Restaurant rebranding

Me and my FD graphics class were asked to rebrand one of five of newcastle college's restaurants/bistros as part of a live brief for newcastle college.

The client was describing the restaurants mainly as a blank canvas with dull neutral colour of mushroom used throughout with no character.

The restaurant i chosen to rebrand was chefs academy, this was to be used by memebers of college and the public meaning that this would literally be used by everyone and not just for the room as a restaurant but also as a conference room where they would provide them this service with food and drink.

The food cooked for people using the restaurant would by students at degree level and the room provided space up 50 people complete with bar and wide open view front through the glass wall.

The room had only 2 paintings hanging but still had no real vibe, just complete blank canvas for me to work on, the outline the client want to give the room in our branding was that the mushroom colour was not used, and that restaurant is to have a formal feel and that the food would be quality and inexpensive, the cheapest in newcastle, she quoted that from a magazine it was described as 

"the hidden gem of newcastle".

The view

Inside chefs academy

So as part of the rebrand we where asked to create a stationary set, which contained a logo,compliment slip,business card and letter head. In addition to this we where also asked to design a menu template to accompany this aswell for the restaurant.

Below is the current design for the chefs academy menu, basic and not much thought can be seen in the design used.

The front cover design of the menu before the rebrand.

Inside the menu on the first page.

Firstly i designed the logo, i kept creating logos in my ideas that where too complex for a logo, and i want it to be symbolic so i took this route, i went and looked at other symbolic logos and logos that worked affectively by being simple and used shapes or patterns to create their logos and then looked my ideas i had drawn in my initial ideas and used the elements in my ideas of the knife and fork and tried this in the same sense of using the cutlery to create a shape or pattern, i had drawn star at one point of my ideas, so i tried this in a shape of a star, i quite like it but again it need simplified so i worked on this and tried some other shapes at the same time, but i found the star to be working more successfully and more unique looking and worked at its best as a flat illustration using 2 colours and i found having tried this in colour, it didnt worked as affectively so i tried it in black and grey, this worked better but the black looked harsh so i toned the black down to a dark grey. The design shape has came down to a basic star shape with spoons making the shape of it and a spoon between each point which is in the second colour. i then developed the text font and the layout, i found having the text underneath each other of each word 'chefs academy' then adding a strapline of 'fine dining' to say exactly what it is.

I think when you look at it, the darker area is the star and the lighter area is like the shine around the spoons like a twinkle, giving a feel of being a head of other restaurants and being number like a star being number,being the best and links with what it is by having the spoons.

This became my logo design.

Following the colour scheme used in my logo i carried this on for the rest of the stationary set.

in some parts i even reversed the colours, like on the cover of the menu and the business card.

This kept its consistency and makes its known as a brand.

like the logo, i kept the stationary set simple which followed on the style and feel i created in my logo of being elegant and classy for a fine dining restaurant, giving the chefs academy a brand new modern look and feel that suits it much better.

Letter head

bussiness card, front and back and compliment slip

We can see that from the menu above in the photos, that the menu is bounded together by elastic through the clear pockets.
This makes it convenient as the pages can be moved or changed, which the menu changes all the time so i thought this would be a way to present the menu but still change the design to it.

The design of the menu again follows through the design of the stationary set and its logo.
for the cover i have done the same way as the business card of reversing the colours around, this made it outstanding whilst still keeping its look.
i have also put a band at the bottom that follows the front and back page with the other reversed colour symbolic part of the symbol in the middle of this as decoration as it looks abit plain without it.

Menu cover, front and back

For the inside design, i had to create the template as the inside of the design is ever changing.
So i made the first page and copied the body text off the original menu for their info for the first page.
this gives a feel of how the rest of the other pages would look centrally aligned and subheaded and sectioned the same way with different point size text and the two colours that are used in such way for this reason.

inside pages, template and how it would look and feel we can see from the first page.

page for each section of the menu, from starters to dessert and beverages.

click images to enlarge for viewing.


I think that this project went really well because the final result came out better than i thought it would, looking really professional. becoming one of the best pieces i have done ever, whilst getting use to useing indesign and knowing the basics after using it such on my final, i am much more confident to work with indesign myself, with no other help.
I learnt that i need to keep my work more simple, and that the theory to this is 'less is more' which is what i need to keep in mind when coming up with my ideas as it works much more affectively and successfully.


