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At the VCE Level, students will analyse how pattern can be utilised to impact sustainability and how it can serve as a functional element towards accessibility in packaging design. Students analyse the context of pattern and the cultural considerations that should be understood before designing a pattern. Taking into consideration the social, cultural and environmental, students will create a brief that integrates the use of pattern and employ the design thinking process to address the brief.

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RMIT The Design Hub Building

The integration of pattern for sustainable design

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Completed in 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. Images by Earl Carter . The purpose of the Design Hub is to provide accommodation in one building for a diverse range of design research and post graduate education. RMIT is...

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The Environmental Effects of The Print Industry

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The Environmental Effects of The Print Industry | GCM 110

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At level 9-10 of the Victorian curriculum, students analyse how design movements have affected the way that pattern is utilised throughout industrial, environmental and visual communication design. Students transform this knowledge and apply it to contemporary design practices, in addition to exploring the production and manufacturing constraints of producing patterns used for textiles and packaging. Students begin to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator to design their own repeat pattern.

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This article explores how cultural patterns and motifs have been culturally appropriated across western fashion brands.

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Cultural Appropriation - Oma vs. Max Mara

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Will cultural appropriation in the fashion industry ever end? How can artisans protect their traditional cultural expressions? Is it possible for designers to work in an ethical way with Indigenous communities? These are the questions that a groundbreaking new digital database aims to challenge by protecting the culturally significant designs of ethnic groups from misappropriation and misuse.

Back in 2019, MaxMara was found selling clothing decorated with patterns that looked identical to the traditional embroidery and appliqué designs of the Oma people. The Oma are an ethnic minority group of about 2,800 people living in the remote mountains of northern Laos, recognised in the region for their hand-spun, indigo-dyed clothing decorated with vibrant red embroidery and appliqué.

Unlike the authentic Oma designs, the MaxMara replica patterns were printed on the fabric, not hand-embroidered or hand sewn. In addition, there was no garment label acknowledging the textile designs as belonging to the Oma, generating a risk of cultural dilution of Oma intangible cultural heritage.

When informed of the situation, the Oma people of Nanam Village confirmed that they had no knowledge of the use of their designs and motifs by the fashion company and that they were not requested permission for digitising the designs for production and sale. They were surprised to see their traditional textile designs reproduced with machines by people outside of the Oma community, and commercialised without their consent and without any compensation.

In response to the social media campaign and international press, MaxMara responded with demands to remove the posts they qualified as defamatory and damaging to the reputation of the company, and threatened to take legal action in the event of non-compliance. They also asserted that the allegedly copied design was elaborated in an original way, and inspiration was taken from the pattern of a vintage fabric which the company considered as being in the public domain.

As a result, Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative ® (CIPRI), Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre (TAEC) and the Oma of Nanam Village in Laos have developed a new digital database that documents a multitude of traditional garments, motifs and techniques that are culturally significant to the Oma in various ways. The ' Documenting Traditional Cultural Expressions: Building a Model for Legal Protection Against Misappropriation and Misuse with the Oma Ethnic Group of Laos ' report details the purpose and process of creating this database, its legal framework, and the impact on the community.

The Oma Traditional Textile Design Database© now serves as a tool for asserting cultural intellectual property rights for the Oma people of Nanam Village in Laos, and as a legally defensive tool to protect against the unconsented use of the Oma's Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs). Additionally, the Database is a means to document TCEs for the community at large to ensure cultural continuity, and provide a rich source of research to facilitate collaboration between Oma artisans and fashion and textile companies.

Most importantly, the model of the Database can be licensed, royalty-free, by any other Indigenous group, ethnic group or local community that wants to develop cultural intellectual property protection. This opens new doors to respectful collaboration between brands and Indigenous communities, providing hope for a fashion future without commercialised cultural appropriation.

Here, we talk to CIPRI founder Monica Boța-Moisin to find out more about the journey of developing this unique project, its implications for the legal governance of fashion design, and why cultural sustainability matters.

How does this project put the theory of protecting cultural expressions into practice in a tangible way?

The database has multiple functions - on one hand, it is proof of this custodianship relationship, in the absence of a globally applicable legal framework to protect Traditional Cultural Expressions. It's a public forum through which the community can prove they are custodians of this knowledge. Another important feature of the database is that you can learn about the Oma and the frameworks that they would ideally collaborate in. However, part of the database is private and you cannot get access to the content unless you initiate this discussion and you get the prior consent of the Oma.

With this database, we are also challenging the myth that the public domain is something that we can all take from and do whatever we want with. We haven't yet changed international law with this database. It's not like from now on Traditional Cultural Expressions are no longer in the public domain, but it is a step in the right direction. This is a debate that has to begin, and then laws will follow and misconceptions will change.

We have to look back at where the system came from. And at the time when we started speaking about intellectual property rights, nobody could have probably ever imagined that we would get to this paradox where corporations that are protected through IP tools, like trademarks, like industrial design, like patents, then put this trademark on someone else's identity. Because it's not just a matter of intellectual property. It's a matter of commercialising someone's identity.

In developing the database, what were the biggest challenges you came across and how did you overcome them?

Well, it's been a complex process that requires funding and takes a lot of time and cross-disciplinary expertise. Going through the process with a community was pioneering in itself. There are certain collections of knowledge in parts of the world, but to go and create a traditional textile design database is something that we took the first steps in.

We had to be very careful every step of the way because every action has a consequence. The process of Free Prior Informed Consent, explaining what are the consequences of digitising this kind of knowledge, we thought of all possibilities and the measures that we have to take to prevent the negative consequences from happening. The work of TAEC was essential for the success of this endeavour. There is a need for on-the-ground experience and understanding of the local handicraft ecosystem, anthropological and ethnographic studies in the area. And then the legal theory on top. So it's a very complex, time-consuming, resourceful process. And it needs much more support for the model to be replicated by communities across the globe.

Could you explain why The 3Cs' Rule of Consent. Credit. Compensation© matters for the fashion industry to collaborate respectfully with artisans and Indigenous communities?

It is my life's mission to work to build bridges between the fashion industry and Indigenous communities, ethnic groups and local communities. So it's sometimes difficult to even pinpoint why I find this important because I feel any kind of exploitative behaviour should not be part of how we live. The most amazing things happen when we learn to value and appreciate knowledge. And this also means the knowledge of parts of the population that we are not used to seeing as business partners. It is a change to reimagine collaborative models and there's a lot of opportunity there for both to grow.

I believe in knowledge exchange and knowledge partnership, and I think we cannot speak about fairness, equity and good working conditions when we exploit anyone's time and knowledge. We know so well that different forms of exploitation are still part of how the fashion industry works. For example, how many people haven't been equitably compensated for their internships in the industry? So it's important to be clear, transparent to ask for Free Prior Informed Consent, and to communicate what you want to do with this knowledge. What do you want to do with this collection? What implications can it have on the community? If it booms, could you continue to produce at scale or can you licence the designs? Or would the community be okay with seeing digital prints of these designs?

Obviously, there are many elements of financial sustainability that need to be taken into consideration in a collaboration like this too. But that doesn't mean that the fashion company is always the one that can dictate the rules. So this communication and this partnership are vital. People who are engaging in these conversations often want to solve someone else's problems, instead of giving them the tools to do it themselves or recognising their value. Because I think a lot of these problems that we try to solve from top-down could be solved at ground level. If communities would be remunerated or part of an ecosystem that values what they know to do best, they would have more time and resources to have access to education. They wouldn't live in poverty if they would be paid for the time and knowledge of their handcrafted work.

