Restated Brief

Job summary

Nicola Wilson is the author of the book Recommended! A book that
follows the Book Society and the literary influences that highly
influenced the reading during the interwar period. Wilson would like
ephemera such as: a bookmark, postcard and book plate to supply at
book shop visits during the book launch of Recommended!

Aims and objectives

• To create cohesive ephemera that reflects the nature of the book and
  the time period that it focuses on, with some contemporary elements
• To experiment with typography from the 1930s
• Find images through the collections to use/utilise in my work

Deliverables

• Bookmark
• Postcard
• Book plate

Qualities of deliverables

The user will need to be able to see a clear connection between the
content, book and the ephemera. They will also need to be able to read
the text displayed on all of the items.

Research

My research will consist of meeting Emma in collections to look at all
of the ephemera from the Book Society. I have also been supplied with
the manuscript so I can read it, so that I can understand the content
of the book further and what I need to be representing with my
designs.

Research

Development

After digitising them in Illustrator I started working on different colour combinations to see which was most effective. I then test printed to ensure that the colours transferred well in print, so had to make some final adjustments. The final digital versions are shown in figures 4-7.

Figure 4: Outside of bookplate.

Figure 5: Inside of bookplate.

Figure 6: Front of postcard.

Figure 6: Back of postcard.

Figure 7: Front and back of bookmark.

Printed Deliverables

Reflection

I really enjoyed this project, it was something completely different to anything that I had previously done. This real job was heavily illustration based and that through me out of my comfort zone , in the best way. I have grown a lot of confidence in my illustration skills and have learnt a valuable skill which I can utilise in the future.

Context

The client is part of the (University of) Reading Arts Committee and has commissioned a public art trail for Whiteknights campus. The trail will consist of four ‘World Globes Re-imagined’ sculptures which are placed around campus and one existing abstract sculpture. There will be additional artwork added to the trail.  Please visit The World Reimagined for more information.

Restated Brief (as of the first phase)

Aim of the project

The client aims to create a more inclusive community surrounding the exhibited artworks around the University campus through a trail that can be accessed by all.

Objectives

Research will be undertaken to explore successful existing maps and leaflets, and to understand the community the project is being aimed at. This will shape the design of the leaflet to enhance the experience of the trail and encourage an inclusive audience.

Deliverables

A print-ready leaflet containing a map of the trail and relevant information.

How the deliverables will be measured
Prototype leaflets will be produced, and a range of users will be asked to test the trail to measure the effectiveness and clarity of the map. Consistent feedback will be given by the supervisor and improvements made throughout the process.

User needs

The map must be easy to read with a clear structured route and only the most relevant information so as not to confuse the user. The leaflet must be suitable to be displayed in standard leaflet stands at museums, and similar public locations. As there is no specific target user, or age range, the interactive web map must be both accessible and easy to use. Accessibility needs must be considered within the leaflet design to ensure that it is clear which areas are accessible to all and which are not.

Notes from initial client meeting

• The University wants to collect public artworks to display around campus (e.g. sculptures, paintings, etc.).
• The Arts Committee have acquired four ‘World Globes Reimagined’ sculptures to be placed roughly in greenspaces surrounding: the library, Park House, the URS building (near the reflective pool), and the Henley Business School.
• One of the sculptures on the trail, is the abstract sculpture titled ‘Floating Gardens’. The client has stated that this exhibit needs more representation as it is often overlooked due to its unclear nature as artwork or unconventional seating.
• The client mentioned the possibility of including some subtle signage to make the map and trail itself more cohesive.
• This project is expected to grow in the future, developing more iterations as the trail gets larger. There is already a commission underway for another public sculpture set for 2026.
• This is designed for the whole public not just students, however, confirmation is still needed regarding public access to university buildings.

Schedule

Research

We began by asking our client if she had any existing points of inspiration for the leaflet/map. Our client found the leaflets used in Tate Britain and Tate Modern (figures 02 and 03) particularly inspiring and organised for us to travel to London to do some field research and understand what about the leaflets made them so memorable/inspiring. The true benefit of researching these existing examples was not simply looking at the finished product but using the map in context to explore the museums. This helped us better our understanding in learning what creates a clear leaflet and the techniques that could be used to differentiate different levels of hierarchy within the information displayed. It was insightful seeing the levels of detail needed for an internal map, and how the artworks could run alongside this in our own printed leaflet.

After this visit, we initiated further research by creating four user personas, specifically considering their lifestyles and frustrations as well as their journey that would lead them to the ‘Art on Campus’ trail (figures 04 and 05). This was an enlightening activity, perfectly illustrating the range of audience that we have for this project. From this stage of research, we found that potential users struggle to understand the information when it is overly busy, specifically for users that are neurodivergent can find overcomplicated designs overstimulating. This was an important consideration to make when designing our leaflet as we aimed to design for all users rather than just the neurotypical able-bodied. Continuing this path, we identified another user that may potentially struggle due to their physical ability, someone who is partially visually impaired. Due to this, we intended to consider the type-size and experiment several times by printing prototypes.

Ideation

We began with sketching and folding multiple layouts using scrap pieces of paper (figures 06). This way we were not spending too long making the sketches/prototypes aesthetically pleasing. Along with testing out multiple folds, we also experimented with where the different areas of information would be placed within these layouts, where we were torn between a cross-fold leaflet and a three-fold leaflet. Once we were happy with a few chosen layouts, we sketched them neatly on samples of the paper stock that we were planning to use (these would be the copies that we passed onto our client for her to approve the layout), as seen in figure 07. Our client was keen for us to work with a cross-fold leaflet and was happy for us to use similar placements.