My peers and some staff have commented on the final design saying that it looks good, simple, proffesional and a good outcome that i have worked really hard on.

If i was to do this project again, the only thing i would do differently is to back up my work, as i had completed my final then lost it after my memory stick broke with being unreadable on the computer and resulting in redoing my final over again so that this result does not occur again.
Other than this, i feel everything else has went really well and i am proud of my design.


SWOT

• Strengths - What did I do well?: refining my ideas and Executing my final design turning out better than initially had thought.
• Weaknesses - What do I need to improve? making my designs more simple so that they work more affectively.
• Opportunities - What do I need to do to build on my strengths and weaknesses?  keep refining my designs and putting down as many ideas as possible for the best possible outcome aswell 
• Threat - What could stop me achieving my goals? spending too much time on one idea adding detail could result in slowing down my development 

SMART 

•    Specific - Well defined: make my ideas and designs more simple
• Measurable - Know when it has been achieved: when i do my future projects, for my initial ideas, i will do simpler ideas than what i usually do as the idea will be more affective.
•    Achievable – Are the goals achievable: yes this will be something that will be easily achieved if kept in mind whilst designing ideas.
• Realistic - Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time: using resources like the internet, books and magazines this will provide inspiration and some insight on some ideas whilst looking at the simplicity of designs to ensure i will have some direction of how i hit this target.
•  Time Based - Enough time to achieve the goal: enough time that is usually spent on each section of a project from research,initial ideas,development and final outcome for this be done, maintaining the target through the design process.

change the thought design

http://cargocollective.com/changethethought

This is a website that i had come across whilst browsing.
It offers alot style and designs each diffrent and unqiue, but change the thought is a design company that particularly that cathes my eyes and is quite attractive as i look through their work i find them that quite inspiring and i know that this will be a great site to look at because of all the broad styles its has to help me if ever in need of inspiration or ideas.

they stand out and make a eye catching feature with the designs being quite diffrent and unique with a modern twist.
looking at these i can think about these elements of design in my work, trying out diffrent styles trying out something new like 'change the though' have done.

the colour palettes are bright bold and beautiful with endless unique possibilities of outcomes they create, they never fail.
Here are some examples of their work.

passion pit

Experimental college works

similar to 3d art with the style used with the blue and red, typographic and symbolic illustration.

seaton sluice first school logo

we where asked to design a logo design that will be used on school uniform then this will later be applied to the rest of the schools branding, i.e its website,business cards,letter heads etc.

The restrictions of the logo where to keep it similar to a design they had chosen of which a child at the school had drawn, so that meant keep a rosette in the design and that the logo would be applied to jumpers would be a deep purple colour and polo shirts which would be white, so i kept this in mind and came up with this design.

this was to follow the thought of it being a first school, so the illustration was kept simple and having the 2 children together would have the working together and because they are showing a sign of the name of the school, they are showing that they are proud to be part of the school.

However after showing this to the class, the feedback that i had got was that the rosette was nice but in the center of the rosette it was to much and that the name of the school is somewhat not clear or standing out. so i went back and took the center out and developed the center based on a typographical approach this time.

I then came up with having the 2 larger point size letter "s" for the seaton and the sluice of the word and then having "first school" at the bottom of this.

This result much better out come as being clearer, outstanding and simpler and having the font rounded, keeps it childlike look i was goin for in the first place, making the logo this time round much more affective and successful.

Final outcome of the seaton sluice first school logo.

AD105 Art and Design Development:student union posters

Newcastle college asked our class foundation graphic design students to create a series of poster of 2 out of the 5 subjects given and portray there message in the form of a poster.

the subjects i chosen was 1. students union and xmas celebration and 2. sexual health clinic, which is onsite at the campus and the object is to make these be in the know by creating these posters and because the target audience is the people at college meaning the majority of them being aged 16-25, the design had to have a modern and young feel that would appeal to this target range.

The two posters had to work as a series, so i had to link them together by design.

so for my posters to make them a series,i made them quite illustrative appearing on aw black background, this made the colours and the imagery in the foreground more vibrant and outstanding. 

