how a project goal can move through constraints and opportunities all the way
to a finished project. As always, please share any questions that come up
in the class discussion. And then next up
we're going to do a little creative exercise to get your design process started. I'll see you in class.
6. Getting Creative: For this final lesson, we're going to move on
to the computer and start executing
some design ideas. Our goal is to give you a bit more momentum
as you get ready to dive into the design
for your project. We're gonna do a quick
creative exercise to jumpstart the process
before we get going. As a reminder, you will
need a logo to work with. As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't need to be
the specific logo you're working on for your design plan. It can be something from
another project or even just something you create
just for this class. You're also welcome
to use the logo I'm going to use to demo
this exercise to you. You can find that in
our class resources. Once you have a logo in mind, you're ready to get
going, to get started, just open up a blank page in the design application
of your choice. Next, revisit the opportunities
you came up with in your workbook or brainstorm new ones if you're working
with a different brands. This is just to get
some ideas flowing. Then you just want to
start playing around with quick experiments for how
the brand you're working with could be refreshed
with a focus on the logo. This is just a quick exercise, so don't overthink it. You could even give yourself a time limit of 30
minutes or an hour if you think you might
fall into the trap of perfecting and perfecting
and perfecting it. We really just want to get
the creative ideas flowing. We don't even
necessarily need to get to a finished product. The point is really
just a start trying things out and to see
where it takes you. So to demo the project, I'm going to take you through
a brand that I created just for this exercise and show you the steps that I took
to us from start to finish. Okay, So the brand I
created as a bakery, it's called in good
company bakery. It is a Boston-based chain of bakeries that is
looking to expand. It's a more locations. So here's the original
logo I am working with. This is something that I just
created to look a bit old, like it could use some updating. So this is our starting point. Now let's take a
look at the goals, constraints, and opportunities
that we're working with. First, they have three goals
to modernize the brand. It's looking a little bit dated, so we want to bring
it up to date to create a space in the logo to add a location since they are in the process of expanding. And then they also
want to create a more cohesive design
system that will help them to have a
consistent presence across all of the locations. And then their constraints still allow for quite
a bit of flexibility. We do need to include the three-layer cake illustration
or some version of it. We need to use a script
for the main typeface, though it doesn't need
to be the same one. We need to use a sensor for
the supporting typography. We need to stick with their
signature baby blue color. And then we need to stick to a pallet with a maximum
of three colors. So based on those constraints, I came up with these
opportunities. I can find a new
script typeface. I can explore some new
san-serif typefaces for the supporting topography. I'll explore some
additional colors to support the baby blue. The three-layer cake
illustration can be tweaked. I'll also explore some ways
to include the location. And I can also explore
a new lockup design. So now I'm going to show you some screens of the design
process that I went through. Keep in mind, since
this isn't exercise, I did not spend a ton of time ideating or creating many
alternative designs. So I'm just going to take you through start to
finish and you'll see all the steps that I took and how they come
together in the end, the first thing I did
was explorer type. I went through my type
library and selected a bunch of scripts and
san-serif typefaces to try out. So here's a selection of
what I was considering. Again, I didn't think
a ton about this. I just picked some things
that caught my eye and decided to work with
those as a starting point. Then out of everything I found, I was drawn to these
two typefaces, so I just chose to work with
them for the next steps. Then I explored color palettes. I knew I needed to
stick to three colors, and I knew we needed
to keep the baby blue. I also decided I wanted
to add a darker, neutral color that can be
used to ground the pastel. And I wanted to add
another highlight color, so there was a little
bit of contrast. So these are a bunch of the palettes that
I was considering. And I ended up
deciding to work with this one because I liked
the monochromatic look, but it also still provided a decent amount of contrast
for me to work with. So the next thing I did was take a look
at the illustration. Since we did have the freedom
to tweak this design, it could really be redesigned in a million different ways. But since this is just
a quick exercise, I just made some
really small tweaks. I removed the
circular cake topper and replace that
with a little heart. And then the rest of the designs that
you can see here are just small experiments with borders, backgrounds and texts. And then in the end, I landed on this one on the end. That just was the
one that I liked best and decided
to continue with that I pulled
everything together in the final logo, which
you can see here. I did not make any alternatives since I hit essentially built
the new logo step-by-step, redesigning it one
element at a time. It all just came together in
a way that I was happy with. I obviously, as you can see, added some color
to it and the end. So I brought the color palette
that I had decided on in. I added the location and I was really happy
with how this turned out for this not being
a process where I was sitting down and brainstorming a ton
of different ideas. There really are so many other different directions
I could have gone in. But this serves as a
good example to show you how much of an
impact you can have without completely
overhauling a brand and just making
some small tweaks, as you can see, the
before and after. So now it's your turn to take a bit of time to do this
exercise for yourself. Let's just reiterate the
next steps really quickly. So first, just choose your logo that you
want to work with. If you haven't already,
then try to come up with about five to ten different ways to refresh the logo that
you're working with. They can be really simple, like trying different colors, or more complex like creating a three-dimensional or hand
painted version of the logo. Remember, there's no
hard and fast rules. You just want to get your
creative ideas flowing. I do think you might
benefit from a time limit, so that's something to consider just to stop yourself
at a certain point. And like I said, your work doesn't
need to be perfect. It doesn't even need
to be finished. You just want to spend enough time to feel like
you've started to get a little bit of
momentum and you've put this process into practice. And when you're ready, please share your results and any questions that
came up along the way, I'm really excited to see
what you come up with.
7. Final Thoughts: Thanks so much for
joining me in class. I hope that you feel equipped
with the clarity, focus, and inspiration to execute a successful brand
refresh project for whatever brand
you're working on. If you haven't already
shared your work, please do so and let me know if any questions came up for
you that I can answer. I really am excited to see
how the lessons informed your work and I would love
any feedback that you have. Thanks again, Bye for now.
Courtney Eliseo, Brand Clarity & Design