Once a rough design layout and fold had been agreed on, we started laying out very simple wireframes with placeholder images in InDesign. We split the design work between the two of us, with one of us focussing on leaflet typesetting and layout, and the other focusing on the design of the map.

Part of the process involved taking our own photos, so we made a trip into the University, borrowed the professional camera and took some pictures of the artworks and the four globes (figure 08). These photos then required a significant amount of light editing, achieved across both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop which was relatively new to the both of us and a great learning opportunity.

Development

To begin our digital design phase, we decided we would adopt a system where we would work on separate InDesign files as to limit any problems happening with the files, and would come together and create a new, updated document with the other person’s work. Upon completing the separated areas, we worked together trialling different styles of inputting imagery and how, for example, the rounded shapes of the globes would work against our rectangular grid.

We used each other’s honest critique and improvements to refine our digital design, along with booking in an extremely valuable feedback session with James to review an early-stage print. Once we were happy with a digital design, we showed it to our client along with a short presentation for review and received some changes to the copy and a proposal to change the layout of the page containing the artworks. Initially, this took us back as a lot of work to do, however, we systematically went through the changes, highlighting them as we completed them in a shared doc. We went through several iterations throughout the development process, as seen across figures 09–11.

After making our client’s suggested changes, we went back to our supervisor and asked for some final critique, and the level of detail that was looked at was eye-opening. In the final feedback, it was suggested that the image on the front cover was a little faded due to the light editing, so we went to Geoff for a quick personal tutorial on light editing in photoshop and achieved a look that we were confident with for our hero image on the title page. We learnt a lot from this experience down to the most minute detail of changing thin spaces to hairline spaces.

Production

The production phase of the process was eye opening as communication was the main skill required here. When discussing the production spec with the Real Jobs team, we were not clear enough on the type of fold required which led to the incorrect fold (a roll-fold) being sent to CPS for the spec. As the both of us were keen to deliver what we had proposed to the client, we refolded all 6500 copies by hand to ensure that they were in a Z-fold format. This taught us both how important it is to be clear with the spec and to specify things like this in writing before sending them to print. This also taught us to request printer proofs before going through with the final print to ensure that the standards and requirements are being met.

An art working problem we came across was the outcome of the colour in our final printed leaflets. Due to exporting a pre-existing map from a .pdf and importing this into the Illustrator file we were working on, the colours when printing our leaflet were not as we expected due to the importing of the map altering our version of the file into RBG whereas when printing we needed CMYK programming. We did change various settings to achieve this, however upon printing, it turned our darker than expected. It was unclear here whether this was just down to the printing settings, or the following issue discussed of paper choice.

A final issue we encountered was the paper choice we settled on. We set out to print on 115gsm silk coated paper which was agreed upon with our client however due a last-minute alignment with university brand guidelines, this needed to be changed to 150gsm Evolution Business meaning we were only able to print 6500 leaflets as opposed to the 11000 we set out to deliver.

Outcome

Feedback

Client feedback

“We have only been getting wonderful feedback for the map, so I think the thanks are down to you both entirely! …I was really pleased with the whole project from beginning to end and I have nothing negative to feedback. It would have been great if we could have had the paper that you had initial chosen for the maps rather than the University approved one, but that’s an issue for us to discuss with CPS for future iterations of the map.” – Client

Supervisor feedback

Our supervisor was impressed at the quality of work produced by two first year students, and although he mentioned that there were still some areas to improve for future iterations if we get the chance such as detailed alignment issues or print quality, overall, he believed that the design looked in accordance with the brand guidelines, professional, and fit for purpose.

Reflection

Our key take aways from this project were:

• Always request proofs from the printer.
• Ensure that important information regarding the spec is written an email chain.
• Understand the brand guidelines you are required to work within from the start.
• Seek out original file types as opposed to exporting from a .pdf.
• Ensure everything is in CMYK or RGB depending on the project.
• Maintain constant communication with all parties not just the client.

By Tommy Molnar and Amirah Yasin

Context

Designed by Luke Dyer and Jack Swain, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) was looking for branding deliverables for their SHARP 2024 Conference. The project required us to create a range of visual material at varying sizes for different purposes. We were fortunate enough to work alongside Sue Walker, who works within the department of graphic communication and typography, giving us a great opportunity to work with someone with a great mind for design. Alongside this, we had the opportunity to meet with the SHARP organising committee during this real job. 

Restated Brief

The SHARP 2024 conference would take place in July 2024, in which the conference will explore how books and texts are produced, distributed, and read in global contexts today and in the past. The conference requires branded material in a range of formats to communicate information and promote the event. This material needs to remain cohesive with the current ‘SHARP 2024’ & ‘Centre for Book Cultures & Publishing’ branding to create a cohesive brand design throughout the entire conference. From this we were quick to establish the main goals of our design work: to create physical/digital methods of communicating times, dates, locations, and events. To help identify attendees of the conference through physical material and to find ways of promoting the SHARP 2024 Conference through physical material. 

Deliverables 

Printed conference programme:

A printed programme for all attendees of the event that will communicate the time, date, location, and any other important information required for the conference. It will act as a schedule for the attendees, allowing them to navigate between the multiple locations over the course of the conference. The programme will be an A5 booklet, allowing it to fit inside of the tote bag (Deliverable 3).

Pull-up banner:

3 banners were requested from Sue directly; these banners would be placed in the 3 locations the conference took place in, allowing all attendees to have a ‘landmark’ to know they are in the correct location of the conference. Additionally, the banner would be designed to promote the SHARP brand after the conference has ended. Since the time of the real job, the banner has made appearances in the opening of the new print workshop in the Typography Department.

