Core Concepts- Exercise 23: Chance Housing Association
The Chance Housing Association has been set up to try and help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder and they want you to develop a brand image for their stationery.
It is important to them that the Association is seen as being different from the other local housing associations – more modern, more helpful and definitely welcoming to young people wanting to buy a house.
They want to use their logo on their letterheads and office stationery and it will also be used somewhere on the sheets that hold the property details. It also needs to be reproducible in the local newspaper and professional trade magazines.
• Research other housing associations’ and estate agents’ styles. Look at other publications designed for a similar audience. This information should help you identify as much what you don’t want to do as what you do.
• If this was a real job you would need to visit the housing association’s offices and website, if it has one, to see how many decisions they have already made – for example they may have painted their sign silver and dark blue and used a particular font. As the designer you may want to continue with and develop those decisions or change them.
• Using just typography sketch up some designs. You want to come up with at least three initial ideas to show the client. In this instance you can decide which one you think works best to further develop.
• Mock up a letterhead and business card using the logo and house brand. Look in you local newspaper and mock up an advertisement to fit in the paper. Measure the space carefully remembering to leave sufficient margins so your text isn’t cramped. Photocopy in black and white onto cheap paper – does your logo still work? Have any fine lines got lost? Are the differences between colours still discernable?
• Show your designs to your friends and family. What is their feedback?
• If you need to, go back and adjust your artwork. If all is well make up a presentation pack to show the client – in this instance your tutor.
I began this task by looking at various estate agents, local, national and international. A common theme between them was similar imagery, the obvious and most affective is sometimes best, in this case, a house. Many of the logos include silhouettes or simple illustrations of a house, this tells the viewer that they’re an estate agent immediately without any more information.
The use of colour throughout my research was interesting, similar colour palettes were used and there were little to no variations from them. Green and blue hues were used, perhaps this is because they are calming ‘easy’ colours to look at that provide comfort, rather than energy like a pink for example. This makes them good colours for an estate agents as their customers would want to feel ‘in safe hands’ when dealing with moving house.
The few that did vary, used a deep red or yellow colour. The yellow compliments the red, or contrasts with another colour such as green. For me, the red and yellow is less affective than the greens as it provides a different feel. The use of a darker red, does have a more calming feel but to me is quite sinister.
When considering the target audience for my logo, they are young and would be attracted to a modern, simple logo. This makes me wonder whether colour is the best way to go? I will test between colours and black and white. The Purple Bricks logo is most affective in my opinion, it is simple and presents the companies ideals, the purple is a ‘royal’ colour and implies that their service will be of the best standard.
I tested with different fonts. I decided to use a sans serif font, as they are modern, simple, easily legible and would appeal to a young audience. I produced various versions to see how they work together.
They began quite bold, which initially I thought would be affective, but comparing next to thinner fonts, this is not the case. I continued testing between the best 3 combinations. To design an interesting but simple logo from just type is difficult, but again inspired by Frere Jones’ methods of taking typography apart, I looked at the letters in individual parts, and sketched a few ideas (along with other potential illustrated versions.)
When breaking the type into pieces, I played around with it to see what shapes I could come up with, I began to create a shape that resembled a person. I continued in the style of the previous logo as I thought it was affective, but this didn’t work out very well. When looking back at the design, it isn’t clear that it is a person, and lacks the appealing professional feel. Overall the design doesn’t work for an estate agents.
My chosen fonts for this logo were Helvetica Neue regular, and light. The combination works well, it looks professional and easily legible. From my initial sketches I wanted to further develop an idea to create a house from the parts of the letters in ‘CHA’ (Chance Housing Association.) From my research, it was obvious that in this case the more obvious iconography was the best, a house is immediately recognised as an estate agents without further explanation. The brief explains that it must be modern, helpful and appeal to young people, I felt like keeping a minimal logo (and from my research) would look modern and appeal to a young audience. I felt that blue and green colours provide a calming sense, and was debating between these and a more modern black and white style. I will test with mock ups and see which works.
I looked at various business card and letter head layouts to get some inspiration for how to have continuity between them. The layout for the letterhead must be professional and simple, the same for the business card. The newspaper advert must also present Chance Housing as appealing for young people.
Newspaper Advert:
When printing in black and white, i realised something I hadn’t considered when producing the advert in colour, the top part was white, which would appear as blank when printing, leaving the logo bare at the top which looked unbalanced. I went back to my design, and began to test with different options.
I decided that simplicity was best. Instead of packing the advert with information, I wanted to present the viewer with a question that tied into the brand ‘Thinking of selling? Your best chance is here” in Helvetica regular. The companies contact details are listed clearly below, using Helvetica thin font, the same as the logo.
I used the blue and white theme, instead of inverting the logo onto a blue background, I separated the blue and white into sections, which will hopefully print better in black and white.
After a few test prints and changes, I decided that the full blue background worked best and reproduced well. The logo and information stands out against the blue or black background, and is easily legible, the design is simple, modern and hopefully could attract young people.
Mock ups:
Feedback:
I showed my designs to some family and friends, asking their initial thoughts, and then asked some specific questions that I wanted feedback on because I wasn’t too sure whether certain elements of the logo were as affective as I’d liked. The questions were:
Is the logo visible from far away, can it be read/understood easily?
How does the colour make you feel?
Is the thinner font easily legible to you?
Feedback 1:
“Looks pretty professional, something you could actually see on a board outside someones house.”
“Yeah, the bigger chance bit is clear, you can tell it’s for an estate agent from the house.”
“I like the colour, it looks professional, like a bank or something.”
“The thinner fonts fine, I’m not sure about reading it from a letter from further away though.”
Feedback 2:
“It’s simple, but I think it works, business card looks nice.”
“Looks fine to me, with glasses on I can see it fine at least.”
“It’s quite a dark blue but it looks nice.”
“I mean I can read it, looks clear to me.”
Feedback 3:
“Why’s it called ‘Chance?’ I like the blue.”
“The house looks a bit plain, you can see it and get it’s an estate agents though.”
“I like the colours, works mate.”
“Yeah, I can read it fine.”
I was quite pleased with my feedback, although it’s obviously non technical, it gives me confidence that the logo could potentially work. I am glad that the thinner font is legible, I wasn’t sure whether this worked. The blue I am also happy about I wanted it to seem professional and modern. The feedback wasn’t very critical, looking back at my questions I feel I should’ve asked what people don’t like or feel works about the logo.
Presentation Pack:
I was looking for pre made simple presentation packs with specific elements in them such as having a letter and business cards, but this was hard to find. I used various mock up packages to create this final version, and also learnt about the use of shadows to create the mock up pack.
I wanted to present the logo at different angles, so showed it on the pencil, very small and facing downwards to see if it’s still legible, you have to look closely but I feel as if it is.
Overall I am quite pleased with my final branding result as I haven’t designed any logos before, but I feel that my final designs lack the ‘professional’ appearance and feel.
I think that the logo is modern, and presents well to a younger audience but looking back at my work there are some elements I may change. I am unsure whether the ‘Chance’ text is too large and the ‘Housing Association’ is too small, also whether the simplicity of the logo using elements of the typeface really works to the brief, as it is no longer obvious that it has been created using elements of the letters.
I hope to improve how affective my designs are at communicating certain ideas (in this case being modern and to appeal to a younger audience) with future logo/branding design tasks.
