Sunday 12 May 2013

OUGD505 // What is Good // Branding Stationery

With the logo now designed, i could get started on the branding stationery for the exhibition.
This will involve business cards, letterhead, compliment slip and envelope. I am going to digital prints these products, because in the industry they would be printed either digitally or on a lithography etc, i think if i was to screen print them this would initially take up alot of time and not give the business feel and look that it should have. Instead i am going to use foiling and maybe emboss / deboss within some of the products to get other printing techniques working along side the print.

(All the initially designs of the exhibition work is done in orange because i was going to use this as the main colour, but this has now changed, but all the development work is in this colour, the proper one is shown within each product at the end).
Design sheets:
Compliment slip - creating the design for the slip - this design will be carried across all branding material, so needs to be something which is adaptable.
Looking at the design of the letterhead. This is where I came up with the idea and placing of the type which is going to be present across all promotional material. The design which is chosen works in line with the compliment slip and also the business card.
Business card front - these designs need to be attractive for the users as this is the first impression of the exhibition they will get from a business sense. Looking at different orientations for the business card changes how they are designed and the way in which the information is communicated.
The same for the back design of the business card , except this has more information whichever has to be present, working this information along with the type sometimes is a struggle to make it legible and look aesthetically good too. The focus to tie the design in with the other branding items is key too.
Business cards.


Initially with the logo i was going to take the information out of the middle, because i felt this would be quite small type when printed at this size and it wouldnt be that legible, but when it is shown here it doesnt look that good and takes away from the whole branding of the exhibition.
The logo and placement of the type is within the proportions of the business card and the layout of it works well with the style of the card.
Trying the business card in different orientations and changing the layout of the design, could spark up some new ideas. Just to experiment with the different layouts of the cards really.

I prefer the landscape version of the card, as i think the proportion of the logo and the type can be bigger within the given area, this works better for working on the smaller scale and get the maximum legibility for the business card, which is essential so people can read them.

Going back to using the orignal logo with the type within it, this works much better as the logo within the card and carries the identity through all products. The back of the business card holds the event information and details to contact the museum where the exhibition is held.

Using the logo at different opacities allows the type to be overlayed on the logo and interacting the two elements together to create something different. Even though i like the idea of the two mixing the type doesnt sit very well being in the middle of card. It does infact make it harder to read the type like this too.
reducing the size of the logo makes it easier to read the type and the layout of the card works better with it smaller. It can be worked into the area along with the type more easily, allowing a better design.
The same idea as above, with a different layout within the space, using the same type and logo as the one above.

I designed the business card first and went away and did the rest of the branding stationery, when i came back to the business card, i felt that the design above didnt fit in with the style and layout of the other products which all worked well together across the different sizes. So i re worked the business card to make it fit in more with the style of the rest of the cards.

This also uses the new colour scheme.
The layout of this is much more organised and neat it is easier to read and shows a much more professional approach to the design of the card. The colour scheme has worked well with each element.
Using a front design from the previous designs above, i have worked on the design a little bit more and got it to right, then added the new colour scheme and gradient to the business card. I think this looks much better as a design and the colours work better together too.

Compliment slip
Moving onto the compliment slip, I wanted this to have the same information on and be within the same style, i had to leave room within the design to be able to write a small message on it.
The idea of cropping the logo slightly was used within the business card, on there is was cropped at the bottom and side, but here i have enlarged the size of logo to fit full bleed within the compliment slip, pushing the information to the right hand side leaves room to the middle for a small note.
This works more with the bussiness card by having the logo cropped at the bottom, this is more cropped than the business card but still has the same ide. The information at the top leaves more room than the one above for writing a message. The information at the top is aligned to make it more professional and have a good standard to the design.
This design is much like one of the business card designs, but not decided to go with that design has taken this design out. It looks too cramped being all together and on top of each other, even though it does leave more room for a message.

These next three designs are the ones in which i think work best for the design of the stationery and with the business card. These design both show the logo well, display the information at a good point size for legibility and adding the coloured section to the bottom brings in the colour scheme of the event. As a full design this is more interesting than the others and aesthetically looks much better. The designs still leave room for writing a message too.
I decided on using this design, because i think the 'with compliments' works better being lower down the design and closer to the rest of the information, with it being at the top it looks discarded and as though no thought had been put into the design. Also i think the logo works better being see through in the middle as this brings the colour scheme into the design more, it also works with the business card being like this too.

Letterhead
The letterhead completes the business stationery, this again was to work along with the design of the compliment slip and business card.

This design uses the compliment slip design at the bottom of the letter head, in which it could then have the event name at the top or blank depending on the tone of the letter being sent.

These two designs incorporate the idea of side panel of colour which is used on the back of the business card, all the information and logo is placed within this area, so it leaves the white area for the letter body copy.

This is a variation of the two designs above which i have combined the idea of the coloured panel at the bottom with the address information and the logo being at the top on the side. I dont think this works as well because there isnt the link with the other products as much as the design above.
These three designs again work on combining elements of the first design and changing them around a little. All three incorporate the logo which is enlarged to match that of the business card front. This links in well with the products and shows the event identity well. The smaller information of the address etc is in various places to work on the best placement and which gives maximum space for the letter to be printed on.
When looking back at these designs, having the logo so big would distract from the content of the letter itself and also takes up alot of room. I dont think these designs look as professional and arent designed within the same structured grid, so therefore dont work as well.

I have chosen to go with the first design, because i think this fits in best with the previous products. The bottom is very similar to the design of the compliment slip and works around the same logo placement of the business card, also incorporating the gradient coloured panel, links all three products together well.

Envelope
The final products of the branding.
The envelope fits both the letterhead and the compliment slip within, so it is a universal envelope to fit all the stationery products within.
Again with the envelope i still wanted to incorporate a design to make it fit within the design of all the branded material. I wanted to use a logo on the front so that when it is delivered you can straight away identify that it is this event.

Using the idea of the coloured panel and different sized logos i have tried various amounts of layouts for the envelope, trying to find the best placement for all the different elements to look aesthetically pleasing but also to be easy to use and be able to write the address etc.

I came to the conclusion of using this design, because it is similar to the that of the letter head and compliment slip, by having the coloured panel at the bottom with the logo overlayered, this is also in the same placement and bleeding off the page. The lines above the colour box are similar to the compliment slip. So everything works together in a full spread of branding stationery.

With the stationery i have kept the logo the same throughout and therefore created a identity for the exhibition, this is going to carry on ebing used across all the products created for the exhibition, but with the promotional material i am going to include a secondary visual to work along side the logo. The idea of this is to make it more interesting for the promotion of the exhibition and to make it different, so you can see the different products within all the products created for the promotion of the exhibition.


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