[Student Project] Visual Development Guide: Seventeen (GR604) by stacyvv94

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

A rebranding project of Seventeen teen magazine

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02 Visual Development Guide

A rebranding project of Seventeen teen magazine

Published by Wei (Stacy) Huang, 2019 For the Academy of Art University MFA Graphic Design Course: GR 604 Nature of Identity, Spring 2019

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Contents 01

Logo Finalization

Our History

01/2

Old Mark

01/3

Key Phrases

02/1

Sketches

02/2

Distill

02/3

Initial Refinement

02/4

Final Refinement

03/1

Similar Logos

03/2

Our New Logo

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Logo Development

01/1

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Brand Overview

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“

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When you empower a girl, you transform a community.

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—Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya Founder and President of Kakenya’s Dream, an international non-profit educating girls, ending harmful traditional practices, and uplifting communities in rural Kenya

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Brand Overview

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Our History

01/2

Old Mark

01/3

Key Phrases

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01/1 OUR HISTORY

Overview

Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was the first teen magazine established in the United States. The magazine's reader base is 10–19 year-old females. It began as a publication geared towards inspiring teen girls to become role models in work and citizenship. Soon after its debut, Seventeen took a more fashion and romance-oriented approach in presenting their material, while still maintaining their model of promoting self-confidence in young women. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications.

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After Seventeen was launched in September 1944, Estelle Ellis Rubenstein, the magazine’s promotion director, used Teena as a marketing tool to introduce advertisers to the life of teenage girls and to encourage advertisers to buy space in Seventeen. The magazine surveyed teen girls in 1945 and 1946 to establish a set of demographics that could help them understand how a girl could benefit most from the articles. Its ability to act as a major source of advice for many different aspects of a teenage girl’s life helped promote Seventeen’s stance in the business world, as well as in the world of a teenage girl. Today, it is equally as evident that the magazine serves a greater purpose than simply being a form of literary entertainment, for it also promotes self-confidence and success in young women.

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Promoting self-confidence in young women.

fig.1 (left): 90s teens.

01/2

Before developing a new identity for Seventeen, we should examine and understand the design of the past look. The old Seventeen logo features the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name with all lower cases which using condensed serif typeface in italic format, delivering a sense of fashion and action.

What will be changed? The new Seventeen logo will reinforce our mission of helping teen girls overcome difficulties and encourage them to be more confident individuals. We will update the brand to more accurately reflect the values, objectives, and distinct characteristics of the brand.

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OLD MARK

fig.2: Seventeen magazine, April 1950.

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01/3 KEY PHRASES

We identified three key phrases that best represents our vision and how we want to be perceived in the future. We came up with these three key phrases that could describe the keywords precisely and better position our brand in the market. These three key phrases are derived from our three key words: resourcefulness, confidence and hopefulness. These three key phrases helped us start the process of developing our new identity.

Resourcefulness

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Quick and Clever Confidence

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Take Courage Hopefulness

Spark for Tomorrow fig.3: Seventeen magazine, June 1957.

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02/03/

Logo Development

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02/1

Sketches

02/2

Distill

02/3

Initial Refinement

02/4

Final Refinement

02/1 SKETCHES

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This phase began with sketches of free-hand logos by using keywords as visual queues. Each queue contained three categories, namely symbols, graphics and logotypes. During this process, we tried to explore many different options to identify the direction that had the best potential.

The first round of sketches was to make sure that we explored as many divergent possibilities, so we could take a look at them all and compare. Eventually, we focused on the one direction we thought was best and kept going.

Quick and Clever

Key Phrases 01

We started our sketches with our first keyword: resourcefulness. To better understand the meaning of the word, we narrowed down the scope to one key phrase: quick and clever. We then brainstormed different graphic elements around it that supported the key phrase.

Resourcefulness

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Quick and Clever

Symbols

Resourcefulness

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Animals

Dolphin Bee Butterfly Fox Wild Goose

A symbol is a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

We had tried to use different symbols to convey our ideas of “quick and clever”. We looked at this concept from different perspectives— animals and objects.

For the category of animals, we explored elements like dolphin, bee, fox and wild goose. For the category of objects, we tried elements like dandelion, light bulb, key, toolbox, puzzle, globe, book and pearl.

