Once Ceremonies Commission
The given brief was to help establish a small business by creating a brand and assets such as a logo, website, and digital and print media.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience and I am willing to expand my skills by helping others.
Firstly, I did some research on this field of business to get a sense of the atmosphere that I will be working with. I found that each celebrant is unique in how they make their ceremonies personal. I asked my client what they aim to put across to their audience such as their services. This helped to gather ideas for name and logo ideas.
I brainstormed these ideas through a mind map as I find that this is visually appealing and helps to see ideas written down.
Logo
Through communication, we initially decided on the name ‘Once Celebrants’ which I thought fitted the business well. After brainstorming initial ideas I thought I'd get started on creating the logo, so based on the information from the brief and the personality of my client I created these designs. I emailed over the designs for my client to choose from and informed them that I was open to ideas to adapt to. They chose the second design with font elements of the fourth design.
The brief states the colours pink, blue and purple. So I looked at various colour palettes with these colours as I knew I wanted a theme to carry throughout the assets within the business. As you can see here they chose palette number 1, so I got straight into using these colours with the chosen design to play around with.
I developed the designs of the logo by adding colour and experimenting with backgrounds. I took inspiration from logos both within the industry and outside the industry to see logo trends to make them appealing to the target audience.
After a mutual decision, we decided the logo needed an update….
So, I went back into the design and the mindmap to see what I could pick out to make a new design.
I wanted to include something that links with the business well to tie it together. I liked the idea of including rings in the logo to symbolise the meaning behind the business. After some designing I thought of combining the letters of the name into the rings to create the ‘O’ and the ‘C’ which I think ties into the logo nicely.
Once again I looked into background choices such as adding shadows and where carefully placing the colour. After communication back and forth we liked the standard black, white and grey tones which can be added onto a solid background colour, and we have chosen blue.
I researched other types of branding that would suit the business while taking into consideration the client, target audience and modern marketing strategies. We agreed to have a range of physical and digital types of advertisements such as printed banners, business cards, posters etc.
Furthermore, as the assets will be split from digital to printed I felt that I needed to change the colour palette due to the previous palette not being cmyk colours which would have meant that the colours would be printed out at a different shade. After informing the client of this they were okay to carry on and chose a new pallet (which was similar to the old one). They chose pallet six.
I updated the logo designs to this and we had a firm logo design for the business.
We made a slight change to the name during this as it sounded better so this was also adapted.
To create the logo and future assets I have (and will) use the affinity suite due to licences and I have used this software previously.
Moving on, I began to create some design ideas for the business card and the wireframe for the website.
I thought that I’d work alongside them together to keep the theme consistent.
Website
We decided to start working on the website as it would help decide what should go onto the other assets. After some communication about the website, my client expressed that they like symmetry, which is why they picked design 4. I then refined the design before implementing it into a website format.
I gave some options of website builders to use as this would be easier and more efficient. One of which was Wix; I explained the different plans available, which we could look at later on as I started creating the website for free. I started by carrying the wireframe design onto the site whilst using placeholders where the images and text would go.
I have briefly used Wix before so I am familiar with the layout of the software.
As you can see on the website so far (see screenshots presented), it is a rather simple design as I didn’t want to make it too complex. I used placeholder images of the logo temporarily whilst the client got back to me with appropriate images.
I advised about gathering images for me to input onto the website. We discussed copyright licences so that we both know that there will be no issues.
On the home page, the logo is introduced immediately so that it is recognisable to the audience. The toolbar is clear at the top as it stays in place throughout the site for the user to navigate. Whilst designing the site I integrated UX and UI to give a good user experience. I want to use imagery here to make it appealing to potential customers. On the home page, I wanted images to represent each section of the site with some information.
The rhetorical questions are what my client gave me as part of the information that they want on the site.
The website footer includes the main pages and relevant information as well as a map to explain a rough area of where they are based.
I originally had a contact form on this section, but due to sizing and being unfamiliar with this, I decided to take it out as it was too complicated to understand within this time frame.
As you can see, the other pages have similar layouts but are slightly different so that it doesn't look copied but also keeps the simplicity. I am rather happy with what has been done so far. Furthermore, I would like to conduct some research into website formats to see what’s more appealing.
A barrier that I ran into at this stage was the scaling on different devices and sizes. I believe that because I started from a blank canvas which meant I had to scale everything manually. After some research and many attempts, I thought that this was going to take up a lot of time (as it already had).
