Interaction Design · Project 1 of 3 · Weeks 1–5
Advanced GD Project 1: Comprehensive Brand Ecosystem
Identity, system, and the logic of a complete brand
FORMAT
Individual
WEEKS
1-4
METHODS
Brand strategy writing · Competitive landscape research · Logo suite development · Adobe Illustrator · Typography system · Color specification (PMS/CMYK) · Pattern or texture system · Print application design · Adobe InDesign · Brand guidelines document · Material specification · Optional: screenprinting · letterpress · monoprint · Presentation
TAGS
Design Thinking, Design Education, Identity Systems
Why this project
A brand ecosystem is an interconnected system where every element — the mark, the fonts, the colors, the paper, the texture, and the digital presence — is chosen in deliberate relation to all others. The true test of a brand is whether the entire system holds together: whether a business card, a website, and a package feel unified in meaning, not just in style.
The project challenges students to build that coherence from the ground up for a self-proposed client. The first design problem is definitional: Who is this brand for? What does it need to communicate? How should it feel? Those questions must be answered in writing before they are answered in form.
The Brief
PROJECT PROMPT
Design a comprehensive brand identity system for a fictional client of your choice. The brand should be specific enough to have a coherent visual logic—such as a boutique hotel, cultural institution, artisan product line, or creative services firm. Vague clients lead to vague brands.
Begin with strategy, not a logo. Your brand strategy document (4–5 pages) should define positioning, target audience, competitive landscape, visual rationale, and material rationale before any design work. This document is not a description of what you made but the argument that justifies your design choices.
The visual system includes a logo suite (primary, secondary, icon), typography, color palette with print specs, and a pattern or texture. Then, develop print applications (choose three, with at least one physically produced) and digital applications (choose two). The project concludes with an 8–12 page brand guidelines document explaining how the system works.
You may include analog techniques if they add strategic value—screenprinted patterns, letterpress business cards, or monoprinted textures, for example. These are optional. The key is whether the technique creates something the brand genuinely needs.
DELIVERABLE
Brand Strategy Document: 4–5 pages (positioning, audience, competitive landscape, visual rationale, material rationale)
Logo suite: primary, secondary, icon variations (Adobe Illustrator)
Typography system: display and body families, with usage hierarchy
Color palette: with PMS and CMYK specifications
Pattern or texture system
Print applications: choose 3 (stationery suite, packaging, publication, environmental); at least 1 physically produced
Digital applications: choose 2 (website design, social media system, app interface)
Brand guidelines document: 8–12 pages in InDesign
Presentation: client-format with prepared verbal statement
Self-assessment — see separate assignment sheet
What I've learned from running this
The brand strategy document consistently presents the greatest challenge: thinking in words before forming visuals. Students who sketch a logo first and justify it with written strategy afterward produce work that looks visually polished but reads as strategically thin. Strategy is either apparent in the work or its absence is. Students who build the argument first tend to make visual choices that are specific, grounded, and harder to question.
The material specification section is where strategic thinking becomes most visible. Selecting paper stocks and printing techniques based on what the brand actually requires — weighing cost, communication, and tactile quality together — produces different decisions than selecting materials out of personal interest. The difference is subtle in the brief and significant in the outcome.