Self Branding…

…can be extremely frustrating. It’s really hard to make a mark that says “MICHAEL MAHAFFEY” and captures some sort of personality. So to begin, I used my face, which proved to be a bad idea that just got worse the longer I tried to use it. I decided to go with a simple mark that resembles an ‘M’ because I wanted it to reflect the simplicity of most of my design. It feels different to brand a company or group than to brand yourself. When you brand a company, your showing your perception of that company based on the information you received from them. Branding yourself is just a totally different struggle.

After making my mark, everything else has just seemed to fall into place. I chose to go with a natural looking craft paper and used colors that I thought would play off of that well. This is a nice project because I will actually have collateral that I can use in the “real world.”

TAKE ROOT

Working on TAKE ROOT was a really great experience all around. Even from the beginning I think everyone really got into it. I think we  all care about our environment, so even in the initial stage of making a name and logo the group was pretty fluid in making choices. The final logo that we all picked turned out to be a very strong mark. It was an easy logo to implement into the design of the brochure, especially.

I think what made this project so significant for me was that it wasn’t an ordinary design that would eventually be put into a magazine and ultimately thrown away. This was something that we all had a part in that will benefit our community, and hopefully will live on after the initial stages. It was rewarding to be recognized at the event at the end of it all.

I was truly proud of the work across the board. Working with the people from Leadership Chattanooga was really fun becuase they just seemed to let us go and do what we thought was right. They were enthusiastic about our work, and for the project overall, so they made the work we put into TAKE ROOT worth it.

Printing at Chattanooga State

We were invited to watch the process of our Take Root work at Chattanooga State. It was great to see the different processes as they were actually…well, in process rather than to see pictures and diagrams in a book. I think what was so fascinating to me was the scoring and perforating. It went so fast that it was hard to believe it was actually happening. It almost looked like there were ‘already scored and perfed’ pieces in the machine and were just coming out as the un-scored pieces were going in. Pretty incredible. The guys there are very knowledgeable and friendly. I would be happy to use them as a printer choice as long as I can.

Press Release…

Before Richard Beeland and Janis Hashe came to the class to speak about press releases, I knew absolutely nothing on the subject. Now, at least I know to do the following: make it read easily enough for an eighth grader, have back-ups for whatever you are talking about, send out a week before the event, and usually send via email.  Press packs are a different beast, evidently. That seems to be where the designed pieces come into play. They contain all the documents, logos, pictures, brochures, research, quotes, and sometimes even a bonus prize, like a moon pie.

“The Brand Gap”

“The Brand Gap” is a very informative book that reads very easily. It deals with an important subject that not many people think about. The book has a nice layout and flows well. The information will be very useful in the field. It’s strange that I didn’t even think about branding this way to begin with. I will probably be able to use this book throughout my career. I agree with Neumeier about the branding moment. All the work and research in the world can’t compare to the moment when the consumer is standing in front of a wall containing all the same things, just wrapped differently. That moment is when something magical happens between the product and consumer. “The Brand Gap” very effortlessly defines the necessity of branding in any business.