Professor William Baldowski

BoxPark Sushi Vision Board Rationale

The vision board for BoxPark Sushi reflects and supports the core characteristics of the brand voice which is: Creative (We love out of the box flavor combinations.); Relaxed (We are a comfy place for people to get together.): Intimate (We are not as foreign as you think.); and Exotic (We offer you safe ways to try something new). The overall feel of the work should be youthful, fresh and should carefully walk the line between American and Japanese culture.

Typography

The typeface chosen for headings is Amboy, an Adobe font designed by Jim Parkinson. It boasts both Black and Inline. It is durable and has a boxy quality, which complements the brand name BoxPark Sushi. Subheads utilize Nimbus Sans Extended Bold because Amboy is all cap and will benefit from a more readable font containing lowercase letters.  Although lettering with thick strokes and displayed in all caps can be viewed as negative (Cousins, 2015), it gains points in readability because it is also clean and sans serif. The body text and tagline also use Nimbus Sans Extended, by URW Type Foundry GmbH. Nimbus, as a sans serif typeface, is highly legible and will display well in small type and on the web because of its wide letterforms and lack of serifs (Andra, 2013). It will also make a good complement for Amboy. Overall, the text is relaxed, modern, highly legible and walks the line between Eastern and Western type styles.   

Color

The color palette for the BoxPark Sushi vision board is fresh, bright, and youthful which supports the brand voice. The blues have positive color associations of peace, trust and security; while the greenish-yellow hue says growth, nature, cheer and energy. Brown and pink add warmth and creativity to the otherwise cool and professional blues (Cousins, 2015).

Texture

The vision board implements several textures, both natural and artificial. Japanese cherry blossoms are an example of natural texture which double as a Japanese icon. There are also Japanese roof tiles and pastel paints that appear to form waves—a natural association to the sea and seafood. Since one characteristic of BoxPark Sushi is creativity, some of these textures could be used in wall art and other decorative pieces in the restaurant.

Photographs

The voice of BoxPark Sushi is creative, relaxed, intimate and exotic and the tone is informative. Photographs in the vision board were carefully selected to show youthful creativity and the intimacy of friendships. They inject a feeling of peace and relaxation. The Japanese torii gate (The Editors, 2019) speaks to the exotic, and the historic North Point Lighthouse located in the East End (Skip the line, n.d.) says “familiar” to Milwaukee locals. Thus, the tagline: Exotically familiar. Overall, the photos and the brand seek to capture the far-away and the around-the-corner aspect of BoxPark Sushi.

References

Andra. (2013, October 30). Design theory: 5 basic principles of typography [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://pixel77.com/principles-of-typography/

Cousins, C. (2015, February 12). How color, type and space can impact mood. Retrieved from https://designshack.net/articles/graphics/how-color-type-and-space-can-impact-mood/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, September 10). Torii. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/torii

Skip the Line: North Point Lighthouse Admission Ticket provided by North Point Lighthouse: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g60097-d13886363-Skip_the_Line_North_Point_Lighthouse_Admission_Ticket-Milwaukee_Wisconsin.html

Theodor, V. (2019, May 16).  The role of textures in contemporary graphic design. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/learn/texture/

Rationale for BoxPark Sushi Dynamic Vision Board

This dynamic vision board for BoxPark Sushi targets a young, creative and professional target market. The music, visuals, colors, fonts and pacing all work together to reflect core characteristics of the brand voice: creative, relaxed, intimate and exotic. The tone is light-hearted and fun. 

The Target

Milwaukee’s East End population is growing older, but there remains a substantial population of college-aged young people who live in the neighborhood and surrounding areas (Snyder, 2017). The BoxPark Mall, with its vibrant new concept stores, will attract the perfect audience for sushi. BoxPark Sushi seeks to reach this market of well-educated (some college to advanced degrees) young professionals (20-45) who comprise the bulk of U.S. sushi consumers (“Store made sushi demographics,” n.d.).

The Motion

The video utilizes quick cuts and motion design like parallax to animate the still photography and to echo the creativity, fun and excitement inherent in the music “We Just Have Fun” (GoMordecai, n.d.). Kinetic design is a “powerful story-telling device when choreographed to communicate information, convey emotions and express pure aesthetic beauty” (Krasner, 2013). The emotions the video seeks to convey are fun, creativity and excitement.

The Music

Sushi has some negative perceptions to overcome among non-users (mainly the distasteful thought of eating raw fish). “We Just Have Fun” was chosen because of its youthful and positive vibe. The fun music will project a strong personality that, when connected to BoxPark Sushi, will hopefully produce positive emotions like curiosity instead of squeamishness. Research has shown that 43% of non-users would be willing to try sushi if they could take baby steps (32% of Americans, 2015). The music—while not exactly a baby step—could help bring non-users steps closer emotionally.