Tote bag:

The tote bag would be used as a way to show off the SHARP 2024 logo and brand colour, allowing people to identify attendees of the event. Additionally, the tote bag will be able to hold the conference programme (Deliverable 1) and any other material that attendees pick up during the event.

Name tag:

Used to help identify other attendees of the event alongside naming guest speakers during the conference. The event had people attend from all over the world; the name tags would be beneficial to help with socialising and recognition of speakers and guests. 

T-shirt:

Designed to promote the SHARP 2024 branding, these t-shirts would be worn by volunteers of the conference. 

Programme Design 

Stage 1: 

We received a version of the conference table and started designing some page layouts on how we wanted a spread to look. Our most important goal with these was to separate out the information in a clear and accessible way.

Stage 2: 

We gained some initial feedback from our client regarding certain design choices in our concepts; the rotated days of the week were something the client wanted us to stay away from for legibility reasons. Alongside this, our client liked the rule approach we took into separating out our information.

Stage 3:

After the feedback, we refined what the spreads looked like based on multiple rounds of client feedback. Some of the major changes were the spacing between information, the running head and folios, and the introduction of new information that our client wanted in the programme. With these changes, our client was happy with the overall design of the programme. From this point we had to make many small adjustments to the spacing and typography of the programme pages, as the conference table would constantly be changed and updated from the start of the designing to the end of the project.

Stage 4:

The collections pages were the last aspect of the programme that we needed to refine and adjust before our client was happy with the finished designs. The main issue we found was the repeating information throughout the day alongside the names of certain locations that would not fit into the grid system. After multiple adjustments, we settled on a system to present the information with the client and utilised it for the collection pages. 

Banner Design 

Stage 1: 

The banner designs were a little different from the rest of the branding as it wanted to be linked to the SHARP 2024 Conference but not use any of the branding assets. Instead, it wanted to show off the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) brand, allowing it to be utilised after the conference ended. We created some initial ideas to show our client.

Stage 2:

The feedback from the initial concepts was good; however, the client was not fully sold on some of the concepts. We were fortunate enough to gain some insight from Paul Luna, who created the CBCP logo, on his own spin on the banner design, which our client loved when we presented it to her.

Stage 3:

From Paul Luna’s help with the banner, we made some final refinements to the typography, layout/colour of the logo and some of the body copy before the banner was signed off by our client.

Tote Bag Design  

Stage 1: 

With our initial sketches, we wanted to push the boundaries of how creative we could be with the design of the tote bag. This was with the understanding that this deliverables purpose was to show off attendees of the event who would be walking around the University of Reading campus rather than providing information.

Stage 2: 

The previous designs were rejected, and we then took a simpler approach with how we would create the tote bag. We attempted to utilise the shape of the SHARP 2024 logo; however, this was also rejected. We found that just showing off the SHARP 2024 logo on the punchy red background would be the best way to show off attendees and the brand. 

Stage 3: 

The tote bag gave us some issue when looking at the manufacturing. We initially agreed to show off the SHARP 2024 logo along with the University of Reading and CBCP logos. To stay within the budget for the conference, we had to drop the CBCP logo as they only had a black logo in the brand guidelines. This would result in us printing in two colours, driving up the price. 

Name Tag Design 

Stage 1: 

When drafting some concepts of what the name tag would look like, we had the appraoch that the design would be a lanyard that would be seen at other conferences or passes at music events rather than a nametag. This idea was discussed with our client before any design work was started. Our concepts took a different approach to the rest of the branding, trying to incorporate some images that our client provided.

Stage 2: 

Understandably, the designs were rejected for not fitting in with the other branding of the event, so we simplified it down to mirror the other deliverables created. The next issue we faced was the cost of producing 400 lanyards + plastic tags with the design. Unfortunately, despite all efforts to reduce costs of the deliverable, we had to pivot from the lanyard into a name tag to meet budget restrictions.

T-shirt Design 

Stage 1: 

The T-shirt design was straightforward. The client wanted a red T-shirt with the CBCP logo printed on the front so that they can utilise the T-shirts for any future events. 

Conclusion 

We believe the project was a great success in terms of meeting the brief and what our client was expecting. Our client was very happy with the outcome of the deliverables, and the conference ran smoothly. As our first real job, it was a valuable experience working alongside Sue, who had a great eye for typographic details, elevating the outcome of the work produced. 

While we were happy with the final outcome, there were some areas within the real job that gave us some challenges. Firstly, both us and the client were waiting on confirmation for the wanted deliverables for this project. This ran down the amount of time we had to create and produce all 5 deliverables, making the final month stressful to meet the final deadline. Secondly, the constant updating of the programme schedule on behalf of SHARP led us to have to change and make adjustments to the programme constantly and long after the design was completed, taking time away from other deliverables. Finally, we found that budget restrictions were a big issue in the decision-making for multiple deliverables. This led us to feel that we had to simplify some deliverables to meet the restrictions. 

As a result of this real job, we both believe that we have become better designers in working alongside clients but also better at communicating our intentions and ideas, which will be a great skill to have experience with for any future jobs we partake in. We have both found enjoyment within this branding project and would be open to more branding opportunities in the future. 

Background

Kate Sandford, also known as katemustsew, is an award-winning quilter who specialises in using bold colour and improvisational piecing techniques, matching her outgoing and enthusiastic personality. She has a huge passion for quilting, empowering individuals to push their artistic boundaries through her online and in person workshops, encouraging her students to not rely on pre-existing patterns and borders. Kate therefor needed a brand to reflect not only her work, but who she was a person.

Restated brief

We initially held a meeting with Kate to gain an idea on what she wanted her brand to look like. She asked that her brand reflect her fun and creative personality while also being professional as she wanted to use it when presenting her work to clients and potential buyers.

