My Brand in Action

In week 6 we looked at how to take our brands further and apply them to a wide range of areas, Daniel  included lists of ideas for brand products from stationary to clothing options, the list is endless. I have previously talked about this lecture in a blog post access here. Within this blog I discussed the creation of my business card as part of applying my brand but I wanted to take this further and develop my more brand physcial touchpoints  and experiment with different products and develop something that people actually want.

Possible ideas

I have created a Pinterest board based on brand identity application to inspire some possible application concepts and ideas- access here.

Searching on Pinterest sparked some more ideas of physical touchpoints and ideas that I could experiment with for my personal brand, a few stood out to me and I was very curious to see how my brand would look on certain physical elements. I have included my outcomes below.

Badges

My first idea was to create some badges, I felt like this is a nice idea and people would actually want a badge to add to a rucksack or bag etc. I created this by using Photoshop. I played around here with using just my monogram on some and then I tried it with my wordmark, I think both concepts work on each of the badges. I increased the size of some of the monogram and my personal favourite is the white with the larger monogram, I think the white really makes the orange stand out, it is very striking. For the colours on these products I have went with the correct colours for my brand which are a burgundy and orange.

Pen drive

I was experimenting with a pen drive next, I really like the white against the orange so I wanted to further explore this combination on more products. With the pen drive I took my monogram onto the image on Photoshop and rotated it to fit on the lid of the pen drive. Again I think the colours work great and it looks very professional, however as far as brand products and physical touchpoints go this isn’t an object that would be the easiest to make and sell compared to a sticker or t-shirt.

Exploring the use of my pattern element

I have recently designed some patterns using my visual marque and my monogram and I really liked how that project turned out so I decided that that pattern element could be something that I could add in advertising or in my physical touch points. I wanted to experiment with clothing options for my physical touchpoints and more specifically t-shirts as I felt like this is the most common form of a clothing touch point and would probably be the most straight forward to actually make one day.

T-shirt

Photoshop process

Firstly I wanted to work on a white thsirt as I felt like with my previous projects above, the white and orange was the most striking. I took the image of the two white shirts, front and back into Photoshop and began to experiment with the placement of my pattern element. With the first idea I shrunk the pattern down and placed it in the top right corner of the t-shirt and for the back I placed my logo at the top of the t-shirt. I really like the placement of on the front, it is subtle and not too in your face and I feel like this is something that I would actually wear, which was my goal with this t-shirt.

With my second experiment I increased the size of the pattern and placed it in the center of the t-shirt and for the back I placed my monogram at the bottom of the t-shirt. I feel like this idea is slightly disruptive, the pattern is too large and appears very loud and obnoxious and I prefer the placement of in the first t-shirt, my first option is much more wearable. As for the back of the t- shirt I feel like either option can work.

Black option

I decided to experiment with a black t-shirt option and I actually like the result, the orange really stands out against the black. with this option I decided to experiment with my monogram instead of the pattern element and I do think that this concept works, however I still feel like my first option is more wearable and people would be drawn more to the first option due to the playful simple pattern.

Final t shirt ideas

After my exploration with different elements and scale I have landed on the two final t-shirt designs, one black and one white but they both have a small scaled pattern element on the top right corner. Personally I would wear both t-shirts and I feel like are stylish but still get my brands image across in a sophisticated and subtle way and I am very happy with how they have turned out.

Stickers

I also have experimented with sticker design, I felt like this could be a nice added touch to my brand, I could use this on letters to clients etc. I have just expereimented with my monogram here instead of patterns or my wordmark but I actually think that all three elements could work on a sticker and this is a touchpoint that I want to develop further. I prefer the orange on white here instead of the purple on black, I feel like the purple shade is getting lost and it isn’t really working.

Reflection

I really enjoyed this challenge, of taking my brand off the screen and onto real life products. I am very happy with my outcomes and I think they turned out very professional. I will definitely explore this more in the future when it comes to my brand as I think that physical touchpoints are very important to have for a brand, things and items like the ones above can really enhance a customers experience with your brand and these ‘nice things’ actually have the power to cheer people up and make them happy when it comes to interacting with brands.