# Branding Inspiration - 5 New Identities REVIEWED (May 2022)

Channel: Flux Academy
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EupmgdwGFkE
Duration: 25 min
Language: English
Words: 4108
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/EupmgdwGFkE

---

[0:00] in this video i'm going to cast my eye over five recently released brand identity projects to see what we can learn we're going to get straight into it today but first let me just say welcome to flux academy to those of you who are new my name is matt i'm a designer from the north of england so here we go number one jodrell bank by johnson banks don't get those confused i can see why this client chose this agency but this is very close to me just down the road south of manchester is this huge telescope and it's part of the university of manchester and you can do tours there

[0:34] it's kind of thing i might take my kids along to do on the weekend and it's well known in the area but this incredible level telescope is here and you can see in these before images that are here there's not really an identity it's quite non-descript it says here underwhelming to say the least yeah we've kind of got this humanist sans but apart from that there's no real identity and there's no real personality so it's a good move to bring in an established agency like johnson banks i got some of michael johnson's books on the bookshelf there he's he's a legend in in branding this agency from london

[1:14] and definitely check out his books but let's have a look we've got this telescope and this is the the big center of this whole institute of astronomy and so this became the initial inspiration for the work and i like how they've shared here some of their original just early explorations of how we're going to use the dish shape and and do something with it and you can see it begin to come together using the geometry of the disk disk dish and this is what they ended up with this symbol that is is moving just like the telescope moves it can always move but it can freeze for a static

[1:56] version and they use it here that there can be transitions as it goes to the vertical or horizontal state you see there the image just changes in the background apparently that creates a hypnotic effect i'll let you be the judge of that but here are the three core logos so it's a dynamic logo but it there are certain approved solid static shapes or versions that are used and you can see how these become useful because here we have this very vertical layout on the left on the red background so the narrower logo works well in that sort of orientation you see the colour scheme that they've used here very much with

[2:39] this dark night sky on a lot of the backgrounds which makes sense and they step red and blue but they're used in a very restrained way often kind of black and white with one accent colour and these are the elements the building blocks they call them of the scheme the photography style these collage compositions the rings that are used as overlays graphical devices and portals these masking using this disc shape in these different orientations now you see how this becomes to come together here with these headlines and now it feels like an identity it feels like they have something to say with these bold headlines bold type and bold copywriting make

[3:28] space for everyone i get it my kids would like that joke so we get these elements you can begin to see how it looks here and there's a bit of a retro feel you know this telescope's been around for a while and that makes sense and you can see these elements in these applications how this might work on a poster these collages and these masking when you wish upon a quasar okay i nearly burst into song there and thought better of it come and snoop on your neighbors i like that this is this is becoming a lot more appealing rather than just thinking of being some

[4:07] academic institution and the fact they want to open it up to the public and they've really um presented themselves in that way and more of an exciting thing and brought that into it uh that was lacking before and johnson banks um encourage you to check out the word there's links to all these projects mentioned today in the description they're really good at telling the story and getting to the essence of what a brand's about and that's why the strategy process is so important not just creating great looking visuals this that's where these ideas come through we carry on circling through this they're the simple elements the color

[4:45] scheme and the type really do a lot of the heavy lifting here but lots of relevant applications and just giving it a lot more quality a lot more confidence and a definite identity which i like not sure about these plates and such maybe pushing it a little bit much they have included a little bit of the brand guidelines here and this is a really helpful thing if you're learning how to create identity designs a lot of studios will feature some of the brand guidelines in their case studies and this can help you not only with your knowledge of how to present brand guidelines but also know what

[5:26] you're working towards have the the end in mind with your design so very cool that they've included a little bit of this there's a video here so check that out at your leisure but as always really great work with lots of personality and storytelling being the core thing behind it that's what we expect from uh johnson banks not just design excellence okay number two for today is air sign and this is a design-led company that are creating it says say their first product is a vacuum cleaner so it suggests that they're going to create more products but it's the whole idea of it costing less performing better and

