Week 4 - Week 8
Wang Shengxiao/0369380
Bachelor of Design(Honours) in Creative Media
Creative Brand Strategy / Task 2: Ideation & Design direction
TABLE OF THE CONTENT
- Lecture
- Instruction
- Process
- Submission
- Feedback
- Reflections
Lecture
Week 4: Brand PositioningIn Week 4, we learned about brand positioning and how brands define their place in the minds of consumers. Brand positioning helps a brand stand out by clearly communicating its values, personality, and unique benefits compared to competitors. A strong position also builds emotional connections and encourages customer loyalty.
The lecture explained that brand positioning develops from a big idea and involves understanding the brand, the target audience, and the market. Key steps include researching consumer needs and competitors, creating a clear positioning statement, and applying it consistently across all brand touchpoints such as visual identity, products, and communication.
Different positioning strategies were introduced, including convenience-based positioning, niche services, and problem-solution approaches, which help brands communicate their strengths more effectively.
Week 5: Event Planning and Management
Week 5 focused on event planning and how events support branding and audience engagement. An event plan acts as a guide that organises all parts of an event, including goals, roles, budget, location, branding, promotion, and on-site processes.
We also learned that event management is about managing calculated risks. Careful planning helps reduce uncertainty, improves coordination, and ensures the event delivers a memorable experience to the audience.
Week 5 focused on event planning and how events support branding and audience engagement. An event plan acts as a guide that organises all parts of an event, including goals, roles, budget, location, branding, promotion, and on-site processes.
We also learned that event management is about managing calculated risks. Careful planning helps reduce uncertainty, improves coordination, and ensures the event delivers a memorable experience to the audience.
Week 6: Mood Board Development
In Week 6, we explored how mood boards and stylescapes help visualise the overall tone and direction of a brand or event. Tools like Canva, Milanote, and Miro were introduced to organise colours, imagery, typography, and inspiration, ensuring creative consistency.
In Week 6, we explored how mood boards and stylescapes help visualise the overall tone and direction of a brand or event. Tools like Canva, Milanote, and Miro were introduced to organise colours, imagery, typography, and inspiration, ensuring creative consistency.
Week 7: Brand Brief and Design Brief
Week 7 introduced the importance of brand briefs and design briefs. A brand brief defines a brand’s vision, mission, values, target audience, positioning, and communication style. It ensures clarity and consistency across all branding efforts.
Design briefs were highlighted as essential communication tools between clients and designers. Without a clear brief, it becomes difficult to achieve focused and effective design outcomes.
Week 7 introduced the importance of brand briefs and design briefs. A brand brief defines a brand’s vision, mission, values, target audience, positioning, and communication style. It ensures clarity and consistency across all branding efforts.
Design briefs were highlighted as essential communication tools between clients and designers. Without a clear brief, it becomes difficult to achieve focused and effective design outcomes.
Overall Summary
Overall, Weeks 4 to 8 provided practical tools for Task 2, including brand positioning, event planning, creative development, and clear documentation. These lectures showed how strong branding relies on clear strategy, good planning, and effective communication.
At the initial stage of the project, the campaign concept was still open
and exploratory. As shown in the first design draft, the idea focused on
“Fragmented Identity”, using deconstruction and collage as the core
creative direction. During this phase, I explored multiple campaign
touchpoints, including a pop-up store, fashion show, photography
exhibition, and an interactive website, in order to understand how Acne
Studios’ avant-garde identity could be translated into different
physical and digital experiences.
At this point, the visual direction and color palette were not yet finalized. The layout mainly functioned as a brainstorming board, collecting references from runway shows, photography, architecture, typography, and spatial design. This stage helped me clarify the overall mood of the campaign and test how fragmentation, contrast, and experimentation could visually reflect Acne Studios’ brand philosophy.
Part 2: Moodboard Development
fig.3.3 The final Moodboard (jpg)
Experience
In this project, we developed a design brief for our brand marketing campaign, which helped me visualize how the campaign’s brand identity and strategy would be perceived by customers. During the initial concept development stage, I explored different activity formats and visual references, allowing abstract ideas to gradually evolve into a more concrete and executable campaign concept. This process helped me better understand how branding decisions translate into real consumer experiences.
Overall, Weeks 4 to 8 provided practical tools for Task 2, including brand positioning, event planning, creative development, and clear documentation. These lectures showed how strong branding relies on clear strategy, good planning, and effective communication.
TASK :
In this project, you will develop a Design Brief for the proposed Brand Campaign.
Start with its contents such as Campaign Name, Communication Goals and Key Message based on theBig Idea.
From there you will develop the Ideation & Design Direction.
The objective is to generate well-founded opportunities that have a good prospect of creating value to the end-market, which matches the brand’s strength and strategy. It is a process that helps you to ask the right questions, get obvious solutions out of your head, discover unexpected innovative areas, create volume/variation of design possibilities.
2A: Ideation
From the Brand Touch Points identified in the Campaign Proposal (1B), continue to research for application references that represent or symbolize your Brand Campaign. Select only the MOST relevant (unique and portrays the subject in every context) touch points to build your Critical Application List, and include a short description for each application. Consider how each touch point would help to elevate or achieve the overall Brand Campaign.
2B: Design Direction
You are to articulate the design direction by developing a set of mood boards or stylescape, comprised with visual style, colour palettes, typography, graphic elements & etc. This will be the proposed look and feel of your Brand Campaign.
In this project, you will develop a Design Brief for the proposed Brand Campaign.
