Library Rebrand Project
Researching & Planning
For this project I did a mixture of online and in person research. When I began my research I focused on the librariesNi own wesbite and social media to see what exactly the library offered and how they were advertising this to the users. By knowing what the library offered I could more easily create a unique selling point for the sub-brand that I wanted to create, after this I focused on finding reviews to see how users of the library were reacting to what was available and if there was anything they felt was lacking. For my in person research I visited my local library to see what demographics were using the library the most and to see how the library was advertising it’s events and services physically. I interviewed a few people while I was there to see why and how they use the library, I found that most people were told about the library in primary school with some even being signed up for a library card at this time.
Initial Ideas
From my initial research I decided to focus on a creating a brand for younger children, aged 4-8, as I found that they were the demographic that I saw in the library the least. The library also had a lot of events happening for children and an area within the library designated for children, but from my observations it was clear that these were not being advertised to the audience as effectively as they could have been, especially to the younger target audience as most of the posters and brochures were very text heavy. The amount of advertisements also suggested that there wasn’t a lot of younger users coming to the library and that the library were trying to bring a younger audience in.
Sketching
For this project as it was split into 2 parts, creating the brand and applying the branding, a lot of the sketching for this project happened during the planning for the app and landing page for the library.
While creating the brand the main things I sketched out my ideas for were the logo and wordmark designs and the mascot design as I knew I wanted the brand to have a more fun and playful element that could appeal more directly to the younger target audience.
Creating Digital Versions
After I had created my initial sketches and had versions that I was happy with, I moved onto to create them in figma.
Even though I knew roughly what I wanted these to look like, once I created the first versions in figma there was a lot of experimentation and different versions that I had to create until I had designs that I thought were effective and conveyed the feeling that I wanted them to have.
For the logo a lot of the experimentation was to do with the weight of the font that was used within it, after I got the shape I wanted then I created multiple different versions using the brand colours in different ways to see which looked the best but also to see which colour choice was the most accessible and easy to understand.
The mascot design had even more colour variations than the main logo as it had a lot more separate elements that could change, but I knew that I wanted the logo and mascot to match as I planned for them to be used interchangeably.
Feedback & Changes
My feedback for this some slight tweaks to the typography that I used on the library cards, I was also advised to use some of the other versions of the mascot that I created as other characters with different personalities so that they could be more interesting and fun for the users to see and interact with.
Final Outcome & Reflection
The final outcome design wise for the first part of this project was a style guide and the design of branded library cards. I also created a brand guidelines document that you can find here.
If I were to do this project again I would aim to include even more illustrations to maybe emphasise the different characters even more, I would also aim to add some animations as this was something I originally wanted to add but ultimately didn’t have time to do so.
Prototypes & Further Reading
For the second half of this project I also created different applications of my brand, this was an app and landing page. Both of these designs also got working prototypes, which you can find below: