OUGD603 - Degree Show Branding - Evaluation and Ethical Considerations

Evaluation:

In evaluating our final concept and designs, it was considered that the idea of bringing a limited selection of colours and shapes together to form a bespoke typeface works well to reflect the concept of diversity and community in the creative industry, and works effectively to avoid the problems associated with assigning a specific colour and shape to each individual course. This typeface then was also still able to be utilised to form the names of each individual course in a consistent style throughout the branding material and continue to show diversity.

However, it was also considered that the typeface may not have worked as effectively for some of the longer course names, which would have needed to be broken up and hyphenated more often, or made a smaller size. This may have then reduced the legibility of the type and limited size consistency throughout the rest of the branding material.

In addition, although the idea and reasoning behind incorporating pictogram style human figures into the designs was valid and considered, perhaps these made the overall design look almost gimmicky. Would the designs have been more effective without these? Upon reflection, the typeface was probably strong enough to be able to work effectively in its own right.

However, despite this, it was thought that the concept of diversity and community was strong and worked well in representing the nature and values of the university itself. This idea was enhanced by the decision to utilise the university's existing brand colours into the designs, which helped to tie the degree show branding concept to the university itself nicely, whilst in their colour variations also continued to represent the idea of diversity, as well as creating an effective break amongst the use of blue which we established as the main colour for this branding.

Ethical Considerations:

As a part of the branding concept it was decided to incorporate pictogram-esque style human figures which were placed amongst the type in order to communicate the idea of a community of creatives coming together for the last time in the end of year show, as well as the idea of collaboration. These figures were produced using the colour black in order to create colour consistency amongst the designs and colour schemes, as well as a colour which we thought worked most effectively to stand out amongst the type and the coloured background. However, the second part of our concept was to represent diversity throughout the university, and so the use of this colour may have been considered by some as not representational of everyone, so limits the idea of diversity. To improve, perhaps these figures could have utilised a more abstract colour that could not be associated to anyone in particular, or use more of a range of colours.