Brand Plan and Design

In the first week of our course (ICM 502 Visual Design) we explored branding and the different steps it takes to create a brand plan. Visual Design in the corporate world means creating unique markings or logos and brand visuals that identify specific companies. Part of this week’s lesson was to choose a local store to analyze, create a competitive analysis, and a rebranding package by putting together a brand plan. The deliverables this week were 4-6 logos for the company, a mood board, and the brand plan. I chose a music store here in Orlando called “Bass Central. Bass Central is a mom-and-pop store that specializes in selling bass guitars and also offer other instruments, music equipment, and gear.

The project began with the research phase in which I audited which companies are direct competitors to Bass Central, then created a competitive analysis for each company. This included evaluations of communications, Verbal considerations, visual style, and questions about brand uniformity across platforms and about communications. In this phase I found Sam Ash, Guitar Center, and another small music store Allegro to be the main competitors. Research also included defining what the project stands for by asking a series of 10 questions that help create a clearer picture as to what the project and its purpose are. It also included researching the audience that would find interest or need to shop at Bass Central as well as ways to show data collected from audience polls, and through collecting data from primary and secondary research.

The second phase was the design phase. I was tasked with created a series of potential logo ideas, and a mood board for the company. I noticed that every company (including Bass Central) had used red and black as the primary colors for their corporate brand. I decided that to keep with the competition, the primary colors for Bass Central should stay black and red. When creating a mood board, I tried using different fonts mostly composed of san serifs that could give Bass Central a more modern look. I also created a mood board that showed different fonts for Bass Central, as well as the two primary colors for the brand: red and black. It also showed the logos for the other companies that directly compete with Bass Central. During this phase I also created the Brand Plan. The Brand plan included all the data collected during the research phase, as well as information about the store itself, and my plan to re brand Bass Central.

This week’s project was interesting in that it had so many components that made up the whole which was the brand plan. There was a lot of information to gather at the start, but that information later helped when putting the project together. I see this plan or proposal as a great way to show a business what you are capable of in a professional way and if done right could be beneficial to the client company as well as the designer by providing experience in branding or rebranding a company.