Branding.
Developing a unique logo and branding guidelines for a fictional company ⭐️
my role.
Graphic Designer
Logo Designer
team.
Vivi Sim (me!)
tools.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Indesign
Adobe XD
Adobe Photoshop
Procreate App
timeline.
3 weeks
overview
Designing for a good cause.
Branding is an essential component of any company or product that creates a memorable experience and leaves a lasting impression on its consumers. 🧠
Developing a unique branding and identity marks is crucial when going into the market and competing with other companies. When using any mark of identity that belongs to the brand a set of accompanying guidelines must be followed and applied accordingly. Brand guidelines ensure proper usage of any visual assets that belong to the company.
This project focuses on designing an icon and developing branding guidelines for a fictitious company Shark House that aims to conserve sharks by providing them protection and home. 🦈
Challenge
Visual brand identity.
How might we create a unique brand identity for a fictitious company via designing an icon that visually represents it with a set of accompanying guidelines?
The challenge in this project was to come up with a fictitious brand and give it visual identity manifested in a branding guidelines document format.
logo
Logo development.
I developed a clear and meaningful symbol that represents the fictional aquatic life preservation company that focuses on shark conservation inspired by my object of choice - a shark plush toy. I went through the process of conceptualisation and development of an appropriate icon to represent the company and its brand.
After finalising the black and white logo design, I began with swatching various colours that would fit the image of the fictional company. The exploration includes solid and gradient colour variations.
type
Typography & font study.
In the next step I conducted a font study in order to determine the best fitting font that works well with the logo and suits the image of the company.
final product
Final logo design & brand guidelines.
Once the logo and the font were decided on, I put them together creating a brand identity mark for the shark preservation fictional company in two variations: vertical and horizontal.
Brand guidelines communicate the rules and expectations of a company brand's representation in the world. In order to ensure consistency in the identity marks use I created a short brand guidelines document that outlines the rules of usage starting from size and colours of the logo to proper merchandise placement.
You can view the PDF by clicking on this link!
conclusion
Final thoughts & outtakes.
Going through the process of creating a unique brand with its own logo and guidelines made me reflect on how important it is to maintain consistent image and style in order for a business to remain recognizable.
Understanding the importance of branding made me really focus on designing a distinct identity mark that could be applied in various situations in order to spread and promote the business. By applying the finished logo on several merchandise mockups I was able to visualise how well the logo is sized and structured since it's supposed to be easy to recognise and relate to the company's purpose.
Working on the branding guidelines document helped me memorise the most important visual aspects of the company logo and how to clearly outline the limitations of its use.
