10 - Client's Branding
Download my branding for the Client, Clare Bryne - spaceforyourself.com
Branding Development Tools
10 - Client's Branding ↑When taking the challenge on of creating a brand for Clare Bryne, or any other client, or for myself there are a few helpful tools that allowed me to speed up my process and made use of my time more efficiently by using the following helpful tools.
Color Schemer Studio
10 - Client's Branding ↑
One of the tools I used is Color Schemer Studio. I found Color Schemer extremely useful for taking colours I liked from images, and for creating random color combinations. It was also useful for quickly getting the hex value, the RGB, and the CMYK values of a specific color.
Kuler
10 - Client's Branding ↑Another one of my favourite apps for finding some inspiration for color - Kuler from Adobe. I especially find it useful for creating your own color combinations from the color wheel. I really like the integration with flickr, a nice way to find some inspirational color combos. Another nice feature of Kuler is on the landing site it shows the most popular color combinations, if your not to confident about colors.
Colour Lovers
10 - Client's Branding ↑Another great tool for finding the right colours is Colour Lovers. I really like how the site splits up into categories for Palettes, Colors and Patterns. When scrolling through the site, I like how it shows the personal comments about the color combos, and the search box can seem a bit intimidating but allows the user with a specific color with, which they will get a much better results from.
Color Palette for SFY
Typography
10 - Client's Branding ↑
Typography is a vital element of any brand, and for Space for Yourself, I really wanted to use a font that conveyed a friendly relaxed tone for the SFY brand, and in the end I decided to use the Gargoyle font that I downloaded from dafont. Although, I did look through a lot of different fonts, and I usually start designing my brand with the font, and can take the longest to finalise. Time and care is needed for this, as you have consider spacing, letter-spacing, sizes, kerning, etc... This process needs a fine tooth come!
Illustrator Tuts
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Illustrator tutorials are always a great help when wanting to extend your skills as a designer, and look no further than Vectortuts as my favorite Illustrator tutorials website, but there are some other great sites such as LayersMagazine, and Pixel2Life. When designing the SFY brand, my concept of water, and nature developed the idea of growth of leaves, and I found this tutorial from Vectortuts very helpful.
Inspiration
10 - Client's Branding ↑
When brainstorming an idea for a brand, I normally like to surf the web for some inspiration, and few spots I normally always have a look at are iStockphoto, Shutterstock and DeviatArt. Another nice post I bookmarked a while back was from Fuel Your Creativity by Adelle Charles on 50+ Kick Ass Logos for Inspiration - work a look at!
Notes/Sketches on SFY
Speaking to Chris…
10 - Client's Branding ↑In this weeks Friday's lecture, I got the chance to speak with Chris as so far I have only been talking to Nick about my major project idea. This was a great chance to get some feedback on my branding design for SFY. When I asked Chris of his opinion about my logo recommendation:
I like it...
Source - Chris Murphy
I took the comment as a really good compliment, and we discussed the concept of the brand and he seem quite happy for me to move onto the design of the website. We moved onto discussing about my major project idea. Chris showed me a video on iPhone Resolution by Edward Tufte. He also showed me Edward Tufte's website, as I was looking to show quantitative/statistical results in forms of charts, graphs, etc... in my major project.
Chris encouraged me to dive into designing for my major project on the iPhone screen, as he mentioned they are a lot differences between designing for the web and designing for the small screen, He recommended me in buying "Designing for the Small Screens", as a really good reading source to help me design my iPhone app.
Performa Sports Brand
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From the above image, you can see that I have been working hard on my major projects brand identity. At the moment I am really happy with how the design of the logo has turned out, although a few touches here and there may be needed. I used the concept of a brand that is "simple and easy-to-use application". I also wanted the brand have a look and feel of an iPhone Application.
Here you can download my pdf version of my logo as well as the logo options that I created for PerformaSports.
Web Designer Magazine
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I received my last monthly issue of Web Designer Magazine this week, not because I don't like it anymore but because I just can't afford to keep my subscription going after two years :-(. However, next semester I am hoping to possible ask Web Designer Magazine to have a look at my portfolio site that I will work on next semester, as they publish Lee Munroe's portfolio site in 2007 and would love to follow his footsteps see some of my work showcased. Although that will have to depend if I feel that my portfolio site is appropriate and well designed to justify sending it to Web Designer Mag. Another magazine that I have read a few times that I wouldn't getting a subscription too in the near future would be - .Net Magazine
Lee Munroe's Post
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This week I came across Lee Munroe's Post on "10 Web App Tips From 8 Inspirational Speakers" from following him on Twitter, that I found very interesting after my last weeks blog looking at Web Apps. It was nice post with some useful tips, and really looking forward to FOWA in Dublin. This made me also think about possible going to the FOWD conference in London on the 30th April 2009.
iPhone Vector kit
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I love Smashing Magazine for this freebie Post on "iPhone PSD Vector Kit". This will really help me to design some UI elements for my major project, that I will hopefully start after I have brand completed. This defiantly come into good use later so I have it downloaded already.
Xscope – Iconfactory
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I seen Chris and Nick using this handy application on their mac in the Lecture the other week, and I am glad someone asked what they called this application, as soon as I heard it was Xscope by Iconfactory I had Try it! After a few days playing with it, and over the next weeks of designing the Space for Yourself website, I thought this was a must buy application. I am glad I did, and would recommend it to any other students at £18 - £19 its not that bad of price for what it does.
Plans for Next Week
- Design and create a beta website for Clare Bryne.
- Develop a questionnaire for some market research at a targeted audience.
- Have a look at some tutorials on creating and displaying graphical charts.