Objects

Light Bulb

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Dandelion

Key

Puzzle Globe Book

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Toolbox

Pearl

Quick and Clever

Graphics

Resourcefulness

In contrast to Symbols, Graphics show ideas in a more direct way instead of metaphors, and usually use geometric shapes as components of symbols.

17 Transformation

17 + Geometric Shapes 9 12–18

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1–11

7 + T/Teen

19–28

Abstract Shapes

29–35 24

We tried to use various ways to combine the geometric shapes with the number 17, and also explore the possibilities of the combinations of the number ‘7’ and the letter ’t’.

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POTENTIAL DIRECTION

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Additionally, we delved into the abstract shapes to convey the ideas of resourcefulness.

Quick and Clever

Logotypes

Resourcefulness

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Inspirations

Morse Code Check Mark Thread Shortcut Fill In

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Handwriting

Blank Space

A logotype is a single piece of type that prints a word or group of separate letters. It is a form of a logo.

Take Courage

Key Phrases 02

Our next keyword was confidence. Our brand defines this word in this way: encouragement for the self-assurance of young women, solid support, and protection in potential unpleasant situations and problems. Our key phrase is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Take Courageâ&#x20AC;?, so we did brainstorming around this concept.

Confidence

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Take Courage

Symbols

Confidence

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Animals

Eagle Seals Shark Sea Star Ox Horn

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Swan

Peacock

A symbol is a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

We tried to use different symbols to convey our ideas of “take courage”. We looked at this concept from different perspectives— animals and objects.

For the category of animals, we explored elements like eagle, seals, shark, sea star, ox horn, swan and peacock. For the category of objects, we tried elements like crown, gem, diamond, crystal, spark, arrow, star, flag, target and mountain.

Objects

Gem

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Crown

Diamond

Spark

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Crystal

POTENTIAL DIRECTION

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Objects

Arrow Star Flag Target Mountain

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Take Courage

Graphics

Confidence

In contrast to Symbols, Graphics show ideas in a more direct way instead of metaphors, and usually use geometric shapes as components of symbols.

17 Transformation

17 + Various Shapes

17–18

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1–16

7 + T/Teen

28–34

Capital ‘S’

35–40 32

POTENTIAL DIRECTION

We tried to use various ways to combine the geometric shapes with the number 17, and also explore the possibilities of the combinations of the number ‘7’ and the word ’teen’. Additionally, we examined the transformation of capital ’S’.

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Take Courage

Logotypes

Confidence

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Inspirations

Arrow Connection Action Loud Tall

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Square

Continuity

A logotype is a single piece of type that prints a word or group of separate letters. It is a form of a logo.

Spark for Tomorrow

Key Phrases 03

Our third keyword was “hopefulness”. We want to help with warmth and affection and support young women in action to navigate their way and to ignite their strong hope for the future, so they can keep thinking positively all the time. We distilled our key phrase to “spark for tomorrow” and used different elements to show this concept.

Hopefulness

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Spark for Tomorrow

Symbols

Hopefulness

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Plants

Tulip Clover Sprout Olive Leaf Reed

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Lotus Flower

A symbol is a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

We tried to use different symbols to convey our ideas of “Spark for Tomorrow”. We looked at this concept from different perspectives— plants and objects.

For the category of plants, we explored elements like tulip, clover, sprout, olive leaf, reed and lotus flower. For the category of objects, we tried elements like sun, star, moon, meteor, heart, leaf, lighthouse, spindrift, spark, cloud and bird.

Objects

Star

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Sun

Moon

Heart

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Meteor

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Objects

Leaf Lighthouse Spindrift Spark Cloud

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Bird

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Spark for Tomorrow

Graphics

Hopefulness

In contrast to Symbols, Graphics show ideas in a more direct way instead of metaphors, and usually use geometric shapes as components of symbols.

17 Transformation

17 + Various Shapes

15–24

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1–14

7 + T/Teen

25–33

Capital ‘S’

34–35 40

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Spark for Tomorrow

Logotypes

Hopefulness

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Inspirations

Book Stair Leaf Ripple Arrow

A logotype is a single piece of type that prints a word or group of separate letters. It is a form of a logo.

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Conclusion

POTENTIAL DIRECTIONS

In this round of sketches, we noticed that some design solutions were better than others. The most effective elements were spark, star, action, crown and diamond.

