Entwistle's of Lancashire - Design Boards

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Brief/Rationale

Cherrytree Bakery are looking for a brand design to complement their new venture and would like the following key branding elements: New brand name, logo, identity, collateral design. The new brand will primarily be used for business-to-business sales, visible online (website, social media, etc.) as well as in print (packaging, promotional materials, official documentation, etc.) and, as such, should be professional yet eye-catching and recognisable.

Yet the brand must also contain a consideration for the extension of business-to-consumer sales in the future. This brand will sit alongside the existing Cherrytree Bakery brand, not in place of, and will consist of indulgent, premium hand-finished artisan baked products to independents and wholesalers. The current brand values of Cherrytree Bakery should be considered and have a cross over with the new brand.

Entwistle’s of Lancashire, is a brand that exemplifies premium, indulgent products; whilst adhering to its honest values. The name derives from the family run routes in which the brand has evolved from, taking the name from the family that are at the helm of Cherrytree bakery. The use of a individual name, rather than a business persona, allows a more personal feel when conducting business with b2b clients as well as the public. The introduction of ‘Lancashire’ gives a local feel to the endeavour, the name reminds clients of the local industry they are buying into, whilst operating on a national scale.

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Research The research element of this brief began with looking into the current brand values, it is evident that within the Cherrytree Bakery brand heritage and family values lie at the heart of the key models of the business. The business is also very proud of being northern and from Lancashire helping contribute to the local community. This is something that will be carried towards the Entwistle’s of Lancashire brand. The current identity although does not represent the artisan and premium values in which the new brand will, therefore development will put key emphasis on displaying these elements.

Research trials also looked into the key directional needs that make a successful brand, such as a brand’s mission being evident visually throughout all aspects of the branding itself, again this was taken into consideration throughout the binding brief.

Competitor analysis is also important when considering a new brand, both looking at the major market leaders, and also smaller competitors in which stick closer to Artisan trends. In this case Artisan trends was a key feature of research due to the nature of the new brand, considerations such as delicate personalised type, and use of bold bright colours contrast against product images to draw attention to the product itself were explored throughout the brief.

Due to the strong link to Lancashire community and heritage that the brand has, and the family who run the brand research allowed time the exploration into Lancashire visual identity, investigation into colour allowed for a location driven experimentation further down the line. Thus, in keeping with the heritage and family values of the business, whilst being visually evident as being part of the community, this keeping the mission of the brand as part of its key visuals throughout.

Research was also completed into the family, uncovering the ‘Entwistle’ name itself, through in-depth research methods, such as investigation into companies house.

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Initial Ideas

Due to the sheer size of the brief the initial idea stages contained a lot of experimentation.

This is only natural with a brief of this calibre, where both identity, new name and brand direction are all needed. The initial idea stage saw experimentation into both typographical styles and name generation. Name generation was key to this brief in order to begin in a position that clearly represented the brand’s key morals and values of premium prestige charters and products, whilst retaining a sense of family values and heritage to the local community. Therefore, words such as tradition were explored, yet the name ‘Entwistle’s of Lancashire’ was felt to be best fitting, being both representative of the initial family beginnings of the business which is still uphold today and also the location in which the business sits. Typographical exploration explored ideas found within the research stages such as San serif typefaces being largely representative of the Artisan industry. This was complemented by sans serif typefaces, in which also hand typefaces also experimented with, in order to add a sense of personality to the overall logo, therefore further offering the visualisation of the company’s mission.

Exploration at the initial idea stage is also allowed development for a logo mark representative of the business, the visuals contained within the logo marker representative of the products are used within the creation of the basis of the business itself, wheat and flour. A simplified illustration was created in order to be memorable enough to be able to complement the logotype and also represent the brand clearly wants presented isolated. Three strands we use to represent the three members of the Entwistle family who started and still run

the business.

Within this stage of the design process imagery style was considered, due to the fact that all of the images used on the website has a different style, I wanted to offer a complete visual brand identity to the client with the proposal of this branding. Through using colonisation of the research found colour palette, depicting the Lancashire flag, images were developed into being overlaid over a traditional texture of paper. This texture is representative of the traditional values of which the company upheld, and also give a handmade feel to the image, thus representing the handmade finish to their products. This warm and inviting feel gives consistency across the brand values therefore further exemplifying the brand’s mission in the visual style.