We first gained information on what deliverables she wanted and agreed on:

• Logo
• Business cards
• Video into
• Website

We then asked questions to find out what type of style she wanted. She made it very clear that she did not want any sewing cliches, for example, a sewing machine or a needle and thread in the brand identity, she wanted something unique and personal to her. One way we thought we could execute this was by including her work in the brand, for example, using images of it in the logo. Another was by using the 80s era as it was a direction that she wanted this project to go down as it’s bold colour and patterns matched her personality and work well. This coupled with her favourite colour, hot pink, was a fantastic place to build off to create her brand’s visual identity.

Research and ideation

There are many artists with similar businesses to Kate and it was for us to use them as inspiration for our work. We came out with a few points that we would use throughout the project to look back on, so we keep a consistent visual identity, these include:

• Having a logo which represents the business and one that can be used across multiple devices and deliverables.
• Using a consistent colour pallet across every platform so the brand becomes identifiable among other similar products.
• Using large images of work to show it off while keeping a minimalistic background so not to distract from it.

We also took into count what Kate’s target audience would be as we would want to design something that would be best suited for it. Kate had stated that most of her customers were over the age of 60, meaning that most people would find her through her website rather than her Instagram. This is also a great way to give more reasoning to the 80s style as a lot of her customers would be able to recognise it and relate to it.

Design development

Logo

Once we designed several sketches, we developed the strongest ones digitally and presented them to Kate to see if she would like any of them. Going into this we knew we wanted to use her name as the main identity and then include the colour hot pink and her work. Below are the designs that we went into the meeting with.

Kate particularly liked C5 as it focused a lot on the name of the business while using all the stylistic elements, she was insistent on having. The 80s bubble typeface coupled with the bright colour pallet symbolised the playful and creative side of the brand while the uniformed and square layout gave it some professionalism.

There was still some work to be done with the colour pallet however so designed some exciting colour ways. Below are the designs we took to Kate. We felt the strongest was the pink background with yellow text as the yellow is practically on the opposite side of the colour wheel to pink, so works extremely well to stand out from the background. Also, the use of two neon colours creates a good visual consistency.

Kate was very fond of the pink background with yellow text, but she still liked the white full stop from the original design so implemented it into the final logo design, shown below. This creates a great visual ending to the statement.

We also designed a second and third version of the logo so it can be used across multiple platforms, for example, most profile pictures, the main one being Instagram, uses a circular profile picture. Also, websites tend to use headers so the horizontal logo can be used in that situation. It doesn’t just have to be used digitally however, it can also be used when creating merchandise, for example, the horizontal logo may suit a T-shirt better than the square one. It is all so Kate can get across her brand easily and legibly.

Business cards

As we now had a visual identity to follow, we would now design business card for her to give out at exhibitions or any other event she attends.

Above is the first designs of the business cards that we took to Kate that focused on showing off multiple pieces of her work along with her instagram and website. However, as the cards are small the multitude of images when printed wouldn’t be legible. Also, once we had our first meeting with Kate, she stated that using a full bleed image of her work on one side of the card was imperative as it meant that there could be several designs using different images of her work. This is in keeping with the brands visual consistency as it links to the point, we made in the research stage of using large images of her work.

Above are the second designs of the business cards which has taken the feedback and implemented it. Kate liked the third design the most, however, there was still some features that needed changing, for example, the profile picture wasn’t needed as the brand is more about her work rather than herself. Also using pictograms to represent the contacts would be more inclusive for other languages and quicker to read.

Above is the final design that looks a lot more professional and links well to the use of white space point stated previously. This is something that is ideal for business cards as these would be used in a professional environment where she would still want to get her personality and work across to potential clients while still being serious.

Video intro

The third deliverable was a video intro for her videos on instagram and youtube to quickly and clearly show her brand off before the actual main body of the video starts. We decided the best visual indicator was her new logo so we each set out to create a few 5 second clips which animate the logo coming onto the screen.

Above was the final video intro and uses the sounds to have a beginning, middle and end as it starts off softly with the pushing sound, also signifying a piece of material being rolled out to be worked on, then builds up to a loud middle with the sound of the sewing machine, and then ends with a faint ding, which is what a lot of machines use to tell you when its process is done.

Website

This was the final deliverable and would bring everything together, using the brands visual identity to create a fun but professional place where people can find buy her work, sign up for courses and find out more about Kate.

Above are a few pages from her website which use the points of having large images against a minimalistic background coupled with the faint brand identity with the use of pink text across the website. The use of the logo is to again show this identity but also keep a visual consistency across every deliverable as they all include the logo.

Reflection

We believe we have created brand identity that clearly represents not only Kate’s work but also her as a person. The deliverables that we have designed allow for flexibility across a multitude of platforms, allowing her to reach new audiences, therefor broadening her business. She can now feel confident when attending art events as she can now show off her own unique brand.

The job did however take a lot longer than expected to complete and was a great learning device to have when going into other real jobs. We know we have to be on top of client communication and not be afraid to call them if we need something urgently. we have also learned that it is always better to ask too many questions than too little as it is imperative that the client receives work that is what they have envisioned, if we walk away from a meeting without knowing what the next step is then we have done it wrong.

Overall, while there were a few delays and small miss communications, I believe this project to be a great success and is one that we are most pleased to have designed.