A lot of people in the world still refer to handcrafted production as a cottage industry, it's basically working from home. So we're all a cottage based economy now in the pandemic. If we change this behaviour, the concept of exploitation of humans by humans, if we can eradicate that, we will solve so many of the endemic problems like poverty, discrimination and lack of access to education.

Why is it important to encourage and enable collaboration in this way, rather than simply to condemn cultural appropriation altogether?

I've always been an advocate for finding a way to work together. Ideally, there would be by now a focus in companies to have a department that tackles these issues. At the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative ®, we have the expertise to educate fashion brands on how to create internal policies to avoid cultural appropriation and focus on cultural sustainability.

But it's also important to keep having these cultural exchanges and creating. So it's not about not getting inspiration from traditional textiles, it's about building together. And to do that there needs to be alignment between words and actions. You cannot have a fashion company that has culturally appropriated and then look at their CSR policies and see that one of their aims is to alleviate poverty. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't align. So once we formulate the good intentions we have to think about where to direct them.

The database has legal protection behind it and is the beginning of a much bigger, potentially worldwide replicable model. Ultimately it also symbolises that we are ready and open to work together with fashion brands and find constructive solutions.

For a designer or brand who wants to collaborate with producers of traditional textiles such as the Oma people, how would they go about this?

Reach out! We are now looking for the first fashion collaborators for the Oma. If brands want to work together, they would have to enter the database, write to an email address there that links to the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, then we will have joint discussions and shape this collaboration together. Myself and TAEC have been empowered by the Oma of Nanam Village to represent them legally, so there's this kind of multi-party representation at the moment.

At the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative ®, we are assisting both fashion companies and local communities and we can intermediate this process. For this, the experience of doing fieldwork in India has been extremely valuable. And I think all the lawyers that work in this space need to have some direct interaction with communities to be able to immerse in that cultural context and understand the complex dynamics in these communities as well. We have these kinds of tough conversations with everyone who approaches us, irrespective of their role. And I think the landscape of how these collaborations are forming is a very interesting space, where we feel our work is valuable.

You use the hashtag #NotPublicDomain to discuss this work, but why is that Traditional Cultural Expressions should not be in the public domain?

The idea of something being in the public domain means, on the one hand, that it's not protected by copyright or IP tools in general, and that it can therefore be used and exploited without the need to ask for consent. There is inequality by default that these expressions are not protectable under the conventional IP system, despite certain specific customary laws applying to them. This automatically leaves them in the public domain, which makes them automatically vulnerable to use without consent.

The conventional and existing IP system doesn't protect this type of work, but it doesn't mean that you should be exploiting it however you want because the community has certain rules, and this is where the customary laws come into play. These communities never signed an agreement saying we abide by the International IP rules. The IP system, like anything in this world, is an invention - we all decided, when you create something, we'll call you the author. And because you're the author, we will give you some money for it. And you have the right to be named the author, and you also have the right to decide how your work is being exploited commercially, whether your work can be translated into a different language, etc. That's something that you can decide. These mechanisms do not exist yet in the space of Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions.

I always say the limits of the public domain are being challenged because these communities finally have a chance to explain their position, they want to be involved in the process of decision making of what happens to their intangible patrimony and their heritage. And they should have the right to do that. So we can now invent a system that also takes their interest and their particular works into account.

What are the implications of this project for other Indigenous communities, ethnic groups and artisans beyond the Oma in Laos?

The great outcome of this project is that a template of the database is available for free for anyone who wants to work on a similar endeavour. TAEC and CIPRI are committed to supporting any community that reaches out to us and says they want to go through the same process.

How does this project align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and why was this important to include?

Because there's so much talk from corporations and industry stakeholders on working towards achieving the goals by 2030. But I think people fail to see how much cultural sustainability has to play in the sustainability narrative, and how cultural sustainability is actually embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals. In my workshops, I work specifically with 8 of the 17 goals that expressly refer to cultural sustainability, but nobody communicates that as a pillar in itself, so how are we gonna achieve the goals by 2030?

So with this project having such a strong cultural sustainability component, it was important that we show how the project aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals. And obviously, these communities have so much knowledge of how to maintain biodiversity and natural rhythms in the region where they are, so that contributes to environmental sustainability. Everything is so connected.

Finally, what does cultural sustainability mean to you?

We can look at the culturally embedded values and practices that have been maintained in a society from generation to generation, because of their positive outcomes. To exemplify, we can look at the principle of design to minimise waste, this has always been embedded in how all ethnic groups, local communities and Indigenous people have created their traditional garments.

Like in Romania with hemp fibre, it took so much time to spin that yarn and weave that cloth, so you don't want to waste it. It just wasn't part of the design thinking because they weren't creating for consumption, they were creating for wellbeing. So cultural sustainability is about ecosystemic thinking. And that's why it should be the basis of all sustainability actions.

Further reading and watching
Documenting Traditional Cultural Expressions: Building A Model For Legal Protection Against Misappropriation And Misuse With The Oma Ethnic Group Of Laos Securing Cultural Intellectual Property Rights For The Oma People Of Nanam Village In Laos Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre: Intellectual Property Rights for Traditional Artisans in Laos Cultural Intellectual Property Rights and the Rights of Nature: How do Indigenous and Local Communities protect their textile cultural expressions and conserve biodiversity?

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#NotPublicDomain: Indigenous communities combat cultural appropriation with traditional textile design database

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We love fashion, but we don't want our clothes to come at the cost of people or our planet.

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Art Deco throughout design

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Art Deco Design Style: Origins, History, Characteristics

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Art Deco (1925-40): Geometric Decorative Design Applied to Architecture, Painting, Jewellery, Furniture and Posters

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Art Deco Patterns

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Case study: City of Melbourne Brand Identity

Although the pattern applied to the City of Melbourne logo and branding is aesthetically pleasing, it does not serve a functional purpose.

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What goes on behind the scenes of a brand identity program? Here's the lowdown on the city of Melbourne rebranding project.

Why does a city need a logo?

There is a universal competition for people's physical and mental time and attention, and cities are not exempt from this. We all have preconceived views of places, often based on limited firsthand experience or word of mouth. The role of a brand identity is to help reinforce or correct those assumptions.

For a city, the identity helps create positive, distinguishing associations for people. When done well, logos, marks, or symbols (whatever you choose to call them) are hard to beat for creating such mental shortcuts. They can provide an immediate visual trigger to a set of emotions or ideas that put a city in the best possible light. They can capture the world's imagination, instill pride and a sense of place among its people, and spark economic growth through tourism and business investment.

How is the branding of a destination different from branding a product or a company?

When you brand a consumer product, you're focused on the contents of a box and can target a specific customer, benefit, and sales context. When you develop the identity for a large multinational corporation things become more difficult, but you can still get to the root of a shared mindset, set of offerings, concept of success, and organizational model.

When you brand a destination, the design must be an open system that is constantly changing and is composed of players that don't necessarily recognize their place in the mix, much less want to give input or take direction. Still, it is possible to find basic truths that a city's members and groups share: unique stories, habits, promises, smells, and dreams. When these are unearthed and qualified as sustainable, distinguishing, and attractive, then these insights can be consolidated into symbols, signals, and values.

A few key challenges in destination branding include:

Finding an accurate view of the city or country's deepest, truest distinctions

Achieving awareness of political, cultural, and educational issues

Establishing insights into the needs of global audiences

Discovering a big idea that can surprise, inspire, and distinguish it for years to come

How did you come up with the new Melbourne identity? What does it mean?