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Development/Design

The logo which was finally designed in the final construction which can be seen here allows for some serif typeface with an altered X height in order to be unique and tight closely and with the other elements of the type. The centre of his representative of the Artisan bakery industry as found in the research. A sense of elegance and premium is added with the addition of a serif italic typeface below the beginning name of the brand. The addition of a separate typeface also represents the heritage and tradition, both of which are key values of the brand, that are evident throughout the rest of the visual identity within the branding. A simplified version of the logo mark itself had been developed in order to simplify the logo itself, enabling it to be more memorable and push the notoriety of the brand being in new.

A distinctive imagery styles the selected to carry out throughout the brand as previously discussed texture and colour are used to represent the brand values, this has been carried through the product images also.

Isolating the product images themselves brings the focus of any outcome to the product as it is this old focal point. The use of the texture and specific colour combination allows for direct visual link to the brand. Imagery in which people and processes are depicted, have had the colour removed of entirely, rather the colour will be used as an accent.

In order to show how the brand could work across multiple platforms a website was designed, the website was visually coherent with trends of large competitors discovered in the research stages. Get the design style itself retains a distinctive style that is very unique towards the ‘Entwistle’s of Lancashire’ brand.

Packaging designs were created which also

complements the other visual aspects of the brand itself, remaining coherent with the website design. Colours are used to identify links to both the brand’s heritage and offer a bright bold distinctive pop representative of the exciting future of the Artisan bakery. All elements of the packaging were considered in order to gain the most visual notoriety of the brand as possible, such as areas where the logo could not be used the logo mark is solely used.

Social media has been considered as it was an additional part of the brief. After researching competitors, the brand was given a new fresh direction which featured slang from the Lancashire region. Therefore, once again consistently pushing the visual links to the heritage of the brand, in a way that exemplifies the products premium nature, brief and visually through the use of the simplistic serif display type; complementing the ‘of Lancashire’ type and once again tying together the brand with its values.

The final design considerations were taken into account with the B2B elements. Being a business that focuses on wholesaling these were important elements of the brand that needed to also be consistent with the rest of the branding. Packaging again once contains the full logo, with repetition of the logo mark itself in order to gain visual notoriety for the brand. Business communication tools were considered in the same manner, visually being representative of the brand, whilst remaining a sense of professionality. Bright pops of colour were added through the use of triple layered card, further bringing together the entire brand visual direction down to the smallest detail.

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Production

In terms of production it was not required that these outcomes were physically produced, this was due to the nature of the pitch itself. The pitch was to be presented across PDF format, with no opportunity to present physical items themselves.

Therefore, it was felt the most important factor in creating outcomes that worked for the business was to show design in situ. Through doing so the client could be able to see the way in which the design would work throughout a multitude of platforms to be able to bring together the entire brand identity. To doing this also it is the most extensive accurate method of showing each of the outcomes in the way they are meant to be used.

In order to present this correctly a brand identity booklet was created to be able to be submitted to the client themselves, giving the opportunity for each specific element of the design to be reasoned. Through doing so it also gave guidelines to the way in which the brand could develop, and the way in which it could be used. This was decided is the best method of production due to the fact that on a professional level this is the way in which a branding pitch would be presented to the client.

Callum O’Reilly

Competition Brief - Entwistle’s of Lancashire

OUGD603

Evaluation

Overall, I believe that this brief was successful, created a brand that was alongside the existing product range. The new brand is a representative of artisan values in the way that it visually links to handmade in traditional techniques and methods through the uses of textures and image manipulation. The new brand is eye-catching and recognisable due to the bright pops of colour that contrasts against the Artisan nature of the rest of the imagery and branding itself, which in itself is representative of Lancashire culture; something which the brief was specific and wanting to be a big part of the brand itself. The brand was designed in a style that keeps the family who created it at the forefront, was taking individual considerations the community and people, with which make the brand what it is. Both business to business and business to consumer branding identity has been taken into consideration with each step of the branding itself, with various outcomes showing the way in which the branding should be used.

I responded to both research and feedback from peers and tutors in order to create a successful branding. I know the body was successful due to the fact that it was shortlisted for the competition, I believe the brand presentation helped push forward my ideas and bring to the forefront the concept behind the brand. I believe the style of presentation also enabled me to be able to present my ideas in a clear and concise way without actually presenting them in person.

Overarchingly the experience was positive, and I enjoyed creating the brand at each step, although unfortunately due to the lack of communication between the University and the client who set the brief I’m still yet to hear back about the results of the competition.