Fred Wordie Brand X - September 2015
Biome
The Brief
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Manifesto V1
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Scenarios
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The Concept
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Identity Development
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Product Development
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Product Identity
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Testing Kit
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The Products
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The Brochure
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The Exhibition
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My Thoughts
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Working initially in small teams, you are asked to develop the proposition for a new brand, whose focus will serve the needs or wishes of a particular market in the near future. Responding to emerging and predicted social, cultural, technological, political and economic trends, your brand will anticipate new concerns, desires and behaviours to reveal a viable business opportunity. Having identified a credible opportunity, you will first establish a set of core values that will underpin your brand, and subsequently develop a brand name, visual identity and semantic ‘DNA’ upon which to build not only a compelling brand narrative but also a family of ‘signature’ products - one per student - that will be presented at your brand ‘launch’: the culmination of the project. 1
Future Trends Identifying the future trends that will effect the home of the future with respect to health & well-being. cities like Beijing and Rio De Janeiro recording unhealthy air pollution levels daily. The second trend was anti-biotic resistance, this is another serious risk to our future health care, as the simplest infection will be not curable. The third is the rise of the more informed and active patient, due to the internet many patients are becoming more savvy about their condition and their treatment, thus want to take active role in their own health. This is already apparent and will only become more so as a generation is raised with the internet. All of these factors combine for our last future trend, which is alternative and pre-emptive medicine. These have always been on around but we believe they will become more popular as other medicines begin to fail and the internet generation looks for less synthetic alternatives.
Our first group spider diagram of areas to explore.
As a starting point for this project our group of 4 people were given the topic of Health and Well-being within the home of the future. We immediately started to investigate trends in the home of today and then started to discuss how this will change and develop in the future. We explored many themes through both the use of post-it notes and then group spider diagrams. We used this approach because it meant everyone in the group could have equal say, it also allowed us to discuss topics at a pace that allowed deeper exploration. After discussing many ideas we settled on 4 future trends that we wanted to tackle - we chose all of these because they are issues that are already facing us today but are on trend to become more prevalent in the home of the future. The first being a rise in city pollution and the health risks this entails. This is something we are already seeing in
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Simple We aim to create products experience that help to improve your health and well-being.
Scientific We strive to produce products that work with you by ensuring that all our products have a firm basis in proven techniques.
Transparent We aim to be transparent in what we do, so that you know how we work because you can see how we work.
Nurturing We believe that by taking an active role in your environment your environment can take care of you and intern you the planet. 4
Manifesto V1 Shaping our brand through deciding on 4 brand pillars and writing the first draft of the manifesto
After exploring these future trends, we next looked at how to apply these trends and predications. So we started to look at what values would be important for our future users and what kind of brands we could draw inspiration from. The brand pillars we settled on were Simple, Scientific, Transparent and Nurturing. We liked the idea of being a very open company with very transparent products. We would be open in the way that OpenDesk are, they are a open source furniture company that let’s a users download and make any design form the website. The only thing you pay for is to get the designs made for you locally. We also wanted our products to be transparent in the way Chemex coffee products are transparent and easy to understand. With a Chemex coffee maker you can see the coffee being made right before your eyes in a simple way. However, we also liked the scientific nature of the Chemex products, their aesthetics manage to provoke
ideas of science and hence you feel your coffee is being made in a scientific manner. Aesop does this in a similar way by using branding that suggest the products are being sold at 1900 local apothecary, and hence gives it high end cosmetic products a very scientific tone. Another aspect we wanted in our brand pillars was the idea of nurturing oneself and in turn nurturing the planet, as we felt that need to be have strong stance on climate change would be important for a company in the future. We therefore took inspiration from Good Spread, an artisan peanut butter company that gives a food supplement packet to child in a developing country with every sale. All of these companies and brand pillars informed our first draft at a company manifesto seen left. Next we needed to focus in on an area to apply these pillars and brand inspirations - you can see our progress and thinking on the spider diagram over leaf.
Chemex
Good Spread
OpenDesk
Aesop
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Our group spider diagram where we explored environmental toxins.