Melbourne is a progressive city, so representing it visually required a forward-thinking approach. Our client and team wanted something as multifaceted as the city itself.

The challenge was to reflect the different aspects of the city-from authoritative, restrained, and serious to vibrant, visionary, and passionate. We needed to show off the city of Melbourne's cool sophistication on the world stage, capture the passion of its people, and provide the city with a unified, flexible, and future-focused image.

The core idea came well before logo work, and there was a constant back and forth between strategy and design. How could we use identity to drive the city's organizations? Could we influence how governing agencies think about themselves? Could the identity inspire action?

The new identity also needed to overcome political complexities, improve the cost-effectiveness of managing the brand, and unite a disparate range of governing bodies and an ever-growing portfolio of initiatives, programs, services, events, and activities.

The diversity of Melbourne became a sacred concept. We celebrated this in the identity through colour, forms, facets, and structures. We realized that if we got it right it would allow Melbourne to flex, grow, and evolve along with a growing and changing population and connect dynamically with future opportunities.

Besides the logo, what other elements were part of the city of Melbourne's rebranding project?

The stages involved in the rebrand were multiple:

Investigation through desk research, stakeholder (internal and external) interviews, workshops, and audits (communications, behaviour, brand architecture, and competitors).

Identification and articulation of the core brand idea-what it stands for, what it does, how it does it, and what its vision for the future is. Based on this driving idea, we developed a strategic, integrated branding programme.

The design and creation of the identity is based on the core idea. This included logo design and all aspects of how it should be portrayed across communications, literature, advertising, sponsorships, co-branding partnerships, 3-D environments, and signage.

The final stage was implementation: developing comprehensive guidelines and artwork to help manage the rollout of the new identity. This covers the flexible logo system, colour palette, typography, imagery (photography and illustration), tone of voice, design principles, templates, and applications.

We built a degree of flexibility into the city of Melbourne's identity system, leaving room for initiative and creative interpretation. The brand system resists the traditional thinking about identity design, instead embracing the idea of modulation and adaptation.

What was the most exciting part of this project?

Every step of this process was unique and full of learning. However, the great partnership and strong collaboration with our client helped us overcome many barriers during the project. By the end, we were all overwhelmingly convinced we had arrived at the right solution.

The most exciting part was when every thought, discussion, and move we made throughout the project came together perfectly, and we could tell that all the stakeholders were inspired to make the identity their own. Now we can just hope the public feels this way, too.

An excerpt of this article appeared in (December 2009).

© 2010 Landor. All rights reserved.

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Rebranding the city of Melbourne | Thinking | Landor

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What goes on behind the scenes of a brand identity program? Here's the lowdown on the city of Melbourne rebranding project. There is a universal competition for people's physical and mental time and attention, and cities are not exempt from this. We all have preconceived views of places, often based on limited firsthand experience or word of mouth.

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The Packaging Design of Braille Beverage Bottle Based on Universal Design Thinking

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Zhou Yang

Shuyi Chen

Tianhong Fang

Yifei Zhu

Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS, volume 1499)

Abstract

In 2018, the number of visually impaired people in China reached 17.31 million. With the development of universal design thinking, a series of design works have greatly improved the quality of life of blind people. However, in more life scenes, the convenience of blind people's life is still far from the level of normal people. Therefore, this study focuses on the packaging design of Braille beverage bottles, based on the universal design thinking, with the analysis of the principles of Braille composition and experimental research, to ensure the readability and decoration of Braille. In this way, both ordinary consumers and blind consumers can directly understand the main information related to the product, and help blind consumers to improve their shopping convenience and initiative, reduce the "specialization" treatment, so as to help the blind group better integrate into social life.

Keywords

Braille Beverage bottles design Universal design

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

Chen, L., Zhang, H.: Research progress on mental health of visually impaired people in China in recent 30 years. J. Guizhou Inst. Eng. Technol. 33(06), 104-108 (2015)

Gao, Y.: Research on the function and decoration of braille in commercial packaging. Art Sci. Technol. 30(01), 276-277 (2017)

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The Packaging Design of Braille Beverage Bottle Based on Universal Design Thinking

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Zhou Yang Shuyi Chen Tianhong Fang Yifei Zhu Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS, volume 1499) In 2018, the number of visually impaired people in China reached 17.31 million. With the development of universal design thinking, a series of design works have greatly improved the quality of life of blind people.

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Packaging design that utilises pattern to assist the visually impaired.

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Pretty packaging means nothing for consumers who have blindness, so how can designers create something that is functional for the estimated 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired? Alexandra Burling developed a concept for food packaging called Color Me Blind that looks great on the shelf but is also just as easy to differentiate for blind consumers. We spoke with Alexandra to learn more about making an aesthetically appealing packaging design for the visually impaired, giving sightless people the same experience in the store, and more.

Walk us through the design process that you went through for this project.

Alexandra: As always, I focus a lot of my design based on my research. If you just design something based on it "looking good," there is nothing to fall back on. The designs on the packages are mostly based on what I learned directly through my interviews with the visually impaired. So, the designs on the packagings are created to be aesthetically pleasing, but with the sense of touch instead of sight. The designs feature dynamic patterns, information written in Braille; including ingredients, country of origin, and best-before dates. Symbols indicating the openings on the packages were made.

What sort of research did you conduct to help inform your design?

Alexandra: I visited the Invisible Exhibition in Stockholm, where you go through different surroundings in pitch black, with a visually impaired guide. The exhibition's purpose is to let people experience how it's like to be blind. I also interviewed blind people, from the Invisible Exhibition and from the Federation for the Visually Impaired in Sweden. As I answered in the previous question, the design on the packaging is based primarily on what I discovered from these interviews. Besides this, I also read a lot about the Braille alphabet and learning systems for blind people.

What was one of the biggest goals you set out to achieve with Color Me Blind packaging and how did you accomplish it?

Alexandra: The absolute biggest goal with this project was to create a discussion about the relationship between blind people and packaging design. With my packages, I wanted to create an "eye opener" for people with sight. For people without any connection to blindness, it is not something you really think about-what it's like to be blind. The purpose of this project is about independence: for blind people to be able to go to the store and buy their own food without the need of assistance. My project has been noticed by several blogs and magazines around the world, which is more than I could have hoped for.

What was the most challenging part of this project?

Alexandra: The most challenging part of this project was the design process. Having to twist your brain into a whole new way of thinking when designing; stimulating the consumer using a totally different sense rather than sight.

Based on what you discovered and experienced through working on this project, what considerations could other existing brands make for their packaging to become more suited for those with vision problems or blindness?

Alexandra: Simply writing what the product is in Braille on all packaging would be a huge step forward. There are new cost worthy techniques that emboss packaging more efficient, so there are no excuses.

If you could pick one aspect of the finished design that you like the most or feel especially proud of, what would it be and why?

Alexandra: Something that makes me really proud is the fact that people have realized the existing problem for blind people with packaging design. People have approached me and expressed admiration for the project and have said that it has changed their view on packaging design. This was my graduation project, and so I am extremely glad that it has been so appreciated, and that I was able to change people's perspective. Hopefully, this means that companies will start to include all their consumers.

Share one lesson that you learned while developing the finished product.

Alexandra: To always push yourself, never settle. Every design you create should have some kind of purpose. Of course, the end result should aim to be aesthetically pleasing, but every design should have a story behind it.