Ben Sturgis & Celeste Clift

Background/overview

Inspired Earth Design is a landscape and garden design company that orchestrates and produces beautifully constructed garden layouts. They carefully curate landscape designs to match their customers’ exact needs and find a comfortable balance between beauty and sustainability. The clients, Emily and Jude, work closely with their customers to create a garden design that matches their overall style and aesthetic. The Inspired Earth Design team won gold at the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival, where they competed in designing the perfect garden that reflected ‘Americas Wild’. This real job aimed to create an instantly recognisable logo highlighting the company’s expertise in garden design in a modern yet feminine style.

Restated Brief

The main deliverables for this project were a primary logo and a logo mark, which will accompany their new website launch. Upon meeting with the clients, we discussed their brand, target audience, previous logo, and aspirations for this project. This meeting allowed me to gain an understanding of who the clients were, what they wanted, and how I could achieve this for them.

Target Audience

• Women who have a disposable income, and an interest in sustainability.
• Customers who have a love for nature and preserving the environment.
• eco-conscious and environmentally friendly people may want to create a garden that maximises their space to plant and grow fruit and vegetables. As well as gardens that support biodiversity, rainwater harvesting, and looking after insects.
• Clients who take pride in their gardens and wish to turn their house into a home.

Research

Before completing the design process, the main starting point for this project was to conduct a thorough analysis of Inspired Earths Design company. For example, what their primary goals are within the logo, who their competitors are, and the foundation of other logos within the gardening sector.

Competitors

Initially, looking at their competitors’ logos, the designs roughly followed the same format. The logos are pointy, mainly typographical, and use a vivid lime green. These brand identities are bold, modern, and somewhat masculine. The client’s general idea is to create a brand that visually stands out compared to these and emphasises their feminine, gentle, and hands-on qualities.

Other Gardening Logos

Upon researching other logos within the garden design and landscape community, there are several common themes that each logo possesses.

• Garden design logos usually use a vivid shade of light lime green and feature elements from nature, such as plants, leaves, trees, and flowers.
• A common recurring word/ theme is garden, landscape and green.
• There are not many typographic logos only using the company name or the initials of the company in the logo.
• Serif logos make the company appear older and slightly out of date, they are not modern, new, or fresh.
• Circular logos are very popular in gardening as they help enhance organic shapes.

Initial Design Ideas

• A modern timeless logo that can be used for an extended time.
• Emphasise the feminine touch within the logo that represents the client’s attributes and qualities that help them stand out compared to their competitors.
• A use of gentle and elegant typography that is clean and bold but doesn’t take away from the logo mark.
• An elegant and subtle colour scheme that reflects the personality of Inspired Earth Design and works cohesively with their website.
• The logo mark should consist of the brand’s initials, ‘IED’.
• Explore the use of natural scenery, such as leaves, plants, flowers, trees, and more.

Design Stage

Upon completing the general research and meeting with the clients, it was now clear what type of logo the clients wanted. This research acted as a solid foundation for the rest of the project. The goal now was to create a feminine logo that included the company’s initials with a naturalistic aspect and organic shapes and designs.

Logo Design

The initial logo sketches all considered incorporating Inspired Earth Designs initials with leaves, trees, and plants in an organic and feminine style. These logo ideas were explored using the company’s initials in a range of different ways to get an idea of which direction the clients wanted to take. Upon showing the sketches to my clients, we decided on three main logos to develop further and test how they would work digitally.

Three Chosen Logos

Upon creating the logos and reviewing them digitally, my supervisor and I decided the third logo did not translate well onto the screen. While the sketches for this idea were among the strongest, we found that after creating the logo digitally, it became one of the weakest. After receiving feedback from the clients, we decided logo 1 was the strongest and had the most potential for their company. They found that this logo design effectively communicated their brand identity and highlighted their feminine qualities and modern style.

Further Development

My supervisor then suggested looking at other leaves or plants for the centre of the ‘E’ as this is the main focal point within the logo and should be more visually interesting. Upon researching several other plants and leaves that resembled the letter E, such as ferns, mistletoe, monstera leaves, philodendrons and more. I sketched out the new ideas and then chose the strongest ones to gauge how they worked digitally.

Upon showing these digital logos to the clients for review, the clients had three top choices that interested them the most. The clients felt the clean and modernness of Logo 3 had a strong and impactful message displaying their brand. However, they thought that Logos 1 and 2 held more personality and were visually interesting. At this stage, we were torn between which of these three variations captured Inspired Earth Design fully and in a feminine and organic way. While my supervisor and I felt Logo 3 was the strongest, the clients ultimately chose Logo 2 as the final version. This second logo is more playful than the others, yet the thick and thin strokes with the gentle berries add a more natural, handmade style that perfectly reflects the client’s hands-on company.

Experimenting with Typefaces

Initially researching typefaces, I decided to look at clean fonts with a strong thick and thin contrast, as this style displays an elegant, more natural style which the clients want to achieve. Upon receiving feedback from my supervisor, we found the sans-serif fonts held the most potential with the logo design. Additionally, we concluded that the typefaces would work best in bold as the logo mark is quite strong, and a delicate light typeface would create an off-balance visual. When reviewing the typeface options with the clients, we chose two primary fonts: Haboro Contrast, and Figtree. We initially chose Haboro contrast as the final font, however, after more consideration, the clients chose to use Figtree as this is also the font being used within their new website.

Format and Layout

Upon selecting two main typeface options, these were then used and organised against the logo to experiment with the format and layout options. This layout experimentation also worked as a way to distinguish which font should be the primary typeface within the logo design. In this experiment, we struggled when selecting the primary font, while my supervisor and I found Haboro Contrast to be the strongest typeface with the most potential, the clients ultimately preferred Figtree. As a result, we initially chose Haboro contrast as the final font, however, after more consideration, the clients chose to use Figtree as this is also the font being used within their new website. The clients and my supervisor both thought Layout 1 worked best alongside the logo, as the other layouts were not as strong and made the logo look off-balanced.

