Sketchbook One
Sketchbook Two
To begin building my brand, I started with my monogram. I wanted to focus on the idea of thinking outside the box, so I used the cube shape as my base. I also explored other options which didn’t follow the cube, for example curved and smooth monogram designs. It took me a while to come to a final design, which was a cube, continuous design with the initial CFD for Ciara Fraser Design.
My next step is to find a word mark to go alongside the monogram. However, I really struggled to find one that would work with my monogram. So I decided to move onto the colour and tagline which I hoped will help me create a visual image in my mind of what I want my brand to look like. I came up with four colours; orange, brown, yellow and blue, whose colour psychology matches up with my brand values respectfully; positive, reliable, creative and diligent. My reasoning for this was that I wanted my values to be evident throughout my brand. I decided to have orange and blue as my two primary colours as I feel they work the best together and create effective compositions.
Taking inspiration from my brand story, I came up with a number of options for my brand tagline. I wanted a short, snappy sentence which captured what my brand offers and gives the audience a snapshot of what I can provide in terms of design. I played around with different wording and ways saying this, and came to the final conclusion of ‘thinking outside the box’. Once I finalised this, I looked at ways I could design this tagline, particularly looking at imagery of the box and being ‘outside’. After this, I brainstormed possible font ideas and pairings I felt could work well. However, at this point I was still not 100 percent happy with my monogram as I couldn’t imagine a complete, final image of the brand in my head with that monogram.
So after a few more sketches and ideas, I came up with a word mark that worked with the cube monogram. I really like the creativeness of the cube design, however I really struggled to be completely happy with how it works and the linear design of it, made it hard to work out what it is from a distance. So I decided to do a rethink for the monogram and word mark…
It was a this point I decided to change me approach and used the full stop of my wordmark, which is my name in full capitals with a full stop in the font Righteous. This is simple, but I feel like it’s effective and bold looking so that it is clear and easy to understand. So I sketched and sketched until I came up with a new monogram, based off the circle, that I was happy with. This link to the circle, also connected the word mark and monogram together.
