ADVE2292 GDP: Project 2 Brand Guidelines
This project's goal is to create a cohesive brand guideline, a series of slides that explains specific type treatments, tonality, color palettes, graphic elements, and more that make up a brand. Our audience for this is a typically more sophisticated type of client who is familiar with design, or PLU, People Like Us.
See Full Final Project Below or on My Adobe Portfolio
Research begins in visual identity as the audience has been laid out already: other creatives. This will affect the design of this document with not attracting people, but teaching a group of people familiar with marketing and design. Looking at other printed creations such as books and posters to look at a variety of grid layouts to inspire the brand guide for Kenya. I also looked at user interface designs fro websites and apps to understand what makes a design appealing and friendly to use.
The next step is sketching out formatting and composition ideas for the slides. I also looked back at a project from last year where our professor wanted us to create a very small and brief brand guideline for our projects. The goal here is to make the content so easy to understand that other designers feel confident in what they learn from the guide. I added some of my references into a mood board as well.
As development of the design layout continued, I went back and reworked the coloring of the logo to appear a little less saturated and lighter, to look more worn and not as intense, as well as minor adjustments to the heading. Finding a background color has proved difficult as the color palette had been severely reworked and I'm still adjusting to it. Working on the very start, the table of contents and title page, has already been somewhat of a challenge. It feels silly to be challenged by this.
Developing the pages is proving once again, difficult, as the colors hierarchy isn't settling well to me. No matter, we shall keep swimming. Perhaps some graphics need to be developed to further the visual. There needs to be some sort of dynamic and life put into this. So, looking back at research, some other facts I learned about Kenya was that while not officially recognized by the government, many consider the countries flower to be an orchid. Over 200 species are native to Kenya and are said to represent their cultures value of strong communities because of how vibrant and clustered the flowers are.
Additionally, the use of many different types of plants have been used for centuries in many Native cultures in medicinal practices. For example, a native plant known as Warburgia ugandensis, or greenheart, is a type of tree used to treat malaria symptoms with it's bark.
Looking at the simplicity of the greenheart branch on the far right side, I noticed that geometric designs are not working best on the guideline slides as they don't feel uplifiting or display the feeling of dynamic adventure. The orchids and giraffe currently feel under-developed, but there is a lot of potential to be taken from the many drafts and iterations of these support graphics.
Working in progress gradually came together but it wasn't easy. Leaning into the research of historical and cultural context helped the process become more smooth the longer it went on. The voice and tone of the brand also became stronger as it became clearer what the audience needed from the brand. Adventure, community, inspiration, and memorable experiences.
I knew I had completed the list of slides and completed the required content, I had cultivated a brand voice, developed graphics and aesthetics based on the history and culture of Kenya, and it was all on InDesign. In class, it was time to take the day and make minor adjustments and check in with the rubrics one final time.
Final Guideline Pages Shown: Title, TOC, Color Hierarchy, anmd an Overview of Support Graphics.
Thank You!
