BrandX

BrandX Product and brand development for the future

Zoe Reifel Fall Semester 2019 Glasgow School of Art

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Contents

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Part One: Introduction The Project The Team The Bathroom

Part Two: First Steps Initial Research Design Opportunities Tone & Manifesto

Part Three: Brand Development Brand Archaeology Name & Symbol Colors Typefaces Graphics Applications Moodboard

Part Four: Product Concepts Our User Final Insights Early Concepts Storyboarding Product #1 Product #2

Part Five: Conclusion Reflection Credits

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Introduction The Project The Team The Bathroom

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The Project For the BrandX project, we were asked to develop a new brand which would serve the needs of an identified market in the near future. Each group was assigned a different room of the home to which their brand should appeal. Given these parameters, developed a brand identity and proposed a line of products.

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The Team

Lucas Cheskin

Sian Mackay

Zoe Reifel (me!)

Haili Wu

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The Bathroom The room of the home our group was assigned was the bathroom. This raised many interesting design opportunities surrounding environmental issues, daily routines, and space.

Here, our group discussed the qualities of a bathroom and user actions that occur in this space. Answering the question “what is the bathroom?� laid a foundation for the work to come.

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First Steps Initial Research Design Opportunities Tone & Manifesto

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Initial Research The brainstorming process began with thinking about social, economic, environmental, technological, and political (STEEP) issues that might impact users of the future. We made a card describing each issue, then sorted out the ones most applicable to the bathroom.

The STEEP card process began with a classwide brainstorming session. It was interesting to see what students from other perspectives, especially from other countries, speculated would be pressing in the future.

Sketchbook notes during the research phase.

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Design Opportunities Next, we narrowed down our STEEP cards to three design opportunities and began to break them down. During this process, I thought about who our users could be and what their lives would be like, especially within the context of the bathroom.

This was a crucial part of the design process, as it determined the “problem” we would try to solve.

Looking back, I’m grateful for the breadth and depth of research we did.

DESIGN OPPORTUNITY #1 A communal living complex in Greater Copenhagen, Denmark.

Privacy By 2050, it’s expected that 7 out of every 10 people will live in a city. This could result in increased crowdedness and mass communal living.* Community-based housing of hundreds of people is already popping up all over Europe.

Because privacy is an important aspect of the bathroom, we began to consider how that experience will be shaped by shared living situations.

* Statistics and images via Imagine: Exploring the Brave New World of Shared Living by SPACE10

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DESIGN OPPORTUNITY #2

Sustainability Recently, issues such as single-use plastic and zerowaste living are more frequently discussed in everyday rhetoric. Our waste production will become an even more dire situation as time continues. The bathroom

is a hub of plastic products, such as shampoo and dispoable razors. This could be an area to rethink our routines and apply environmentally-conscious design.

A current popular app promoting mindfulness and meditation.

DESIGN OPPORTUNITY #3

Mindfulness Overtime, the role of technology in our lives is becoming more and more dominating. We expect people will look for moments of escapism, as seen by current “mindfulness� trends.

Because the bathroom is Bathroom products that eliminate single-use plastic from ByHumankind.

often a quiet and solitary space, this could be an opportunity to achieve those moments.

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Early conceptual storyboard of an insight to the future— maybe green space is in your bathroom.

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Tone & Manifesto Based on these insights, we chose several key words to represent our brand. We also developed a brand manifesto: In the future, young people living in shared spaces may lose their sense of individuality. We encourage creativity and self expression.

Creative Sustainable Social Unique

Displayable

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Brand Development Brand Archaeology Name & Symbol Colors Typefaces Graphics Applications Moodboard

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Brand Archaeology We started our brand development process by analyzing the elements of two existing brands, Vodafone and Three. Side by side, we compared the evolution of their logos,

colors, products, communications, and more.

This gave us a foundation of what makes up a brand’s identity. Going forward, we were able to apply our findings to our own brand.

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Name & Symbol The process of selecting a name was one of the most difficult aspects of the project. We knew we wanted it to be short and a bit abstract, but still have some meaning. Our group sat around a table for a few

hours throwing out syllables and ideas, originally choosing “Creo,” which was then used to test out different typefaces and visual styles. We then switched to “Makr:” after finding Creo too childish.

PRIMARY WORDMARK & LOGO

makr:

Here it was tricky to make decisions that balanced timeless and trendy design in an effort to keep with looking to the future.

SECONDARY LOGO

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Name, typeface, and graphic ideas.

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Colors I selected our color palette from an early moodboard Sian made. The goal was for the colors to evoke feelings of playfulness and joy, but again, not be too childish. I chose a large number of colors to allow for visual

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Makr: Red

Orange

Yellow

Seafoam

Blue

Text Navy

Background

diversity across our brand.

The warmer colors were intended as our “primary� palette, with the cooler colors as accents and backgrounds.

The red shown to the left is used in our primary logo.

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Typefaces I paired our primary typeface with a secondary sans-serif typeface to be used for body text and other headers.

Symbol Variation Savate AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJj KkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTt UuVvWwXxYyZz

I then used the typeface and color selections to create variations on the name for our brand’s various products and services.