Assets
I had some thoughts and wondered what customers would be using more. I communicated this with my client and explained what was going wrong, so I suggested I work from what they thought their customers were going to use. They got back to me thinking that mobile would be most used. Because of this, I will start the website again which will be quicker as I know what I am doing.
I wanted to have a theme that ran through the assets. So I created some mock-up designs on business cards in Affinity using the colour palette as shown before. I sent over these designs to see which ones they liked best and chose designs 1 for the front and 8 for the back. With this in mind, I went back and recreated this design. So I used this to carry this through other assets to keep the consistency. I communicated with them about what assets they wanted. These assets will be used as digital and for print so I kept this in mind whilst creating them.
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| Business Card |
After looking at this I played around with the assets on affinity. I thought this was the best way rather than using time on drawing the designs beforehand. As you can see here the other assets use the same style.
I learned more about placement and sizing as its important for both digital and print media. I chose a font that I thought suited the business well.
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| Facebook Banner |
This is the original idea of a Facebook banner that i created for their Facebook page. As i had already created the business card I knew what content I wanted to include thats relevant to the business.
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| Roller Banner |
After researching about appropriate sizes I created a roller banner which i imagined would be displayed at shows and events. This imagery helped me to imagine what I would like to see and what would stand out if i was there. This helped to create this initial design.
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| Poster |
This is a poster design that I created for the assets. I carried across the theme and relevant information that can be found on other assets.
I think that the theme is consistent across the assets which is what brings the business together.
After looking back at the website and assets it came to my attention that it didn't stand out enough as much as I would like. After some thought, I realised that imagery is what brings the business together and captures people's attention. Moving on, I will adapt the website and assets by adding some imagery. I have communicated this opinion to them.
After some research, and trial and error I came to the conclusion that I needed to start again and I thought the best way to do this was to choose a template and mould it to how I wanted it to look. This made the scaling to adaptive views much easier as the templates already did this appropriately with ease.
So I chose a template that looked most similar to the wireframe I had created previously. I then filled in the relevant information from what my client had given me. This time was quicker and easier to fill in as I had everything already and I knew what I wanted it to look like.
I communicated about imagery previously and by this point, they had got back to me with some strong images that I could use on the site.
These images helped to bring the website one step closer to becoming complete. I added buttons that linked to other pages from the home page. This took some time as I had to understand the way in which Wix works by making the buttons look in place whilst on the different views. I successfully added the buttons that worked appropriately and fit in with the site. After I had added in the information and images where they should go, I adapted the tablet and mobile views to make the website look fitting on these devices, especially since we agreed mobile would be the most suitable for their audience.
These are the new business cards that I made. (front and back) The old is what I created in the last vlog, and the new is what is currently Once Celebrants. I wanted to include some more information on what the business offers which I think is more beneficial, as you can see in comparison.
I then focussed on the Facebook banner as it is quite similar to the business card. Again, I just rearranged what was placed and enlarged some of the words so that viewers can see this better. I looked into what the banner would look like on different devices as well as the operating systems as they appeared differently on the screens, I wanted to make sure the right information was being shown across all if not most devices.
Here is the poster design. As you can see I wanted to make it stand out more after thinking of the redesign to make it more appealing. I believe the imagery is what draws people's attention which is key for advertising. I chose a suitable image that went with the design. I also adjusted the content to stand out to viewers more. I adapted the relevant contact information with the correct QR code set at the right size.
I also created the roller banner based off of the assets that I had already created. I didn’t want to make it the same style as the others, so I changed the style whilst keeping the theme consistent. I did some research and looked at roller banners to see the sizes of the content.
I successfully created a website and assets for the Once Ceremonies business.
My client is happy with everything that I produced for their business.
I chose and stuck with a theme that ran through the assets to link everything together.
I communicated with them efficiently and effectively throughout to give updates and inform them of what was going on. I provided relevant information and options for them to choose from.
My Client Appraisal:
Review
Lisa Abel
Lisa has been professional, dedicated and creative in building the website and assets for my company. She has communicated effectively throughout the process and is always approachable and respectful of my views. Lisa has worked tirelessly to create a website and assets that I am proud to have as the face of my business. Her ideas have allowed my original brief to evolve into an artistic creation that captures both me and my business.
It has been a pleasure to work with Lisa, from beginning to end. Her dedication to produce first class work is commendable and her diligence is outstanding. Thank you Lisa.
A message to Tracey:
I have thoroughly enjoyed designing and creating the assets for your Once Ceremonies business, it has been an absolute pleasure. I wish you all the best in the future.
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