Photography Student Victoria Kathryn Branding Live Brief - Brief & Research

Brief

To design a logo, business cards and promotional mail pack for Level 6 Photography student Victoria Kathryn. The branding should reflect her practice and showcase the focus on sustainability that is present within her photography. 

Deadline: March 15th. 

Initial Discussion with Victoria:

- She wants an icon for a logo, possibly a logomark. 

- She likes the idea of a square business card.

- She likes the style of fresh/summery, pastel colours. Like her photography.

- She also likes abstract colours, mosaic style/shapes.

- The promotional mail packs she wants to include prints of her photography and a business card.

- The promotional mail pack could be in the style of an envelope. 

Her website: www.victoriakathryn.co.uk

Research

After my discussion with Victoria, I first began to look for existing branding examples that are in line with what she had told me she wants the style/feel of her branding to be like. I did this so that I could get a better understanding of what she wanted, as well as take some inspiration from those designs. 

When I showed Victoria these designs she really liked them. This confirmed to me that I understand what she is visually wanting from her branding, as well as what kind of elements within her branding that I should focus on. I've written what she had to say about some of these examples below. 

I suggested that her logo/icon could be over-laid on top of her images, she agreed that this looked very nice and professional.

I knew that this was a design technique that I could confidently explore within her branding.

She really liked this example because of its minimalism and simplicity. She also liked the soft/pastel colour. I knew that her logo/icon could also be quite simplistic/include text, and that her colour scheme in her branding should also be soft/pastel colours. 

She really liked again the simplicity of the logo/icon. This confirmed again to me that her logo should be quite simple/vector. She also liked the use of shapes and colours within this example, I thought that the mosaic/shapes was also very visually engaging, so this was something I knew I will explore for her branding also.

Even though she wanted her branding to be quite minimal/clean, she also told me she likes this soft illustration style. I told her that maybe illustration wouldn't be appropriate because it could distract from her photography. She agreed that this might be the case and told me that she trusts me and my expertise. This made me feel a lot more confident and comfortable in this client and designer relationship. 

I suggested to Victoria that if she want' to focus her branding around her interest in sustainability, her mail pack could be something along the lines of this - using recycled materials. She agreed that she definitely wants to use recycled materials, however she's never liked the card/brown paper. I told her this is okay because nowadays there are a whole variety of options for recycled materials and she does not necessarily need to have it brown. After hearing this she agreed that she will definitely want her branding materials to be printed using recycled materials. 

To get a better understanding of Victoria and her photography, I also looked at her website and photography. In doing so I was able to find details within her photography that I thought should be highlighted/reinforced. She wanted the focus of her branding and her practice in the future to fall on her still life and 'Sustainability' photography, and so by looking at those projects I was able to find shapes and colours that I could experiment with in the design process of her branding. 

Her website reinforced to me once again that she liked a simple, clean and minimalist style. This is something that I thought was very appropriate as then the whole attention falls onto her photography, which is how it should be. What I mentioned to her was that her website was a little too messy, with all the project titles on the left side making the navigation feel too cluttered and over-whelming. Later on she took my advice and collapsed the projects into their sub-titles, which I was very happy to see she took my advice. It made her website feel a lot more clean and professional. Her 'logo/logomark' before I created her branding was simply her name in the same typeface as the body text on her website. This did not communicate an air of professionalism which is what she wanted as she graduates and enters the industry. I told her not to worry as I will create a logo/logomark that will fit in with her website, as well as elevate her professionalism. 

Looking at Victoria's photography I felt very inspired because of the colours and shapes that she uses. I knew that I will definitely explore these shapes and colours and try to implement them into her branding in some way.

The still life photography really made me think about the logo/logomark, and what kind could be the most appropriate to communicate her work but without pointing too literally at only one of her projects. They also made me consider how simple the logo should be so that it was legible and sat clearly if it was applied over the top of one of her photographs.

A lot of the colours she uses in her photography were soft and pastel. This was also something she verbally told me that she really likes and feels as if it represents her well as a person. This was something that I could not ignore and I knew I could utilise. It made me feel confident that my client understood who she was and what she wanted, which made my job as a designer easier.