The Visuals

The visuals show young adults having fun, and they blend local scenes (i.e. the North Point Lighthouse located in the East End) and Japanese culture (the torii gate). The brand’s primary colors and textures Japanese cut paper, cherry blossoms and Japanese roof tiling are some of the textures used to represent Eastern culture. At one point, the textures are overlaid with the brand’s primary colors and the brand characteristics are superimposed over that. So all three elements work together. 

References

GoMordecai. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.tribeofnoise.com/GoMordecai

Krasner, J. (2013). Motion graphic design. Applied history and aesthetics. 3rd, rev. ed. Oxford: Focal Press.

Snyder, M. (2017, May 8). The east side is changing, not dying [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://onmilwaukee.com/raisemke/articles/east-side-changing.html

Store Made Sushi Demographics and Consumer Insights. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://snapshot.numerator.com/brand/store_made_sushi.

32% of Americans never tried sushi, but 62% willing to try. (2015, April 4). Retrieved from https://www.keltonglobal.com/recognition/32-of-americans-never-tried-sushi-pei-wei-survey-says/

Annotated Bibliography

Learning Resources

View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com

Week 1 Live Session Notes

Five D’s of Developing Brand Voice. Liza Dunning outlines in her video five keys to creating brand  voice. 1. Define your why. Customers don’t care what you are doing so much as why you are doing it. Ask why your brand came to be. Why did it start in the city where it did? At the time that it did? People want to identify with your brand’s why. 2. Differentiate from the crowd. Come up with 3 characteristics that define your brand, given it’s “why” and its personality, and refer to them often. How do you want your brand to make people feel?  3. Decide who your people are. Your voice should be inspired by a real person—the more real the better. Creating a persona will help to solidify the brand’s personality. Is it male or female? Where does she work? What are her hobbies? What brands does she wear? 4. Develop your personality. Who is your brand at a dinner party? Humorous, but not sarcastic. Kind, but not syrupy sweet. How do you want to be remembered? 5. Dedicate your content’s mission. Decide what channels your people use. How and why? How are your competitors using content? Consider using different platforms to tell different stories. What is each platform good for? (Dunning, 2018)

Audit your brand. Liza Dunning advises media designers to regularly take inventory of the market landscape. Brands, markets and people evolve over time, and smart advertisers need to stay current with what is happening now. Evaluate new ways and new channels to communicate your “why”. For instance, in the last two decades the advent of the internet and the proliferation of smart phones have dramatically changed the way people communicate and share information. Social media slowly became a “thing”. The millions of brands already in existence had to get with the times or be left behind. Dunning says to constantly iterate, evaluate and discover ways to make your brand more relevant in the current market. 

Brand attributes. According to Chris Do and Jose Caballer in their Youtube video “How to Translate Strategy to Design”, ideas are abstract until we make them concrete with words. They suggest making a list of descriptive  words to define the brand personality. Felton also discusses the advantages of coming up with description words—five specifically. “Think of ‘pick-five-adjectives’ as a style guide in miniature. A list any writer could consult to write in that brand’s voice.” But don’t stop at five adjectives. Construct an entire person, he says (Felton, 2013, p. 98). Chris Do suggests asking the client questions that will help lead you to the brand’s story. Once Do has a short list of description words, he adds more descriptors and breaks his list into 5 categories that help to further define his brand according to Culture (of the brand), Customer (psychographics), Voice (brand personality), Feel (how the brand makes the consumer feel) and Impact (the product’s outcome for the customer). 

References

Do, C. and Caballer, J. (2014, October 21). How to translate strategy to design. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpcaCW85eI0

Dunning, L. (2018, May 17). Developing your brand voice. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9KRWgGYD8E

Felton, G. (2013). Advertising: concept and copy. New York: Norton & Company.

Resources

Know the Difference between Tone and Voice to Set Your Brand Apart, by Juliana Kenny

Week 2 Live Session Notes

Intangibles in Design. Heritage by Madison is a new restaurant in a district of Shanghai which, like the East End neighborhood of Milwaukee, is undergoing a regeneration—shedding the old and embracing the new. Chef Austin Hu pours his globe-trotting ways into the restaurant’s fusion cuisine as designer Sydney Re merges Eastern and Western proverbs in the brand’s content. Although it plays no direct role in the taste of the food or quality of the service, proverbs like “Don’t climb a tree when there are better fish to fry” printed on a menu or napkin brings an intangible flavor to Heritage by Madison’s ambience (2019). A little quirky and unexpected, the mashed-up sayings probably make customers from cultures around the world feel right at home. Furthermore, combining a calm, conservative palette of maroon and soft pink with a fresh burst of orange, the design team carries the concept of fusion into its menus, chopsticks, business cards and coasters. The idea of fusing Eastern and Western cuisines (particularly Midwestern U.S.) seemed so fresh and original when I first conceptualized it for BoxPark Sushi. Obviously, the idea is not altogether new, but at least Heritage by Madison demonstrates how to do it with taste and style. 

