Visual development guide

THE NEW DRESS CODE

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

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what’s inside?

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VISUAL ANALYSIS

IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT

THE OLD SCHOOL

DOODLES

THE NEW SCHOOL

THE CHOSEN ONE I, SPY DIGITAL DRAFTS BUILDING OUR WORDMARK FINALIZATION

BORDERS / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

01 THE GENESIS

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visual analysis” THE OLD SCHOOL THE NEW SCHOOL

BORDERS / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

01 VISUAL 01 THEANALYSIS GENESIS

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the old school

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Before developing a new identity for Borders, we should examine and understand the design of the previous identity.

The old Borders logo was a wordmark of the brand name with an extended cross-bar to distinguish the font. The red bar under the font showed the brand image of Borders.

What will be changed?

We will update the brand to more accurately reflect the values of Borders. Who said a smart brand couldn’t be playful and enjoyable? We will accentuate Borders’s playful and charismatic way of spreading knowledge with the new identity.

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01 VISUAL ANALYSIS

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the new school We started with a word map and brainstorm in order to find concepts that fit the new Borders identity and mission: to inspire the spread of knowledge.

A common practice at this point in the creative process is to identify concepts related to Borders and its products or services. These concepts are used to inspire visual representations of the company. The concepts are: community, growth, and inspiration.

BORDERS / VISUAL VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

01 THEANALYSIS GENESIS 01 VISUAL

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the new school

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Initial “B”

Trees represent knowledge. We chose use leaves to stand for trees and growing up knowledgeable.

Idea 01 Community Concept: sharing and the exchange of ideas Element: dialogue boxes/ quotation marks/ face/ people/ Arrows Idea 02 Growth Concept: Enrich and foster knowledge Element: Trees/ Owls Idea 03 Inspiration Concept: Iconographic depictions of knowledge and wisdom Element: Brains/ books/ fires/ lights/ tubes/ owls/ Bs

BORDERS / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

b

01 VISUAL 01 THEANALYSIS GENESIS

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identity development” DOODLES THE CHOSEN ONE I, SPY DIGITAL DRAFTS BUILDING OUR WORDMARK FINALIZATION

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02 IDENTITY01 DEVELOPMENT THE GENESIS

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doodles

By examining the keywords and extrapolating their visual identities, we came up with more than four hundred sketches.

These sketches helped ideate as many versions as possible in order to distill a few core ideas. Three ideal comps are displayed here.

COMP 01/ COMMUNITY We used dialogue boxes and quotation marks to convey speech and communication—classic icons representing community.

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doodles

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COMP 01/ COMMUNITY These icons also represent the exchange of ideas. We started with overlapping dialog boxed and arrows to establish the visual of communication.

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BORDERS / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

MORE KNOWLEDGE. MORE ACCESSIBLY. 01 THE GENESIS

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doodles

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COMP 02 / GROWTH Trees have been symbolic for knowledge for ages, and trees can grow for years. For growth ideas, we began by sketching the outlines of trees.

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doodles

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COMP 02 / GROWTH We also felt that because we reap bounty from trees, and because owls live in trees, trees would be a good representation of knowledge.

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doodles

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COMP 03 / INSPIRATION For Inspiration, we tried to use brains, books, and Bs to convey this idea. Inspiration is a tricky one to put into graphics, because inspiration can be anything.

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doodles

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COMP 03 / INSPIRATION We chose to expand on the B letterform in order to bring the conversation back to Borders.

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BORDERS IS ALWAYS GLOWING WITH YOU NO MATTER HOW OLD ARE YOU.

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02 IDENTITY01 DEVELOPMENT THE GENESIS

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WE EXIST TO INSPIRE.

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02 IDENTITY01 DEVELOPMENT THE GENESIS

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the chosen one We decided that the best two concepts that convey our idea existed in the combination of the letter B, the iconography of the leaf, and the iconography of the owl.

The purpose of this phase is to explore more opportunities of these shapes and forms.

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I,spy

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SIMILAR LOGOS Because we intended on using trees in our new logo, we needed to do some research into logos that also used the tree graphic in order to prevent any accidental similarities.

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02 IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT

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I,spy

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FORGET THE OWL We came to realize that there are many brands that already use the owl as a symbol. For this reason, we decided to simplify and remove the owl from our ideation. This creates a stronger, more focused brand identity.

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02 IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT

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digital drafts We came up few ideas that included the dialogue box, Bs, dolphins, and parrots which is to perform virtual actions and present our new style.

BORDERS

BORDERS

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digital drafts After idea development and logo research, we decided to narrow it down to one best idea and combine the visuals. The logo reflects multiple meanings with a simple shape.

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building our wordmark Type logos come in thousands of possible variations, shapes, sizes, and styles, each conveying a slightly different impression upon audiences.

borders

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finalization Leaves in combination with the letter B tells the story that Borders aims to assemble a group of people sharing knowledge together and growing ideas together.

The concept of the logo combines these three ideas together.

SIGNATURE

SYMBOL

WORDMARK

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02 IDENTITY01 DEVELOPMENT THE GENESIS

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BORDERS / VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

01 THE GENESIS

BORDERS IS YOUR CONSTANT COMPANION.

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Copyright Š2016 Scarlett Liu All content for Borders was conceived, designed and produced

by Scarlett Liu. Writing edited and supplemented by Alex Basa.

The only exception is the overview and the history of Borders corporation which was taken form Wikipedia.

Design Consultation Hunter Wimmer, GR 604 Nature of Identity, Academy of Art University Some of the photographs and image were downloaded from flicker.com; thestocks.im; shutterstock.com and are used in accordance with the Creative Commons License. The book is a non-commercial work produced as a student project for educational purposes, and as such as considered a derivative work under the Fair Use Clause of U.S. Copyright law.

Manufactured in the USA

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01 THE GENESIS

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