The Brief

Today we had to register to the art company "D&aD" website to enter a design competition were we had to choose one of many different briefs to do over the course of 8 weeks and there after hand in. After looking in detail at all the different briefs and what would be included in them, myself and my partner, Rachel, chose the Branding brief. We decided to do this brief as it was best suited to both of our strengths, especially working together, and is something that we would both enjoy doing as well over such a long period.

The brief:

Creative Challenge:

Following a pilot scheme of an art gallery in a hospital, there is an opportunity to take the concept nationwide – creating a touring art gallery that will showcase a range of work including fine art, sculptures and sound installations produced by some of the UK’s most famous contemporary artists. This is an opportunity for patients, staff and visitors at hospitals to see creativity in a location they may not expect. The gallery will be in place for a month before moving on to the next hospital.

Your challenge is to create the name and brand for the gallery that has the impact to generate positive news, discussion and interest in the concept - building an appreciation of the power of art to connect with people.

Target Audience:

Patients, hospital staff, local and national press and TV, local artists.

Considerations:

• Your branding needs to extend beyond the usual elements of a logo, typeface, tone of voice and colour palette. This is an unusual project which means the jury will be looking for winning work to demonstrate unique approaches to building a brand.

• You should avoid the obvious choices of anchoring your brand to a particular piece of art or style. The identity should stand alone allowing the freedom of the touring gallery to constantly refresh it’s offering without becoming divorced from the brand concept.

• Your approach to the tone of voice of the brand will need to be handled with sensitivity. Hospitals by their nature have a diverse audience covering all social spheres. What is acceptable to one group can cause distress amongst another. This will need to be reflected in your final design.

• You may wish to consider the nature of art in hospitals. What are the benefits to patients or visitors at a time of medical concern? How can an appreciation of art help to aid recovery or provide an opportunity to discuss issues of a sensitive nature by moving thoughts beyond oneself to looking at the wider

world afresh? How can this inform your final solution?

• The space the art occupies will need to be clearly branded, communicating its purpose to the audience and avoiding confusion with pre-existing artworks already in place in the hospital.

• How can your brand generate the positive newsworthy elements to help with it’s promotion? Media coverage will be an important means for building awareness. This is also an opportunity to bring visitors to hospitals who wouldn’t ordinarily be there.

We are going to have to research a lot in to the different areas of branding and play with different techniques and ideas to create an appropriate brand from looking at type, colour choices and imagery. We are going to update our day to day work, ideas and findings on this blog as well as keeping a sketchbook as well. 

We need to hand this unit in on the 2nd March so we will need to plan our time well to get enough research, development and ideas created and made within this time frame.