Colour Scheme

Starting this project, the clients informed me they already had a few options for the colour scheme; they carefully curated a colour palette that matched their new website design, which consisted of navy blues, light pinks and little to no greens. The clients mentioned they wished to avoid green and earthy tones as a way to stand out from their competitors. However, as greens are associated with gardening and nature, it seemed appropriate to suggest a few shades that could match their original colour scheme.

Upon designing an updated colour palette that works with the client’s primary blue and pastel pink, it became clear that these tones could not be used as a primary colour for the logo. The tones are too light and delicate to have a strong enough contrast for high legibility. However, as the clients love these accent colours, so we decided that these tones should only be used behind the primary dark blue within the logo. This ensures a high enough contrast and, therefore, strong legibility while also displaying the light and gentle attributes of Inspired Earth Design.

Final Logo

Brand Guidelines

The Inspired Earth Design brand guidelines help inform the clients on how and where to use the logos. They inform the clients of the chosen typefaces, colours and colour codes, logo formats, and inspiration. This helps to ensure the brand is presented correctly and consistently across social media and other mediums. Displaying a range of applications and mock-ups of potential business cards and website designs further helped the clients feel confident about the final logo design. Brand Guidlines IED RJ00675

Conclusion

Finally, looking over the project, it is incredibly successful; the clients are delighted with the result and have already started using the logo within various mediums. The logo perfectly reflects the brand and has exceeded the client’s expectations. While the clients had initially intended to work alongside me in designing the logo using their ideas, Emily and Jude were impressed by my work and initiative to let me take full control of the design process.

While the workload was initially challenging and stressful to handle by myself, creating a structured timeline and plan within the restated brief helped guide me and meet deadlines on time to ensure I met the end target date. As a result, this taught me how to manage my work and time efficiently, and will be a valuable skill that can be used in my future projects. Another essential skill required for this project is effective and consistent communication. Upon meeting with my supervisor countless times, learning to handle constructive criticism was an essential asset to achieving the ideal logo for the clients. Additionally, going back and analysing the small details within the logo helped the symbol work as a whole by testing the grids, proportions and legibility at different sizes, this has helped me improve as a logo designer.

Future Improvements

To improve future projects, creating a solid foundation would help the progress of the design flow smoothly. During the initial sketches of the project, they were somewhat unorganised and unstructured. This required me to go back and redraw the sketches properly to convey the design effectively and see the full potential. This small step wasted some of the time that could have been spent developing the logos further. This meant some tasks were more rushed to catch up and stay on top of the weekly deadlines. As a result, creating a structured timeline and weekly deadlines to complete tasks efficiently would have kept me on track throughout the project. Finally, this challenge is something I will consider and work on going into future projects.

Overall, this project has taught me a lot of valuable skills and lessons that can be applied to my next projects. Furthermore, logo design is an area I feel particularly confident in and would love to do again in the future. As a result, the clients wish to work together again in the future for further developments across other mediums such as business cards, letterheads and more.

Background on the project

RSG is a local charity in Reading supporting refugees. They recently changed their name from RRSG (Reading Refugee Support Group) to just RSG (Refugee Support Group) in order to receive more funding from all over Berkshire, not only Reading. They required a profile-raising social campaign to raise awareness of their new name and to receive more funding from statutory sector organisations.

Restated brief

In writing the reinstated brief, we used meetings to define our client’s needs and target audiences. However, this was our largest hurdle. Our client knew they wanted to bring recognition to the charity’s new name, but didn’t have a brief to give us beyond that. Instead of letting the lack of brief hold us back, we took the initiative to write our own brief. This gave us the advantage of working to our own strengths. We used client research to identify where the charity’s social media was lacking and this informed us of what the client actually needed. We proposed to create six Instagram posts which highlighted each of their generous services. Our client agreed that by shedding light on how successful their services are, we could attract more donations from statutory organisations, thus achieving their goals.

The agreed deliverables were:

• 6 posts dedicated to each service provided
• 1 video/animation

Research

Before the ideation process began, we underwent a period of research. This included researching RSG as a charity; their goals, audience, identity, but also researching how other successful non-profit organisations promoted themselves on social media. We looked to charities such as Amnesty International, World Relief and Refugee Action to analyse what the norms were within this sector. We also spent time analysing how RSG represented themselves within their platforms; reading through the contents of their website, Instagram and Facebook. Through this research we discovered that RSG’s social media posts lack cohesiveness due to inconsistent representation of their brand guidelines.

Reading City of Sanctuary

RSG runs a coffee bank scheme where refugees can get a free coffee in a selection of cafes across Reading. We took photos of each café, meeting the owners and talking about their experience partnering with RSG. These photographs were used to create an Instagram carousel, with each slide displaying a photo of the café along with its address. This was an exciting chance to learn more about using photography and Lightroom in combination with InDesign. Furthermore, interacting with the partners of RSG and the work they do provided us with more of a connection to their audience. A difficulty we experienced with this post was placing type upon photos in a legible manner. Often the type became problematic as it began to blend in with parts of the imagery. To resolve this issue, we placed a colour block behind the type to prioritise legibility. Upon client feedback, we also returned to the cafés to replace images of coffee with images of the outside of the cafés, so that the audience would be able to recognise the cafes when in Reading.

