@RhynoBlog

Throughout 2016 I worked with Alton Towers community TowersStreet to develop a new identity for their website and social media platforms. Their current look was becoming dated as it had been hastily designed when their new website was launched in 2012 and as a result did not reflect the professional level of content they were delivering to the demographic who were interacting with their site and social media platforms. Above you can see the new logo that I developed for them, taking cues from current design trends, I developed a logo that would be suitable in small and larger sizes, that could be set in black and white whilst maintaining it's visibility and carried the brand name well. The inclusion of the Towers was an important part of the design, that when I collaborated with TowersStreet editor Craig, said must be included to reflect the communities strong link with Alton Towers.The use of purple was also an important step for TowersStreet as they felt the c...

UK mobile phone operators Orange and T-Mobile who merged to become Everything Everywhere, later simplified their name to EE. As of 2016, EE is soaring in profits, seeing a 10% increase to over £6.5bn in revenue in the three years from 2010 to 2013. More recently EE was purchased by the UK communication giant British Telecom Group more commonly known as BT. The success of EE’s new status as a highly successful mobile phone operator is underpinned by that of their successful rebranding strategy. This sentence itself is a relative contradiction as from the two years that followed from 2010, when Orange and T-Mobile merged the company traded under the brand name ‘Everything Everywhere’ this didn’t appear to catch on, rollout of this brand was slow, and to many people Orange and T-Mobile were trading exactly as they always have. Small trial concept Everything Everywhere stores were launched and the predicted feedback came back that the company was struggling to get the new bran...

Since Gap’s formation in 1969 the company had been a staple of American fashion and developed an identity for itself that stood out from the rest. 1986 saw the launch of the Gap logo we still see today, this branding has stood the test of time, and today it remains unique in style to the company, compared to other clothing company identities which can be immediately compared to similar counterparts. Strangely in the autumn of 2010 Gap launched a new logo, this took investors and customers by surprise, no one seemed aware of the decision to update the branding and change the staple of the Gap brand; the logo. A new logo was launched, one that featured a poor gradient swatch square hastily slapped together and a simple but terribly overused Helvetica typeface set in bold. This logo was immediately mocked by the design community and it wasn’t long before the whole world had caught on to what was viewed as the terrible new Gap logo. It was reported however that ...

For my final major project, I developed a brand identity for a theme park, called Chronology based in Stoke-on-Trent. Materials produced in association with this concept include tickets and vouchers alongside a range of promotional print such as leaflets and guides. In addition to these developed products I produced a vertical wall poster displaying a general advertisement for the Chronology theme park / attraction. I looked at ways I could reach my target market through the development of a mobile app, and an interface that can link the park real time with the application. I developed concepts for the Exhibition Space including to scale representations of the artwork I would include. I wanted to give the Exhibition Space a theme so I thought of different textures of wallpaper to use and the inclusion of lighting. The logo was crafted from drawing done by hand. I wanted something that looked handwritten and at the same time inco...

Nestle recently rebranded their Nesquik product to include new smooth type and a refreshed approach to their Nesquik bunny. The new logo is a refinement of the previous logo, it uses less shape forms and looses the blurry outline effect seen in the previous iteration of the logo. The new logo is a lot smoother, featuring a type style that is loosely scripted tying the lettering together quite nicely, alongside a new gradient effect which in my opinion could of been refined a little better since the colour change from dark to light blue looks a little amateur in contrast to other gradient style logotypes I have seen. The new bunny in my opinion looks stunning, the ultra realistic approach they were going for pays off well here, and make the new bunny much more friendly looking than his former appearance which when compared to the new version looks odd without his clothes and backpack. The style is clearly representative of...

