Branding design company uk [Deep Research]

Last updated : Aug 8, 2022

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as a brand designer there's two different types of businesses you'll find yourself working with product based and service based the reason i bring this up is because there's a discussion within the design community about whether they need to be approached differently when creating branding well in this video we aim to find out by designing a brand for a service based business so we can identify all the differences along the way let's jump straight in and meet the brand helping hand is a charity on a mission to end the loneliness epidemic among the elderly they do this by hosting events giving the elderly a chance to make friends and re-engage with their community this charity is powered by volunteers who help facilitate the events they reached out because they wanted a rebrand i say rebrand but they only had a logo which was very outdated the aim of the rebrand is to create something that would attract new volunteers and reach those who really need the support what's missing within their existing visual identity is a clear message and mission of giving a helping hand to others and that's where i come in as the brand designer and strategist we're going to turn this from an outdated and uninviting brand to a modern and inspiring one so let's get into the process the first stage is brand strategy so let's take a look and overview of the businesses strategy so here we've dived into their mission objectives competitors target audience provided design solutions and much more so knowing the target audience is crucial because we know exactly who we are trying to target through visual design and what's going to attract them to this brand once you know all of these things we can provide design solutions that are going to make the business stand out so this direction i'm thinking is to include brush like typography to create a handmade and friendly feeling along with some really fun illustrations now this is completely different to the current competitors who all seem to be using a sans serif font with like an icon which for me and the industry leaves a really cold and uninviting feeling that i really want to change so let's now create a mood board with a clear direction and style to follow i've already made a pinterest board with this direction and i'm just going to drag and drop some images to create a more refined direction in adobe illustrator so when putting together a mood board for a service based brand it can be a little more difficult compared to a product based business for example with a skincare brand you could find skincare products and packaging to show a certain direction and style within the mood board but with a service based brand there is no end product which is the why the main focus is on photography color and typography so the direction for this mood board includes an inspiring uplifting and modern feel so within this mood board i'm going to include the following typography that will consist of a brush-like font to show the handcrafted delicacy within this charity photography which helps set the tone it's uplifting it's cheery it shows the demographic and how this service is gonna make them feel and lastly the illustrations to match the brush-like typography and delicate fill these include hand illustrations and support which once again refers back to the message and the service provided within this charity so the mood board is actually looking really good now and you can start to see a really clear direction for this because i have a specific style in mind i'm only creating one mood board so i am now super clear on the direction from that mood board and we can get into the fun part which is designing the branded entity first thing that i'm designing is the primary logo type so we already know the font style which is that really nice brush script i'm gonna head to envato elements which is today's sponsor of the video to source some similar fonts so they have thousands of fonts that are available to download all for one small monthly fee click the link in the description to check them out and support your girl okay i've sourced the fonts and i actually had an aha moment with the direction of this brand when looking for different fonts so within the mood board there is actually two different types you've got one that is really scripted and really connected and then we've got this other one in the top right which is very singular and it's kind of like a blobby paintbrush effect and i actually think i want to go for that kind of vision so this makes it easier because i'm going to get rid of all of these fonts that are connected which actually leaves us with two now now which one do i want to go for i'm not sure if i actually want to have a capital h at the start of helping hand um i think that bottom one is the most similar to this vision and i've got that in my head because we can tweak adjust it i think it's a really friendly fun and it just reminds you of that handcrafted really delicate feel so we're gonna go for that okay first thing that i'm thinking is the layout of this now i think i want to kind of do a stacked position just so hand is underneath the helping let's make that a little bit bigger now i think this one has yes it has some beautiful glyphs on it so i'm going to change the h's that one is just beautiful is there a h that kind of sits underneath the a if not i can make it no there is and that kind of like scoops up the a which reminds me of like a hand giving a helping hand which fits perfectly with the message that we want so i'm going to continue trying to get this layout to exactly how i want and fit the extensions of the letters around one another and then i can start customizing it the layout is looking really nice and i like how the letters are individual and not connected but by having those extensions on them it kind of brings it together and it just makes it look really pleasing to the eye so the only thing i want to change and customize on this is the tail of the g so i'm using the rubber tool to get rid of the g and i'm just going to tidy this up the pencil tool and now this allows me to create my own towel so i'm going to grab a pencil tool and draw this is not going well draw the um tail myself i think that would work let's add a stroke to that and make it a little bit thicker so i'm just gonna continue with the pencil tool and get this towel to exactly how i want it to kind of form next to the hand okay drawing that g has just sparked an incredible idea and i'm just i'm so excited to explore it so i'm actually just gonna leave the logo type as it is for a minute it is not finished and that's because it inspired me to turn that g into like a hand and an arm so i need to go and draw some hand illustrations but i don't know how they're going to look or the style of them so i'm actually going to go and draw the illustrations and kind of create a brown pattern so that those hand illustrations can then be included within our logo type let's go and draw some hand illustrations so to draw illustrations i sometimes like to use a reference images because i am really not great at drawing from memory so i

