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Brief_
Group_
Lizzy, Laura, Ellen and Myself. Two northern, two southern.
Initial Ideas_
What does the North have that the South doesn't?
What does the North have to offer?
For example Leeds_
- Market
- Trinity
- Harvey Nichols
- Grand Theatre
- Town Hall
- Art Gallery
Logo ideas_
Meeting_
After having a few days to develop our own ideas and designs we all came together before the day that DBA were coming in to work with us to discuss our ideas and try and finalise some of them.
We were all finding this very challenging and didn't really make a huge amount of progress in this meeting. But we did know that we wanted to portray the idea of the North is many different positive ways, and thinking positively we were thinking upwards. Onwards and upwards.
We decided to take what we had done and try and get help and advice from DBA tomorrow.
Day with DBA_
Unfortunately Laura and Ellen weren't here for the day with DBA, which meant it was just myself and Lizzy to try and get as much out of the one on one help and try and make strong progress to move forward with the brief.
We started the day by simply doing research on pinterest, and design blogs to see if anything inspired us. One thing we had mentioned in the meeting yesterday was the possibility of using negative space within the logo.
After playing around on illustrator we realised we could make an arrow going upwards out of the N in North.
We started by doing this in helvetica, as this was a universally known typeface, it was very legible and known to be popular.
Myself and Lizzy were very happy with this, we felt we hit the nail on the head, as it was clean, professional and also a little clever. This was a good start to the day and so it yearned us to keep going!
In the presentation that DBA gave us when briefing us, one thing they said was that every client loves a moving logo.
When using negative space to convey something, not everyone see's it, certainly not straight away anyway. So we thought to make sure the public would notice the N and it would be clear, we developed an idea for a moving logo that would make this clear to anyone who didn't see the N.
The idea was that the moving image would start by typing out Capital North, normally. then the N to change into the negative space arrow, with moving lines that would move parallel to one another and then disappear but briefly making the N obvious. And then it would simply move into the logo.
Design development_
Once the logo and icon was almost set, we decided talking about the additional deliverables and in particular the app.
Whats on app_
- logo motion to start
- N icon and app icon
- list if cities to pick from
- list of whats on events eg music, food etc
- individual event accompanied by a map
- 'like' an event and it will save it to your calendar and notify closer to the event time
- create a map of all your 'liked' events to show you the most efficient way of getting around.
Feedback_
At this point around lunch time, DBA came to hear our ideas and see what we had come up with so far. We both explained through the work we had done and the ideas we had.
The group feedback was mixed but helpful.
- the logo out of context could look like a lot of things, eg urban street wear, financial company, train company
- how did we come to the logo?
- what do we want the logo to say?
- whats the big idea behind the designs?
- whats the concept?
- focus on the ideas and the story rather than details in the design.
Shortly after the group feedback we had our individual feedback with John. This was especially helpful.
- logo looks finished it could be used tomorrrow
- think about the context and the meaning
- experiment with colour
- experiment with pattern
- try different weights with the N, what could make it clearer?
- hierarchy of information within the logo - is the icon the largest part?
- patterns within the logo / patterns outside of the logo
- how could this be applied to uniform or train livery?
- how could the icon hold information?
- use negative space to create posters with images of the cities coming through the negative space
- typed info always starting with a N so it could always start with the icon?
- what are you trying to promote?
- what does the north have to offer? - Cheap and quality living etc
- build the icon into your messages
- focus on THE BIG IDEA
Updating Ellen and Laura_
The next day Lizzy and I had a quick meeting with Laura and Ellen to show them the work that we had completed.
Group discussion_
We got together on another day and discussed the brief and what needed to be done. We knew we needed to focus on the big idea and the thought behind the designs. And we wanted to focus on the idea of growth, improvement, and positivity all things that involved moving upwards and forwards.
Thinking about colours, Lizzy came up with the idea to see place the N on a colour wheel and see each colour each point fell on. I then thought we could also look into the co-ordinates of each city and see if they fit with a pantone swatch for helping us choose the colours.
We decided to give everyone an individual task which they could explore and come back and feedback to the group.
Typeface experimentation - Isabel
Colour - Lizzy
Wayfinding - Laura
App - Ellen
Primary research_
While we were working Lizzy developed another potential logo idea, and the other girls liked this. So we decided to do some primary research, print the original and new logo out in four colours and go around to different courses and years and ask what they thought of the logo, if they could guess what it may be for, and which were their favourite colours.
Feedback_
Almost everyone guessed something medical for the new logo, and a lot of people mentioned finance for the original logo.
After we did this, I asked the girls which logo they now preferred and which colour they would chose. We all agreed that we should stick with the original logo. And none of us hugely liked the four colours. Laura and I both thought that navy blue could work well and when we tried this the other girls agreed.
Plan_
We made a plan to spend the whole of the following Wednesday on DBA, as each of us had other things on and Lizzy had her placement the week before the deadline this was our last day as a full group to work on the brief, so we felt it was important to work together to get as much done as possible.
Day of DBA_
Me and Lizzy got into uni before the girls so just started cracking on with work. Lizzy had done some work on the poster designs, using the negative space idea with photographs of each city and they looked great. So I started to create some too, using different photos.
Once the other girls arrived we showed them these ideas and they seemed happy with them. Ellen and Laura were working on the app and the wayfinding.
While myself and Lizzy were trying to think of what to say about each city on the posters I suddenly thought it could work nicely to have quotes from people who already live there. It would add a personal touch and it would fit with the idea that we wanted to portray positive but also truthful representations of the North and the specific cities.
Laura is from Liverpool, we all live in Leeds and Ellen knows manchester very well and has worked there. We just needed someone from Hull, who thankfully we found!
I collected the quotes about each city and placed them on the posters. The composition worked nicely.
We felt the posters were strong, as they were limitless in terms of their design, the same principle and layout can remain the same the photos and quotes could be endlessly changed to produce a wide range of promotional material.
Quotes_ When asked whats the best thing about....
Hull - 'The architecture, it's definitely got character.'
Leeds - 'The food scene, there's something for everyone. It is full of culinary gems.'
Liverpool - 'A really friendly area, with great historical architecture.'
Manchester - 'It's a huge creative hub, and full of different cultures.'
Sadly Ellen and Laura had other work they needed to prioritise so were mainly working on other things throughout the day.
Progression_
Colour -
There were some concerns that the navy colour was too like already existing train company such as northern rail, which was very true so we started to rethink colour as well. As out logo used negative space we needed a large contrast to make this as clear as possible. So ideally we needed a dark colour. We thought about using red, but a bright red wasn't hugely appealing, so we started looking at deep reds, like burgundy and maroon. I downloaded a burgundy swatch from the internet and colour swatched it to see how it would look in the logo. It worked well and we were happy with this change. It also represents, a professional but warm visual.
Typeface -
As a group and from the advice from DBA we felt that using ariel black, worked better, however when we started placing it across the different platforms, on posters etc we started preferring the original typeface, helvetica bold. We took a vote and everyone decided we wanted to go back to helvetica.
Presentation_
After most of the final decisions and designs were made I decided to start making a presentation as I knew we wouldn't have much time the following week.
I created the majority of the pages we needed, leaving blank the app and the train livery, so that Ellen and Laura could fill in these pages.
Final presentation_
ISSUU
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