[6:09] have less of an environmental impact so this is definitely aimed at a new generation who are very design conscious but also environmentally conscious so that is where they're going and we can see the word mark at the top here you've probably been admiring that has been created for this and it gives the impression of something very solid heavy uh because of the the squarish features it feels like it has some real weight to it and and the thickness of these strokes so the idea of industrial design and something very confident it brings through it's quite a generic name air sign i wonder how that's going to

[6:52] work for them but sometimes by putting two generic words together it's enough to give your brand its own presence and the art direction here is a really key thing we see this woman in a dressing gown and we're going to see more of that but we see how it all comes together on something like the website as they scroll through here very much design-led hearing this product not like a lot of consumer goods websites where you're just overwhelmed by so many products now obviously they have the benefit of only having one product at the moment but they're really trying to tell the story of it and put

[7:29] it in a very lifestyle context um for you know a certain market i can see with some of these herman miller and esop books on the shelf and they're talking about japanese minimalism and i think they're trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner i feel like they've got my avatar in this target market but here we've got this air what would this be an alternative logo a monogram i'm not sure if that appears again statically we'll try and find it i'm not sure how these things work together let's see some bizarre photography here i don't know about you but i rarely take my vacuum cleaner out into the countryside

[8:07] to hold it up like a staff i don't know quite is like a royal standard or it's supposed to be a wizard why would you have your vacuum cleaner on a hill in the longer i'm not sure but anyway this is better gentleman on the stairs in his socks we can relate to this more but this color scheme is nice slightly muted earthy colors maybe relates to the echo aspect but then we've got these brights like the the yellow and the blue but very much used with restraint always just with black it appears and we've got black and white one color and this works well as something like an

[8:46] outdoor advert just having this color to give it some interest tools for better living here are the manuals these are like i like this macro photography very sculptural and this just makes the whole feel more design led it's very editorial doesn't feel like a manual doesn't feel like product photography it feels like a lifestyle magazine and so that's definitely the overall impression they're trying to convey and it's successful in that we have this narrow heavyweight condensed sans serif for the headlines and then a monospace font for the body copy which kind of makes it feel a little bit like a tech company but again the layouts are very editorial

[9:32] i like these people in this sort of stylish loungewear they look kind of scandinavian bit of scandi interiors japanese and that definitely gives this whole impression we think of the scandinavians as being very stylish very design-led and we see this in the product and the combination of the industrial design with the graphic design here does work together well the photography is clearly a key element because of the lifestyle aspect but that feels very deliberate and credit to the photographer here charlie shook nice work charlie and so there's not loads going on but what is there is done well and it's appropriate for the feel you might not like it and that's kind of

[10:20] okay because it's designed to appeal to a certain customer who can chime with this kind of design we see it's carried through on the website which i like sometimes when we get to websites they're very messy they don't quite look like the case study on the agency's website and it's hard sometimes when you hand brand identities over to clients if you're not involved in the website all sorts can come up so do the website too become a full stack designer learn with us but here we have this whole um classic you know with a product exploding showing off the features so it's very much like a tech product

[10:56] and that's the feel they're trying to convey the logos that the the body is covered up by my head but the the kind of air thing i'm not sure that works with the full air sign uh word mark which is at the top but overall definitely evokes the right kind of feel so nice work there high tide agency out of new york city the third project is from a much smaller agency we're going to brazil i believe this is just two gentlemen this agency piau that's how i'm going to pronounce it apologies if that's wrong and this is for ores de formados i've got to be careful using these portuguese

[11:35] projects but i wanted to feature some non-english speaking work so here we go and some smaller studios as well some independent designers so kudos to these guys so this is for smoked uh meats and that kind of thing i think it's a restaurant or a butcher that kind of world and they've done the visual identity and packaging uh for this brand so i'm just going to scroll through so you can see a bit of the feel of it you can see this short word mark and it's often sensible when you have a short brand name to just have a customized word mark that's the most obvious probably the first solution you