Theresa Christine Johnson

Theresa entered the world of design through The Dieline. With a background in writing and journalism, she has a passion for discovery and cultivating human connections. Her work for The Dieline is a constant journey to deeply understand all facets of the design process and to investigate what makes designers tick. Theresa's writing has taken her snorkeling in between the tectonic plates in Iceland, horseback riding through a rural Brazilian town, and riding an octopus art car at Burning Man with Susan Sarandon as part of a funeral procession for Timothy Leary (long story). When not writing, she is planning her next trip or taking too many pictures of her cat.

More posts from Theresa Christine Johnson

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How this Forsberg's School Grad Developed Packaging for the Visually Impaired

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Pretty packaging means nothing for consumers who have blindness, so how can designers create something that is functional for the estimated 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired? Alexandra Burling developed a concept for food packaging called Color Me Blind that looks great on the shelf but is also just as easy to differentiate for blind consumers.

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Case study: T2 Christmas Packaging Design

Functional quality of pattern in packaging design. Pattern and colourway helps the customer distinguish between different flavours.

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Creative Order - Design Agency Sydney Melbourne

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Creative Order worked with the T2 team to design the full range of product packaging and styling for the season.

Packaging design tea - T2 is an award-winning Australian tea brand. With stores across Australia, they pride themselves on creating sensory retail experiences which revolve around the art and appreciation of tea. As part of their festive season range, Creative Order worked with the T2 team to design the full range of product packaging and styling for the season.

The packaging design included a kaleidoscope of colours and sizes across the range, all with sophisticated gold embellishments, intricate die-cuts and embosses. Our patterns were fully integrated throughout the in-store experience including signage and wrapping.

The new tea packaging range was extremely successful - sales more than doubled the previous year and the range was a sell out.

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T2 Packaging Design Tea Too Creative Order® Sydney Melbourne

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Creative Order worked with the T2 team to design the full range of product packaging and styling for the season. Packaging design tea - T2 is an award-winning Australian tea brand. With stores across Australia, they pride themselves on creating sensory retail experiences which revolve around the art and appreciation of tea.

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How does design impact everyday life?

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Abstract: The Art of Design | Paula Scher: Graphic Design | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

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Case study: IAG - How pattern are colour were used to differentiate between the floors of the building.

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IAG is the home to some of the most trusted insurance brands serving the Asia Pacific region, and for a diverse group of brands a brand-agnostic workplace was needed to appeal to a diverse range of teams. So with no dominant brand cues to reference, the Modernist architecture of the site - Darling Park, inspires a graphical overlay for the space.

A series of geometric patterns based on floorplan forms and unique architectural features play out across vast banks of lockers on each floor, animating the workplace and activating circulation paths.

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IAG Workplace - Wayfinding Signage & Placemaking Design

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IAG is the home to some of the most trusted insurance brands serving the Asia Pacific region, and for a diverse group of brands a brand-agnostic workplace was needed to appeal to a diverse range of teams. So with no dominant brand cues to reference, the Modernist architecture of the site - Darling Park, inspires a graphical overlay for the space.

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What is wayfinding? How does pattern play a role in wayfinding?

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Inclusive SA - What is wayfinding and signage?

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DHS helps people in South Australia who, through circumstance, may be struggling financially, at risk of harm, or isolated.

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Focus on Australian textile and printing industries being moved offshore.

Question: How does this affect design concepts?

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t may just be the worst-kept secret in Australian fashion. The country doesn't process its own wool or cotton. Processing skills and infrastructure moved overseas in the 1990s, when tariff protections for textiles, clothing and footwear industries were significantly reduced, and China was able to undercut prices and offer more efficient ways to turn raw materials into marketable commodities.

Three decades on, and despite producing 90% of the world's fine apparel wool, all but a handful of Australia's wool processing plants have closed. More than 80% of Australia's wool clip is sent to China and more than 90% of Australia's cotton is exported - with the majority processed in Asia. Opportunities for innovation in the local fibre industry have stagnated.

This should be surprising. The Woolmark symbol is a source of national pride, sought after in Parisian ateliers and the knitting mills of Reggio Emilia. Australia has a near monopoly on fine apparel wool, which should make it a lucrative crop, yet the capacity to capitalise on this is limited.

The devastating bushfires of last summer were barely embers when coronavirus hit. In June, citing the pandemic's impact on supply chains and concerns about Australian reliance on China, the National Farmers' Federation called for the revival of food and fibre manufacturing, saying the return of value-adding processing would greatly benefit regional economies and protect Australian farmers. Victoria's minister for agriculture, Jaclyn Symes, has also expressed an interest in local processing.

The pandemic has increased demand for local manufacturing, a welcome change for sustainable fashion advocates. Local production is not inherently more sustainable, but local manufacturers have to comply with Australian environment and employment laws.

Wool classers sort merino fleece at a woolshed at Yathonga station in north-western NSW. Photograph: Mark Evans/Getty Images

Sceptics of local processing point to both as expensive obstacles that sent manufacturing offshore. But David Michell, the owner of one of the few remaining Australian wool factories, has told ABC's Landline that technological advancements have made it cheaper to process wool locally than in China.

As the price of processing locally has gone down, the value of doing so has risen. Fashion designers increasingly seek to tell provenance stories. Consumers want to know where the cotton in their T-shirt was farmed, and buyers are willing to pay premium prices for products like non-mulesed wool. As the Uighur forced labour scandal exposes companies including Nike, H&M and Uniqlo, industry leaders and consumers alike are taking a hard look at supply chain transparency.

For Australian processing to be profitable, it will have to embrace automation and innovation in niche areas. It will also have to keep up with consumer demand for products manufactured with carbon footprint, human and animal rights in mind.

The global fashion industry is responsible for between 5% and 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. With resources running out and carbon emissions on the rise, the switch to best practice is inevitable, making it commercially shrewd for the Australian industry to act on strategic changes now.

One of the most persuasive solutions proposed is the regenerative farming of natural fibres, including wool, cotton, linen and hemp. Regenerative farming is a broad term that includes a variety of agricultural practices focused on regenerating healthy landscape function, with the ultimate goal of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and returning it to the soil.

The NSW farmer and author Charles Massy tells me that regenerative agriculture "clearly has the best solutions to carbon drawdown" and scientists have flagged carbon drawdown as critical to meeting the emissions targets of the Paris agreement.

Early adopters are already integrating regenerative farming into their supply chains. Yvon Chouinard describes it as " the number one thing humans can do to combat global warming ". His company, Patagonia, is working with farmers in India to convert to regeneration and has released a collection of regenerative cotton t-shirts. The luxury group Kering (whose brands include Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta) is working with the Savory Institute to increase the regenerative production of raw materials in its supply chain, and on a separate project in China to quantify carbon sequestration in cotton.

This global trend presents an opportunity for the Australian fibre and textile industry to capitalise on the ingenuity and excellence that already exists on Australian farms.

In June CSIRO scientists announced the development of genetically modified coloured cotton, a landmark breakthrough that will limit the environmental harm caused by the dyeing stage of cotton production.

In NSW, a farmer and researcher, Dr Jim Watts, spearheaded breeding the smooth rolling skin merino, a sheep that doesn't need to be mulesed. There is also a growing movement of Australian farmers employing holistic grazing of cattle and sheep to restore soil health.

Given Australia's vulnerability to a warming atmosphere, as evidenced by the record fires that ravaged bush and farmland this year, the incentives for investment in regenerative practices and local production are not just commercial. Australia's farmers and rural communities deserve policy initiatives that would create new jobs, reward Australian innovation and take care of the land.