I also made the info part of the text centrally aligned aswell as using text as imagery in both of the posters to keep consistency to make them look like they belong together as a series.

For my xmas poster i did the text as the xmas lights, this turned out quite well after refinining the illustration so many times to make it look more realistic with adding shades and tones.

i think it turned out quite well just the text is about out of place as not aligned the same as the other text is  a bit big in scale.

so i tweaked this poster and made them changes.

first final, that i went back and tweaked

The finalised tweaked version

now this is how the poster is now, after making the text smaller and aligned centrally and made the college's student union logo blend in by taking the white background off so that it works in to the black background now.

I think makes it more successful as the appearance is less cluttered and looks more well laid out and professional.

This is my sexual health clinic poster, i wanted to take sort of a humorous approach as humour is always successful and appeals to anyone.

so my idea being condoms as lollies and the strap line to the poster being "life is sweet, so keep it that way with your sexual health"and info"sexual health clinic,parsons first floor etc." this reinforces the imagery and gets the main message across about thinking about your sexual health and that you can do this at the college clinic and makes the college's clinic in the know by this, which is what the objective of the poster was, making this successful.

i had incorporated the "sweet" part of the text in to the condom wrapper to act like the logo "durex" making this where you consciously think of the actual durex condom and knowing straight away because of this, that this is a condom, but to make it have a look of a lolly and not just a condom on a stick, i did to look similar to the lollies with the different colours and no design to make it fit in and added bow to the lolly stick, to make it more friendly and appetising looking like some lollies have on them.

Sexual health clinic poster

Over all i think this project has worked out quite well and i have learnt how to make a poster work together as a series as i have not done this before and i had some difficulties using indesign since i have not really used it before but will practice indesign to better myself at this.

SWOT

• Strengths - What did I do well?: used my skills in illustrator to illustrate my designs and illustrated them in to more depth and detail than i had ever done before, making the illustration more realistic.
• Weaknesses - What do I need to improve? Thinking more about the alignment of text in a poster, basically the anarchy and making posters as a series and how i can do this more effectively
• Opportunities - What do I need to do to build on my strengths and weaknesses?   Think how i can make a series of posters work more effectively together, i.e same colours, same alignment of text  (the anarchy) etc. get reference or look at series poster designs more careful and think how i can use this to incorporate in to my own series poster designs.
• Threat - What could stop me achieving my goals? If i don't think about my weaknesses and the opportunities to improve on them.

SMART 

•    Specific - Well defined: i want to improve my indesign skills as of difficulty i had faced using indesign in this project.
• Measurable - Know when it has been achieved:  It will be measurable by the success of my next project as I plan to use indesign
•    Achievable – Are the goals achievable: It will be achievable if I use my self directed study time and If I attend my IT sessions. 
• Realistic - Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time: 
• i will in my spare time at home use indesign to practice and get use to the interface and if i have any finals use these to compile final designs in the programme to help practice and get use to using indesign with more ease .
•  Time Based - Enough time to achieve the goal: I will monitor this by next 2 projects. this will roughly be 2 months, enough time attain my target.

AD103 task 3:Review a branding book.

The book i have chosen to review is on Branding; called cool brands 2007/2008: an insight in to some of Britain's coolest Brands.

Looking at this book's cover, straight away i can see that,it is quite striking with its,clean,minimal colour pallette that makes it stand out affectively.
The style is done in the same kind of style as sci- scott's work but uses a build up of words (with the companies names) inside each of the characters for each word unlike sci-scotts work the inside of the characters are with intricate patterns and swirls or even left as a solid blank character with just the swirls coming off.
this style is quite a trend in the fashion, that is used constantly.

Example of sci-scotts work, "The heart of design still beats"

For the inside of this book, it carries its theme on from the front cover with the sci-scott look and use of block bold colours, which is mainly most made use of at the beginning of the book.

It looks in to each brand, giving the history and background of how the brand had started and how the brand is today standing the test of time and how the product for brand has been developed to better itself, the obstacles it may have been confronted with, branding of its sales figures being mentioned briefly.


One page from the book that gives a sample of it doing this, and  the other pages are done the same.

Its information on the brand is consistently focused on that particular brand for that page spread,but changes on to a different one on the next page spread, this is carried on through the whole book. 

