Project Scope

Project Deliverables

For the Major Project my plan is to fully create a Car Brand, therefore after some deliberation it came quite naturally to determine some of the core essentials that would need to be included as a basis for the project. So because of this I was able to come up with a much clearer idea of the direction I wanted to take this project from the beginning.

Brand Guidelines

First on the agenda is the brands philosophy. This tells us what the brand stands for, how they should be designed, helping inform us of the target market and also serving as inspiration for the design language/ artstyle for the brand. This sort of information will be found in a brand guidelines document also detailing the colour schemes, key design features that make the brand recognisable and unique along with all other relevant brand guidelines associated that could inform about the brand itself and how to produce new material for it. 

Logo Designs/ Variations

The brand guidelines also partly includes the Logo Design itself which will be featured throughout the project at different points with a large variety of use cases both in real life design, print and web, therefore it is imperative that the logo be highly adaptable and fully explored in my brand guidelines.

 

1. (McCready, 2024)
2. (S-Class Design, no Date)
4. (Jaguar Rebrand, 2024)

Website/Online Presence

The last thing I need to consider to create a brand is its Online presence, especially as more and more people choose to engage with brands solely online without contact from stores or engaging with the products in the real world. This has became more apparent to me the longer I work for mercedes-benz, as we are now taught that the average customer is already 80% of the way through their sales journey before they even walk into the dealership, due to the extensive presence of online resources, configurators and car reviews seen by the customer as they start their buying journey. This is where websites and good social media presence show their value, as they act as the first stepping stone into a considering a brand as an option, this is especially important for new brands not well known to the public already.

The main aim of this part of the project is to design elements that characteristically are synonymous with the brand itself so that it can be applied to a range of products of different shapes and sizes yet still retain that characteristic brand feel, making the branding discussed in the brands guidelines the backbone of the entire branding project. To give more perspective on how branding changes the perspective of people on a brand, a good example would be recent changes to the Jaguar Logo and brand philosophy which has understandably caused outrage in their base as seen by titles like this appearing all over the news; “‘Killed a British icon’: Jaguar’s modernist rebrand sparks anger and mockery online” 3.(The Independent, 2024) 

Car Designs

The next step logically is moving on to the product design itself, for this project I plan to do 1 fully 3D rendered car design most likely created in Blender or possibly using Unreal engine to create the final render due to recent updates to its capabilities software and time permitting. The 3D design will then be used in a short animation sequence showcasing the ins and outs of the car. The car design itself should stick to the brand guidelines laid out in the first stage of development taking into account the target market, what the car is and also include less developed sketches of what could be other models for the brand along side it if possible in order to reinforce the core design principles for the brand itself.

5. (Configurator & prices: Mercedes-Benz, no date)

References

  1. McCready, R. (2024) 70+ brand guidelines templates, Examples & Tips, 70+ Brand Guidelines Templates, Examples & Tips. Available at: https://venngage.com/blog/brand-guidelines-templates/ (Accessed: 09 November 2024).

  2. Crospotter13 (no date) S-Class, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgy3askMcM (Accessed: 05 November 2024).
  3. Raiken, A. (2024) Jaguar’s modernist rebrand sparks anger and mockery online, The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/jaguar-rebrand-new-logo-cars-b2651365.html (Accessed: 21 November 2024).

  4. Inspire like no other: Challenge convention (2024) Jaguar. Available at: https://www.jaguar.co.uk/index.html (Accessed: 21 November 2024).

  5. Configurator & prices: Mercedes-Benz (no date) Mercedes. Available at: https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/car-configurator.html (Accessed: 11 November 2024).

  6. Unreal engine 5.5 is now available (no date) Unreal Engine 5.5. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-5-5-is-now-available (Accessed: 18 November 2024).