The first step taken in early design prototyping was to put together some visual mood boards for each potential logo which would serve as a rough guide moving forward, looking at current and existing brands in each sector to determine what would be the best approach. Looking at elements such as colours used and what they represent, what typefaces are used and the emotions attached to them, also the types of shapes and design elements used to make logos and brand assets.
The EcoFuture brand was the first brief which was looked at, and the research phase started with looking at the approaches that competitors had taken and looking at what other styles other companies had adopted. The first element that stood out was the colours used, so brands that focused more on the green energy sides used shades of green to emphasize new beginnings, the connection to the earth and environmental consciousness, some of the energy competitors are more focused on the energy side of the business and these companies tend to opt for a blue and purple colour palette, as blues can be an energizing colour and can convey a sense of trustworthiness and professionalism. The designs looked at take a modern yet organic approach with the common theme in typography; they all use modern and timeless sans serif which again, convey a sense of professionalism.
Looking into branding for Cab-E online and some competitors, I soon realised that there were a lot less and the ones I could find had a wide range of different approaches. Looking at more traditional taxi firms a lot of the colours used would be shades of black and yellow and this was in reference to the famous yellow taxi colour, being prominent in modern media and also being the primary palette of taxis in a lot of countries. When it comes to taxi service companies I found that they are changing in today’s world, with older firms, being very traditional in the yellow and black palette with condensed bold typefaces, where as the modern approach to taxi services seems to go in a different direction; which is a much more bespoke look, with bold colours and geometric and futuristic typography which can be seen in large competitors like Uber and Lyft.
The InfluentHull research was a little bit different from the rest, it began looking at competitors but I soon found that many of the competitors looks completely different and this is because although they are business consultancy’s, they are more in focus with their audience and the brand heritage, McKinsey and Fuel use dark blues and greens with serif typefaces which convey a sense of traditionalism and trustworthiness, yet Mercer and Boston Consulting Group use brighter colours with a bold and modern sans serif to convey a sense of youthfulness and mordernism.
The final brief I intend to move forward with is EcoFuture, and shown above is a stylescape I have designed to encapture the vision of the project; A stylescape is a much more in depth type of moodboard I’m a horizontal mode which shows the flow of project, with one side showing more of a vision suited to the earth, plants and sustainability and the other side focusing more on the future and technology. A collection of imagery textures, colours and typography which will set the foundations of what the EcoFuture brand will look like.
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