Week 3 Part B: Developing a Brand

    Every day, with or without acknowledgment, we interact with a business. Whether it be our occupation, or even browsing social media, we utilize the functions of a company. That being said, creating a business is no easy feat. There is a lot of work that goes into it before there is even an announcement of its existence. To make someone want to use your business means that there has to be a clear concept from the creator of what the company is about and their purpose in a world already filled with businesses. 

    While I do not have a brand or company I have developed, another class had me create one for a project. The company that I came up with derived in part from this pandemic and what I had to do in order to help ground myself during this time. Like many, the pandemic led to the cancellation of many plans, therefore I was spending more time indoors. Two of my hobbies have always been cooking and baking as there is something about food that I find exciting, especially when it's foreign to me. A professional goal of mine is to work in a marketing role at a non-profit. I combined the two to make a service called Catered Cookbooks, which is a subscription box offering cookbooks on a quarterly basis, as well as gives to charities that deal with food insecurity.

    When it comes to branding the service, I would go for a simple logo playing with the beginning letter of each word, "C." I would also put each letter on a separate page of an opened book. Combined, it would make sense given the name and still feel modern. The reason I would go for something modern because that is what's trending right now, and I don't see that ending anytime soon. As far as a tagline, I would go for something like, "Picked for you to fight hunger." This would go along with the fact that this service is catered for the subscriber and that it can help satisfy their cravings while also assist in ending food insecurity. Finally, the colors I would use would be red, yellow, and blue, similar to that of Burger King's logo. The reason why I would choose these colors is probably the same reason why Burger King chose those colors. Psychologically, red has been shown to stimulate hunger while yellow tends to make people feel happy and excited. Blue comes into play because it elicits a trusting feeling. In addition to what these colors make others feel, they are part of a triadic color scheme so they make logical sense to put together.

    Once a rough draft of the logo is made is when I would start playing around with typography. I would most likely use a sans serif font, as that is typography that has been linked to many effective advertisements. It is known as a "friendly" font and does not seem formal. I also think that this would look great on both print and digital media, and I would want consistency through anywhere the subscription would be marketed. To add a little more depth for established brand recognition, I would use Adobe Illustrator to create a complete custom font that still falls with the guidelines of sans serif. Going back to color, the tagline would stay in black, as I still want it to have a modern, simple style.

    Creating a brand from scratch is difficult and takes time. In addition to looking at market trends and being able to differentiate the company from competitors, one also needs to be able to stay true to who they are. I feel as though when I look at a logo I rarely think about how much work actually went into the design. Between color psychology and the need to fit a whole company's identity into an image, there is a lot of thought and back and forth before there is a final product. I feel as though I will now start to look at logos with new eyes and appreciate either the simplicity or the complexity that went into the design aspect.