01 Spark + Star

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03 Crown + Diamond

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02 Action + Up

UNSUCCESSFUL ELEMENTS

The most unsuccessful ones were sprout, flower, and other elements, which could lead to misunderstandings because some of the shapes could be misconstructed as represented something else.

These shapes could be misconstructed as represented something else.

02/2 DISTILL

Our next logo explorations were based on distilling, focusing and refining the logo concepts. In this round of sketches, we concentrated on the directions we clarified from the last round.

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After the first review, we realized that the keyword “resourcefulness” was not as easy as the other two to visualize. We wanted to combine keyword “confidence” and “hopefulness” into one word to better focus the direction, so we came up with a new word “Bravery” and used three different concepts to identify this word. They were “spark+star”, “up+action”, “crown+diamond”.

Resourcefulness

Quick and Clever Confidence

Bravery

Take Courage Hopefulness

Spark for Tomorrow

Bravery

Direction 01

We used spark and star as our inspirations to sketch more logos. We explored divergent ways to show this concept.

Spark + Star

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Bravery

Spark + Star

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POTENTIAL DIRECTION

Bravery

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Crown + Diamond

50 50

Direction 02

We used crown and diamond as our inspirations to sketch more logos. We explored divergent ways to show this concept.

Bravery

Crown + Diamond

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Bravery

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Up + Action

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Direction 03

We used action as our inspiration to sketch more logos. We explored divergent ways to show this concept.

Bravery

Up + Action

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Bravery

Up + Action

POTENTIAL DIRECTION

Conclusion

After this round of sketches, we identified two graphic elements that had the most potential to convey the meaning of the brand, which were shield and star.

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Star + 17

Assertiveness Bravery Security

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Confidence

Shield + 17

After the comparison, we decided to use shield as our final concept, which symoolizes confidence, assertiveness, bravery and a sense of security. It indicates our brand soul in a proper way, and reflects our mission accurately and neatly.

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INITIAL REFINEMENTS Chosen direction from the Distill (02/2)

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We further explored the concept of “shield+17” in this round of refinements, and it’s crucial to explore different visual possibilities based on chosen graphic elements. Eventually, we picked the best direction for the final refinements.

Shield+17

Shape 01

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Shape 02

Shape 03

21–30

Fully Enclosed Structure 31–38

Semienclosed Structure

Add Below

45–48

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39–44

Add on Top

49–53

Add Sides

54–55 60

Conclusion

We chose one best solution from all different shield shape variations. We picked one that is simple, clean and strong, which can reflect our brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soul strongly and cleanly.

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Next, we are going to bring this concept to our final digital refinements.

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FINAL REFINEMENTS

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This is the final round for the chosen direction. In this round we refined, combined and finalized the logo for future use. We also explored the color palette and logotype.

Help teen girls overcome difficulties and build self-confidence.

Symbol

We picked the logo concepts from the previous round that had most potential for further refinements, which is the visual symbol of the iconic shield plus number 17.

We want to bring this concept further and make different variations, and choose the most successful one as our final logo.

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Along with the symbol we also explored options for the logotype, seventeen, to be used with or without the symbol. We have tried various ways to design our logotype as shown below, and choose most successful one as our final logotype.

Initial direction

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Logotype

Typeface: Gotham condensed bold

We chose condensed sans serif with all caps as our logotype direction, which conveys a sense of assertiveness and confidence, and reinforces our mission of helping teen girls build self-confidence.

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Apply circles and lines to modify the typeface.

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Typeface: Gotham condensed bold

Final logotype

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Color

We tried several color combinations, and we finally narrowed down our color palette for our logo based on our three keywordsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; resourcefulness, confidence and hopefulness.

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Round 01

Contrast color combination

In our first round of color explorations, we examined various contrast color combinations, and noticed that they all looked clichĂŠd and vibrating, so we decided to used only one pop color instead.

In our second round of explorations, we tried to apply different pop colors on the pure grey background, so that the number â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17â&#x20AC;&#x2122; can be more pronounced and clear to the audience.

However, grey background is too limited for a lot of circumstances, and it is also not convenient for future usage, so we removed the solid color background.

Round 02

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Grey background + One pop color

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In our final refinements, we reversed the color, and used only one color to show our identity.

