2nd Year Studio Briefs Final Pieces
Helen Ashton
Contents Project 1 - Huddersfield Rebrand (Rock Cafe) Project 2 - YCN (Sally Beauty) Project 3 - Conversation (Modern Day Communication)
Huddersfield Rebrand Rock Cafe
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
Rebrand of an Independant Company in Huddersfield
Independent Companies- Huddersfield
Restaurants
Clothing Shops
Bota Fogo Discovery Bay Gringo Herbert’s Little Buddha Marimonte Med-One Primo
Catwalk Dais Diamonds and Dusters Endemic Magenta Mr Frog Dancewear Pink Cadillac Pixie Pop & Posh
Bars
Vintage Shops
Bar Maroc Mavericks Parish Picturehouse Rock Cafe Secco Vox Zephyr
Finder’s Keepers Part 2 Revival Vintage The Left Bank Working Class Vintage
Cafes
Other
Barrington’s Deli Blue Rooms Cafe Ollo Cafe Society Coffeevolution Four Cousins Queenie’s Thyme & Square
Calder Graphics CA Wilson Crafty Praxis Home unique Iprint Apparel John Woods’s photography Square Ten Urban Escape
Initial Reaction At the end of our briefing, we were told to get into groups to create some moodboards, our group ended up creating four, one for Huddersfield town itself, the second was about bars/restaurants, the third for our demographic and finally a moodboard about Rock Cafe. For the Huddersfield town moodboard, I tried to create the look and feel you get when walking around the town, so I included a lot of the amazing architecture that we have in the centre of town, but also things like Cliffords Tower because Huddersfield has lots of beautiful scenery outside of the centre. One thing that I definitely had to include was the train station, I think it is one of the best, most interesting buildings in Huddersfield. The second moodboard about bars and restaurants was a mixture of what is around and what is popular in 2014. There is a big hype about American diners and cocktail bars, I think this is the route I want to go down for my final rebrand. Our demographic moodboard throws together everything about our target audience. After researching into Rock Cafe, we decided on the age group of 1830 year olds. I feel that my final brand guidelines will have to incorporate eating, drinking, live music and friendship. The final moodboard about Rock Cafe was an eyeopener for me. Even though the menu has recently been changed, I think the whole place would massively benefit from a rebrand! The logo, signage, the uniform and everything could be so much more eye catching to customers. The outside of the business is so bland that you wouldn’t even know what Rock Cafe is! Here are a few examples of their current branding style from their website. The only part of this I value, is the last design about Thursday Burger Night, however it does look very generic and copied.
Rock Cafe Huddersfield Rock Cafe is an independantly run bar in the centre of Hudderfield, situated just opposite from the Town Hall, in a busy shopping area. The entrance to Cafe Rock does not have the luxury of a big shop frontage, instead it’s quite discreet, a sign above a pair of double doors leading upstairs, if you weren’t looking for it you’d probably miss it. I feel that when you walk in, the place is more like a bar/club rather than restaurant, but in a tasteful way, the decor is all themed as expected to suit the name. The website for the place shows off both sides to the company, both the restaurant and club. Recently in 2014, the menu has just been changed, not only the items, but also the design. The previous menu was dull, boring and lacked colour. Even though the food choice was brilliant, it didn’t make you excited to choose your food. This is the main reason that I will focus on the menu. Information from the website: The Rock Cafe Huddersfield is an American themed bar serving delicious food and snacks by day, and an exciting club/gig venue by night! What’s on? - Dance til 3.30am - Party over 2 floors - Party classics and chart toppers Food... - Served daily til late - Great value tasty food - Freshly prepared by our chefs As a business, they do run event nights, such as a student one on Wednesdays. Unless you had been on the website, you wouldn’t know about the events as there are no promoters or staff handing out flyers. In Huddersfield there are always flyerers around town to attract students to the next big night out, I think Rock Cafe have really missed out on a good trick there.
Research into branding Definition: Branding is the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a differentiated and significant presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or a group of sellers to differentiate them from others�. A good brand, will always try to: Deliver a clear message Confirm their credibility Connect with their target prospects emotionally Motivate the buyer Create user loyalty Once a company has acheived all of this, they should create a solid set of branding guidlines to follow that will make sure their name, logo, signage and general look and feel will be corporate, and always recognised by customers.
