The Brief

The Chance Housing Association has been set up to try and help first-time buyers get onto the housing ladder and they want you to develop a brand image for their stationery.

It is important to them that the Association is seen as being different from the other local housing associations – more modern, more helpful and definitely welcoming to young people wanting to buy a house.

They want to use their logo on their letterheads and office stationery and it will also be used somewhere on the sheets that hold the property details.  It also needs to be reproducible in the local newspaper and professional trade magazines.

Research similar housing associations

Many of the housing associations that cater for young people have branding that has a traditional flair by using Old Style typography or a traditional sans-serif.  Ashberry Homes used purples and pinks with a little bit of blue-green as their brand while Money Helper has the same type of colours.  Places for People used a sans-serif wordmark logo with white, black and blue-purple. 

I would say Homeviews has the closest brand image targeted at young people.  The design will photocopy well and has good contrast.  The typography is modern but the round edges of the sans-serif make it welcoming and friendly.  The green pairs very well with the dark navy blue and white and the green is modern.  The logo looks crips, edgy and professional.  The colours of the Bellway logo work well and I like yellow as a logo option as well, looking at the L&Q logo.

Typography

The typography should be modern, welcoming, helpful and targeted towards young people. Still, because buying a home is a serious matter, it also needs to be professional, organised and serious. 

My shortlist is not that short but I am considering a few possibilities.  I am not fond of sharp edges such as the ‘c’ in Antique Olive, and I think the counterform of the ‘a’ is too much of a teardrop for this purpose.  I like the higher capital letter and ascender of Ofelia and Area.  Verdana has the perfect combination of enough contrast, even at a small size.  The balance between the lowercase and uppercase is ideal.  The ‘C’ is not too closed off but open and welcoming, and it even has a bit of contrast to give that friendly feel, but just enough to still appear professional. 

Thumbnail sketches

I sketched a few ideas and chose the best out of the seven thumbnail sketches in Figure 4. 

I like the simplicity of Sketch 1 (Figure 5) and the type can be a solid colour on a solid background.  Sketch two is a two-tone logo and I like the balance the two houses create. Sketch 2 is very clear about what the logo represents. I think once we look at colour the ‘h’ can possibly be in a mid-tone to contrast against the ‘a’.  Sketch 3 has rounder edges; the ‘h’ represents a street light and can have a gradient background showing a lighter tone around the ‘h’ area. 

Although I like all of them, I will choose Sketch 1 for further development.  ‘Chance’ is a short name, and Sketch 1 will have the word all in one colour, resulting in a cohesive logo that flows.

Developing the logo

The company’s personality is helpful and welcoming.  The logo needs to represent and indicate a sense of the brand’s style.  It is important not to have unnecessary printing costs, especially if the target market is young adults who count every penny.  For this reason it is good that the logo will work on a white background to avoid extra ink cost.

I started with an acid green but then switched to orange.  I was thinking back to the colour study I did in Part 3, Understanding colour,  and remembered that orange is energetic and warm, which captures the exact mood and tone I am after.

I then went ahead and trimmed the ‘door’ of the ‘h’ to allow for better balance.  I initially thought the third design from the top left with the higher roof was better, but it’s too much black on the ‘h’ area.  I developed the logo into the finished design in Figures 7 and 8.

In Figure 6, I have also explored possible artwork that I can use as an addition to the logo for the stationery design but decided not to use it.  I quite liked the brick imagery in a light colour, but I feel it distracted the attention from the logo and preferred clear imagery against a crisp white background.

I’ve presented the logo to my friends and family, and they agree that the printing costs should be kept low except for some key elements, such as a unique black folder for when a couple purchases a home or simple corporate gifts.

Consistency should be followed across the brand, while the logo should work on a diverse range of products.  As the organisation grows, there should be room for further development of the brand’s product range.   The logo should not box the client in.

In the presentation pack I displayed an example of how the logo can be used if the client would consider printing it on clothing down the line.  I have also included alternate logos to show how the primary logo can be tweaked by changing the colour but still staying in the colour palette of the brand identity.

Presentation pack

Below is a nine-page presentation pack to show the client.

Overall the logo design worked well.  I went back and created a thicker stroke around the ‘a’ to achieve more contrast when placing the logo on a dark background, such as the black folder and the grey caps.  These products are to showcase the logo’s potential to grow.

I still feel that the roof of the ‘h’ could be higher to give the optical illusion that the x-height is the same for all the lowercase letters.  Although it is actually the same height, the roof’s peak takes up very little visual space and gives the illusion that it is lower.  I could raise the roof and find another way to reduce the heavy blackness of the ‘h’. 

I have learned more about branding from lectures by Graphic Designers Jon Contino and Daniel Walter Scott and Social Media Designer Jennifer Hayashi.  These lectures helped me understand how to put together a presentation pack.

Going forward, I feel more confident to attempt logo design and brand identity.  I have learned additional skills in Adobe Illustrator, using the Creative Cloud Library to place images in InDesign quickly and easily without distortion and also how to edit smart objects and automatically update changes across my workspace.  All in all, I am learning to work smarter and more efficient.