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Scenarios Finding relatable and future proof scenarios to build our product concepts on.
proof scenarios and brainstormed ideas of ways to remove or warn of these environmental dangers. We kept a very open mind when doing so and this helped generate ideas that we wouldn’t usually be open to sharing. One result that kept cropping up as a solution was nature, for example one group member found a study by NASA that showed how plants could be used to remove tobacco toxins from the air, and another member found a researcher working with bacteria to identify the allergens on kitchen surfaces. After more research on Bio-Enginerring we realised that it could offer a lot of solutions in the near future especially when it came to toxins in the air, especially as concerns to water. Hence we decided to focus our products on living organisms like algae, bacteria and plants.
My own hidden toxin scenarios.
After coming up with our first brand manifesto and reassessing our future predications we started to focus in on the idea of tackling hidden environmental dangers in the home- as this was an area that became came clear during a group spider diagram. Thereafter, we all went away and came up with 5 scenarios each that showed some form of environmental danger. From this we had over 20 unique scenarios; hidden toxins in the water, noise pollution from neighbours, allergens in the air from pets etc. From here we started to group these scenarios into different groups such as smell or noise, this helped us identify issues that were related and eliminate scenarios that were not relatable. We then put on the wall our most relatable and future
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The group organising and categorising our scenarios.
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The Concept A subscription service to purify your home from hidden dangers, and would show you your progress in a analogue fashion.
Discussing future scenarios involving environmental dangers and ways to solve them, we focused in on four main areas. The first was air born toxins, the second was water born and the third toxins you bring into the home on your hands. The fourth product would be some form of a testing kit to alert you to the four mentioned hidden dangers. From here we developed a concept that fitted with our brand pillars; a subscription service to purify your home from hidden dangers, and would show you your progress in an analogue fashion. We imagined a typical user journey as the following; a user would feel a urge to make their home more sanitary, this could be due to moving to a new climate, a new home or maybe they have a new borne. They would then request a testing kit from us which would test their home
A quick diagram explaining our service idea.
for toxins present in the air, water and on their hands. They would then be able to see what toxins, if any, were present in their environment and relay the information back to us (the company). We would then prescribe products that would tackle their bespoke issue and also send them a new testing kit every month that would show them how the environment was becoming less toxic around them. This concept resonated with all of us because it reflected our brand values strongly; being nurturing of the user’s home environment, transparent in the way you can see it work and simple in its analogue approach. We now needed to design our brand in such a way that it echoed all of this as well as being scientific in appearance and performance.
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Another quick diagram explaining our service idea.
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Our collected material for the brand mood board
Identity Development Starting to gather material to use for our brand mood board. When developing our brands identity, we started by gathering textures, typefaces and logos we felt fit our brand values- we then used the diagram seen below to work out which images reflected our brand pillars the strongest. For example, we really liked some wooden products because they seemed simple and nurturing, however we
decided as a group that they didn’t seem to represent the scientific or transparent nature of our company. Therefore these images were not used later on in the process when we made our product mood board. From here we started to develop a graphic language for our company as well as a logo. A guided walk-through of this development can be seen on the next page. Organising our collected images to fit our brand pillars.
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To bring elements of both the scientific brand pillar and the use of plants in our products. We started looking at microscopic images of plant matter and really fell in love with the aesthetic this created.
When looking at what type of font we wanted to use, we stumbled across Darwin’s “Origin of Species” and we decided that we should pick a font that echoed that scientific feel. We therefore chose to use the typeface Aleo for the name, as it was a slab serif and therefore felt like a modern version of the serif font used by Darwin. We then chose the font Lato as a complementary sans-serif font.
During the beginning of the brand development we really liked the name “Eyrie” as it was another name for a nest, and we valued the idea that we would help our clients build the perfect nest.
We tried to combine both these microscopic images with the name of Eyrie. The final result was a attempt to make the image of nest into a petri dish, as we felt this got across our brand values. However, we decided against it as it people did not understand that aspect of it and the name a just seemed scary to them and therefore not nurturing or transparent.
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After coming back to our brand identiy we realised that Eyrie was not working. We settled on the name “Biome� because it felt both friendly and also is a scientific word describing ones habitat. This really struck a cord with us as it translated all of our brand pillars. The image left of algae under a microscope really inspired us and helped us to decide on both a colour scheme and the feeling we wanted our logo to have.
We then started by vectorising the image and playing around with the component parts in a attempt to make an abstract logo that still felt gave the same feeling of that image.