Whilst in London I took the opportunity to ride the Emirates Air Line, constructed for the London 2012 Olympics the cable car system consists of a station from the O2 Peninsula to the Royal Victoria Dock. What immediately struck me from this is the way the Emirates brand is incorporated into the branding for Transport for London. The 'Air Line' section of the logo is contained within the typical TfL roundel image, used throughout the entire transport network be it the Underground, Buses or DLR. I liked how the branding and colour ways for Emirates are present throughout but not overpowering the TfL branding. I think this is important because customers of the TfL network will want to connect with consistent typography, symbols and motifs whilst using different colour allows the network to differentiate it's formats of travel and route whilst retaining the same shape and type. A signage system followed throughout the TfL network sees simple and...

Kodak has recently returned to it's previously used logo that originated in the early 1970's, it's a strong unique shape that abstractly references the K of Kodak and also a traditional film reel. The previous logo felt like simplicity for the sake of it, dropping the well known icon of Kodak in replace of a fresh typography and line was not the brand refinement it should of been, the only thing retained from the previous design was the reversed colour ways of the type and surround. I much prefer the new logo, it contains elements of heritage through the reuse of the previous Kodak symbol which I think is known well enough to the consumer to have been used sans the typography, however stacking the typography to the right I think works quite well however issues with scaling arise when the logo is reduced to a smaller size. Kodak...

2015 saw the rebrand of much loved tea brand PG Tips, slimming the brand down to a simple pallet of colour and incorporating traditional serif typography alongside striking geometric sans type. Looking back at the previous version of the identity for PG Tips it was acceptable but by no means leading in design compared to what other house hold brand had started to do in ways of refreshing their product line up. Through slimming the identity down the creators of this new look; Jones Knowles Ritchie has allowed the average consumer to still instantly connect to the brand as the same basic elements and form remain however the overall look has been tidied up and I think this suits the product to reflect the heritage but means it can also keep ahead of other competitive brands in terms of branding style and image. "Keep it tea." The new slogan for PG Tips, "Keep it tea." is a great way of verbally communicating this design change to the con...

WKD gets a funky on trend rebrand that projects the brand back into the target audience it lost. WKD has recently refreshed it's design of it's packaging to reflect a modern approach to the brand in an attempt to ditch the clichéd look the brand has carried since it's launch. This is done through a refreshed pallet of colour and new typography alongside new shape bottles that tie the brand together. I think the refresh of the brand is perfect since it allows WKD which to many younger aged drinkers who are WKD's target market deem tacky and 'cheap' to look like a trendy product to be seen drinking, following from recent refreshes in other formats of alcohol sales we have seen brands refine their packaging and overall design style and I see that WKD has followed suit but by also ramping up the colour scheme they allow that playful nature the brand has always wanted to incorporate back into the design and feel of the product.

This Jurassic Park Leaflet was designed to represent the park as if it was a real world attraction, with adverts from sponsors of the film, this adds an addition sense of real world value against what we know to be fiction.   The leaflet is clearly of a 1990's design featuring nice hand drawn illustrations of the Jurassic Park gates set against the images of the island itself. The overall look is quite clean but retains the jungle approach to the leaflet and theme of Jurassic Park. I believe that they might have used too much body copy throughout the piece given that the point size of the type is quite small however I see that they have tried to include different languages and include all information possible. They style of the leaflet is very similar to that of generic tourist destination leaflets in that it includes plenty of images and shots of the features of Jurassic Park however surprisingly there is no images of the dinosaurs the...

The new City of Las Vegas Government logo in my opinion is there in thought and concept but the end result isn't as great as it should be. The typography is in keeping with the clear 1960's Googie style they were aiming for but through the bad stroke on the V and the strange arrangement of lettering specifically the last S is odd and seems a little rushed. The original logo was far more appropriate to what I would think of as more the corporate professional logo for the Las Vegas Government and I feel that the other is just trying to make the brand feel more youthful and modern but isn't quite successful. For this visual identity, we choose the font Big Noodle Titling for the “CITY OF” type because of its wonderful clarity in any medium. Big Noodle captures an industrial feel with a modern, progressive flair that is perfectly timeless. The “Las Vegas” type originated from the font, Stay High by Syed Faraz Ahmed. We transformed each letter to embody the mood and sty...

