OUGD403 Study Task 01 - Collaborative Branding

On Monday the 5th of October we were given our first task is to rebrand a given company to effectively communicate the market, target audience and sector, in a contemporary context. Working collaboratively we were put into teams. My team were given the betting company 'Coral' to rebrand. We were told to pick an appropriate typeface from Massimo Vignelli's  6 essential typefaces which include; Helvetica, Futura, Bodoni, Times New Roman, Century and Garamond.

Things to consider:

• Graphic design: The visual identity – hard corporate identity or soft, friendly caricature?
• Tone of voice: Is the language you use (both spoken and written) formal or relaxed?
• Dialogue: Can your users or customers contribute ideas and get involved in the organisation? Or is it a one-way communication?

We will also need to assess the key aspects of our company:

• The mission statement/USP
• Values
• Vision
• Personality

Our group started to brainstorm lot's of ideas focusing on what we knew about Coral already, who they were, who their target audience is and what we think of their current logo.

We made a really strong start as a group as everyone was putting in lot's of ideas and we all seemed to be really enthusiastic to get the task done and beat the other two groups which also have to rebrand Coral. We allocated out the research for the task three of us looking into the typefaces and 2 looking into the company itself.

I looked into the heritage of the company and quickly compiled some facts onto a sheet to give us a better understanding of the company we were going to rebrand.

 

This was really useful information because we all established that to make use of Coral's heritage would make it a unique and trustworthy brand. Coral has been around for years, as it was one of the first bookmakers in the UK.

Next we analysed the typefaces:

Garamond:

• Too delicate
• Not impressionable
• Doesn't reflect betting

Helvetica:

• Over used
• Modern
• Not enough impact

Times New Roman:

• Doesn't stand out
• Plain
• Overused

Century:

• More creative - hand written
• Harsh
• Too gothic

Bodoni:

• Reflects heritage - 1920's
• Classy upmarket
• Serif

Futura:

• Accessible 
• Technology based
• Strong and reliable

After looking in depth at which typeface would be appropriate we selected it down to two, Futura and Bodoni. 

So far we worked as a team really well all pulling together and we were all making sure our research was well done. However when actually trying to come up with designs for our logo this is where I think the whole team struggled. I found it especially difficult because designing logos isn't something Im very good at so it proved to be very challenging.

These are the logo design ideas that I came up with;

These are some of the groups collective black and white design ideas;

We then began to have a look into colour and what would be appropriate for our brand.

We decided that we still wanted to keep the blue colour that is associated with Coral, but we wanted a brighter, distinctive pastel colour as there not as garish.

These are some of the groups colour outcomes;

We had come to the point where we really needed to pick a typeface that we were going to stick with. After looking round at a couple of other groups we noticed that most were using Futura. Because of this we thought we should go in the opposite direction and go for the more retro look that reflects the company's heritage well, so Bodoni would be more appropriate.

After seeing the typeface standing alone we decided there needed to be more to it, we wanted to adapt it in some way that made it stand out more. One of our group members had recently watched a documentary on sign makers and liked the idea of adapting it to look like and old vintage sign.

This was my adapted sketch:

But this was the chosen sketch to work with:

One of my group members then took the sketch idea into photoshop and produced this as our final outcome:

She kept us updated with the progress and we all chipped in on little things like the spacing and weight of the sweeping 'R'. We also discussed about either keeping the tag line 'Raise the Game' or putting 'Est.1926'. We decided to go with the 'Est.1926' because we felt that reflected the heritage.

This is the final design with colour applied:

Our group thought that we'd given Coral a fresh rebrand that we believed helped give it a more upmarket and trustworthy identity.

We also have some images of putting the logo into context:

This is a link to our groups presentation: CORAL

Feedback from other groups:

After our presentation these are some of the things they thought about our final design:

• Upmarket feel - although could be the wrong target market for betting.
• Hand rendered makes it bespoke to the brand adding a more personal touch. 
• Good, careful consideration of typography.
• Interesting how they have tried to create and identity that stands out from the betting market image.

Feedback from tutors:

• Good critique of existing brand
• Explain why we have done the things we have done more
• Didn't embed any theory into the presentation
• Back up ideas
• Good at putting logotype into context
• Preferred one of our initial ideas more than final outcome
• Instead of 'Est.1926', 'Bookmakers' needed to be there to explain and reflect exactly what Coral is.
• Be more confident in own work

Overall our Coral group won as they believed that it was the most appropriate and they liked the way it was rebranding the company in a different way to try and appeal to a different audience.

Working within this group I found that we collaborated really well and that it motivated me to make sure I was on top of our work because I would be letting the team down. The one thing that we could have done better is planned out our presentation so that we mentioned why we did the things we did. Another problem I came across is that some people were at a more advanced level when using programs such as photoshop whereas I am a beginner. I felt this put me at a disadvantage as I couldn't do much of the design work when it was translated from hand drawn to digital. Because people went away and designed them digitally then came back with the final logotype, I didn't learn any of the processes they used to produce it. When I work in a group again I will aim to make sure I ask how to do things so that my knowledge on the programs can increase.

Reflecting on other groups during this task I felt that some groups really incorporated theory of typography which lacked in our group. Overall I personally didn't enjoy this task because I do not enjoy designing logos and I found it particularly hard to brand for a betting shop when I believe most logos for betting are not very good.