Start with its contents such as Campaign Name, Communication Goals and Key Message based on theBig Idea.
From there you will develop the Ideation & Design Direction.
The objective is to generate well-founded opportunities that have a good prospect of creating value to the end-market, which matches the brand’s strength and strategy. It is a process that helps you to ask the right questions, get obvious solutions out of your head, discover unexpected innovative areas, create volume/variation of design possibilities.
2A: Ideation
From the Brand Touch Points identified in the Campaign Proposal (1B), continue to research for application references that represent or symbolize your Brand Campaign. Select only the MOST relevant (unique and portrays the subject in every context) touch points to build your Critical Application List, and include a short description for each application. Consider how each touch point would help to elevate or achieve the overall Brand Campaign.
2B: Design Direction
You are to articulate the design direction by developing a set of mood boards or stylescape, comprised with visual style, colour palettes, typography, graphic elements & etc. This will be the proposed look and feel of your Brand Campaign.
Design Process Overview
My design process for this campaign can be divided into two main
stages:
(1) Campaign Concept Development
(2) Moodboard Development
Part 1: Campaign Concept Development
At this point, the visual direction and color palette were not yet finalized. The layout mainly functioned as a brainstorming board, collecting references from runway shows, photography, architecture, typography, and spatial design. This stage helped me clarify the overall mood of the campaign and test how fragmentation, contrast, and experimentation could visually reflect Acne Studios’ brand philosophy.
fig.3.1 The first draft of the Moodboard (jpg)
After receiving feedback from the Mr. Fauzi, it became clear that
including too many activities would weaken the focus of the campaign.
As a result, the concept was refined by reducing the number of
activities. The pop-up store was removed, and the campaign was
narrowed down to two key formats:
a Fashion Show and a Photography Exhibition.
This decision allowed the campaign to become more cohesive, focused,
and conceptually strong, while maintaining a clear narrative around
fashion as living collage art.
At the same time, the color palette was finalized in the second design
stage, shifting towards more controlled and harmonious tones that
aligned better with Acne Studios’ minimalist yet experimental
aesthetic.
fig.3.2 The Second draft of the Moodboard (jpg)
After the main concept and visual direction were confirmed, I
developed a mind map to systematically organize the campaign
structure. The mind map places Acne Studios at the center, with
"Fragmented Identity" as the core theme, branching out into key
components such as campaign concept, activities, visual references,
typography, and color palette.
This process helped translate abstract ideas into a clear design
system. Each branch of the mind map represents a specific design
decision, including:
The selection of fashion show and photography exhibition as the main
campaign formats
Visual references from runway spaces and editorial photography
Typography choices, combining structured serif fonts with experimental
styling
Color exploration inspired by Acne Studios’ collections and materials
By using the moodboard, I was able to clearly see the relationship
between concept, visuals, and execution. It also ensured that all
design elements worked consistently under one central idea, rather
than appearing as separate or disconnected components.
Overall, the mind map played a crucial role in refining the campaign
direction and transforming the initial experimental ideas into a more
focused and well-structured brand campaign proposal.
Submission
The Slide Design by Wang Shengxiao
Feedback
Week 5
The three ideas for the activities are quite good. During the process of creating the publicity materials, the three activities can be combined and integrated with each other.
Week 6
Well done! Keep it up!
Week 7
When rebranding, it is important to focus more on the style of the brand itself.
Week 8
There are too many activities. We don't need to do so many. This would result in an excessive workload. We can focus on the fashion show and photography exhibition, and eliminate the pop-up store.
Reflections
In this project, we developed a design brief for our brand marketing campaign, which helped me visualize how the campaign’s brand identity and strategy would be perceived by customers. During the initial concept development stage, I explored different activity formats and visual references, allowing abstract ideas to gradually evolve into a more concrete and executable campaign concept. This process helped me better understand how branding decisions translate into real consumer experiences.
Observation
Throughout the task, I observed that this stage was crucial in shaping our overall marketing strategy. By going through both the concept development and mind map processes, I learned the importance of asking the right questions instead of settling for obvious or surface-level solutions. Feedback from the lecturer also highlighted that having too many activities could dilute the campaign’s focus. Refining the concept by reducing activities helped strengthen the clarity and coherence of the final design direction before moving on to the final task.
Throughout the task, I observed that this stage was crucial in shaping our overall marketing strategy. By going through both the concept development and mind map processes, I learned the importance of asking the right questions instead of settling for obvious or surface-level solutions. Feedback from the lecturer also highlighted that having too many activities could dilute the campaign’s focus. Refining the concept by reducing activities helped strengthen the clarity and coherence of the final design direction before moving on to the final task.
Discovery
Through this task, I realized the importance of each touchpoint in elevating and achieving the overall brand campaign. Each touchpoint plays a key role in creating deeper emotional connections with customers, rather than simply serving as a visual or promotional element. Using the mind map allowed me to clearly understand how different components of the campaign work together under one central concept. This experience helped me recognize that a successful brand campaign relies on a cohesive system of touchpoints that collectively deliver a consistent and meaningful brand experience.
Through this task, I realized the importance of each touchpoint in elevating and achieving the overall brand campaign. Each touchpoint plays a key role in creating deeper emotional connections with customers, rather than simply serving as a visual or promotional element. Using the mind map allowed me to clearly understand how different components of the campaign work together under one central concept. This experience helped me recognize that a successful brand campaign relies on a cohesive system of touchpoints that collectively deliver a consistent and meaningful brand experience.
Comments
Post a Comment