“Branding” a company:

Written by Jeremy Sanford,

President of  SPU chapter of  The Professional Association for Design

It’s hard to say exactly what goes into branding a company, because every company is different. Designers usually try and identify problems that need to be solved. So, when a designer starts there is usually one (or multiple) problems in the back of their mind to solve. It’s important to note that a brand is not just a logo, but consists of all of the touch points of a company.

The process for logo design is generally as follows. A designer will meet with their client, and possibly obtain a design brief including all the specific requirements (how many colors can be used for the logo, style, ect). There are multiple rounds of sketches, usually by hand, that are focused more-so on form. These sketches are usually then brought into the computer, and another couple round of sketches are made. Once happy with the form and shape, color can be introduced. Even more sketches result from adding color. Generally there are multiple revisions and tweaks that occur. It’s important for designers creating logos to keep in mind all the different ways their logo will be displayed. How will it look big, small, reversed out, black and white with no color, ect.

Something to point out, Pepsi will spend some $1.2 billion over three years to make changes to their brand. The change to their logo seems quite small, but a ton of design went into creating this subtle change.

(SPU AIGA, a student media club is offering their services to social venture plan teams. You must first enter their competition by explaining your social venture. Submissions can be sent to brandedaiga@gmail. For more information look at “Dates to Remember or contact Jeremy at sanfoj@spu.edu)

A competition within a competition: BRANDED

Submissions due: February 15^th, 2010

Event date: February 20^th, 2010

9:00am – 9:00pm

Cost: $10 (for each student)

Overview: This event is an opportunity for Seattle Pacific University students from across campus to collaborate together. The Social Venture Projects that are selected will be worked on by a team of student designers/business students. Each project may require different design related work, but teams will work on branding, logos, style guides, imagery, etc. The event will be a full Saturday (12 hours) and at the end, teams will have multiple design assets that the Social Venture teams can use at their discretion. The groups will casually present their work to everyone at 8:00pm (including friends/family that wish to attend) to show everyone what they created. To get some idea of what we’re talking about, see this link.

How it works: Social Venture Project teams who are interested should write a 1 page paper about their project or submit their business plan by 11:59pm Feb. 15^th. The teams can submit this to: brandedaiga@gmail.com. After submissions are collected, the AIGA board will pick at least 6 teams (more depending on design availability) to collaborate with. The $10 fee will cover the cost of food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided throughout the day. Important- any team that submits their project must be available to work Saturday February 20^th from 9:00am – 9:00pm. Teams will then create a brief presentation of their work which they will show the same night at 9.30pm. All team members must be present.

Goals

–        Have design students educate business students, and vice versa

–        Get students to collaborate who may not typically work together

–        Come out with assets needed for the Social Venture Project

–        Have a blast!

Business/Design Teams: Teams will consist of 4-6 design students + all the team members from the specific Social Venture Project. Ideally there will be different types of art students (illustration, studio art, visual communication, etc.) as well as different class levels (soph, junior, senior).

Support Team: This team will consist of 4-6 people not on the business/design teams. They will help with food prep, videotaping, movie editing, and all over run around needs to support the event that day.

Other info: This is a one day event only. Design teams are not required to do any additional work for the project, unless otherwise agreed upon.

Questions? Any questions can be sent to SPU AIGA President Jeremy Sanford at: sanfoj@spu.edu

Serve Others

Written by Allen Klein, a Junior majoring in Business Administration at SPU

SVPC participant: 2009 and 2010

Grand Prize Winner 2009

When I initially went into the Social Venture Plan Competition I knew Iwas in for a good time, but I didn’t know how much I would actually learn along the way. Here at SPU we learn a lot in our business and exploratory classes, but this was finally a chance to really apply my knowledge in a form other than a test. Scott, Stephen and I originally started out with a much different plan, we were aiming to do a fair-trade electronics company. But after much thought, market research, and lots of late nights in fall quarter, it was becoming clear that we needed something a bit more scalable. That is what we believed to be our key to success; we were able to scale our business to a manageable size. Also, Evenblade was to be based in Seattle which made it easier to understand our market and to make “competition contracts” with companies and service organizations in the area. What I mean by a competition contract is as follows: our team would call organizations and see if they would agree to partner with us, unofficially, for our competition. What this did was create a greater sense of thoroughness in our business plan. We would also use this relationship to get feedback on our ideas to beef-up our plan. A very common remark made by the judges was that we had ‘done the necessary footwork’ to really understand what we were getting into. Those are all the tips I’m going to give on that subject… I need to keep a couple for this year.

All said and done, The SVPC was one of the highlights to my college experience thus far. It has given me a great chance to really understand how to serve others with business, and to understand how God can work in different ways. The group work was a blessing, and all of my team members were great to work with. In life, we’re all going to have to work with differing personalities, so why not start learning how to do so now? Additionally, it was great application of what I’ve been learning in classes here at SPU. And let us be honest, knowledge without application is useless.