In this workshop, I was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I am therefore not allowed to blog about any of the work I produced. However, we were also given examples of some excellent branding companies and some that were named 'the enemy'. I am very interested in this aspect of graphic design and I am interested in working in advertising after university, this is why I thought the workshop would be very useful.
We looked at the re branding of ITV by Rudd Studio, a fairly small company that changed the face of ITV. It was interesting to see the process that they went through to create this iconic logo. Colour, positioning, font and shape were all key and this is not as easy as it sounds as the logo had to sit as comfortably next to ITV News as it did next to The Only Way Is Essex.
http://www.ruddstudio.com/project/itv-rebrand/
I enjoyed looking at their work on ITV and in the end, the logo worked in any setting and even changed colour to fit its surroundings appropriately. However, the default colours are blue,green, cyan and yellow.
http://www.ruddstudio.com/project/itv-rebrand/
No matter how serious the TV programme is, the logo can sit comfortably and even interact with the graphic in the background. ManVsMachine.co.uk also worked on ITV and focused more on what was happening behind the logo.
http://manvsmachine.co.uk/project/itv2
These fun and random short clips are supposed to represent ITV and they work very effectively in between TV programmes. The title on their website for this project is 'badly behaved branding' as some, such as the one above, is pointless although funny. This is all part of the rebranding that ITV had and it works well. ManVsMachine.co.uk have also worked with Xbox, Nike and Channel 4.
Branding is very important for a company and can become iconic and act as the companies identity, Companies like McDonalds are known for the yellow and red logo with an 'M' on it and Nike are known for the black and white tick logo. The more complex these logos are, the easier they are to forget. 99designs.co.uk is the enemy of logo and branding. As companies like Rudd Studios and ManVsMachine work hard on branding a company and logos, this websites gives out a logo for 99p. You submit a brief which is sent to 'a community of more that 1,128,000 designers to see'. This is almost like cheap labour for poor design companies and will stop people coming to actual designers who will work hard with their client to come up with a good. appropriate brand.
http://99designs.co.uk/logo-design
This is an example of a cheap logo given to a client by 99Designs.
This workshop was very interesting and I loved it. I learned a lot about how to use Illustrator as well as having creative freedom. I loved branding and logo design and would be keen to do more from it as well as learn more from it.