Karla AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLl MmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVv WwXxYyZz

Without the information I gained in the brand archaeology workshop, I don’t think I would’ve known to take this step.

: refill : kit : store : element

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Graphics I also developed a few graphics made of minimalist, colorful shapes.

I chose four shapes in four colors and varied them to create the bottles.

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Applications With all the elements of the brand put together, I created a few preliminary “ads” to see what it would look like.

During this time, we were just starting to shape would our products would be.

Seeing our brand’s concept helped shaped those decisions.

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Moodboard Throughout the project, we kept a running moodboard with our own designs alongside inspirational found images and handmade clay objects. This was to ensure brand cohesion.

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Evolution of the Moodboard Our visual identity became clearer and clearer as time went on. At first, we were throwing all relevant materials onto the board, but later began to refine until we reached the final iteration.

The entire process was necessary to reach the conclusion we did.

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Product Concepts Our User Final Insights Early Concepts Storyboarding Product #1 Product #2

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Our User Creating a user persona helped us envision who would be using our products.

Many attributes of our target audience derived from our research in the STEEP card phase. We chose to appeal to young, urban, creative professionals who don’t have the highest budget.

Meet John Full-time podcaster, age 26 Studied painting during university Lives in London with two roommates Works overtime to get his podcast up and running Misses creating visual art Is very busy and doesn’t have much time to socialize

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Sustainability No virgin plastic Everyone must use eco-refill shops

City Living Rapid urbanization Small, low-cost spaces Rise of communal living Fast-paced life

Uniformity Dull & stagnant living environments (ex. dorm bathrooms) Lack of individuality

Final Insights From our research, we ended up basing our brand and products off these predictions for the future.

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Early Concepts These are some collaborative first-draft product ideas for Makr based on our new visual identity and final insights.

Creating your own bathroom products— toothbrushes, razors, etc

The bathroom as a space for creative production

Subscription-style kits with materials to make sustainable products at home (preferably with friends or roommates)

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STEP #1

Outlining user actions in words

STEP #2

Sketching out to view visually, categorizing and labeling

Storyboarding

STEP #3

Discussing, iterating, and refining

Sorting our our storyboards was hugely helpful in developing our final product concepts. I learned how important it is to throw all your ideas out there and refine.

The next step was to start storyboarding our product ideas. We did this through sketches with color-coded “frames� that highlighted touchpoints where the user interacted with different products and services.

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: kit

Product #1 After refining our storyboards, we developed this final product concept: Makr: provides the hands-on experience of creating your own sustainable bathroom products, ranging from shampoo bottles to toothbrushes.

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: kit

Product #1 We played with different materials to envision what the process of making your own bathroom products would be, as well as what the final result might look like.

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: refill

Product #2 This product I developed on my own as a service offered alongside our Makr Kit products. It’s inspired by food delivery models like DoorDash. This eliminates all single-use packaging.

This concept was initially inspired by the “milkman” model where a delivery person would drive house to house with goods.

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: refill

Product #2 Before designing the delivery app that would pair with the refill service, I researched existing food delivery and cosmetics eCommerce apps.

This step of the process helped me understand what users are familiar with. I analyzed the best components of each app to combine into my own UX.

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: refill

Product #2 This is one of several pages of wireframes for the mobile app. This particular one outlines the eCommerce UI/UX.

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: refill

ONBOARDING FLOW

Product #2 These are some final screens for the app, including the sign-up process and shopping experience.

I wanted to make sure our app fell in line visually with our brand identity, thus I used particular shapes, colors, and typefaces.

ECOMMERCE

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Conclusion Reflection Credits

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Final Reflection In this project, I learned about all the components that make up a brand—its visual identity, line of products, manifesto, and so on. It’s vastly important that all these aspects be harmonious. By first establishing a brand’s feeling, a designer is able to make interconnected decisions that provide the user with a holistic experience.

At the start, I assumed that product development always came before brand development. We did the opposite in this project, which I initially found jarring. I learned in the end that either order can be productive. In fact, I think that because our group was on the same page about our identity, our end result was more cohesive.

Overall, I learned a great deal about the design process, and through this, gained new skills that I can apply to projects outside brand identity in the future.

All graphics, sketches, and photographs by myself unless otherwise stated: 0 5 8 9 10 15 19 22 25 26 27 28 29

Photograph by Sian Mackay Photograph by Sian Mackay Illustrations by Lucas Cheskin Images via SPACE10 Images via ByHumankind and Headspace Storyboard by Lucas Cheskin Moodboard by Sian Mackay Photography by Sian Mackay Graphic illustration by Lucas Cheskin Third photograph by Sian Mackay Illustrations by Haili Wu Photographs by Sian Mackay Illustrations by Lucas Cheskin App screens (left to right) via Postmates, DoorDash, Lush Cosmetics, GrubHub, Uber Eats

This project continued to be developed by my group members after I left the Glasgow School of Art. They evolved the brand further and designed a line of products that was showcased at The Lighthouse in downtown Glasgow.