The book is written quite factual manner, giving Dates of events happening in the brands life,  

so that it gives a detailed insight in to the brand and look at other brands in this book and we can see the different ways they have rose to fame and how they are present to the customers.

I think this is a good book to give inspiration on branding, i can see what has made them successful as they are and how they have accomplished this. and learn by this in to helping generate my own ideas for my own branding if i needed to do so and would recommend others do so as well if needed to for branding and needed inspiration aswell.

[Book rating out of 5 being highest ] 

[* * * * * 5+stars]

zigguratbrands.com and pearfisher.com review

AD103:Research task 4:review a website.

ziggurat brands

Ziggurat;

A staunchly independent boutique brand design agency that's on to its 25th year business of making brands famous. 

They thrive on the demands of working on the most challenging of branding projects and over the last six years, SMEs have presented them with some of our most ambitious but ultimately satisfying experiences in brand design.
they have helped a number of businesses accelerate their growth by providing the kind of branding and support at an early stage that they would not normally be able to afford until much further along in their development.
(source:word from its own website)


This company does some pretty original creative  thinking in to their work, using mixed media and digitals built in to the portfolio, like the first image with that branding uses body paint on their hands to create animals with quite some detail in to it, like the style of hand puppets holding the product and photographing this and adding this to the packaging of the product leaving more for idea to grow with using other animals as a series with basic colour palette making it easy on the eye but still effective stand out and make you want to look at the product realising the detail of the imagery being a hand with animal painted on with a more original approach of just rather drawing  a animal up in illustrator.

For the middle image, its branding name is used for the imagery of it packaging with a sun set, leaving a red/yellow sky and a silhouette at the bottom balancing the titles colour and boldness of contrast of the sky's colours.

The logo to it is also quite nice to look at, its really different from the usual crisp logo you may see in super markets; It basically uses standard time new roman font resting above each other with the letter 's' usually being positioned down so that the top of the character is inline with the other characters in the word making it look its suppose to be this way, the solar crossing of the moon and the sun crossing over in a half circle in simple info graphics style portrays itself of it brand in a simple but effective way of communicating its brand to the audience of its brands slogan of which being about natures goodness and promise of a good day. (the moon and the sun in crossing represents the change of day and coming to the closing with the red sky)

The last image uses something simple that could be portrayed boring if done wrong, however this has been done with such creativity and detail the digital art that it looks so realistic and professional with the chocolate heart dripping of the spoon above the logo with the letter 'u' that, it is suppose to look like the its dripping in to the 'u' like a 'tub' thus representing the communication to the audience of what its logo is.

Its background is done with flourishes that are visible but toned to a low opacity, so that its focus is left in the background with the audiences eyes first noticing the foreground, but add style and sophistication and added detail towards what it already represents. which i think is a nice added touch.

I quite like their work and style, this could be something i possibly could look at and  incorporate in to my own work.

pearl fisher

Pearl fisher;

award winning, with nomination of nominated for two DBA Design effectiveness awards.

 their approach is:

there three things peal fisher does not do a design team is:      

    

1.      dont free pitch.

                                        

   2.Free exclusivty

3.enethical work.

(source:http://www.pearlfisher.com/approach.php?cmspageid=109)

They seem to work quite closely with typography in their work, judging from what i have in their poftfolio.

they also seem to complete the look of the branding or brand with mainy in illustration with different illustration styles and present a series with their final outcome and use plenty of bright colour as a whole.

they communicate their idea well in to their work, creating strange and wonderful designs.

its poftfolio is actaully similar to zuggarat.com 

Its works is quite clean and fresh with original ideas.

wall illustration collaboration video

SUPAKITCH & KORALIE - VÄRLDSKULTUR MUSEET GÖTEBORG from elr°y on Vimeo.

Wall painting by Supakitch and Koralie 
at the VÄRLDSKULTUR MUSEET GÖTEBORG / SWEDEN
With the support of POSCA.


These two Artists highly illustrate their own collaboration of the art and then tied them in together fittingly, by using bright colours and having both of their work of two characters, side by side each other start from the centre and then having a wave of a tail coming  from each side of each character in their unique way of style.


this is something i could think about doing, introducing someone style and linking it in to mine to produce some interesting results.