Case Study: NMIX 6011 – New Media design
April 2023
Project Overview
This was a group project that involved creating a hypothetical brand and making a style guide to be used in that brand’s communications, websites, apps, etc.
The hypothetical brand that we came up with was Nado’s Expert Pizza Reviews, an app based on my personal passion: pizza. The goal of the app would be to provide a social platform for pizza lovers to find their next favorite pizza place using Nado’s expert reviews and the reviews of fans.
My role in this project was to help with a little bit of everything, but my main jobs were to develop the color palette, wordmark logo, typography and brand voice.
Challenge:
Creating a cohesive brand style.
Color Palette
The goal of the color palette was to create a cohesive group of colors that invoked thoughts of a classic NY pizza parlor. To that end, the primary colors are based on the main components of pizza: sauce, cheese and crust. They are bright and vibrant, but they aren’t too distracting or offensive.
The secondary colors are meant to contrast the primary colors and make things pop. They were intended to be used for online semantic elements like links or buttons. They are also able to be used in some merch designs to contrast the primary Marinara and Italian Cheese colors.
Wordmark Logo
I wanted to create something funky and unique, but still relatively simple. The font Filmotype Maxwell has funky curves and edges that make it look kind of retro, fitting in with the cartoon style mascot that another group member created.
I had the idea to make the apostrophe in “Nado’s” look like a pizza slice, which is a subtle change but makes for an interesting detail to add.
Typography
The typography needed to match the energy of the wordmark logo in that it needed the same kinds of funky edges, but it couldn’t be too fancy, as that would make it hard to read.
For headings, I settled on the fonts Lovelo and Poppins Medium because they have interesting sharp angles and curves, but they are not too distracting to look at.
For body copy, I chose the font Montserrat because it contrasted the sharp angles of the headings with simple, curvy body text. It is easy to read and pairs nicely with the chosen heading fonts
Brand Voice
The brand voice was important for the hypothetical brand. The whole point of the app was to create a place where pizza lovers can find trustworthy and objective reviews about local pizza places.
It was important to sound credible and passionate, as the average Nado’s user is serious about their pizza. But it was also important to be saucy to ensure that the reviews are entertaining and humorous, and don’t take pizza too seriously.
Results
I think this project turned out great. We were able to create a cohesive brand using all of our rules and branding, and it is aesthetically pleasing and practically functional.
Through this project, I learned that it can be difficult to design things as a group because different members of the project may have different visions for all the elements of the brand. It is important to communicate and to embrace everyone’s opinions and points of view to create the best project possible.