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Round 03

Single color

We realized that this treatment emphasizes the shield shape, which matches our brand soul of building self-confidence for teen girls. Additionally, this version of symbols can be more flexible for the future usage.

Resourceful Turquoise

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Hopeful Lark

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Confident Coral

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03/01/

Logo Finalization

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Similar Logos

03/2

Our New Logo

03/1 SIMILAR LOGOS

Before finalizing a logo design, it is essential to conduct a visual research and study of other logos in the market that share similar elements. It is also to make sure that the new logo doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t already exist inside or outside of a category.

Superman Logo

Roxy

The iconic emblem for the fictional DC Comics superhero Superman.

An Australian retail sporting brand.

DIFFERENCE

Diamond shape

Heart shape in the middle

K-Swiss

Ferrari

An American athletic shoe brand.

An Italian luxury sports car manufacturer.

DIFFERENCE

Pattern applied on the shield

3D effect applied on the shield

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Logos with shield shapes

Gilead Sciences

Chevron Corporation

An American biotechnology company.

An American multinational energy corporation.

DIFFERENCE

An object combines with the shield

Two arrow shapes line-up

Our brand kept our eye on three types of logos: logos with shield shapes, logos with numbers and logos with both shield shapes and numbers.

Logos with shield shapes

As part of brand awareness, it was necessary to present similar logos like ours and how we differentiated from those logos. We identified for each following logo the difference to compare with our new Seventeen logo.

Swiss Army

Tasmania

A pocketknife or multi-tool manufactured.

Marketing consultant in Hobart, Australia.

DIFFERENCE

Vintage shield shape

Combine with wings

United Parcel Service

An American for-profit managed health care company.

An American multinational package delivery company.

DIFFERENCE

Different perspective

3D effect applied on the shield

Abarth

Valvoline

An Italian racing car and road car maker.

A supplier of premium branded lubricants and automotive services.

DIFFERENCE

Delicate feeling

Shield shape combines with the capital â&#x20AC;&#x153;Vâ&#x20AC;?

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UnitedHealth Group

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DIFFERENCE

Bockholmengruppen

M17 Entertainment

A Stockholm based restaurant group.

A Taiwan-based live music streaming platform and dating app.

DIFFERENCE

Sans serif feeling

Outline the number 17

7 Up

A brand of lemon lime flavored non-caffeinated soft drink.

A chain of gas stations located within the United States.

DIFFERENCE

Number 7 with action

Outlined 7 with circle

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Logos with numbers

7-Eleven

Sushi 17

A Japanese-owned American international chain of convenience stores.

A sushi restaurant in the Brazilian city of Recife.

DIFFERENCE

Number 7 combine with letters

Number 17 formed in a square shape

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03/2

We use positive space to form the shield and use negative space to indicate our brand 17. This leads the audience’s visual flow from shield to 17. The shield is a first hook to understand the meaning of the brand—confidence and security— followed by recognition of the number 17, the brand name.

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OUR NEW LOGO

We use a shield as the main element to convey the idea of helping teen girls clear the barriers on the road to growing up, and give them a sense of security, so they can gain confidence accordingly.

Shield

Confidence and security

Brand Seventeen

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Our new logo was inspired by the idea of bravery, which combines the two ideas of overcoming difficulties and gaining confidence.

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Image Source

fig.1

www.topsimages.com

fig.2

www.historygraphicdesign.com

fig.3

www.seventeen.com

Article Source

Kakenya Ntaiya, Empower a girl, transform a community, TEDWomen 2018. Seventeen magazine, History of Graphic Design www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-modernist-era/a-new-language-of-form/1000seventeen-magazine.

This book is a non-commercial project for educational purpose and is not intended to represent or replace the original brand.

ÂŠ 2019 Wei (Stacy) Huang

TYPEFACE

Gilroy

DESIGNER All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright holder.

Radomir Tinkov TYPEFACE

Archer

DESIGNERS

Tobias Frere-Jones, Jonathan Hoefler

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COURSE

DESIGNER

The Nature of Identity

Wei (Stacy) Huang

INSTRUCTOR

Hunter Wimmer

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COURSE

DESIGNER

The Nature of Identity

Wei (Stacy) Huang

INSTRUCTOR

Hunter Wimmer