After simplifying the image we settled on the logo in the bottom right. It was simple but still conjured the image of a living cell. To add to the logo we decided to make it move, we therefore put life into it by making i subtly grow, shrink and ripple as a living cell would. The two pictures below are screen shots of the 10 second long looping logo.
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Simple Scientific Transparent Nurturing Passive 16
We are all at risk of being seriously harmed by the deadly toxins that we are unable to see in our home environment. Biome prescribes tailored tools that work seamlessly with you and your home to remove these deadly toxins. Biome improves your home environment over time, in ways you can see work, resulting to a home that will take care of you.
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Product Development As a group we proposed product based solutions and then discussed which ideas fit our brand.
toxins from the water before it left the tap. The second idea was a jug that used the same plant based filters but would be filled with tap water and pour out clean water. We all quickly realised that the first idea was not very Biome because it required fitting and would therefore not be simple or passive. So we set a rule for all our products that they must not require instillation and should be easy to maintain. We did not feel that Biome would be a company that changed a clients schedule but would instead work in synchronisation with their life. From here we were each able to pick a product idea to develop and these will be expanded on later.
My own quick sketches of product concepts
Whilst devolving our brand identity, we also worked on what products we would design for the brand; the aim was still to identify and then eradicate hidden toxins in the home environment, we also really liked the idea of using plants or bio-enginering in some way. We approached our products in a very open manner, first coming up with products that could be used to solve the toxin ideas, then placed them on the wall - from here we discussed whether they fit the newly updated brand pillars. A good example of this is the water filter product for which we had two strong product concepts. The first was an in pipe fixture that used plant roots to remove
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A selection of our groups first product concepts.
Left: A integrated water filter concept Right: A free standing water filter concept.
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Product Identity Our Group decided on what materials and textures to use for our products.
appropriate material to use because of its anti-bacterial properties, glass would allow our customers to see the inner workings of our products and hence trust them more. We also chose to use forms that we felt would fit in a science lab, this meant taking inspiration from lab equipment itself. The sum total of this was a product identity that was simple, transparent and would be as comfortable in a lab as it would be in a home.
Our final Brand mood board
After establishing a basic understanding of how the products would function, we then set about giving the products the same aesthetic values- by using the mood board (seen below) as the inspiration for this, it was made up of images used already for the Biome’s identity. From here we decided to use four main materials and textures for products. These were glass, copper, white ceramic and of course the plant based matter. We chose these materials because they gave all our products a new and contemporary feel, at the same time referencing back to scientific instruments; copper felt like an especially
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Two of my sketch models for the form of the testing kit.
A few rough sketches for the Biome Testing Kit
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Testing Kit The design and function of the Biome Testing Kit.
rine (CL) and Phosphate (PO3-). There is also a strip that the user touches with their hand and this tests for the levels of bacteria on their hands. Over the course of a week the kit uses colour changing bacteria to highlight the levels of dangerous toxins in your water, air and on your hands. Higher levels of toxins are shown by darker bacteria colours in the specific test tubes, for example in the picture below you can see that their are dangerous levels of Micro-organisms in the water (MoW) because of the dark green colour. The user then enters their results using the 5 colour system on the Biome website, this gives Biome a specific barcode for each user, and from here it can recommend the user products that will tackle the users specific needs. Once the client has received their prescribed products they will be able to see the difference the product has made over time as the testing kit bacteria gets lighter in colour. The hope being that they begin to trust Biome products as they can actively see them making a difference.
The finished Biome Testing Kit
After we had come up with a set of function rules and aesthetic guidelines, I was set the task of deigning the testing kit for Biome. I therefore based the design round a test-tube rack but built it from our brand materials and therefore was able to give the testing kit a clean modern aesthetic. I also really like the idea of visually showing the user the testing results; when researching online about bio-enginering I found lots of examples of using colour changing bacteria to test for different chemicals. This felt very in keeping with biome, so I chose to incorporate this technology into my product. The testing kit works as follows: A user would request a testing kit from Biome. Once the kit arrived it would immediately start testing the air for 4 dangerous toxins: Micro-organisms (MoA), Ammonia (NH3), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Solvents (SoLV). The user is required to add water to 4 test-tubes, and these will begin to start testing for Micro-organisms (MoW), Formaldehyde (CH2O), Chlo-
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The finished Biome Testing Kit
A user entering their testing results to the Biome website.