As the world looks towards post-pandemic life and the Australian government assesses which industries to kick-start with investment, the return of onshore processing of wool and cotton should be considered. It might just mean the beginning of an exciting period of innovation in Australian fashion and textiles.

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Changing Australian fashion's worst-kept secret could help struggling farmers | Lucianne Tonti

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t may just be the worst-kept secret in Australian fashion. The country doesn't process its own wool or cotton. Processing skills and infrastructure moved overseas in the 1990s, when tariff protections for textiles, clothing and footwear industries were significantly reduced, and China was able to undercut prices and offer more efficient ways to turn raw materials into marketable commodities.

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Environmental impact of textile printing industry as related to surface design

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The shirt you're wearing right now: what's it made from? In its rawest form, was it once growing in a field, on a sheep's back or sloshing at the bottom of an oil well?

We wear clothes literally every day, but few of us spend much time reflecting on what goes into manufacturing various textiles and their environmental impacts.

This is interesting considering how much we think about the food we eat or the skin care products we use.

Most of us don't realise how environmentally intensive it is to make a single article of clothing, says fashion sustainability expert Clara Vuletich, whose PhD research focuses on sustainable textiles.

"Textile supply chains are some of the most complex of any manufacturing sector," she said.

"When you think about one garment, how it's got to be on your back, it's gone through so many different suppliers and production processes."

First comes the fibre, which, whether it comes from a plant, animal or crude oil, is almost always an energy and pollutant-intensive process.

The fibre is processed until it can be spun into a yarn, which, in turn, is woven or knitted into a fabric. Somewhere in there bleaches and dyes are usually involved.

Finally, the fabric is made into a garment.

Each of these steps probably happens in different factories, possibly in different countries.

"All of these stages have environmental impact," Dr Vuletich said.

"And we know that the making of textiles, generally speaking, uses huge amounts of water because all of this yarn has to be constantly washed, it's going through all these chemical processes to turn it into this high quality, very delicate material, and then it becomes a different colour to what it is naturally.

Apparel and footwear industries currently account for 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, nearly as much as that of the whole European Union, according to a recent industry report, Measuring Fashion.

By 2030, the climate impact of the apparel industry alone is forecast to nearly match today's total annual US greenhouse gas emissions, emitting 4.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

RMIT textile technologist Mac Fergusson said textiles made in Australia were setting a good example for the rest of the world, and the global industry was making strides to be more environmentally friendly.

"We've got a lot of recycling going on that a lot of people don't realise," he said, such as a Victorian operation recycling plastic bottles into polyester that would be opening soon.

Because manufacturing processes are so complicated and varied, exactly how much of an environmental effect they impart is difficult to quantify.

But here's an introduction to what goes into manufacturing some of the fabrics you may have hanging in your wardrobe.

Cotton

Cotton fabric is made from yarn spun from the fibres of the cotton seedpod, called a boll. Most of the world's cotton is grown in India and China, usually on farms that rely heavily on pesticides, fertilisers and intensive irrigation.

Growing 1 kilogram of non-organic cotton lint (the raw cotton fibre) uses about 2,120 litres of water from irrigation, according to Textile Exchange, a not-for-profit group promoting sustainable practices within the industry.

Cotton is generally harvested by machine, then undergoes ginning, a mechanical process that removes the fibres from their seeds.

These fluffy fibres are then subject to a series of processes, such as carding and combing, to smooth and refine them until they are ready to be spun into yarn.

A Textile Exchange life cycle analysis published last year found organic cotton - which is usually grown using water-conserving practices and without pesticides and fertilisers - had reduced potential for global warming, acidification, soil erosion, water consumption and non-renewable energy compared with conventional cotton production.

Australia holds a relatively small piece of the global cotton pie, producing about 2 million bales a year compared to China and India's 33 million and 27 million respectively, but it punches above its weight in the environmental stakes, contributing less than a third of a per cent to the country's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, according to Cotton Australia.

A 2014 industry report found Australian cotton had increased its water efficiency by 40 per cent over the previous decade and had reduced insecticide use by 89 per cent since the late 90s.

Synthetics

Synthetics such as polyester, acrylic, nylon and elastane are made using fossil fuels.

Polyester is the most widely used fibre in clothing, accounting for nearly half the world's fibre production, or 63,000 million tonnes each year, according to Textile Exchange.

To make polyester, chemicals from petroleum are liquefied under high pressure and forced through tiny holes. As the liquid is squeezed out the holes, it solidifies into fibres.

These fibres are then drawn out to make them longer and thinner, and then spun into a yarn. Sometimes other processes, such as dyeing, crimping or dulling the natural lustre of the fibre, are involved in these early stages.

While synthetics are usually made from non-renewable resources, some are made from recycled materials, such as polyester made from recycled bottles.

Recycled polyester reduces the need for fossil fuels and diverts plastic bottles from landfill. As technology continues to advance, polyester textile manufacturer could eventually become a closed-loop system, according to Textile Exchange.

But beyond the manufacturing phase, all synthetics, recycled or not, have a longer-term environmental impact while they are being used by you, the consumer.

Every time you wash your polyester clothing, it sheds microscopic fibres that travel into waterways, adding to plastic pollution in our oceans.

Man-made cellulosics

Man-made cellulosic fabrics involve taking a renewable material, such as bamboo or eucalyptus, and breaking it down until it can be spun into a fibre in a similar process to synthetics, such as polyester.

Viscose, rayon, Lyocell and bamboo are all types of cellulosic fabric.

On one hand, they use renewable materials instead of non-renewable fossil fuels, and crops such as bamboo don't require the same volumes of water or pesticides, if any, as cotton.

However, just because a material is renewable doesn't make it the best for the environment. Textile Exchange said greater transparency is needed to ensure logging for these fibres is not being done in ancient or endangered forests, endangered species habitats or otherwise illegal or controversial ways.

Once the wood has been obtained, the process involved in breaking down the raw material involves toxic chemicals that can affect the surrounding environment and people who work in the factories.

According to Textile Exchange, these substances can remain in the fabric during dyeing and finishing. The high-tech process to spin the man-made cellulosic yarn is also energy-intensive.

Because safety standards and environmental impacts of cellulosic fabrics vary so widely, Dr Vuletich advises consumers seek out manufacturers who are transparent about their processes.

Wool

Australia is the largest wool producer in the world, with about 75 million sheep producing about 4.47 kilograms of wool per head, but the fibre holds a relatively small share of global consumption: 1.2 per cent in 2015, according to the International Wool Textile Organisation.

Like cotton (and other textile fibres), wool processing involves many water and energy-intensive phases, including multiple washes to clean the fibre. This process is called scouring, which is how lanolin is recovered.

Australian wool processing plants use water-saving methods such as taking the water from the last rinse to become the first wash of the next batch, said Mr Fergusson.

Further processes - called carding and combing - smooth and refine the fibres prior to spinning into fibre and then weaving or knitting into fabrics. These fabrics may undergo fulling and crabbing, which use heated water to shrink and set the cloth.

Because it comes from animals, wool has environmental impacts at the farming level, including land degradation from overgrazing, soil compaction, erosion and loss of organic matter from the soil.

Deforestation and farms impinging on conservation areas are also problems identified by accreditation body Responsible Wool Standard.

This doesn't mean wool can't be part of your wardrobe: the Bureau of International Recycling estimated if each person in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment, it would save nearly 1,700 million litres of water and 480 tonnes of dyeing chemicals.

Linen

Linen is made from bast fibres - fibres made from the stalk of a plant, usually flax but sometimes hemp ( Cannabis sativa).

