Trust the Process: Full Branding Project Completed in 24 Hours

In order to create spot on branding in 24 hours, in such a unique creative environment, it would be necessary to trust the process, and to trust each other.

Step 1: Meeting the Client

• (In the weeks leading up to CreateAthon I had a phone and email meetings with the client to discuss the questionnaire and creative brief.)
• 10am: Meet the team and introducing the client. Much like step one of meeting the client, step one of CreateAthon was meeting my team and getting to know them then getting to know the client together. My team consisted of Darold, Eric, Jasmyne, Jerry, Josh, Pam, and Rony (#teamTIASO).
• These were “behind the scenes” goals and determine what all we will need to accomplish and give items priority.

Step 2: Creative Brief & Questionnaire

• 10:30am: Read/review creative brief individually and discuss it together answering questions, or concerns about any of the areas. Then read key portions of the questionnaire and creative brief aloud to (hopefully) clarify their needs and their mission. This took a little bit of discussion to really nail down what it is TIASO does but we finally nailed it down. 

Step 3: Research & Brainstorming

This step proved to be the most trying, most difficult, and most time-consuming, but in the end proved to be the most important and rewarding (which is pretty normal).

• 11:55am: Starting with the word community, because that is the core of TIASO, we built an epic mind map. The goal was to find every related word until we had emptied our brains of words that we could come up with. 
• 1:35-3:30: The result was pretty amazing and we were able to choose nine key words (circled in blue) that we compared with the words for brand personality that the client gave us in the questionnaire. We chose the key words by making sure that they lined up with the ideas that TIASO gave us.
  

  Once we chose the key words from the mind map we had a place to work from to start finding a concept (key words = guide for concept).

  

• We discovered our concept by eliminating all the words that did not fit into the idea of professional & inviting and combined the ones that matched the idea of everything we wanted to define TIASO = “A Boundless, Prismatic, Framework.”
• “Boundless” because artists have grand ideas and the imagination has no limits. “Prismatic” because prisms are diverse and colorful and beautiful, which is what the participants that work with the art projects are. And “Framework” because that is the encompassing idea of TIASO, they are the guidelines to help keep the projects stable and organized, they give a framework of assistance to the artists so they can do what they do best-create.
  

  It may sound pretentious but it really embodies all that we needed to communicate with our branding.

• 3:38pm-6:00pm:
  • We discussed the type of website we wanted to create with Josh & Eric
  • Using Typecast.com, since now we had a concept to work from, Darold presented about 4 web font combinations for the team to choose from. Combinations of serif and sans serif complimentary typefaces.

The team decided that Baskerville would be best for the copy, and Raleway would work nicely for the headline font and double as a font for our headline text.

• 7:15pm: Web guys are finally able to start working on the “framework” of the website 
• Sunset: We used key words and brand personality words, as well as avoiding all the cliche to come up with gobs of ideas for a tagline that will be fun & defining, after a short break and some fresh air, we were finally able to come to a perfect headline….
• We were proud to announce that “We Are a Part of Local Art” would be it. Because TIASO is a part of the process of these large scale art projects, TIASO is “we”.

But “we” could also mean the community of participants, and it can also mean the “we” of the artists who want to make the projects.

Step 4: Sketching

• 8:00pm: Rony, Pam, Jerry, and Myself break off to sketch logo ideas
• 9:30pm: Bring logo ideas and discuss them together to see which ones appeal most to the group and which ones match our trifold concept the best.
• 10:00pm: Choose colors for the logo that further define the concept.
  • Turquoise-Blue = the element of professional, solid, and trustworthy as well as a hint to the Southwest.
  • Orange = to add the fun, youthful, and vibrant element.
  • And Pink = for the theatrical, and exciting, and celebratory. We then added a cool grey as a grounding neutral to “chill out” the bright colors a bit. Our scheme also worked out to assign colors to each of our target groups.

Step 5: Rendering

At this point it was basically go time. I split up our list of tasks by priority based on our goals and we got to work.

• 11:00pm-4:30am: Everyone on the team is working on something different.
• After we combined logo ideas from myself, Rony, Jerry, and Pam, we got input from other members of the team, then primary rendering of the logo was given to Jerry. Here are some of the steps leading up to the final after combining our ideas and I was able to choose the best directions for Jerry to render on the computer: 
• Rony did storyboarding and created a simple animation that ended up as an infographic on what TIASO does. He also designed the first designs of the stationary package.
• Jasmyne was tasked with designing and writing the four email templates (General, Participants, Funders, and Artists) and preliminary marketing plan and awareness campaign
• Eric and Josh designed the basic web layout and came back to the group to discuss specifics and get the colors we chose. Josh then continued working and tweaking the website.
• Pam also helped in combining the social media, awareness, and marketing plan to a succinct marketing plan that incorporated all three in addition to working with Josh on choosing stock imagery that would be used as “hero” images on each page of the website.
• Darold designed and did the layout for what we all decided was the most useful piece of printed collateral for TIASO, an informational trifold brochure that would fold out to an 11×17 “gig” poster. The poster would be used as a promotional item that could be photocopied and put up around communities to inform people of a new project in their neighborhood.
  

  My role during the last 8 hours or so was to basically act as Creative Director, managing and guiding all of the amazing work that was happening.

• Everything from tweaking the logo design, finding fonts for the logo text, figuring out the equivalent web colors to match the PMS hues we chose, to checking on the copy and design of the marketing plan and email templates, re-working the stationary design and plugging in the finished logo into  other designs.
• 
• 4:30am: Everyone has pretty much finished each of their pieces so we continued to create items that could be of use to TIASO. So… Jasmine designed two magazine ads and Jerry and Pam worked on designing two shirts for swag.

Step 6: Presentation

• 6:30am-9:00am: Everyone finishes assembling and saving all of their items to hand off to me to prepare presentation
• I pulled together every piece we have created and print it all out.
• I gathered all of the logo variations and colors and design a very basic Branding Guide page. Because of the time constraints it is not as detailed as I would normally make but it would definitely do the job to show the client what we had done.
• Prepare key points for presentation
  • Concept
• • Logo & Taglline
  • Idea of “three” in every element of our messaging (Triangles, Targets, Colors, Words in Concept, “We”)
• 9:30am-Present to non profit reps-HOORAY!!!

In the end we were able to create:

1. Brand Identity Package 
   1. Concept for messaging
   2. Logo
   3. Tagline
   4.  Cohesive messaging
   5. Stationary Package (Letterhead, Envelope, and Business Cards)
   6. Brand Guidelines
2. Complete Website
3. 7 Page Web Style Guide
4. Email Marketing Templates
   1. One General Introduction template
   2. Three email templates to market to Artists (primary), Funders (secondary), and Participants (tertiary)
5. Marketing Plan (including Awareness Campaign and Social Media Plan)
6. Informational Brochure with foldout Promotional Poster
7. Two Ads (that can be used for magazine, newspaper, web, or outdoor)
8. Infographic for website that can be used for social media promotion or advertising
9. Swag for Artist Members and/or Participants (t-shirts), two designs

• All of the work we did will be posted on my Behance TIASO Project. I only showed a few of our finished pieces here but they are all phenomenal, cohesive, and brilliantly done.

Branding a new organization as well as creating consistent messaging, a website, marketing, and so much more from nothing, in 24-hours, is nearing insanity. But because I had a team I knew I could trust and a process to stick to, I believe we were unbelievable successful and created something incredible.