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The Products The design and function of the Biome product range.
of water. Thus creating a symbiotic relationship that was good for both you and the Living Soap. The next product was “Biome Sansevieria Filter”, which focused on using the Sanseviera plant to naturally absorb and remove toxins from the air. We chose to use this plant as we read a study about NASA using the plant to remove toxins in studies, the plant also self watered itself through the pot, so it required minimal maintenance. The idea behind this would be to produce market other plants that got rid of other toxins simultaneously. The last product in the range is the “Biome Water Filter”, which uses organic material pods to filter your drinking water, the pods are interchangeable so you will only need to get the pods that apply to specific water these pods are stacked inside the Water Filter and provide the user with healthy and clean drinking water. Each product was built with the same materials to give the range a collective feel and we spent a lot of time making sure each product kept to our brand pillars.
The Biome Water Filter
After deciding what hidden toxins the testing kit would detect, the other group members set about designing 3 products that Biome would prescribe to remove these dangers. The first product tackled the issue of bad bacteria on your hands as you entered your home, this product was called “Biome Living Soap”, as it used a living moss to produce good bacteria that would replace the bad bacteria on your hands with healthy bacteria which helps battle infection and germs. We chose to use good bacteria rather then kill off the germs on your hand because during our research we found that conventional soaps were not affective for maintaining clean hands after washing and were contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria. The moss in the product is suspending above a bowl of water, so by gently pressing your hands into the moss, you not only covered your hand with good bacteria but also watered the plant by pressing it into the reservoir
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The Biome Living Soap
The Biome Sansevieria Filter
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The Brochure The design and function of our brands brochure for the exhibition.
For our brand exhibition we were tasked with making a brochure, and after discussing this we decided as a group that a conventional brochure would not work for us. We decided this because we wanted our products to work as whole range with the sole function of cleansing your home, as we did not want to sell our products individually because then the client was not receiving the full Biome experience. Therefore we decided to make our brochure out of a petri dish, which we called a “Biome Broad Spectrum
Test.� The kit would be taken home by potential customers and placed in their home environment. There it would test for all hidden toxins, and like the Biome Testing Kit it would change to darker shade of green depending on the level of toxins present. We hoped that if we showed people how dangerous their home environment was for free, they would be convinced to get the full Biome Testing Kit from us; this in turn would show them what individual toxins were present in their air, water and on their hands. The Biome Broad Spectrum Test
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The Exhibition How we presented our products at the exhibition and how we showed our brand through our presentation.
We all agreed that the first half of the presentation was not in keeping with Biome’s nurturing brand pillar. So we decided to have the first part detached from the main pitch. To do this I took on the role of a scientist and demonstrated using science experiments and facts the dangers present in your home environment. During this first half, the group member who did the second part of the presentation stopped me mid flow, and explained to the audience that they shouldn’t worry because Biome can solve all the issues I had just discussed. She went on to explain our range of products, how easily they could fit into your life, how you could see them working in real time and how they would make your home a more healthy place to live.
The Biome Exhibition at the BaaD centre
For the exhibition we decided to make a clean and organised display, in keeping with our brand pillars. We also chose to do this as it showed our brand identity strongly, we even made an iPad stand out of coper wire to display our moving logo. We placed information about each product in front of it, these information place cards took the role of a story, explaining from the Testing kit, right through all of the products. Visitors were invited to take readings from the Testing Kit and see how these findings related to the products prescribed. For our brand presentation we decided on a simple narrative, warning people about how toxic their homes could be and then calm them down by telling them how Biome could help.
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The Biome poster and final manifesto.
An example of our layout for the exhibition.
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My Thoughts As with all group projects the main difficulty is not doing the work but finding avenues of communication that lead to a strong team dynamic. This was especially important this project because we had two exchange students in our project, one of which was not a native English speaker. We managed to achieve this quite early on by working in big formats, like pin ups and spider diagrams. Once we had found this way of working we were finally able to get on the same page design wise, this was incredibly important for this project and allowed us to create a very
cohesive brand. I felt that I learnt a great deal in both this area of group work and in brand building generally. I did get frustrated with the project time line because I felt that with more time we could have been more experimental with many areas of the brand, especially the product aesthetics. This being said this project did lead to a outcome that I was really happy with. A brand that was firmly built on a real understanding of our brand pillars in every aspect, from the logo development to the final presentation. 32