Category: IDES 320

Phase 5: Grading/Report/Evaluation

This whole mentorship was an amazing experience, and I can’t thank Car, Janice, and Shanene enough for dedicating their time to mentor me! I’ve learned so much in the span of 1.5 months, and it’s crazy how fast it went by.

The main thing I learned through this mentorship, and something I hope to further continue to work on is to push out lots and lots of content. Whether it is logo sketches or digital explorations, seeing a lot of variation can really help the process of weeding out the bad, and finding the good.

Another big thing I realized is my weakness in presenting. Although in this case, it could’ve been just a lack of preparedness on my behalf, as I have a tendency to work hard on my deliverables up until the day before the presentation, which leaves me with no energy to focus on my presentation. I think proper time management could fix this for me in the future, allocating time to practice, rehearse, and revise the presentation.

I really enjoyed working with industry creatives during this mentorship, and I think this was one of the most valuable experiences I had so far in the program. I was definitely nervous at the beginning, as I really didn’t want to disappoint my mentors, but all three of them were so nice and supportive that I felt a lot more comfortable after the first meeting!

I had a fun time during the first few weeks as well when I was working in the office on Mondays, and after that experience, I think I realized that I would want to work in an agency setting, rather than freelance as I really liked the office culture and being able to work with a variety of people. I really appreciated that Car pushed me to keep going throughout this whole mentorship, even though I struggled through some phases where I thought I couldn’t execute anymore. It was also nice getting to know the IDEA grads, Shanene and Janice, who talked to me about their about post-grad life and transitioning to the workforce!

I’m excited to work on this project this summer, to really perfect and tighen it for fourth-year portfolios!

Phase 4: Rationalise/Articulate/Sell April 22

I presented my final project to part of the creative team at cossette over Google Hangouts, which was (super duper) nerve-racking!

Some good notes: I think my deliverables were executed well, and I was happy with where this concept took me. I had a lot of fun working on this project in recent weeks, even doing some animation at the end which was nice.

Some things I need to fix: I always find it difficult to find the balance between under-explaining and over-explaining, and this was unfortunately apparent in my presentation skills. I think my lack of preparation was evident, as I caught myself reading off of my slides. I think my final deliverables were executed well, and I was happy with where the final pathway took me. I had a lot of fun working on this project in recent weeks, even doing some animation which was nice.

It was great to show my project to a group who hasn’t seen it before, as each creative that joined my presentation had a new insight and comment. I’m excited to work on this project throughout the summer, working off of the feedback I got from them!

After the presentation, Car and Shanene spent a few minutes going over some more critiques on my final deliverables as well as my presentation skills. Car gave me some presentation tips by showing me how they would present my slides, and listening to them present really helped me understand how a good presentation is set. Hopefully, my presentation to our class will be a lot better after going through this first run.

For this phase, I give myself an 8/10, as I could’ve prepared more to deliver my presentation stronger, which would’ve calmed my nerves a lot more. I am really happy with the place I brought the execution of this project to, but this day was a good reminder that in order to communicate a good idea, it must also be presented just as well.

Phase 3: Push/Refine March 19-April 22

After pitching four concepts to my mentors, we selected two pathways to digitally execute: one around the concept of pathways, and one around the concept of connection. Ironically, one was a logo I sketched in the first batch, and one was a logo I sketched in the last batch. (This really proves the 1 to 100 theory!)

Phase 3 was a lot of fun, being able to see my sketches come alive with colour, photography, and typography. The challenge was to digitally execute the two concepts at once, as I wasn’t used to double the typical workload. This is what would happen in real life when pitching to a client in real life, so it was good practice for myself, as well as a good opportunity to test the ideas against each other.

Concept 1: Connections

Concept 2: Pathways

The majority of phase 3 had me exploring both concepts in-depth, while I held the constant uncertainty of whether I would be bringing two concepts to the table at the end of this mentorship, or if I had to be the one to speak out on pursing just one direction. My indecisive self thought that maybe both could work for the longest time until the point came where I could see that one concept was stronger than the other.

After going through multiple rounds of digital exploration for each pathway, I decided to move forward with the concept of connection, which my mentors also agreed with saying that it was my stronger idea. It was nice to narrow down into one concept, as I could now spend 100% of my time on perfecting it.

Some notes I had on improving concept 1 were:

• to change the typeface; the current one looks vintage and this brand leans more towards being modern
• colours also look a little muted, which creates a vintage tone
• getting rid of the weaker brand visual language I tried out (the type in the circle, the frame) as they don’t relay the concept of connection

After choosing the final direction for this project, I worked with Shanene on finding the right font for the brand, and with Janice on developing the visual language. It was great to sit down one on one with both of them to really nail the brand’s base components.

Shanene and I hunted online for the perfect sans serif typeface, which was difficult as they either had too much personality, or none at all.

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Janice and I explored the art direction of the brand, brainstorming how “connections” could be portrayed using the brand’s assets. We also looked into how the logo could translate to the icons used by the brands as well

For this phase, I give myself an 8.5/10. I think I could’ve executed more iterations for everything, but under the circumstance of having other projects, I think I did an okay amount. I particularly struggled with nailing the typeface and colours in this project, which did slow down some of my work processes. Overall though, I’m excited to see how far I can push this project out before the end of this mentorship, now that I can focus just on perfecting one concept! Again, lots of thanks to Car, Janice, and Shanene who are the best mentors I could’ve asked for.