Creating linen involves a process called water retting to break down the stalk into bundles of fibres, which are then mechanically refined and spun into a yarn.

It's a thirsty process, but not as water-intensive as cotton processing. Growing these plants is also less intensive terms of water and pesticides than cotton.

Hemp is not a big hitter in the global fashion industry, but has been pointed to as a more environmentally friendly option in the past. Dr Vuletich said that claim mostly stacked up.

But, she added, the fact the cannabis plant was also used as a drug meant it wasn't as widely embraced as a textile as cotton. Nor had it seen the same investment and innovation to create high-quality yarns.

"It's always going to remain a niche fibre because of its raw material."

Even the more widely used flax linen is still a long way behind other fibres in terms of popularity, partly because it has a "particular look", Dr Vuletich said.

"We don't all want to wear linen because it crushes so easily, it's [about] useability."

Dyeing

No, not a textile, but together with other finishing techniques, dyeing is the most energy-hungry part of the garment manufacture process, according to the Measuring Fashion report, accounting for 36 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions of the whole process.

The dyes themselves are also affecting the environment.

A recent documentary tracked how chemical waste from dyeing was making its way into waterways. But the spotlight on these practices is already leading to change.

"There's a zero-discharge initiative that a lot of the brands are realising that they need to really put pressure on suppliers in China around hazardous chemical waste into water," Dr Vuletich told the ABC last year.

Mr Fergusson, who specialises in dyeing, said when he lived near dyehouses in Indonesia, "the rivers used to change colour" - but other dyehouses nearby treated their wastewater and used it to irrigate rice paddies.

Here in Australia, dyehouses must meet very stringent discharge standards so they usually have an on-site treatment plant, Mr Fergusson said.

The Australian industry is also making strides in new technologies, he said, including a method called cold pad-batch dyeing, which cuts down on energy needs by using cold water.

Life cycles

So, are some fibres better or worse for the environment than others? Should we all completely eschew cotton, for example, because of the water and pesticides growing it uses?

It's not quite as simple as that, Dr Vuletich pointed out: cotton could be knitted into a jersey t-shirt, which would be washed frequently and perhaps wear out quickly.

Or it could be turned into a finely woven specialty fabric that's sewn into a kimono jacket to be washed sparingly and carefully maintained.

"We talk about life cycles," she said.

"You've got the impacts of the production phase, but then the material's made up and the garment is used by the customer, and that has environmental impacts as well."

Having said that, knowing what goes into manufacturing a textile can help you know what you're buying. Choosing recycled polyester, local or organic cotton or water-saving fibres like hemp will likely have a lower environmental impact. They also send a message to producers there is a demand for more eco-friendly products.

To make a real environmental difference, Measuring Fashion recommended recycling be combined with a shift to renewable energy, more efficient processes, smarter design and different consumption models - by you, the consumer.

Mr Fergusson said local wool and cotton growers wanted to see more textile manufacturing happen here in Australia, but local energy costs were prohibitive.

"I know that several cotton farmers have looked at the problem but our energy costs are too high. Textile manufacture is not a labour-intensive industry - it is capital intensive," he said.

Shop sparingly, treasure what you have

If buying clothes with the environment in mind is important to you, it can be tough to know where to shop.

While some brands spruik their environmental credentials, many don't provide information about how their fabric is sourced.

In fact, Dr Vuletich said, sometimes even the brand did not have much control over the origins of their textiles, especially smaller Australian brands that did not have the economic clout of a big global chain.

"Obviously the big players, it's easier for them, the H&Ms, they've got huge scale," she said.

"Some of these smaller players just can't get access to that better material.

"You've got to be doggedly determined to make a go of it in this space."

Consumers wanting to be informed can use apps like Good On You, which rates brands based on their environmental impact, as well as their labour and animal welfare practices. But such apps rely on brands being transparent about their processes in the first place.

If you're really trying to limit your wardrobe's effect on the environment, Dr Vuletich said the best thing you could do was to limit buying new, and to treasure what you have.

"Be conscious. Take care of it and cherish it. Each garment has had this journey," she said.

"It is really complex but I find it really exciting. Our eyes have been opened to these amazing processes and the amazing materials we have. The new innovations that are opening up that are really exciting.

"I think as consumers we're ready for it, we're hungry for it, especially the younger generation."

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The environmental impact of putting that shirt on your back

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The shirt you're wearing right now: what's it made from? In its rawest form, was it once growing in a field, on a sheep's back or sloshing at the bottom of an oil well? We wear clothes literally every day, but few of us spend much time reflecting on what goes into manufacturing various textiles and their environmental impacts.

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Adobe Illustrator beginners tutorial

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Getting Started with Adobe Illustrator for Beginners Tutorial

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How to create a repeat pattern in Adobe Illustrator

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Branding in the age of social media

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Context Companies have sunk billions of dollars in

Context

Companies have sunk billions of dollars into producing content on social media, hoping to build audiences around their brands. But consumers haven't shown up.

What Went Wrong

Social media has transformed how culture works. Digital crowds have become powerful cultural innovators-a new phenomenon called crowdculture. They're now so effective at producing creative entertainment that it's impossible for companies to compete.

The Way Forward

While crowdculture has deflated conventional branding models, it actually makes an alternative model- cultural branding -even more powerful. In this approach, brands collaborate with crowdcultures and champion their ideologies in the marketplace.

In the era of Facebook and YouTube, brand building has become a vexing challenge. This is not how things were supposed to turn out. A decade ago most companies were heralding the arrival of a new golden age of branding. They hired creative agencies and armies of technologists to insert brands throughout the digital universe. Viral, buzz, memes, stickiness, and form factor became the lingua franca of branding. But despite all the hoopla, such efforts have had very little payoff.

As a central feature of their digital strategy, companies made huge bets on what is often called branded content. The thinking went like this: Social media would allow your company to leapfrog traditional media and forge relationships directly with customers. If you told them great stories and connected with them in real time, your brand would become a hub for a community of consumers. Businesses have invested billions pursuing this vision. Yet few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online. In fact, social media seems to have made brands less significant. What has gone wrong?

To solve this puzzle, we need to remember that brands succeed when they break through in culture. And branding is a set of techniques designed to generate cultural relevance. Digital technologies have not only created potent new social networks but also dramatically altered how culture works. Digital crowds now serve as very effective and prolific innovators of culture-a phenomenon I call crowdculture. Crowdculture changes the rules of branding-which techniques work and which do not. If we understand crowdculture, then, we can figure out why branded-content strategies have fallen flat-and what alternative branding methods are empowered by social media.

Why Branded Content and Sponsorships Used to Work

While promoters insist that branded content is a hot new thing, it's actually a relic of the mass media age that has been repackaged as a digital concept. In the early days of that era, companies borrowed approaches from popular entertainment to make their brands famous, using short-form storytelling, cinematic tricks, songs, and empathetic characters to win over audiences. Classic ads like Alka-Seltzer's "I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing," Frito-Lay's "Frito Bandito," and Farrah Fawcett "creaming" Joe Namath with Noxema all snuck into popular culture by amusing audiences.

This early form of branded content worked well because the entertainment media were oligopolies, so cultural competition was limited. In the United States, three networks produced television programming for 30 weeks or so every year and then went into reruns. Films were distributed only through local movie theaters; similarly, magazine competition was restricted to what fit on the shelves at drugstores. Consumer marketing companies could buy their way to fame by paying to place their brands in this tightly controlled cultural arena.