Stoke-on-Trent's newest development sees a corner of Hanley transformed into an exciting new build of shops, restaurants, hotels and car park space. The new logo in my opinion isn't that great and could do with some refinement, the white on bright yellow doesn't work that well on screen and looks fuzzy in digital formats. Printing processes might allow the logo to darken down slightly however this means the cohesion between the different types of media format could be lost. The logo shown in concept art on the images shown above is quite a nice application of the logo since it removes the colour and refines the logo to just an outline and type which against the architecture of the buildings is quite effective.

I recently created a new visual identity for my own design work, Rhyno follows on from the logo I launched with the name just over a year ago, assigned a study project to craft an identity to sell my skills through I settled on Rhyno. I've been happy with the name and the soft, darkened tone of purple ever since yet the logotype never appealed to me all that much, seen below it shows how I edited the type and incorporated a tusk into the bowl of the R. Using Gotham as my typeface, I felt it represented a modern clean style, and the tusk in the letter R was a nice quirky way of tying the logotype back to the name. The new logo came about after I started to develop my website, needing a favicon icon for my site, the existing logo simply wouldn't be visible at the typical 16 x 16 favicon size. Therefore I began to come up with ideas for an icon of my own, again incorporating a visual representation of a Rhino to tie in with the Rhyno name. Seen below is the new l...

Spotify launched a new visual identity last year that would be seen throughout social media and incorporated into it's online, desktop and mobile applications. The new logo, seen above on the right follows the recent design trend of flattening and brightening an existing logo, this to the average user, of Spotify's target market of teens to young adults will appear to make the brand look fresher and more current compared to it's quickly outdating previous logo. I feel part of this refresh comes as through force from the mobile app design team as the previous logo won't have matched up that well to the current Android and iOS mobile operating systems in terms of their visual style. The new visual style incorporates imagery of featured artists displayed in a duotone format, I think this looks great and suits a brand like Spotify, where the product they offer is not something that can be easily visualised without imagery of the artists well. Gra...

Nando's has recently refreshed it's identity to keep the brand looking fresh and current. The logo itself has been simplified and reduced down to three colour ways, a 'PERi Red Pantone', black and white. This allows the logo to breathe, with a flattened design and new distinct custom typeface for the logotype which sits nicely against the custom type they already use. The use of neon colours in the new branding material used throughout print and digital media is an invigorating change for Nando's as traditionally they would use much more earthly colours and tones. I think this is a response to the increase in younger customers dining at the restaurant and Nando's wanting to tap into this market even further by distancing itself from other high street restaurants like Pizza Express, Frankie & Benny's, and Chiquito's. The continued use of the font that has been used since Nando's inception is great in my opinion is good because as ...

Deliveroo has updated it's identity to become more sharper and minimal, they have however retained the Kangaroo imagery in keeping with the 'roo' part of the brand name, which I think is a nice touch and one that could of easily been swiped away, this gives the brand something to attach and promote itself with rather than being typical and sticking with food or conventional delivery imagery. Before and after comparison from Under Consideration Although I like the new style, I don't think it reflects the brand quite so well, with some tweaking and simplifying the original logo could have been updated and I feel that would have been a far better approach to take than rebranding completely to a style I feel is quite cold. Illustration style show through posters The style they have used I think is quite nice in it's actual design and the simplicity of it stands out against the competition, however I feel for a company who's basis is food this ...

Tate recently evolved it's logo into something much more cohesive and practical, their previous logo had no strict guidelines it was a variety of different vector circles pushed together to form a logo, these paired with brand guidelines which were all but none existent have slowly lead to a decline in the quality of material produced to advertise the Tate. Design agency North have stripped back the logo to one basic form, using less circles and creating a design that is, in my opinion much more pleasing on the eye. Above you can see samples of the old identity shown on Under Consideration, it is clear that really the design process has become muddy, there isn't a clear image style or process to match to and it all looks very random. I believe what North have achieved is by tidying this process up, introducing set colour ways and typography styles, advertising for Tate will become much more successful and easier  to link when seen on different formats of advertis...