Final visuals

Settlement scheme

In creating the resettlement scheme post, it was important that we kept in tune with RSG’s brand identity. Therefore we made sure to present people of different cultures, religions, and backgrounds to demonstrate RSG’s diverse audience. Using their specified brand colour palette, our posts felt cohesive with their website and previous social media posts. We originally had planned to have a second slide, which illustrated a refugee family travelling to the U.K. However, our client advised not to use this slide, as much of the information about the resettlement scheme was currently changing and the body copy may not reflect the scheme accurately when it was time to post the slides. She gave feedback that it would be more useful to have a title and illustration which embodied the values of the scheme, and that body copy about the scheme would be more suited to being in the caption of the Instagram post. 

Final visual

Befriending

RSG’s ‘Befriending and English Conversation’ sessions are a service which helps refugees to improve their English skills, confidence level and reduce loneliness. We decided to demonstrate in this post how RSG builds a community and assists refugees of all ages, genders and religions. For this post we chose to create two illustrations as this would give us the freedom to experiment with colours, shapes and layout. When creating the befriending service illustration, we digitally drew a circle of people joining hands together to present how RSG unites refugees together. After feedback from our supervisor, we recognised that our design needed to be more inclusive to all cultures and religions. We adapted the illustration to include some people wearing hijabs and turbans, as well as altering the colour scheme of the illustration to follow the specified brand colour palette. In the second slide of this post, we wanted to represent an English conversation class between a volunteer and a refugee. Originally we executed this concept by illustrating British flags within speech bubbles, however feedback from our client advised us that using the British flag could carry unwanted connotations. Therefore we iterated this illustration to represent English conversation through informal text in speech bubbles.

Final visuals

Advice Support

RSG’s advice support covers many different areas, including advice on asylum and protection, and advice on signposting you to a solicitor. Their website offers a substantial amount of information on this service, and we felt that implementing all of this information into a post would result in something which is overwhelming. We felt it would be more effective to create a post which could highlight this service in a visual way. This post contrasted with the other posts, but through using the same typeface and RSG’S branding colours, the post showed a level of consistency with the others. The idea of drawing an outline of hands connected was effective due to it clearly demonstrating how advice support at RSG works. It gives a helping hand in situations where refugees feel abandoned. When experimenting with this post I tried the hand illustration in black and the background in light beige, but this reduced the overall impact the post had. A inspiration for this post was the RSG logo which includes two hands joining together underneath a simple 4 person pictogram. This similarity with the logo brought us closer to our aim in bringing engagement to what RSG’s identity is.

Final Visuals

The Strikers

The Sanctuary strikers are Berkshire’s only refugee football club. When reading about the club and their aim to promote integration by bringing together a combination of refugees and non-refugees, we were inspired to capture how the team encouraged unity. We reached out to our client inquiring whether we could photograph the team playing and both the client and the football team were elated by the idea and agreed. On this photoshoot we were able to talk to the team and ask what the club meant to them. Through these discussions, we realised how important it was to communicate the message of teamwork and show unison. This experience enabled us to practice our skills using the shutter settings to capture action shots. We also took some team photos, showing the diversity of players within the team. After photographing these images came the challenge of selecting the correct images for the post, and editing the images to ensure the text laid on top of the images was legible for readers. A few difficulties we came around were brightening up the image to focus on the strikers playing on the field rather than the grey sky. We accomplished this through using the levels, brightness and curves tool within Photoshop. This post met our clients’ aim of raising awareness of RSG in a striking and engaging way. Once finalising these posts, we realised we had remaining images which further captured the teams ‘spirit of unity’ so we created a reel of the remaining photos which could be posted on an Instagram story alongside the physical post to engage a more modern audience which RSG may not be reaching at the moment.

When using RSG’s brand typeface, Gilroy, we felt it was affecting the message of our designs. This typeface felt formal, serious and academic, whilst we wanted to produce something which was friendly, welcoming and approachable. We presented our client with two posts; one which used RSG’s brand typeface; Gilroy and one which used our choice of typeface; Crayonize. After reviewing this comparison, our client agreed that it was the right decision to make an exception to the brand guidelines, and opt for Crayonize.

Final visuals

The Drop in

RSG offers a drop in service three times a week in various locations across Reading. Here refugees can socialise, learn English and ask for advice. It was important to keep in mind when designing these posts that many of RSG’s audience have limited English. We used simple language and large legible typefaces to accommodate those with lower English levels. Having empathy as a designer is a lesson often taught in class, and this project was a true opportunity to practice this. Whilst the client had agreed upon using Crayonize for the headings, instead of their brand typeface Gilroy, we realised that it would be beneficial for RSG’s brand identity and legibility if we used Gilroy for the body text. This was also particularly useful for this post, The Drop-In, because it contained essential information.

Final visuals

Mockups

Link to mockup walkthrough: https://youtu.be/PQigwXNOitg?si=b95rOm4g9UY9IkdK

Reflection

This real job started off with a hurdle, however overcoming that initial hurdle lead to real assets in our design careers. We flourished both within our team and our relationship with RSG. Meeting with the Reading strikers and café owners of RSG’s coffee bank scheme was an honourable experience, generating a personal connection with our audience. This rapport between ourselves and RSG lead to a closer alignment between our designs and their goals. This job has enabled us to push the boundaries of our design skills, branching out into areas outside of our comfort zone such as videography and photography.  When approaching this Real Job, RSG’s penultimate goal was to raise awareness of their new name and receive more funding from statutory sector organisations. Tackling this goal from the perspective of highlighting their services means that statutory organisations will recognise the charitable work they do and thus feel more inclined to donate. Learning how to navigate professional relationships within the circle of design was initially daunting, but ultimately the most valuable part of this journey. We grew in confidence, developed real connections and gained skills that could not have been reached within the classroom.