Digital Exploration of the 2 Pathways

Phase 2: Imagine/Ideate/Explore March 2-19

I’ve never sketched so many logos in my life!!

I struggled through the initial part of this phase because it really forced me to get rid of some of my unproductive logo ideation habits. Before, I would sketch small logos with a pencil and draw as cleanly as possible. I also had a continuous struggle with creating logos that were too literal, which I think I overcame in this mentorship.

After bringing in my first round of sketches, all three of my mentors told me that my sketches were way too clean and that what’s most important is whether the idea comes across clearly or not. I was told to use big sheets of paper and permanent pens or markers to sketch onwards, which really helped me loosen up and ideate at a quicker pace. They also pointed out that I got too caught up in logo ideas around roads/road signs inspired off of the name, and recommended I explore other avenues.

For the next 3 weeks, this logo-marathon continued as my brain cells slowly dwindled away, but it felt rewarding to find a golden nugget logo in the last few sketches. I am really thankful that my mentors kept pushing me when I thought was my limit but also helping me with group brainstorms when I hit a roadblock!

After I finally ended my logo ideation stage, I began developing buckets (1 bucket = 1 concept) of ideas.

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The team recommended I also sketching ideas for hoarding (also known as wild postings) as I sketch out more logos for each bucket, which is a series of posters that demonstrate a brand’s visual language. The devices that are used in the hoarding could essentially be applied to any medium.

This was also around the time when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and although I would’ve loved to continue working at the office on Mondays, it wasn’t too difficult to adjust to the google hangout calls with my mentors!

After determining my buckets of ideas, Janice and Shanene showed me some of their old concept pitches to explain the formating I should follow for my next presentation. What was most interesting was cossette’s way of presenting a concept’s value/personality. My mentors mentioned how people perceive words differently, and that by adding a visual, it can portray how we interpret the trait as a designer.

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One thing I struggled to do while building this deck was to make sure that my moodboards were cohesive in style. Usually, my moodboards are for me, or for an instructor who I can explain my thinking to. When building a deck for a “client”, my mentors mentioned how it is important to have a strong, cohesive moodboard that can visually represent how each concept would be executed. Making the moodboard took a lot longer than I expected!

I give myself a 9/10 for this phase, as I initially had a slow start to getting my ideas rolling, but I think in the end, I pushed out a lot more sketches than I had anticipated. After improving my ideation process, sketching for my other projects has also gone a lot quicker and smoother than before too! There was a lot of learning in this phase, and I think I adapted well to my mentor’s method of approaching a project.

Sketches

Concept Pitches

Phase 1: Listen, Gather, Define Feb 24–March 2

For this mentorship project, I had the amazing opportunity to work with Car Beddice, who is an Associate Creative Director at Cossette, and IDEA alumnae Janice Callangan (Grad 17) and Shanene Lau (Grad 18)!

At our first meeting, I was able to show my portfolio and get some really amazing feedback from my three mentors. They helped point out some things my portfolio is missing; one was showing how a brand could extend onto different mediums using a visual language.

They also gave me the option to work at the office on Mondays from 9-5, which ended up being an amazing experience! It helped me focus during the time I spent there, so I was able to show my progress and receive feedback at the beginning and end of the day. Plus, I got to know my mentors better, and was blessed weekly by the office dogs!

The three ideas I pitched to the team the following week were:

1. Inkswell is a tattoo boutique owned by a daughter of a classically trained calligrapher, who creates one of a kind calligraphy tattoos that have an exquisite meaning and look.
2. Roundabout is a community-oriented hostel in Vancouver that is targeting millennial solo travellers and urban explorers, who want to travel for unique and local experiences at an affordable cost.
3. Mush! is a luxury dog food brand based and made in Canada that uses locally sourced and ethically farmed ingredients to help raise dogs to be strong and healthy like the arctic sled dogs.

The team thought Roundabout and Mush! were interesting, and I ended up going with Roundabout.

The next step was doing a visual audit, which I initially mistook as competitive analysis, but learned that a visual audit is more about looking at the competitor’s visual language and brand. I continued on after developing the written aspects of the brand, such as insight, essence, characteristics, etc.

For this phase, I give myself an 8.5/10 because I got the deliverables done quickly, but I should’ve asked my mentors in advance about what format they usually do the brand development in, as I had to alter some of the work I did so that it follows the team’s usual workflow. I learned that asking questions is super important so I can deliver properly to their expectations.

Next up: all the fun stuff imagining, ideating, and exploring in phase 2!

Creative Brief

Visual Audit and Brand Development

This was the first time I really struggled with creating a mood board; probably because of the lack of direction, I had for my personal branding. There was initially a gap between just gathering design content that I liked, versus gathering design content that I would want to be recognized from.

I found that it was very valuable to get others to look at these mood boards, and write down keywords that they think of while looking at these images. The list I have gathered from my peers has helped me gain a clearer idea of my qualities and what differentiates me.

After creating the mood boards and gaining my keywords, I believe I have a strong foundation to work off of, and come back to when I am lost in the process of creating my personal branding.

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