Tutorial with Andy

The tutorial with Andy was extremely helpful. I think I was lacking direction but just talking through my briefs helped give them clarity. The majority of the work I took was for the Warrington Museum brief as I hope to have this done prior to reading week.

Museum

Throughout this week, I have been working on an identity for the musem which would subsequently be applied to a range of promotional materials (below). The inspiration behind it came from Greek architecture, particularly stone pillars. Although the brand mark was liked, Andy suggested that I could develop the quick image I drew to highlight this reference as it tied in nicely with the fact I wanted to target the museum primarily towards children through educational initiatives — a hand drawn, childlike aesthetic.

He said to treat the branding project like a story / journey and get into the mindset of a visitor to the museum and how they would react to any materials I create. There should be some sort of unified concept to tie the branding and any promotional materials together. I could do a simple mark and leave it as it is but to adapt and extend the project into a fully comprehensive brand, I should really investigate how a visitor interacts with it. Andy suggested treating it like a discovery as this is ultimately what a museum is about — this in turn makes it more engaging, especially for children.

It was an eye opening insight and something I will definitely work on. Looking back at the mark, it does seem fairly clinical and maybe not so engaging with a younger audience — I suppose this could change with the way I adapt the mark through different means but I will definitely look at developing the identity.


National Rail

- Look at customer touch points in terms of way finding and signage
- Create a focused list of deliverables as a potential list is extensive
- Again, treat it like a story / journey

Film magazine (Reel)

- Liked initial logo concepts (currently very basic so these will develop)
- Start sourcing collaborators for content
- Find articles online and contact the writer, see if they don't mind being featured
- Look at film remakes / origins for more content

Form & Writing

- Could work more on the name, is it too literal? Possibly look at changing the second of the pair of words as Form and writing doesn't really roll off the tongue — maybe Form & Function?
- Explore how the research / investigation / Form aspect of the project interacts and works with the application / fonts / Writing aspect
- Fontsmith 10 year anniversary specimen publications

Notes

As all of my briefs are branding projects, Andy gave me a link to Blanka — an online archive and collection of original and limited edition design, posters and publications. One of the things they sell are brand guidelines for companies such as First Direction, for example which provide a great insight into the story behind a brand. He also said to look at Pentagram and other major branding studios and have a look at the marks they produce and the background behind it.