Overview

During Multi-Platform Delivery, The Boxpark Sushi branding project came into fruition. During this month, not only was the logo for Boxpark Sushi was developed, but also a series of media assets and a brand guide to establish guidelines and preserve the brand for years to come.

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming

During the month of May, a series of reading and video tutorials were used as guides for the development of the logo, media assets, and brand guides. David Airey’s book Logo Design Love proved to be most useful. Airey discusses the guidelines for creating Effective Logo Design. Keep it Simple, Make it Relevant, Aim for Distinction, Commit to Memory, Think Small, and Focus on One Thing (Airey, 2015).  The Article on How to Proceed with Sketching of logo Design by Henna Ray was also extremely beneficial. It is important to always design a logo in one color first before adding color (Ray, 2018). Particular connections in effective logo design were made. Task 1: Logo Concept Development really pushed me from my original generic ideas into a unique distinctive design that sets into a motion the groundwork for an effective brand identity.

Problem Solving

During Multi-Platform Delivery, The Boxpark Sushi branding problem emerged when working to keep all design elements constant with the messaging developed in previous classes. Boxpark Sushi is a friendly, community driven restaurant who strives to only serve fresh and healthy options. Creating a brand that communicates all these things at the same time was difficult at times. Concepts #33 and #23 meet the majority of Airey’s elements of effitice logo design, but it deviated from the brand’s messaging and look and feel. In order to maintain the brand’s mission and communication identity it was decided to develop the concept #27 into a full-fledged visual identity.

The second iteration of the logo not only added color, but added a border that encloses the logo into a 1970’s style encapsulated logo. This also creates a background that will ensure the logo will remain legible over the bold patterns of the identity. Overall, the new logo clearly communicates the brand attributes, Friendly, Community, and Fresh & Healthy.

The friendly attribute is communicated with the bold colors and hand written type. The Community attribute is communicated with the existing culture behind 1970’s beach vibes. And the fresh & healthy attribute is communicated with the natural tones in the logo, along with the background information that fresh fish comes from the ocean.

Innovative Thinking

During this course I believe my creative process has evolved into something better. I have always known the process begins with research, then thumbnailing, then digitization, and finally a brand guide. During this course and the previous, I have learned I never was going deep enough. Henna Ray writes in How to Proceed with Sketching of logo Designabout how before you can ever begin, you have to fully understand your brand (Ray, 2018). Brand is not the element you are about to create, but the story behind the company, their mission, their voice and tone, their attributes. Knowing the company inside and out before you start is vital.

During this project, I knew the Boxpark Sushi inside and out, and therefore, I created an innovative solution that fits the needs of Boxpark Sushi.

During my process, I refined and developed the visual identity. For example, at first I had the Retroking typeface used for headers, but while designing the media assets in practice I determined this was not working, so I updated this on my brand guide. The brand now uses a series of the Avenir typeface.

Acquiring Competencies

	Academic	Occupational
Technical	Master pages – a nonprinting page that you can use as the template for the rest of the pages in your document. Issuu – A digital publishing platform that can be use to display multiple page documents.	Clear space – Specific and scalable space around a logo to ensure it keeps its legibility and impact. Post-Mortem – Analysis at the end of design project to evaluate what you could do better in the future.
Conceptual	Airey’s Elements of iconic design – Keep it Simple, Make it Relevant, Aim for Distinction, Commit to Memory, Think Small, and Focus on One Thing	Project Management – The practice of managing multiple projects at multiple different phases.Production Plan – A plan for design production used to schedule deadlines for the designer and client.

References:

Airey, D. (2015). Logo design love: a guide to creating iconic brand identities. New Riders.

Ray, H. (2018, March 10). How To Proceed With Sketching Of Logo Design. Retrieved March 27, 2020, from https://www.designhill.com/design-blog/how-to-proceed-with-sketching-of-logo-design/