Brand Guidelines Research
Brand Guidelines are essentially a set of rules and regulations that explain how your brand works. They show designers how to use your companys branding correctly. A good set of guidelines should always include: Type Style, Logo usage, Colour palette, Image style/photography, Business card and letterhead design, Brand message or mission statement. Brand identity style guides are often very strict, like the Scouts Association on the next page, as they want to ensure complete uniformity to make everyone recognise their brand at all times.
Scout Brand Guidelines
I have been contacted about creating some logo and letterhead work for South East Scotland Scouts, here are the main points of their brand guidelines that I have been sent. I had to read through sixty-two pages of rules and regulations about typography, illustrations, size, colours and brand ethics! I think these few points are a good example of brand guidelines, however I feel that the vast amount of pages was unneccesary. This shows me that I want to keep my guidelines for the rebrand of Rock Cafe to a minimum. During my research, I found out that even one of the biggest companies in the world, Apple have a shorter set of branding guidelines than the Scouts!
AMERICAN DINER This page is about American diners, I feel this would be good with the bright colours and playful fonts that will make people look twice, compared to the plain frontage that Rock Cafe currently have. However, I don’t think that it’s easy to make one diner stand out from another, as they all look the same with similiar colour schemes, menu designs and typefaces. If the rebrand was to follow this style, it would be difficult to identify as a nightclub as well. People wouldn’t expect a party, instead just a burger and a milkshake.
Live Music Venue This page is concentrating on how we could bring an outdoor ‘festival feeling’ into a restaurant and bar environment. Even though I really like this idea and think it would bring in loads of customers, it just wouldn’t work. You’d have to change everything about Rock Cafe, it would be way more than just a rebrand! For starters, the name would have to go, the interior would need a massive revamp and the menu/drinks would need tweaking to be more like a festival.
Cocktail Bar
I really like the style of a cocktail bar, with the lit up bar, lots of bottles on display and sophisticated design elements dotted around. This would be a great route for Rock Cafe to go down as influence for the rebrand. Glasses, coasters, lit up company name, uniforms and so much more could be created with a cocktail bar feel in mind.
ROCK AND ROLL There are quite a few restaurants around now that spring to mind when thinking of a rock and roll influence. TGI Fridays most definitely have a rock and roll vibe within their colour scheme, it is mostly black and red with bright lights to advertise their restaurants around the country. A lot of independant or small chains of restaurants use this too, Almost Famous in Manchester is a great example of this, there are big murals on the walls, mostly black and white with sudden bursts of colour throughout them.
COLOURS
Sketches/Plans
After creating a few sketches of potential logos, I decided upon a rectangular style, as I felt that it allowed the name of the restaurant to stand out. I wanted this to happen, for I felt the name of the establishment was able to sum up the theme of the restaurant. The rectangle shape also allowed me to put extra information under the logo name, which provides the viewer with even more information about Rock Cafe. The circle design is prominent across many current big brands, for example Starbucks, Cloack Clothing, and many others. The rectangle I felt was a newer element therefore.
STA
UR A
1994
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
UB
CL
UR A
RE
-
-
-
STA
NT
R
R
RE
BA
BA
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
ROCK CAFE
CL
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
UB
EST 1994
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994
NT
-
Chosen Logo
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
I have chosen this logo as I didn’t want a boring circular logo which are all over at the moment. I feel the colour scheme and range of shapes sums up Rock Cafe pretty well, it’s a vibrant place to eat or drink with a different twist that other restaurants don’t have! The star has been incorporated from their original logo, I chose to do this as the company is an old, family run business and their regular customers who have been dining there for over 20 years may be put off by a drastic change. I also chose to create a few secondary logos for each of the components of the newly rebranded Rock Cafe, these show off all of the things they have to offer .
These are my secondary logos that advertise the three separate parts of Rock Cafe, that bar, restaurant and club. I have kept these more or less similiar to to the primary logo to make sure that the brand remains easily recognisable.
Coaster
Here is my final design for my coaster for Rock Cafe in Huddersfield. The design follows all the brand guidlines, doesn’t distort the logo, follows the colour scheme and doesn’t distract from the logo advertising the business!
Business Card
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994
The business card has been designed to follow the brand guidelines and also to keep the theme going of simple, yet eye catching design. I have chosen to use the main logo and not a secondary one, to show all aspects of the business off.
