There was an opportunity to imagine a new identity and branding of the Canada Council for the Arts (CA) to increase its brand recognition among Canada’s emerging artists as well as international art audience ‘looking into’ Canadian arts. The branding aimed to reflect the CA’s expanded interests and understanding in the new contemporary art forms, while continuing to be embracing of the existing audience. The scope of this project ranged from brand analysis, context research, strategy reviews, identity system, layout design to web design. While this is to be pitched to the personnel and affiliates of CA who are the communicators and ambassadors of the brand for future considerations, each design process involved voting of a classroom mock board who had the say in the subsequent steps.
This 90+ page identity style guide unveils the orderly process which was taken to showcase all the visual outcomes, supported by written rationale.
The information is organized into 4 chapters: 1. Brand Analysis & Strategy, 2. Main Visual Identity, 3. Consistency with the Styling, 4. Web UX
The logo set was deliberately created using a traditional golden ratio/golden circle composition. Such was done to embark on a refreshingly dynamic yet formal tone of voice as part of the rebrand strategy.
A custom typeface was created based on an existing open source font Arsenal. This was then applied on the wordmark. The usage is expanded onto major headings that are considered to be higher in the visual hierarchy than the logo display.
Further brand application in web world involved choosing a right "grid" compositions appropriate for web responsiveness.
Several business card options are created for in-house staff and executives to support their national presentation for international sponsors and partners.
Phase 1. Three Design Directions The three design directions which were put to vote were: 1. Forward thinking, 2. Inclusive, and 3. Socially Conscious. The mock board voted for Socially Conscious, and requested for “Public Engagement” as a rephrasing of the selected design direction.
With the topic of Global Warming a commonly held discussion across many communities, it is the most relevant for a report to be distributed by the UN IPCC to address publically to inform and raise awareness. The 2018 IPCC Summary Report for Policy Makers was re-created with an intentional layout design to cater to multi-disciplinary communities, not limited to scholars, who are curious to educate themselves and to translate he newfound knowledge into their daily endeavours. Certain information is simplified to captivate the readers while others remained as the original to preserve importance. The document abides by the established brand colours of the UN IPCC. Some graphics were re-done to create a more cohesive structure and mood. The hope is for the contents to be taken with the logics coupled with the emotions of trust, hope, and proactiveness.
The philosophy of WHoLE emulates Koffka’s original definition of gestalt: “the whole is different from the sum of its parts”, rather than the often mistranslated: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Marrying the original gestalt with Swarbrick and Yudof’s 8 Wellness Dimensions, one comes to appreciate more the pieces of wellness that impacts the whole. The inception of the above ideas into WHoLE was finessed with our target readers: the twenty and thirty something-year-old couples striving to live more integrated lives. Prying just a wee bit, WHoLE features the snippets of the love lives of our readers’ anonymous next-door neighbours and fellow colleagues, and also to learn from their lives. WHoLE’s mission is to remind our readers that they are not alone in this re-defining era of being young adult couples who are still growing together.