Thanks for your comment Arnold Yim, have a nice day.
- Billi Plosker, Staff Member

imagine that you want to build a website for your brand what do you fill out the empty web pages wait to make this website your website whatever you end up putting there is the basic set of brand assets you need to build your brand hey you guys welcome back to watching out in number one place for people who love design art and all things creative you are watching dancier and products channel my name is laszlo and in this video i want to talk about the brand design elements you need as a designer creative an entrepreneur of any kind to be able to brand yourself or your business i already have made a video in which i gave you some generic conceptual branding tips but this time i want to cut through the noise and give you a very simple no-nonsense list of 5 brand assets you need to build your brand identity system in 2021 let's jump straight in first of all you're going to need a logo obviously a logo is the visual focal point of any brand you already know that but what you might not know is having one logo in 2021 is not necessarily enough there are way too many platforms out there each doing their own thing and every single one of them has their own restrictive formats and visual systems in place so what you'll find is sometimes your logo just won't work within a given space a logo that looks good on a big screen might not look good on an apple watch and vice versa now big brands noticed this and they reacted to this phenomenon by putting scalable responsive logo systems in place if you have no idea what i'm talking about here let's look at this image brands like chanel or disney have their basic logos on the left and then they have all these simplified variations giving them the option to scale their logo marks down whenever a specific platform requires it or they just feel like it's needed and i do the same thing here i start every video with this nicely typed out dantier and volog logo but wherever i feel like it wouldn't be legible to use this big one i use this little monogram version instead this is something i feel like you should definitely keep in mind if you are designing a logo for yourself or if you are commissioning a logo designer scalability is the way forward assets number two colors now colors in my opinion are the most important visual assets you can use in your brand more important than the logo i probably don't even have to show you the logo but if i just put this little color swatch here you know exactly which brand i'm thinking about right now aren't you that's the power of color in terms of advice i would say most brands can and should be boiled down to two maybe three different color shades so try to build up a palette like this whenever i design a brand i start off with a main color which we usually end up using for the logo then we're going to need a background color which complements this logo design and after that usually i put in one more shade in place a somewhat secondary color which helps me to fill out the visual gaps between my main two color shades whenever it's needed we associate certain colors with certain emotions and moods which is something you should be playing with and also use them to create a concept and further tell your brand story when i built the dmb brand for example i very consciously went with this monochrome gray and white color scheme because i know that both jaclyn's and my creative design style when it comes to client projects is very rich crazy color for sometimes selling very outdoor ideas so when it comes to client presentations and showcasing projects we will want the client work to shine through our presentation slides while the dmb branding itself should be very tame very subtle in the background complementing and professionally packaging up all the proposed craziness we do this for our videos as well by the way dark air muted down background richer more colorful foreground i don't know how much of that comes across the camera but you get the gist try to build a concept with color okay branding is at number three is phones and typography now in 2021 if you look at hub most brands approach type and fonts it is quite uninspiring we are getting less and less experimental with the phones we use for two main reasons which i already kind of touched on one of them is legibility the screens are getting smaller so we have to adapt and two all these restrictions introduced on all the different platforms we are using for branding on instagram for example if you want to put text onto a story there is only so much phones that you can choose from now this has led to this weird situation that seemingly all the brands are using the same five six phones in their branding so if you're ever in doubt just use one of these two fonts are usually enough for a brand one for headlines and one for body copy and to be honest since this is the brenda set which is the easiest to replace and change later on i wouldn't sweat too much on it when you are just creating your brain i think typography is like fashion going around in circle like trends so i hope i don't hurt any typographer's feelings when i say i don't think this is where most people should get creative within their branding in 2021. by the way i don't mean to disregard designers and brands which are using typography in a very clever way in terms of design elements because on that front there is amazing work being done i'm talking about strictly body copy here which leads me to my fourth asset which i just going to call the visuals because what secondary visuals you need is very subjective let's say you are going for a very corporate professional looking identity in which case you can look into different photographic style or icon design while if you are going for a more youthful edgier kind of brand you might consider using illustration as part of your visual branding if you are selling physical products you might need packaging in which case you can look into different textures or better design for your products if you feel like you've been restricting yourself in terms of the fonts and typography this is the category when you can get really creative two things to bear in mind whatever you create should be a combination of however you want to appear in your market and two what your target audience expect a brand like yours to look and feel like like since i do digital illustration and icon design it makes sense that dante and embalk as a brand has its own custom icon set but i think you can really bend the rules to your way here like let's say you're a one-man operation having a little etsy shop selling handmade goods in which case it would make sense if your brand itself would have a handmade craftsy personalized fear to it as well if you need a starting point for this visual as i always tell people just think of what are you going to use as instagram highlight covers you know besides your logo what are you planning to put on your facebook banner or the back of your business card those are the type of supporting visuals i'm talking about here yeah and last but not least the be-all and end-all your website do you need it yes of course you n

Thanks Magda your participation is very much appreciated
- Billi Plosker

About the author

Billi Plosker

I've studied photonics at University of Lynchburg in Lynchburg and I am an expert in manufacturing engineering. I usually feel crazy. My previous job was historic site administrator I held this position for 19 years, I love talking about reiki and jukskei. Huge fan of Frank Sinatra I practice canoe slalom and collect cheese labels.