[12:15] could go to which is what they've done here we'll analyze that in a minute we've also got this very narrow type that's quite retro feeling and these colors of red pink and purples kind of analogous colors uh on the color spectrum and they kind of evoke me you know the red and pink and that works well and i like these examples that they've shown like this rolled over paper these stamp styles on it and it's kind of a style that's been done a lot i've seen this with with butchers and other restaurants and maybe coffee shops like the stamp type style or brushes like it looks like

[12:52] somebody's been having fun in procreate here with these swinging meats but these brushes that they've chosen that have this stippling effect which is looks kind of more real more hand-drawn that's carried through and it does give it a little bit of personality although it is a style which has been done a lot like these overlays where the stamp goes over the tight but it does it give it a layered feel a little bit more of a handcrafted feel which is good with with something like this which is very hands-on you know with food and um all the applications i really like the fact that they are realistic

[13:30] applications this is my big bug bear like a brand like this wouldn't have um be in times square in new york city or something like that so that would be ridiculous just because you have that mock-up you don't need to use it so these are realistic i like these layouts it shows how the color scheme can be applied and it's very thoughtful restrained within each composition but lots of options of using the the colors that are there in different combinations nice typographical layouts so just solid work there again sensible applications it looks like it's in brazil you would get a bag from a place like this

[14:10] so with this word mark i think that overall i applaud the overall style this uh very distinctive serif the way this r curves around with this very angled serif and obviously the the zed the z for our american friends is very distinctive and we've got this chopped off count um point on top of the eye and that i'm not sure about and i think also the zed it the whole word mark doesn't quite seem balanced to me quite as perfectly as it could be but i'm picking on it a little bit here overall i love the style the personality of it and these type these banners above

[14:53] and below which border it frame it nicely and they are nicely type set and that brings it together in a nice lock up here we have an actual real physical stamp which is brilliant to emphasize that layered effect and we see more of the color scheme and how it works this can work on something like instagram the textures of the brushes uh bring that sort of feel or within an app lots of posters lots of relevant applications more instagram posts here lovely posters nice paper the way this is done so there's a lot of thought that's gone into this and just good graphic design and good layout so for a small studio

[15:35] excellent work so credit to those guys piao check them out especially if you're in brazil okay from the very small to the very large and influential the bank of england now this was a couple of months ago but i've only just come across this and here's this article our logo and website have a new look well that's a rather prosaic blog title this is definitely written for a general audience not designers but they say this includes things like our logo and the colors and typography we use yeah so the bank of england is the central bank for the united kingdom actually not just england so it's

[16:13] similar to like the federal reserve in the united states and they've made a little brand video which we won't show the whole thing but it kind of shows how this thing has evolved and it's this symbol britannia has changed so this uh seated lady she is a representative of the british isles and see the bank's been around since the 17th century i think it was the 1600s when it was formed and you can see the sketches here this is the new britannia that they've drawn and this typeface which is a customized version of gilroy i think it was monotype that actually worked on this so they got a

[16:50] big name to work on it now what i found about weird about this just as you see this brand video play through is the general feel of it now they talk about accessibility this is their big move behind the brand it's accessibility and it's structure so they're very concerned with the design system but they wanted to make this particularly legible and for people with dyslexia which i applaud that i think that's fantastic that they're considering their users and they're doing something that's inclusive and that's issues that we need to be aware of as designers however surely they could have done that while still having an appropriate feel i'm

[17:36] just going to stop this brand video for now because i just think overall if we just scroll down and see how some of these things come together in like applications this to me does not have the gravitas the central bank of a country like the uk which is you know one of the oldest democracies in the world it really doesn't have that right sense of heritage to me and i understand that you know we're it's for our customers it's for the future i understand all of that but you can do that while still retaining some of that heritage and i really feel this it just looks like a

[18:17] tech company and not even that great i mean these really bright cyans and oranges on this dark blue background i just feel it's not very aesthetically pleasing now these colors for those who are not familiar are from the five pound ten pound and twenty pound note which are the most common uh notes in circulation but who carries cash today anyway and so i it's good to take you know visual cues from things and it sparks your creativity but how this thing actually looks i just think even if we just go to the home page this to me just does not have the right gravitas i want to use that word again