Menu
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB EST 1994
Brand Guidelines
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
Our Vision Rock Cafe is a hidden gem in the centre of Huddersfield providing a vast choice of home cooked food, a great range of cocktails and a delicious selection of local beers, whilst hiding a club upstairs! Rock Cafe welcomes customers to enjoy food throughout the day till 9pm serving a wide selection of lunchtime specials, daily offers and of course our famous Sunday carvery! Whether you fancy a cocktail or two with friends, a bite to eat after work, or a fantastic night out, then we’re the place for you! We also provide offers and packages for every party you are planning, from hen parties, to bar mitzvahs, contact us for more information.
The Logo Primary Logo
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
Secondary Logos
ROCK CAFE
ROCK CAFE
CLUB
BAR
ROCK CAFE RESTAURANT
Typeface At Rock Cafe, we mainly use one typeface, then just use different weights. There is no limit on the size of our text, however we ask you to keep it above 20pt at least!
American Typewriter Condensed
American Typewriter Condensed (bold)
At Rock Cafe, we use this typeface for everything as we like to keep all of our components looking corporate and most importantly, easily recognisable to our loyal customers.
We use a bold version of this typeface for impact and to create a more eye catching, dynamic logo.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvyxz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvyxz
Colours
Red inner Red outer
White inner Black outer
Red inner Black outer
RED: C: 0 M: 94 Y: 78 K: 0 WHITE: C: 0 M: 0 Y: 0 K: 0 BLACK: C: 90 M: 78 Y: 62 K: 96 These are the three colours that we use for our branding, these are also the only colour backgrounds that we allow designers to use.
Use of our logo Our logo should always remain recognisable, using only the three colours and one typeface specified. Here are examples of how to use the logo correctly:
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
Use of our logo Here are examples of ways that the logo CANNOT be modified to, you should never alter the colour, font or shape of our logo as it will not follow our corporate style.
Size of our logo Our logo should always be highly visible to our customers, so there are some rules to follow about the sizing on certain products. Minimum logo size:
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
80mm x 40mm As seen on our business cards.
Maximum logo size on menus and a4 posters: 180mm x 80mm The restriction is to ensure that we don’t take away attention from our other designs on the poster/menu!
ROCK CAFE
BAR - RESTAURANT - CLUB
Project Evaluation This project allowed me to explore my love of branding. Overall, I feel that this project followed the brief very well. I really enjoyed this rebranding task because I like to take something that already exists, and put my own unique spin on it. For me, I feel the menu is the stand out piece because every component combined gives the restaurant a current feel instead of an outdated feel like the current design. I’ve had lots of feedback, all of which said they felt it would improve the overall view of Rock Cafe.
YCN Brief - Sally Beauty
Helen Ashton
Sally Beauty - The Brand Sally Beauty is a global company that has grown from one small store in New Orleans in 1964 into the world’s largest distributor of professional hair and beauty products. They have over 4,000 stores worldwide. In the UK and Ireland, Sally Beauty is made up of four brands; Sally, Salon Services, Beauty Express and Shear Beauty. Sally is their retail brand, trading in over 180 stores and open to both professional and non-professional customers. Ion is a range of colour, care and styling products. Since 1996, Ion has been developing innovative dyes in a wide range of attractive shades, as well as colour accessories, colour protect shampoos and general hair care products to enhance natural colour and cover any greys. The products are used by both professional and retail audiences alike. The Ion Colour Brand is worth £2.5m and is Sally’s seventh largest brand in terms of sales.
Current Ion Packaging
Here are a few examples of Sally Beauty’s current packaging for their Ion products. I feel they really need a rebrand as they look so dated, and need bringing into the 21st century! The colours are far too bright and tacky, and I don’t think that this is how their well estfablished brand should be seen by customers.
Initial Thoughts I chose this YCN brief over all of the others, because I enjoyed the rebrand project so much. I really like taking something that has already been created and transforming it with a totally different twist. As soon as I saw the current design of the Ion packaging, I knew I wanted to change it! The name is really clever, however I don’t think they use it enough in the packaging. I then decided that I wanted to research into the science side of things. I researched into ions and what scientists use to represent them, then I discovered positive and negative diagrams. I was instanly drawn to the layout of the negative ion, as I feel the postive diagram looks like something is missing, and wouldn’t fill the packaging as well.
