H E L I X
This project was about creating the branding for an original design agency, this included the final pieces which involved designing a logo for the agency, creating a business card and finally creating an animated advert for promotion purposes. This project was my final project I did in my final year at university.
What is H E L I X?
For the idea of this project I wanted to create a hypothetical design agency brand called Helix. I want this to be a design agency working on projects that deliver branding/rebranding, advertising pieces such as posters and logos, typography projects and many different sorts of campaigns, all of these deliverables for many different clients, small and big.
I came up with this name because from my design agency research and from looking at many other agencies online they all have these specific names that mean something to them which inspired me but also got me to really think what would be a unique name for my own agency. Helix was the end result, of course the definition of this word is when an object having a three - dimensional shape like that of a wire is wrapped around a cylinder or cone or any other object as a single layer. When I first came up with the name Helix it just sounded so perfect to me but then from really understanding the definition of the word it made me think that this agency, the designers and team that will be part of this will be wrapped around within this agency because it will be our life, our family, our Helix.
From all this research from exploring different agencies, their websites, their kind of work produced and then looking at examples of agencies that have worked on branding/rebranding and typography, all of this has helped me to create my final pieces for this project which will visually represent what Helix is and what it can do for its future clients.
Final versions of agency logos
Blue Base Studios
This was the first version of the logo for the agency I came up with. I named it Blue Base because it sounded fun and friendly as well as professional. The look of the logo came out successfully but it didn’t look connected enough, it looked too out of place for my taste due to the B and the box itself not being centred but I was still happy with the outcome and quality of this design.
Nova Studios
This was the second version of the logo I created. I named it Nova because that sounded cosmic. I did the like the outcome of this logo too but it was missing that simplicity I wanted to have in it, the use of the particles on the letters and the gradient colour of the text made this logo look to high class and more like a luxury brand, I needed my logo to look simple, unique and professional.
Helix Studios
This was the third and final version of the logo. I loved the name Helix when I picked it as it just sounded so perfect for a project like this. This logo’s outcome was perfect and I was in love with the use of the two triangle shapes being blended into the letter H and then the positioning of Helix and Studios tied the whole logo itself very well together.
Alternate versions of final logo
This version was looking great but it looked like there was too much going on, the squares on either side reminded me too much of a broken kitchen tile and the colours looked too separated. It made the logo look very unconnected.
This version was a successful outcome and I was ready to use it as the final design but it did not look as creative as I imagined it to be. The only thing that I could receive from looking at it was that it looked too simple which isn’t a bad thing because it’s simplicity did make it work but I felt that I could create something different which would look more creative. However I would choose this as the second version of the logo if I got rid of the final one I have.
This version looked a lot more natural with the way the colours blend into the letter ‘H’ but it still looked too big and too complicated. I then got rid of two more triangles and from that point it was perfect. It looked completely natural, simple as well as creative.
Similarity and comparison of designer logo and agency logo
When comparing my personal designer logo to the Helix logo, you can see they look very similar in terms of the colour scheme. Specifically the grey and blue.
I did this on purpose with the Helix logo because as this is the agency I plan to create myself and own one day in the long term, I wanted the logo to represent where I’ve come from personally as a designer, my journey doing graphic design and that is really shown visually through my personal designer logo which is why I have incorporated the same colours into the Helix logo.
H E L I X Business Cards
Front Design
This side did not need to show much, just the logo itself and two basic thin rectangles on either side to keep the image looking connected.
Back Design
This side shows a little more than the front as this is the side that has the essential information that is needed for a business card so in this case the name of the design director and his role which is design director and then phone number and email. Of course these are made up for the purpose of this project. You then have the logo on the other side and a thin rectangle to keep both sides separated in an elegant and clean way. Background is also very basic, a light grey to help make everything stand out.
H E L I X Advert Animation
When creating this last final piece of the project after the logo designs and business card, I wanted to make sure this advert would feel real.
Advert Process
As you can see from the screenshots you can see different parts of the sequence, of course there are many more parts as the runtime of the entire sequence lasts for 1 minute and 11 seconds. These screenshots are the only parts I just took when creating the advert. The animation sequence itself came out very successful, at first I created the dotted background you can see from the screenshots, this was inspiration that I mentioned when talking about the Innova sequence. As they used a background with moving dots bursting out, I decided to create a moving background of white particles on a grey/white gradient background. The particles drop down throughout the entire sequence and when they get to the bottom i was able to make them slightly bounce and then they disappear, the same process is repeated in a loop throughout.
After working on this I then actually created the animation of the Helix logo as I knew this would take up the most time. I then moved that part of the sequence for the ending. Once that was done the entire sequence was created from working on all the text layers and animating them and timing them to come in and out when needed. I then added images of work which can be seen on the fourth screenshot that I have done for friends/family/customers through my design brand SIFFDesigns. I used work from that because I needed to show examples of what kind of work this agency offer in this advert so logos, posters etc. Of course the real advert would show actual work created by the agency as this agency has been made up for now.
After creating the sequence the most important part was left, the music. This was probably the most challenging and difficult part I faced in creating this. The reason this was so difficult is because I looked back on existing animated sequences I created for other modules at university such as my headphone brand advert ZONE, the music I used for that went perfectly well with it because it was in beat with what was being shown and when everything was being shown, the timing of everything fit so well together. I wanted to do the same thing with this but I was very unsure of what songs to use and I was listening to a huge range but I then knew this was gonna be a hit and miss at this point. I decided to download instrumentals of catchy songs that I thought would go well with this sequence and add them to the After Effects file and try them out. I ended up creating 7 versions of the final advert, versions 1 - 3 each had a different soundtrack playing throughout. Versions 4 - 6 had the same song but different animated sequence towards the end on the text layers and version 6 itself, the only difference with that is that I made the background react to the beat of the music. Finally version 7 had the same song as version 1 but it had the intro I created for versions 2 - 6. I created so many final outcomes of this advert because each song was timed differently with the sequence and I thought if I had more than one version of the advert it would help me see which one is the best. Overall I believe all the versions came out successfully and you can see the other versions on my youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoYxuP1_5Rd0xOjnrZQpOQ/videos?view_as=subscriber