[18:59] the symbol the symbol am i combining symbol and emblem there i've just made up a word but this character here britannia yes it's well drawn and everything it's professionally drawn so don't particularly have any problems with that but this overall feel particularly this bright cyan and the the type i just i just don't get it i think it really needs something which says bank of england uh more than this does doesn't communicate the right field to me the final one now let's go to the sublime is by emanuel who are out of san francisco california and this is for the eems institute now as designers you know

[19:42] eames right do you recognize these chairs if not you need to educate yourself links in the description and ray and charles eames are two of the most famous mid-century designers in the united states and they design these famous dining chairs which i have in my home and a bunch of other beautiful things famous houses and interior design but particularly known for their chairs and the whole feel of this identity evokes that mid-century era the the colors the way type is used the kind of applications they've chosen and i love these posters here work and play i'm just scrolling through so you can get the general feel but i'd like

[20:29] some of these posters uh for the studio i wonder if they're for sale i better check that out after this video develop a curiosity look at things as though for the first time these guys know about design this is good advice and the whole feel of it it's just retro it's mid-century but in a very clean way that works and you can see these elements all work together here color schemes the way they've done the layout the typefaces that they've chosen and even this e it looks like something that was designed we'll see it again through some of these stationary applications it looks like something that was designed in the 1950s or 1960s

[21:08] instead of today and then it so it just sits so well next to the the furniture and all the designs uh that were created uh by ray and charles in that era let's keep scrolling through you can see how this comes together and things like their website packaging these kits these patterns all kind of evoke in the era and they've chosen very deliberate applications so it's not just um the ident the elements of the identity but the specific applications have been designed to really feel special as designer furniture should and feel like it belongs in the same world as uh their designs so i i really can appreciate that

[21:59] we really uh get the sense of the era and the the the life of it this is mid-century modern at its finest you've got to have a tote bag have we ever seen a case study without a tote bag i'm not sure they pretty much seem to be there every time but there was a little note on the typography that i scrolled past so let's just make a note of that here because i think it's important that um the typefaces that they've chosen i'm not going to find it now here we go so toppo bold which references news gothic and then century schoolbook and i love the fact let's just go over to the

[22:41] the actual website for the eems institute so you can see this for yourself this is topol the um sans-serif narrow one that looks kind of like news gothic and there's a sense of newspapers there's a sense again here of editorial and those sort of layouts that you would expect from those mid-century masters but they can use here they can use century what a great choice to just use something so classic and it just gives it that real timeless feel uh whilst also rooting it in that era so they can use century for the headline here with graphic as the body copy the sans serif but then they can also use

[23:19] topol for a headline and then graphic for the body copy and these three all work together it goes from the heaviest weight medium weight a bit lighter for the body copy but however they are paired they work well so they're very deliberate choices they just have enough distinction between widths and weights and and work really well together and i like how this website is followed through look at these grid-based layouts nice use of white space just a little bit of variety bringing in color just just not going over the top every single photograph doesn't need a border but we can bring in little bits of interest at different points and it's a

[24:04] bit playful it's not uh such a rigid system that there's opportunity to do different things with it break out of the boxiness here with this layout and that really represents the spirit of the eemsas so definite credit there to manuel out of san francisco who've really treated this with a lot of respect and also flair if you're looking to up your branding game all the way from strategy to identity design then check out our brand design mastery course there's a link to that in the description and let us know in the comments what did you think of these five projects thanks again to all the studios featured and

[24:40] until next time happy designing

[24:48] [Music] foreign

---

About this transcript
Read from YouTube's own caption track and laid out by ViewRank AI (https://viewrankai.com).
ViewRank AI finds the videos already beating a creator's own average on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, transcribes them from the audio itself in more than 60 languages, and turns what worked into new ideas and scripts.
Free transcript tools, no account needed: https://viewrankai.com/tools
How to read any video this way: https://viewrankai.com/llms.txt