Aspects of brand I found interesting

I have previously looked into branding years ago when I first started studying graphic design but returned to it for this assignment. Some things I particularly enjoyed about brand was the freedom to show your creativity. The openness to express your ideas without feeling confined. As seen in my project one thing I really enjoyed was colour. I found it very interesting to look into the accessibility of colours and match them to my brand identity. I changed my colour palette multiple times but decided with a idea of using multiple different colours to identify my brand similar to the brand Wise. Wise was a huge inspiration for my brand and I loved the imagery and colours they used. My main goal was to make the colours readable which I feel I achieved. Also playing around with colours that shouldn’t look complimentary together was a lot of fun as it opened my ideas to something new that didn’t fit into design rules.

Another element of brand that I enjoyed was creating a corporate identity. As the set audience was very specified 16-25 year olds it needed to to fit a target audience, It needed to have an exciting element that didn’t fit the normal old fashioned banking appearance. This made made me excited about the assignment and inspired to create something fresh and youthful. I enjoyed creating mind maps and researching into my brand values and what I wanted my banking app to represent. It made me appreciate that every brand has to go through this process and its not a straight forward progress.

My favourite part of brand was creating a logo. I’ve always enjoyed this area of brand as I have previously created logo marks. I used Figma and started out with basic shapes creating a simplified letter. I am a complicated person and usually make things harder for myself so I found this technique really inspiring. My logo was created with a few rectangles and circles and I feel it works great as a digital banking app.

Consistency was also extremely important in this project and especially with my design. I started off wanting to use waves/wiggles that moved through my brand guidelines but after speaking to Daniel he told me it was over complicating the vision so I decided to remove them. Making sure the alignment, type and imagery all fitted together was difficult but I found it fun to look on Pinterest to find similar imagery that would align to my brand vision.

I enjoyed the early stages of creating the brand name and found it intriguing to develop names. Quickly writing down any name that popped into my head on a piece of paper. It made me think deeper into the meaning behind my chosen bank name.

Overall this project has made me think outside the box and made me step out of my comfort zone. Branding is such an important part in design and it is something that I would like to keep studying in future modules as it has a special place in my heart. From growing nothing to a sketched idea into a final visual piece i find it so interesting.

Self-reflection on module

When we were first given this assignment I felt it would be very boring as I felt there wasn’t much we could do with a banking app but after going through each creative process my thoughts have changed completely. This module made me realise sometimes we will get a project we won’t particularly enjoy but its up to us to make it unique and special.

One thing I struggled with was brand guidelines as I found it very overwhelming. It was also the one area that took me the longest to finish as I found it quite difficult as I wanted it to look creative and fun but soon realised from Daniel that it was meant to be a simple set of rules for my brand that shouldn’t look distracting. Therefore I had to go back multiple times and change it. It has made me realise that sometimes my creativity needs to be controlled as someone who previously studied graphic design I wasn’t used to this simplified version of design. I struggled to keep up with what we had to do for this assignment as there was so much information to take in.

I have also learned how to manage my time and how I need to improve this going forward. I have been struggling with the writing process on this module but after speaking with the lecturers I realised I need to express my likes and dislikes on my overall progress during the project. I feel like I took too long on certain areas of the project such as the app design which made me loose track of time. Going forward I will improve this and won’t make the same mistakes in second year.

I particularly enjoyed creating the banking app, reflecting back I enjoyed the creating process and I decided to go the extra mile and create icons. I have learned to keep things simple which was hard for me but I feel it made my work look polished. Another area that I didn’t enjoy very much was user research as it felt a bit too informative but I tried my best to make it an enjoyable experience. I feel going out out class and looking at the banks and how they represent themselves really helped me gain knowledge on a subject I had no idea about.

This project made me gain skills in Figma which I hadn’t used before such as prototyping and creating components. I also discovered how to use the pen tool more effectively.

Overall I feel I did well in the design of my project but could focus on research and development more specifically. I feel after week 6 I lost track with my project and felt confused as to what had to be completed. If I had to go back and redo the project I would make a diary or a to do list on everything that needed to be completed. I took all critiques as informative information and applied it to my work. I have learned overall that its okay to make changes last minute and it is part of the job as a designer nothing is a smooth straight line.