Week 9
17/11/08
Live Project Branding
Clare Byrne - Private Counselling Service
This week I have been developing my brand for our client Clare Byrne. I have to admit I struggled a bit coming up with any inspiration for this live project. With previous years live projects, the topic has been very visually orientated. However I found myself thinking, how am I going to brand a psychologist?
After Clare had briefed us on how she wanted to portray her image and what sort of service she was providing I sort of felt a bit lost. I went anyway and took a look on Google at some other therapists who were in the same area as Clare for some ideas on how they branded themselves. I don't think I found one site that even looked half decent. And any that looked ok were just run of the mill 'business' type websites with no character or personality. I knew I didn't want my brand for 'Space for Yourself' to look plain and boring.
Getting things down on paper
I usually would go straight to Photoshop or Illustrator to design a logo but decided to sketch out a few of my ideas on paper. As you can see they're just rough sketches but they give an idea of what way I wanted my logos to look.
Designs made up in illustrator
I then moved into Illustrator with my initial sketches and tried to create some logos from them. These were early attempts but were on the right track of how they should have been developing.
Colour Schemes
I was on the hunt this week for a colour scheme for the branding of the logo and website. I've been a member of Colour Lovers for a while now so it's usually the first place I go when I'm picking colour but decided to use Kuler for a change. I found the 'create' bit very good for picking a colour scheme. I had a fair idea of the colours I wanted to use so put them into the site and played around till I got a colour scheme that worked well together. I opted for a pink/purple colour scale and another grey one. I will propably use Kuler more in the future rather than just picking CL.
Below is the final colour palette I think I am going to pick and develop my Space for Youself site in:
Some light reading
After last weeks lecture on project management and billing I came across an article named, 'Why did you hire me?' by Keith LaFerriere. It's a short article that helps with self-promotion and gives a few useful tips on how to get past the barrier that is money when it comes to getting a job.
surfing the web
Redhead Studio
As I mentioned a few weeks back I have purchased the domain that I'm thinking of using for my portfolio site. I haven't had the time to get that up and running yet and with deadlines looming it mite be over xmas before I get anything set up. I should really make at least a holding page till I'm ready to launch a site there.
While thinking about how I wanted the design of my portfolio to look I have been continually changing my ideas. I read a great article this week called '12 Principles of Effective Portfolio Design'. Many of the steps in it are very useful and I probably would never have considered some of the things such as keeping the content limited to your best work and not just everything you have done.
Great article, check it out....
