This is my assignment submission for the module Art direction: Advanced web Design. This is the assignment for the Design portfolio, brand communications campaign.

This Rebrand and redesign was done with a motto as the main source. The original logo has been changed to reduce the amount of colour that occupied the original design, and also to offer a more clear and concise image with the logo itself. The personality of the freedom festival was intended to be portrayed through the logo. An artistic font is used to help convey the culture held within the festival. 

A simpler colour palette for the logo was chosen, opting for a variation of a black and white version and one that incorporates the gradient of the new brand colour scheme to it. The space of the o in freedom has been emptied and is now intended to be used as a window for the slogan. An idea is to incorporate a different motto each year as a way to encapsulate that year’s spirit of the festival.

To enforce this new colour scheme, the option for branded clothing became to provide a simple design that can  be utilised in a variety of ways. In this scenario it has been decided to utilise the space as a way to advertise artists and performers within the festival. In this mock-up there are stock images used as a placeholder, in practice it would be a benefit to utilise the talent available for that year’s event. The ideation of the t-shirts utilises four of the colours in the scheme, the calm pastel colours provoke a sense of creativity and friendliness which sits as a value of the freedom festival itself.

Collaboration with artists and performers is something the freedom festival arts trust does year round, this is something I want to encourage and reinforce within the new branding. During some late stage research, this print by Michael Tompsett was found and offered an inspiration in the design process for this website. It would be suggested to attempt to use the original artist or commission a new version of this skyline. This version done here was an inspired recreation meant to envision this next view point. It could be beneficial in the spirit of collaboration, to allow an artist or more to offer a personalised touch within the website design for that year, incorporating an easier to adjust element such as a footer in this example can provide a perfect way to reinforce this collaboration.

Using the mailchimp service we are able to design a mass email template that allows the brand to be portrayed in a uniform way. It is important to have a solid recurring theme throughout every platform there is a presence on and that should especially extend to any and every interaction between the user and the service. Already it is apparent to see the regular use of colour and imagery provides a more credible and personalised experience.

This campaign is focused around this mentality and motto of “everyone together” within the social media ads. There needs to be this focus on the community and collective of the audience. To expand on that, the subject focus of the media within these ads should be on the experience and the atmosphere of that shared mentality and the feeling of bringing people together, it will achieve more to reinforce this celebration of culture and people. It does not have to be a complex overload of stimuli, and by utilising the same elements throughout all media, subconsciously the name and identifying features of the brand become instantly recognisable.

Moving onto the final major aspect of the refreshed brand design, the website has been designed with a key component in mind. Simplicity works. While maintaining everything that has been discussed within  the earlier discussion, the landing page is the key to the final framework of the website. The clutter has been cleared from the navigation bar and different pages have been condensed to provide a simple and clean experience. To bring the brand to its roots, the focus of hulls skyline throughout is utilised from an inspired print, this provides and artistic view while showing a pride in the heritage of the organisation.

A Grid system has been utilised to help ease the responsive design. And here we can see the alternate colour that is used to provide eyesight to the calls to action. The colour scheme utilises the blues as the main colour, due to the calming effect it can provide, this is to help the user feel comfortable with the site. The navigation is simple utilising a drop down menu hover state that offers sub menus and navigation into the page. 

Once the user delves into the menu, the sub menu expands to provide an easier point of navigation, still utilising the grid system, the about me section is an example of how pages can be condensed to provide a cleaner user experience. To expedite navigation further in this section there are navigation arrows which will take the user directly to the next page. 

A new decision is to change the news content, by providing a search function that allows the user to avoid a cluttered screen full of headlines. And having multiple sections based on what is being viewed the most or staff picks of stories, allows the brand to direct traffic easier. 

A map feature combined with location and accessibility resources allows users to help get the most out of their experience within the festival, providing a more secure feeling to the user. 

Utilising round edges within images surrounding people helps to provide a friendly feeling toward them as the user views the image. Giving that feeling allows the user to make a connection with the content they are seeing, and sympathise to the cause more, with this it can help to encourage awareness and knowledge of the brand and service. 

The donation service loads up to a separate form that the user can fill in and request a link to continue the payment, providing a more reassuring process than making the user create an account  with the webpage. Which will overall provide a much more pleasant and friendly user experience.

The settings are accessibility features that allow the user to customise their experience, as the overall goal is to provide a simple experience that gives concise information and allows the user to experience a journey within the page. The only features that feel relevant for this page are accessibility ones. 

The goal of this campaign is to highlight all the strengths that the freedom festival does well, and to reinforce those ideas and values it is establishing.