Brands also infiltrated culture by sponsoring TV shows and events, attaching themselves to successful content. Since fans had limited access to their favorite entertainers, brands could act as intermediaries. For decades, we were accustomed to fast food chains' sponsoring new blockbuster films, luxury autos' bringing us golf and tennis competitions, and youth brands' underwriting bands and festivals.

The rise of new technologies that allowed audiences to opt out of ads-from cable networks to DVRs and then the internet-made it much harder for brands to buy fame. Now they had to compete directly with real entertainment. So companies upped the ante. BMW pioneered the practice of creating short films for the internet. Soon corporations were hiring top film directors (Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson, David Lynch) and pushing for ever-more-spectacular special effects and production values.

These early (pre-social-media) digital efforts led companies to believe that if they delivered Hollywood-level creative at internet speed, they could gather huge engaged audiences around their brands. Thus was born the great push toward branded content. But its champions weren't counting on new competition. And this time it came not from big media companies but from the crowd.

The Rise of Crowdculture

Historically, cultural innovation flowed from the margins of society-from fringe groups, social movements, and artistic circles that challenged mainstream norms and conventions. Companies and the mass media acted as intermediaries, diffusing these new ideas into the mass market. But social media has changed everything.

Social media binds together communities that once were geographically isolated, greatly increasing the pace and intensity of collaboration. Now that these once-remote communities are densely networked, their cultural influence has become direct and substantial. These new crowdcultures come in two flavors: subcultures, which incubate new ideologies and practices, and art worlds, which break new ground in entertainment.

Amplified subcultures.

Today you'll find a flourishing crowdculture around almost any topic: espresso, the demise of the American Dream, Victorian novels, arts-and-crafts furniture, libertarianism, new urbanism, 3-D printing, anime, bird-watching, homeschooling, barbecue. Back in the day, these subculturalists had to gather physically and had very limited ways to communicate collectively: magazines and, later, primitive Usenet groups and meet-ups.

Social media has expanded and democratized these subcultures. With a few clicks, you can jump into the center of any subculture, and participants' intensive interactions move seamlessly among the web, physical spaces, and traditional media. Together members are pushing forward new ideas, products, practices, and aesthetics-bypassing mass-culture gatekeepers. With the rise of crowdculture, cultural innovators and their early adopter markets have become one and the same.

Turbocharged art worlds.

Producing innovative popular entertainment requires a distinctive mode of organization-what sociologists call an art world. In art worlds, artists (musicians, filmmakers, writers, designers, cartoonists, and so on) gather in inspired collaborative competition: They work together, learn from one another, play off ideas, and push one another. The collective efforts of participants in these "scenes" often generate major creative breakthroughs. Before the rise of social media, the mass-culture industries (film, television, print media, fashion) thrived by pilfering and repurposing their innovations.

Crowdculture has turbocharged art worlds, vastly increasing the number of participants and the speed and quality of their interactions. No longer do you need to be part of a local scene; no longer do you need to work for a year to get funding and distribution for your short film. Now millions of nimble cultural entrepreneurs come together online to hone their craft, exchange ideas, fine-tune their content, and compete to produce hits. The net effect is a new mode of rapid cultural prototyping, in which you can get instant data on the market's reception of ideas, have them critiqued, and then rework them so that the most resonant content quickly surfaces. In the process, new talent emerges and new genres form. Squeezing into every nook and cranny of pop culture, the new content is highly attuned to audiences and produced on the cheap. These art-world crowdcultures are the main reason why branded content has failed.

Beyond Branded Content

While companies have put their faith in branded content for the past decade, brute empirical evidence is now forcing them to reconsider. In YouTube or Instagram rankings of channels by number of subscribers, corporate brands barely appear. Only three have cracked the YouTube Top 500. Instead you'll find entertainers you've never heard of, appearing as if from nowhere.

YouTube's greatest success by far is PewDiePie, a Swede who posts barely edited films with snarky voice-over commentary on the video games he plays. By January 2016 he had racked up nearly 11 billion views, and his YouTube channel had more than 41 million subscribers.

How did this happen? The story begins with the youth subcultures that formed around video games. When they landed on social media, they became a force. The once-oddball video-gaming-as-entertainment subculture of South Korea went global, producing a massive spectator sport, now known as E-Sports, with a fan base approaching 100 million people. (Amazon recently bought the E-Sports network Twitch for $970 million.)

In E-Sports, broadcasters provide play-by-play narration of video games. PewDiePie and his comrades riffed on this commentary, turning it into a potty-mouthed new form of sophomoric comedy. Other gamers who film themselves, such as VanossGaming (YouTube rank #19, 15.6 million subscribers), elrubiusOMG (#20, 15.6 million), CaptainSparklez (#60, 9 million), and Ali-A (#94, 7.4 million), are also influential members of this tribe. The crowdculture was initially organized by specialized media platforms that disseminated this content and by insider fans who gathered around and critiqued it, hyping some efforts and dissing others. PewDiePie became the star of this digital art world-just as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Patti Smith had done in urban art worlds back in the analog days. The main difference is that the power of crowdculture propelled him to global fame and influence in record time.

Gaming comedy is just one of hundreds of new genres that crowdculture has created. Those genres fill every imaginable entertainment gap in popular culture, from girls' fashion advice to gross-out indulgent foods to fanboy sports criticism. Brands can't compete, despite their investments. Compare PewDiePie, who cranks out inexpensive videos in his house, to McDonald's, one of the world's biggest spenders on social media. The McDonald's channel (#9,414) has 204,000 YouTube subscribers. PewDiePie is 200 times as popular, for a minuscule fraction of the cost.

Or consider Red Bull, the most lauded branded-content success story. It has become a new-media hub producing extreme- and alternative-sports content. While Red Bull spends much of its $2 billion annual marketing budget on branded content, its YouTube channel (rank #184, 4.9 million subscribers) is lapped by dozens of crowdculture start-ups with production budgets under $100,000. Indeed, Dude Perfect (#81, 8 million subscribers), the brainchild of five college jocks from Texas who make videos of trick shots and goofy improvised athletic feats, does far better.

Coca-Cola offers another cautionary tale. In 2011 the company announced a new marketing strategy-called Liquid & Linked-with great fanfare. Going all in, it shifted its emphasis from "creative excellence" (the old mass-media approach) to "content excellence" (branded content in social media). Coke's Jonathan Mildenhall claimed that Coke would continually produce "the world's most compelling content," which would capture "a disproportionate share of popular culture," doubling sales by 2020.

The following year, Coca-Cola launched its first big bet, transforming the static corporate website into a digital magazine, Coca-Cola Journey. It runs stories on virtually every pop culture topic-from sports and food to sustainability and travel. It's the epitome of a branded-content strategy.

Journey has now been live for over three years, and it barely registers views. It hasn't cracked the top 10,000 sites in the United States or the top 20,000 worldwide. Likewise, the company's YouTube channel (ranked #2,749) has only 676,000 subscribers.

It turns out that consumers have little interest in the content that brands churn out. Very few people want it in their feed. Most view it as clutter-as brand spam. When Facebook realized this, it began charging companies to get "sponsored" content into the feeds of people who were supposed to be their fans.

The problem companies face is structural, not creative. Big companies organize their marketing efforts as the antithesis of art worlds, in what I have termed brand bureaucracies. They excel at coordinating and executing complex marketing programs across multiple markets around the world. But this organizational model leads to mediocrity when it comes to cultural innovation.

