As our start for Semester Two, our first guest lecture featured Derek Yates, a course leader for BA (Hons) Advertising and Brand Design at Ravensbourne University. The focus of his lecture was looking at case studies of brands like Nike, Oatly, iPlayer Kids, Adidas Palace, TNT Sports, EA Sports FC, etc., and how these brands use composition, text, shapes, and style to create the desired impression for their target audience.

Branding Principles into what makes a successful brand:

• What? What happens
• How? How does it happens
• Why? Why does it happens

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Case Studies

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Nike

Logo

Branding

A representative example brought up by Derek to explain the definition of branding is ‘Nike’. Their marketing strategies involved invested millions of dollars to associate their brand names with easily recognisable athletes to build their brand image. The iconic “Just Do It” campaign and branding slogan also delivers the message that anyone can be influenced in becoming an athlete.

iPlayer Kids

Set of Behaviours

Tone of Voice

iPlayer Kids is targeted to a younger demographic, so the vibe and style present in their videos are childish and exaggerated, featuring large movement and shapes that are easily recognisable for young children. Their logo uses soft body physics to create a unique layout that reminisces of kids playing. The ‘Kids’ crashing into the rest of the logo shows through both the actions and its words how the ‘Kids’ logo is presented with a set of behaviours belonging to a kid and their effects on their surroundings when they play in real life.

Burger King

A Purpose

Starting Point for a Design Feature

Burger King’s advertisement video showcases a mass amount of animated words to emphasise actions that could be interpreted. Combined with a mix of graphic illustrations, it brings variation to its visual flow. An example of this design feature can be seen through the deformed transition on the word “drool,” which assigns an important aim of their branding in the message of their product that will provide a promising delicious meal. It is also incorporated into their logo as well, with stacking the key ingredients of a burger and squishing them out of the logo. It shows the multipurpose of their logo and forever links its image with burgers, both visually and in its name.

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Game World

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For this exercise we had to use the principles listed above to try and create a short sentence to explain our game concisely.

Define…

• A game proposition - What? → Leave the comfort of your homeland to uncover the real truths of this world
• The feel ****of your game - How? → Exploration into the lively biomes through slow-paced steps by acts of interaction and communicate with the outside world
• Your games purpose - Why? → Discovery in seeking the mystery’s answers and creating your own interpretation of the story

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Feedback

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We had a 1-to-1 talk with Derek where we talked about our game, its name, how we chose the name, and what the name means.

Derek gave us some advice on possible layouts for our logo. Using the keyword from our game title, ‘beyond’, and our game premise of leaving your homeland to explore. Derek identified ‘looking beyond’ as the core premise that then linked into 'horizon’.

• Horizon line
• Having our logo reflected on a horizon line
• Sun rises across
• The logo rising in an arc to reveal itself

Reflection