Written by Tilly Dobson and Amy North

Overview

Bethan Miskell is an artist who’s planning to open an online shop where she can sell her artwork. She creates pressed flower pieces that aim to celebrate the importance of plants or weeds that may be overlooked or not seen as typically ‘pretty’ but are considered to be ‘hero’ plants that are essential for biodiversity.

Our brief was to create a unique brand and logo for Miskell’s shop that can be used on multiple platforms such as her website and social media, to help promote and represent her business.

Deliverables

 The original deliverables were to design a logo and a business card. However, we also suggested the addition of a ‘Thank you for your purchase’ card and a variation of logos such as a primary, secondary and social logo, therefore she would have a logo that fits multiple different formats.

Client meeting 

To understand our client better and to introduce ourselves we had organised a meeting to help us learn more about the story behind our client’s artwork and the style/aesthetic she is looking for regarding her brand. We found out from the meeting that she wanted a cleaner and simpler typeface that was geometric in shape, meaning no curvy or script typefaces. Our client used words such as botanical and organic to describe her business and she directed us to a brand called ‘Hiedi Clover’ as an example of the style that she likes.

Our client also kindly sent us a mood board of plants, colours and aesthetics that she would like to be reflected in her branding (see figure 1).

Research and ideation 

Our research started by finding existing flower press companies online and viewing how they branded themselves. We found most floral companies in general tended to use serifed fonts and italic typefaces (as seen in Figure 2) therefore, it was hard to find brands that used more geometric fonts as our client had described.

We then sketched a few ideas of designs for the logo and narrowed it down to four different options as seen in Figure 3. Option 3 and 4 seemed too decorative for our client and she stated she wanted a simple clean look; therefore, we focused on creating digital versions of options 1 and 2.

After seeing the kind of logos already out there we then looked through a range of fonts and narrowed it down to three typefaces that we felt suited our client’s style the most. We then combined the typefaces with the icon of the fern we created as seen in Figure 4.

We then experimented with different layouts and illustrations (Figures 5, 6 and 7). The feedback from our client was that she preferred the Quasimoda typeface and the bolder designs, and both our client and supervisor reported that some of the illustrations were too light. We realised that for the logos to be seen from far away we had to make the strokes thicker for the illustrations and use a heavier weight for the typefaces.

Our client also reported that she preferred the style of our original fern illustration rather than the other symbol designs. This feedback helped us focus on creating bolder and thicker designs.

Design development

My partner in this project, Karissa, created another fern illustration which we thought worked better as it was less rigid than the first design but still bold enough to stand out when scaled down. We created two versions of the logo, one with a filled-in illustration (Figure 8) and one with an outlined illustration (Figure 9).

We originally didn’t have option 2 but when we showed our supervisor our designs, she suggested we add to the illustration in option 1 as there was quite a lot of white space in between the text and the illustration, which might create too much separation between ‘Bethan’ and ‘Miskell’. Therefore, to fill this white space we added a few dots around the fern as this was a design, we had seen before in a few botanical patterns we found during our research. We also provided a third option for the secondary logo to give our client another option to choose from.

Our client’s feedback was that she liked the new designs, but she preferred the filled-in illustration, and that option 3 would be the best option for her secondary logo.

Business card

 Once our client had approved our final logo designs, we moved on to developing her business card. My partner and I knew we wanted the business cards to have a botanical feel to match our client’s aesthetic, originally, we were planning to draw a few plants or shrubs to apply to the business card, but our supervisor pointed out that it might be better to include our clients own work so that it better represents her business. Karissa and I suggested this idea to our client, and she liked the idea. In our following meeting, our client kindly gave us one of her pieces which we scanned onto Karissa’s laptop and then we used Photoshop to cut out the pressed flowers so that there was no background, we then applied these cut-outs to the business cards.

After looking at a range of different business cards for inspiration we started designing our own. Our original design was very plain and only had her artwork on the card with her logo. It didn’t feel like a business card, so we decided we needed to add a background or another colour to add more depth to the card. We added a light green background (figure 10) and experimented with making some of the flowers pop out of the border (figure 11) we then added abstract shapes to the art (figure 12).

However, feedback from our client was that she didn’t like the abstract patterns, so we didn’t continue to add this element to the other business cards. We also realised that the flowers blended too much into the light green background so we decided to use a darker colour instead (Figures 13 and 14), which made the flowers stand out much more, we also thought this would match our client’s style more as she usually presses her flowers onto black card.

Our supervisor’s feedback was that the text was too close to the edge and that we didn’t need the dashes for the phone number as that is more commonly done in America not England. After making these adjustments we showed our client and she expressed that she liked the layout of Figure 14 the most. Our supervisor then suggested that we should adjust the layout of the back of the business card to match the front to give it a more uniform feel (Figure 15). However, after showing our client the change, she said she would prefer to continue with the first layout.

‘Thank you for your purchase’ card

When it came to designing the “Thank you for your purchase’ card we wanted to ensure that we kept a cohesive style between the two cards to make it clear that they are part of the same brand. To achieve this, we continued using our client’s artwork, and the same typeface as well as colour. We used the typeface ‘Montserrat’ for the text as it was the most clear and complimented the brand’s typeface (Figure 16).

Reflection

Overall, I have learnt a lot throughout the process of this real job, especially around time management and the importance of keeping to the schedule. My partner and I met up regularly to work on the project, however, I felt we should have implemented regular meetings with our client as well, as this may have improved communication and potentially sped up the process a bit more. Although we surpassed the initial deadline I’m pleased with the outcome of our final designs and feel they have achieved what the client was looking for. I appreciate the feedback we received from both our client and supervisor throughout the process. I have gained a lot more confidence when it comes to professional communication with clients which is a skill I hope to be able to use and develop further in future jobs.