OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
The Brief
DBA Capital North - Background
The Brief
Considerations
Tone of Voice
Timescale
The government has recently revealed a strategy to develop the North of England as a second economic capital in Britain to redress the economic balance across the country and to compete on the world stage.
To brand the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and create awareness of it’s many and varied attributes to the rest of the world.
Consider the fact that you’ll be working in a group - play to each others strengths over weaknesses.
Formal, informative, promotional.
2 weeks
Deliverables
In Collaboration With
They are calling this strategy ‘Northern Powerhouse’.
Our target audience is very broad everybody and anybody, in the UK and abroad.
Logo, a poster design for each city, train livery and environmental considerations.
J’nae Saunders, Joe Leadbeater, Will Jeffrey and Amy Hill.
Target Audience
Consider how to make the branding reflect 4 different cities whilst holding continuity and personality.
1/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
City Branding Research As a group, we all researched into various city identities to get more of an idea as to how you could brand a city, country or address. I noticed that a lot of city branding consists of a logo that is interchangable across different areas of said city. For example, the city of Melbourne has endless logo variations
which add colour, personality and diversity to the city. I also came to notice that we were all looking into rather geometric and colourful logos and patterns.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Research
2/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Poster Development I was put in charge of developing the posters for the four cities. As a group we decided to work with an isometric grid so that all of the designs produced would follow the same grid system. This grid system also allowed to play upon our idea of building more together and the potential for growth.
Amy came up with a colour scheme to use across the four different cities so that when they were united together, it would create a spectrum of colour. At first we were interested in working with something illsutrative like in the first image above, but eventually the design was simplified to make it clearer and more professional.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Idea Development
3/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
The Logo Designed by Joe Leadbeater. Joe used the same isometric grid that we all decided to work with and created a really clever and aesthetically pleasing logotype and icon. The icon for the logo uses the isometric grid to create the letter N for North out of geometric shapes.
The logotype has been created using a custom typeface that was designed by Joe especially for this project. The custom typeface uses 45 degree angles and the isometric grid to reflect on the rest of the concept and is used across the entire project.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
4/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
The Posters Designed by Roxxie Blackham. Each city had a different colour scheme so that the four posters would blend through to one another when displayed as a set. I also made a .gif of the four posters as an interactive set on a billboard to show them interchanging between one another and creating a colourful glow.
The logo was incorporated in the poster to reinforce the branding and create continuity. We also thought that playing around with adding city images to the inside of the logo would bring more life to the posters as well as showing off the cities.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
5/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Environmental Mockups Designed by Roxxie Blackham. I decided to create mockups to show how the posters would work within the city environment. .gif files can be found on my blog to show the movement of the interactive posters and how they would work conceptually at bus stops.
Bus ads were also considered as a platform for advertisement, so that the brand can be promoted to commuters and drivers. Signage around the city will be simple and bold to attract the eye and give the passer by a constant reminder of the Capital North brand, making them want to find out more.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
6/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Lenticular Poster Designed by Joe Leadbeater. Joe came up with the idea of creating a lenticular poster where you would see the strapline when walking past in one direction and from the other side you see the isometric building blocks. We felt as though interactive posters and billboards will grab the passerby’s attention and make the brand exciting.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
7/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Interactive Installations Designed by Will Jeffrey. Will created some mockups of installations that could be dotted around the cities, similar to the idea of Iamsterdam. The inspiration for the installations came from Neil Dawson, a sculpture artist from NZ.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
8/9
OUGD603 / Extended Practice
Train Livery Designed by Amy Hill. Amy created some illustrations of trains to show how the branding would work across the trains travelling between the four cities. The use of the colour scheme has been applied to the trains to create a blur of colour as the train speeds past.
Brief 7 — DBA Capital North
Final Design
9/9