First Ideas/Sketches
Whilst thinking of my colour scheme, I thought of the current shampoo and conditioner packaging that catches my eye and makes me want to buy. The main two that I thought of were Tresemme and Bumble and Bumble. They both have completely different styles, yet they both work well.
Final Sketch and Colour Scheme
Final Logo Design
Product Development After deciding on the final logo and the black, white and orange colour scheme, I decided to create a whole range of the product for different hair types - dry, oily and frizzy to open up the shampoo to many different people.
ion
ion
ion
ion
A Conversation Brief
Initial Ideas
When we were told that our brief would be about conversation, I thought about how much the way we communicate has changed over the last few decades, especially since mobiles phones have become much more easily accessible. I then decided to focus my project on ‘modern day conversation’. Therefore, I created a mindmap to try and create ideas suitable for this brief.
Short History The concept of the SMS (Short Messaging Service) was created by Friedhelm Hillebrand, while he was working for Deutsche Telekom. Sitting at a typewriter at home, Hillebrand typed out random sentences and counted every letter, number, punctuation, and space. Almost every time, the messages amounted to 160 characters, thus being the basis for the limit one could type via text. SMS messaging was used for the first time on 3 December 1992, when Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test engineer for Sema Group in the UK, used a personal computer to send the text message “Merry Christmas� via the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis who was at a party in Newbury, Berkshire which had been organised to celebrate the event. Modern SMS text messaging is understood to be messaging from one mobile phone to another mobile phone. Initial growth of text messaging was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 message per customer per month. Today, text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service, with 74% of all mobile phone users worldwide, or 2.4 billion out of 3.3 billion phone subscribers. In countries such as Finland, Sweden and Norway, over 85% of the population use SMS. The European average is about 80%,. The largest average usage of the service by mobile phone subscribers is in the Philippines, with an average of 27 texts sent per day by subscriber.
Infographic Research After reseraching into text messaging, I realised that there were lots of facts and figures involved in the whole process, so I thought about inforgraphics. I have always loved the look and layout of infographics, but never created any. The two main components of these, are the way they look, and the content. I decided to focus on content first and here are the most interesting facts I gathered whilst researching: Research shows that school students who text are better spellers than students who don’t text. The largest average usage of the service by mobile phone subscribers is in the Philippines, with an average of 27 texts sent per day by subscriber. The peak hours for text messaging are from 10:30-11:30 P.M. The worlds fastest texter can compose this: “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.” in 18.19 seconds! There were also lots of claims that texting has ruined how we communicate, meaning that we don’t need to leave the house to talk to our friends, our English is suffering because no one is having spoken conversations anymore, and that young people are becoming ruder and ‘fubbing’ others more often!
Developing My Idea Even though there were lots of interesting facts that I could pop straight into my infographic layout, I decided that I wanted to to and prove that other peoples claim about texting were wrong. So I began to conduct a survey, I chose 10 of my friends to answer my questions, which were: Do you prefer texting or calling? How many texts do you send in a day? What’s your main reason for texting? Social or work? How often do you use emojis? how many people have you text in the last month, and how many of those have you seen in person?
Survey Results The results of my survey have really helped with my aim to prove that peoples views of texting are wrong! After compiling the results, I had to create different styles of graphs and think about my layout. I thought about pie charts, bar graphs, pictographs, scatter graphs and also just plain text. I decided that a scatter graph would look too disorganised and messy, so I stuck to a column graph, a bar graph and a pie chart for my infographic piece.
50 + never
occasionally
30 - 40
8 7
sometimes
20 - 30
6 5
all the time
10 - 20
4 3 2
0 - 10
012345
1 0
work social
Layout Sketches
Final Layout
Here is my final background layout design for my infographic. I think it works well with the blocks of colour segregating each fact or graph.
I have chosen this pastel shade colour scheme because I didn’t want anything to detract from the graphs and information in this piece.
Final Piece
Firstly, I’ve done what I set out to do, by proving the critics of texting wrong, and showing how conversation is still alive in today’s society. My data shows that on average 86% of text conversations are by people who see each other in person as well. I surveyed many demographics in an attempt to get a more complete picture of the influence of text, asking 18 to 62 year olds their views. To conclude, I enjoyed researching this project, and creating a relevant infographic, that I had never attempted before.