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the collective voice
Brand Design
Transform the look and feel of a employment service organisation through an entire brand design system
The Collective Voice, a Perth employment service organisation in the making, was given an identity makeover that was conveyed through the logo and down to other tangible touchpoints such as stationary designs.
The client requested that The Collective Voice should convey a nurturing, positive and caring look and feel. I achieved this through the use of warm and attractive pastel colours of pink and turquiose, and hand-drawn human star-shaped mascots that portray a fun and positive vibe.
In arriving to this decision for the brand identity, the project underwent initial vigorous research: a client interview to discuss brief requirements, personas, empathy maps, brand Identity analysis, visual investigation, colour research and logo experimentation and development with typography included.
FORMING THE INDENTITY:
The Collective Voice
Before design touchpoint collaterals were made, thorough research and investigation were conducted to form the most accurate and effective brand identity for The Collective Voice that will achieve its goals and appeal to its target audience.
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Top:
Empathy Map
From decifering the information through the client interview, understanding likely personas (both customers and the employees who provide the support), I put together a typical empathy map (left page) to help me understand better who I am designing for and how to shape the designs to connect to their perception of the organisation as a trustworthy, supportive and caring place to seek help.
Bottom:
Brand Identity Summary
I brainstormed every key idea and concept behind The Collective Voice. This summary helped guide my next research such as the visual investigation, colour research, logo development and putting together the style guide to inform future designers how to portray the organisation visually.
BRAND DEVELOPMENT:
Logo sketches and concept
From left to right, we can see different versions of the “group of human” idea being developed. Each logo sketch builds from the last idea and gets altered and improved along the way.
The stances of the people are especially symbolic. For example, a stack of people vertically can symbolise strength in numbers and growth
like a plant.
The upward arms of the figures symbolise a positive power stance of importance and confidence.
The groups of figures at the bottom are the community of voices that is holding up a figure which represents the disadvantaged person needing a hand to rise above.
The people are lined up in a row of 5 and are shaped like stars to represent 5 star exellence in service.
LOGO REFINEMENT
Next, I combine the icon and words together to finalise a combination logo, along with some tagline ideas. I also tried removing elements like the speech bubbles. I find that by doing so, it looks less visually confusing. I also consider putting in an appropriate tagline underneath the logo. The tagline uses the same font - “Yanone Kaffeesatz”
At this final stage, I decided to pick the logo that is readable and noticable instantly, even at a far distance or when it is resized smaller such as on a business card (top left). I find I am being drawn more to the logo with words of a darker colour as it stands out more.
Other taglines ideas:
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Empowerment through employment
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Employment for your community
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Let the community work for you
SIGNATURE COLOURS
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The most identifiable branding trademarks of The Collective Voice is the different shades of green, ranging from pastel light green, turquoise, and to dark green. The darkest green (second row far right) can be used to simulate black. Decorative background graphics may use the gradients that blends a lighter and darker shade (bottom row).
Complementary Colours
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The complementary pink-coral colour palette below is used to highlight or bring extra emphasis to certain graphic elements. It should be used sparingly, especially with text elements.
TYPOGRAPHY
In chosing a typeface, I picked “Yanone Kaffeesatz” as my wordmark logo as well as my heading and titles for promotional materials both printed and digital. It had the right appearance - not too casual and playful, but yet not too rigid and serious looking either. The slight varying widths of the lines and tapers on the end tips gives it a little extra unique appeal.
The body font uses “Avenir Next Condensed” but alternatively, can also use Avenir heavy, black, medium and book.
ABOVE: 3 variations of logo use: (1ST) Logo in colour, (2ND) Logo in white against a coloured background, (3RD) Logo in greyscale/black and white
TURNING DESIGN IDEAS INTO REAL PROTOTYPES
3D Business stationaries mockups showing different angles of:
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business card
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presentation folder
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brochure
Business Stationaries Mockups:
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business letterhead
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business card
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notepad
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envelopes
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presentation folder
The brand design in these stationaries touchpoints portrays a lot of creativity, fun and joy through the attractive gradient colours of coral and turquoise-green and the 5 star illustrative mascots depicted in different actions symbolising empowerment and community support. These ideas were taken from our brainstorm of logo sketches where each pose represents the name in a meaningful way. This stationary design aims to be unique compared to the common ones where the logo is simply enlarged and repeated.