Color in Design. Japan doesn’t exactly leap to mind when we think of good ol’ Kentucky Fried Chicken, but KFC apparently has a strong following in the Orient, according to product marketing consultant Rudy Sanchez. This year, the Colonel decorated his iconic red-striped buckets with a traditional (American) Christmas scene using accents of minty green to commemorate the Holidays in Japan—where customers reserve their Christmas orders far in advance. These orders account for about a third of KFC’s annual sales (Sanchez, 2019). It’s heart-warming to think that people can get a bit of exported Southern comfort wherever in the world they are; and it is delivered, in part, by colors and line drawings on buckets of fried chicken. How homey for the Holidays!  

Texture in Design. In searching for design inspiration, don’t overlook nature. That’s the lesson the elegant Sankara Nairobi Hotel’s design team seems to relate. Glazer, London draws inspiration from the black and white stripes of a zebra for their main design texture. They inject colors of soft turquoise, pink and orange against a bed of dark brown. The graphic is beautifully displayed in their logo, on towels, sheets, letterhead and directories. It is quiet, yet strong with an elegant typeface, and it has won many prestigious awards around the world (McEachron, 2017). For texture, Heritage by Madison uses old photographs and modern line illustrations of plants, animals and Japanese letterforms to illustrate their proverb mashups. It’s interesting to see how these apparently disparate textures come together to unify a brand’s tone and feel (Heritage by Madison, 2019).

References

Heritage by Madison. (2019, July 20). Retrieved from https://identitydesigned.com/heritage-by-madison/

McEachron, N., Hayavadhan, Joe, Vlahakis, A., Damian, & Leakey, P. (2017, October 23). Sankara. Retrieved from https://identitydesigned.com/sankara/

Sanchez, R. (2019, December 23). Colonel Claus is coming to town, and he’s bringing fried chicken [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thedieline.com/blog/2019/12/23/colonel-claus-is-coming-to-town-and-hes-bringing-fried-chicken

Week 3 Live Session Notes

The trials and tribulations of motion and its designers. Motion design is not a career for the faint of heart. Nor is it something to be entered into lightly, according to motion designer Joey Korenman. He makes it abundantly clear in his blog post “7 Motion Design Lessons Learned the Hard Way” that there is a tremendous amount of time that will go into learning the software—but, more importantly, the techniques—to be truly effective (2017). In fact, his seventh and final warning is that “It’s not about learning the software. It’s about learning motion and design.” In his cautionary tale, there is also much finger wagging about practicing endless hours, shooting for “simple and refined” rather than “complicated and cluttered”; the industry is not for everyone; trends are not lasting (who knew?); and sound is just as important as visuals. I, for one, am very grateful for Korenman’s design transparency which underlines what I already surmised from my brief foray into After Effects: Motion graphics is not my strong suit nor is it likely to be.

Behavioral advertising strategies. Eric Gordon, in his blog post “Marketing and Advertising Strategies”, discusses behavioral ad strategies, which are quite interesting (2017). A “modelling” strategy utilizes celebrities or experts in ads. “Reframing” goes against generally held assumptions about the accepted use of a product (perhaps the way baking soda reframed itself as an odor fighter, toothpaste-in-a-pinch and a thousand other indispensable utilities with nothing to do with baking). Somebody at Arm and Hammer, fond of staying employed, was using their noggin. Of course, they also may have been using the “skill up” strategy—which is showing people how to do something with a product. “Evocation” appeals to people’s emotions in order to inspire a desired action. These are examples of some of the thinking that goes into advertising that sells.

Keys to campaign success. Simon Schmid makes creating a viral internet campaign seem easily attainable. He lists the elements to a great campaign as: relevance, cause, popular issue, competition, stats, content, partnerships, targeting someone or something, creativity/innovation and related fields (2013). He takes this ability to seize the attention of thousands—potentially millions—out of the hands of big advertising agencies and puts it in the grasp of the above average internet user.

References

Gordon, E. (2017, April 10). Marketing and advertising strategies. Retrieved from https://medium.com/inkbot-design/marketing-and-advertising-strategies-45242269f5ee

Korenman, J. (2017, August 9). 7 motion design lessons learned the hard way. Retrieved from https://blog.pond5.com/16164-7-motion-design-lessons-learned-the-hard-way/

Schmid, S. (2013, October 14). Smart, effective strategies to design marketing campaigns. Retrieved from https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/10/strategies-design-marketing-campaigns/