time4lunch-sophiaworkbook

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Final Reflection

How I found this course

I overall really enjoyed doing this course, although I definitely found it quite stressful at times. I really love using illustrator to do graphic design so this class was right up my alley. I found it quite rewarding and satisfying, and I ended up with an end product that I’m really proud of. I can see a big improvement in my work as a graphic designer compared to last year, and that’s very exciting and motivating to me. 

Right off the bat I knew that me and my team were going to get along great. Everyone seemed to have similar energy levels and motivation, so I was pretty optimistic that I was going to be happy in my team. And I was right! My team made this project really enjoyable and getting to know each person better was a pleasure! I especially enjoyed getting to know Hope and Connor since I didn’t know them very well from the start. I do wish that Alice had been more involved and I think she let the team down a bit by not showing up or contributing much to the team. She left doing her final slides in our group presentation right up until the last minute before we had to present, and that made me really stressed and anxious, so that was not a positive experience.

I would say that I would rate our client with a “meh”. He was really passionate and had a great vision for his organisation, but he didn’t follow through on his end of the deal, which cause quite a lot of stress for me and my team. His communication style was definitely a challenge to navigate too, because he’d often not address questions we would ask in our emails. I would say it wasn’t the best client experience, but it was definitely a learning curve and will for sure be useful when dealing with challenging clients in the future. 

What I learned

I feel like even just from this class my illustrator skills have significantly improved. I am getting a lot better at keeping my art boards instead of just deleting stuff and going over the top of it. This really helps me look back and see how my ideas grow, and I think is really going to help me as a designer. 

I’ve learned a lot about communicating as a group, particularly during a pandemic! It’s been interesting setting up meetings and talking in our group on teams, trying to coordinate everything for the presentation. I think we did really well to keep on top of things, and having extra meetings to talk things through. Communication of ideas went really smoothly and we could all share ideas in a lighthearted way, where there wasn’t any conflict. I’ve come to realise something about myself and that is that I definitely like to get quite involved in a group and see myself as being more of a leader, but I think I let others take control and do stuff too, which is good. I suppose I will find out in my peer feedback!

I’ve also adopted a whole new perspective as to what branding actually is. At the start of this class I definitely thought a brand was just what you see and how they visually display themselves to you, but now I realise through what Lucy and Denise have taught, is that a brand is so much more than that. It is about how the public perceives the company as a whole and how they feel about it, and what they associate them with. 

How I will use skills in the future

This course has been really helpful for me, as I can definitely see myself doing branding design in the future. In fact - my brother is starting his own food truck business next year, and he has asked me to do the branding for him! So this course will be extremely beneficial for me when doing that. I know more about branding as a whole, and graphic design, where I feel confident that I can help him create the brand identity he wants. I’m very excited for that project!

Overall, I found this course extremely beneficial and found it very valuable to my learning. Thank you Denise and Lucy for running this class! :)

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Here is my final style scape. I wanted to highlight the pictorial logo which is a massive representation of equality, so I put it centred in the stylescape, with the target audience and a healthy lunch on either side. This is showing that we want everyone and everyone’s lunches to be equal.

I also added in the catchphrase to really give more context as to what Time for Lunch is all about. 

I used the equal sign as separate elements throughout to emphasise the shape and colours as part of the brand. 

I included some mockups too to give context and really bring the brand to life. I am a lot happier with this iteration of my stylescape, as I feel like it’s more coherent and showcases the brand in a more clear way.

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

In our meetings with Denise and Lucy, I gathered some feedback on my stylescape. These were some of the things they mentioned that could improve my stylescape. I think these are all very valid points, so I am going to update it and post the final one

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

A couple of mockups I made to showcase my logo(s) in action. I found everything relatively simple to put into place, the pictorial logo is extremely diverse and can be easily placed need be. The only thing about the word mark is it ideally would have to be placed on the left hand side of things because of the layout of the word, not sure if that would be an issue or not down the line

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Here’s some examples of the pattern being used with my final logo

Don’t think I’m a fan of the bottom one, it reminds me a little too much like a computer programming logo or something hahaha

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Here is my final colour palette, and some names I gave them :)

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

I made these abstract pictorial logos as an extra resource that can be used for the branding. These would translate well onto badges, stickers, bags, anything that would look good with a simple image. I really like this logo because it incorporates the equals sign, plus the middle bar of the E, to make a lunchbox shape. It has 2 meanings behind it, which I think is cool, and can be summarised by “equal lunches”.

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Here’s what my logo looks like in monotone. I think it still translates really well and looks quite graphic and punchy

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Here are my final coloured logos! I’m pretty proud of them! I think the E works quite nicely and adds a fair bit of interest to the logo. Really happy with my font choice, I think it’s visually appealing and easy to read.

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Some extra feedback from my flatmate. 

I think I’m happy with the spacing between the letters, since I already customised the kerning to a point where I think it looks good, so not sure I need to change that. 

Also, I think because I’ve already got the pops of colour on the equal sign on the letter E, I don’t want to bring more colour into the logo because that will distract from the main idea I want to convey.

I am glad that he thought it looked clean and readable, those are two important things I wanted my logo to be!

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Well, we’re in lockdown!

We never ended up getting a response from DNI, so we were going to move on to contacting the principle at Ravensbourne school about the focus group. However, the whole country went into lockdown, so things are a little wacky right now! I talked to Lucy and Denise about the focus group, and they collectively decided that we did not have to do it anymore, considering the circumstances, and the fact that our client did not hold up their end of the deal. 

I’m going to be getting some extra feedback from my flatmate, who is also at the design school doing architecture. 

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Took action and emailed DNI about getting together a focus group. I originally emailed the principle but I got an automated email back saying that she was on school camp and wouldn’t be replying to emails, so I sent it to the main school email instead. Hopefully we get a response!

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

So we got this email from our client, not very happy about it! We are going to have to try and organise our own focus group, which is inconvenient but I think it could happen

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Just playing around, trying it on different backgrounds and trying different colour combinations for the equals. I think I am going to go with the blue and orange because I think they pop well on both the light and dark background. 

Was getting a little worried about the readability of the E so I tried adding a little extra form to the middle part, which at first I thought was good, but the longer I looked at it the more cluttered it looked, and I like the simplicity of just having the three rectangles.  

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

Tried playing around more with the arrow graphic. Trying to simplify it to make it more easy to incorporate into the logo. Not really sure I like it like that, definitely prefer it as a pattern in the background. I am feeling the three rectangles for the E. It incorporates the equal sign while still being readable, and adds a bit of fun and something different. I think it’d be good for making into a little pictorial logo too so I think I’ll go forward with it on its own without the triangle shapes. 

I also realised when you scaled it down the text was looking a little cramped so I changed the kerning and gave it a little more breathing room and that definitely helped. You can see the difference in the two little ones in the bottom right.

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

After some critique, it was recommended that I try and incorporate the equal sign into my wordmark. This will strengthen my story behind my design choices when presenting to Ronnie and give the wordmark more of an in depth meaning rather than just being words. 

Some initial ideas I had just playing around. Think I will take the one on the right forward because the one on the left isn’t really translated as an equal sign since the lines are too long and far apart.

[time4lunch-sophiaworkbook]

My feedback :)