We’ve recently started this year’s fourth year Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design student design project and it was a pleasure to introduce this year’s theme – Branding Yourself.
Below is the brief that was provided to the students as devised in conjunction with Course Director Gary Gowans.
“As a contemporary practitioner and indeed as a (soon to be) new graduate it is important to be aware of your ‘digital profile’. Some of you will already have your own website or certainly an online portfolio and/or blog.
This project asks you to really think deeply about this in order to express your personal and professional persona – to create your brand.
It may be the case that you already have a conscious or subconscious sense of your brand identity – but from a research and development standpoint, we would like you to approach this with a fresh and uncluttered eye.
The key thing will be uncovering or discovering the aspects of your personality/profile that can best communicate a strong sense of who and what you are and – perhaps more particularly – what you have to offer.
Successful international companies work very hard to shape and protect their brand identity in order to embed their unique persona in the public psyche.
- Consider Volvo cars: safe, family, reliable, ‘Scandinavian sensible’.
- Think BMW: engineering, technology, performance, ‘train-on-time German’.
- Contrast Coca Cola’s brand personality with that of Irn-Bru: two fizzy drinks with polar opposite personalities.
Your identity could simply be your name or you may determine to create another identity. Think about what you stand for? What will your brand attributes be?
We would like you to create:
- a brand proposition document
- a logo
- a set of visual assets that accompany the brand – consider fonts; colours; visual assets (photos, illustrations) tone of voice that conveys your brand’s look and feel
- a 30 sec video that conveys your brand
We should be able to ‘get’ your brand from this video.”
Creating this year’s brief
Introducing this year’s brief I elaborated on successful examples of branding and how they all tell stories – that behind each instantly recognised logo is a lot of work that has packed these simple images full of information.
Leaders such as Richard Branson and Steve Jobs embodied their brand ethos with their attention to detail and consistent behaviour that enhanced both their respective companies.
Following this Jacob then took us all on a tour of creating and building a meaningful video. He stressed how getting your storyboard right at the start paved the way for a more successful finished project in the end.
Next week we’ll have a look at how they’re progressing and see how their concepts are developing.