In Part 1, we saw how the Nonpareil name and logo came about. Brand is more than just a logo, however. The following video summarizes my process, expresses other elements of the brand, and shows some of its applications (also featured in the rest of this post).
Business card, front and back
Letterhead
Mailing Label
Magnet
Website
Desktop Wallpaper
Download 1024 x 768 or 1440 x 900
Promotional Book, front and back
Basically a rework of this book. I changed the colors, type, and logo.
Brand is something that is being talked about more and more. These days more than ever, we need efficiency and consistency to broadcast the essence of people and corporations. Corporate Communications is a class that taught me how brand spans beyond the logo to every piece of communication that reaches the target audience.
Developing a strong brand requires deep understanding of the entity that the brand will represent. As a final project for this class, I created a brand for the person I know best — myself!
I have done this before, sort of. At different points in my life, I have designed graphics to communicate my identity to an audience. There was no consistency between them, however. I embarked upon a long and painful process to develop a new name and mark that could more holistically represent me.
I asked a handful of people to come up with words to describe me. From this list, I grabbed the one that seemed most important or recurring: quality, desire for excellence, out of the ordinary, a step above, perceptive, intuitive, elegant, thoughtful, pure, multicultural, expressive, deep, and purposeful. These are the attributes I most wanted my brand to express.
From these words, I came up with possible business names (in ALL CAPS). At the same time, I explored symbolism:
I began to see if these sketches could translate into vector drawings, and how they could express some of the names I was considering.
Finally, the strongest name and symbol came together in the following mark, that I felt expressed everything I wanted it to.
The branding process was far from over, however. See Part 2 for the continuing saga…