Brand Sponsors Are Disintermediated

Entertainment "properties"-performers, athletes, sports teams, films, television programs, and video games-are also hugely popular on social media. Across all the big platforms you'll find the usual A-list of celebrities dominating. On YouTube musicians Rihanna, One Direction, Katy Perry, Eminem, Justin Bieber, and Taylor Swift have built massive audiences. On Twitter you'll find a similar cast of singers, along with media stars like Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon, Oprah, Bill Gates, and the pope. Fans gather around the tweets of sports stars Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Neymar, and Kaká, and teams such as FC Barcelona and Real Madrid (which are far more popular than the two dominant sports brands, Nike and Adidas). On Instagram you'll find more of the same.

These celebrities are all garnering the superengaged community that pundits have long promised social media would deliver. But it's not available to companies and their branded goods and services. In retrospect, that shouldn't be surprising: Interacting with a favored entertainer is different from interacting with a brand of rental car or orange juice. What works for Shakira backfires for Crest and Clorox. The idea that consumers could possibly want to talk about Corona or Coors in the same way that they debate the talents of Ronaldo and Messi is silly.

Under Armour's recent campaign "I Will What I Want" shows how to combine celebrity sponsorships and cultural branding to create content with impact.

Under Armour originally became an iconic brand by swiping Nike's cultural strategy-then doing it one better.

Nike's approach, launched in the 1970s and perfected in the 1990s, was to tell stories of athletes who overcame societal barriers through sheer willpower. But a decade ago Nike abandoned its competitive-underdog ideology to go all in on branded content, using famous athletes to make entertaining sports films. Under Armour stepped into the void, producing arresting new ads, such as "Protect This House," that championed the same ideology and took off on social media.

Under Armour also followed Nike in dramatizing how übercompetitiveness, traditionally associated with masculinity, applied equally to women, broadcasting spots that showcased female athletes. The latest effort, "I Will What I Want," pushed gender boundaries even further, challenging conventions in arenas where traditional ideals of femininity still reign.

Ballet star Misty Copeland-who grew up in poverty with a single parent-is an athletic, muscular dancer in a profession that celebrates waifish, reed-thin women. Under Armour made a video about how she rose above adversity (the voice-over is from a rejection letter saying that her body was completely wrong for ballet), showing her dancing in a formfitting sports bra and pants that reveal her curvier physique.

A Gisele Bündchen film followed the same convention-breaking formula but mashed up incongruous crowdcultures to provoke a social media response. The former Victoria's Secret star is usually portrayed within the glamorous world of runways and celebrity hobnobbing. Under Armour broke the frame by placing her in what was essentially an old Nike ad: a backstage video of Gisele in an intense kickboxing workout. The company announced the partnership ahead of filming. It immediately stirred up the crowdculture: Sports fans were cynical, Gisele fans were curious, fashionistas were puzzled, and feminists simply loved it. Under Armour's agency scraped all this commentary from the web and projected quotes from the digital discussion on the walls behind her. The resulting video shows Gisele sweating and kicking the bag, ignoring the litany of digs surrounding her: "Is posing now a sport?" "She's not even pretty." "What's her sport, smiling?" "Stick to modeling, sweetie."

Under Armour succeeded because it innovated with ideology-using female celebrities to provocatively push against gender norms. The company aimed its communiqués directly at the crowdcultures that held those norms, which set off a firestorm of debate.

Social media allows fans to create rich communities around entertainers, who interact directly with them in a barrage of tweets, pins, and posts. Sports teams now hire social media ambassadors to reach out to fans in real time during games, and once the game is over, the players send along insider photos and hold locker-room chats. Beyond the major platforms, new media sites like Vevo, SoundCloud, and Apple Music are spurring even more direct digital connections.

Of course, entertainers are still more than happy to take sponsors' money, but the cultural value that's supposed to rub off on the brand is fading.

Cultural Branding

While the rise of crowdculture diminishes the impact of branded content and sponsorships, it has greased the wheels for an alternative approach that I call cultural branding. The dramatic breakthrough of the fast-casual Mexican food chain Chipotle from 2011 to 2013 (before recent outbreaks of foodborne illness) demonstrates the power of this approach.

Chipotle took advantage of an enormous cultural opportunity created when the once-marginal movements that had challenged America's dominant industrial food culture became a force to be reckoned with on social media. The chain jumped into the fray as a champion of this crowdculture's ideology. By applying cultural branding, Chipotle became one of America's most compelling and talked-about brands (though recent food-safety difficulties have dented its image). Specifically, Chipotle succeeded by following these five principles:

1. Map the cultural orthodoxy.

In cultural branding, the brand promotes an innovative ideology that breaks with category conventions. To do that, it first needs to identify which conventions to leapfrog-what I call the cultural orthodoxy. America's industrial food ideology was invented in the early 20th century by food-marketing companies. Americans had come to believe that, through dazzling scientific discoveries (margarine, instant coffee, Tang) and standardized production processes, big companies, overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, would ensure bountiful, healthful, and tasty food. Those assumptions have undergirded the fast food category since McDonald's took off in the 1960s.

2. Locate the cultural opportunity.

As time passes, disruptions in society cause an orthodoxy to lose traction. Consumers begin searching for alternatives, which opens up an opportunity for innovative brands to push forward a new ideology in their categories.

Iconic brands are cultural innovators: They leapfrog the conventions of their categories to champion new ideologies that are meaningful to customers.

As a result, they enjoy intense customer loyalty and superior sales and profits, and garner loads of free media coverage. In business, few achievements are more prized than creating an iconic brand. Yet the two dominant branding models are not designed to do the job.

The first model, mindshare branding, is one that companies have long relied on. It treats a brand as a set of psychological associations (benefits, emotions, personality). The second model, purpose branding, has become popular in the past decade. In it, a brand espouses values or ideals its customers share. Over the past 15 years I've developed an alternative approach- cultural branding -to turn what was once serendipity into a rigorous discipline. Let me illustrate how it works, using the transformation of Jack Daniel's from a near-bankrupt regional distiller to the maker of the leading premium American whiskey.

Whiskies compete to be perceived as upscale and masculine. In the 1950s the major brands sought to align themselves with the male ideal of the day: the sophisticated modern corporate executive. Jack Daniel's, a small whiskey targeted to upper-middle-class men, was being trounced by the national competitors. How could it break through?

Mindshare-branding experts would advise the company to convey, very consistently, the key brand associations: masculine, sophisticated, smooth-tasting, classic. But that was precisely what Jack Daniel's was doing-its ads mimicked the national brands', showing alpha executives drinking smooth whiskey. And they didn't work. Purpose-branding experts would encourage the firm to champion its core values. With that approach, the focus wouldn't be much different: Those values had to do with producing classic charcoal-filtered whiskey for a sophisticated drinker.

Instead, the firm (tacitly) pursued a cultural-branding approach. Because masculine ideals are shaped by society, they change over time. The Cold War had dramatically affected Americans' perceptions of masculinity. In the face of a nuclear threat, the corporate executive seemed too sedentary. Instead, the public was drawn to what had only recently been viewed as an anachronism: the gunslinging rugged individualist of the Old West, who, in the American mythos, had helped forge the country's success. The enormous popularity of Western films was one indication of this shift. This massive cultural opportunity, which Marlboro and Levi's leveraged as well, is obvious when analyzed through a cultural-branding framework-but invisible without one.

The Jack Daniel's distillery was in a rural region of Tennessee that the postwar mass media portrayed as an impoverished land of hillbillies. Yet in the American imagination, the area was also one of the last authentic pockets of the frontier, where Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone had gotten their start. So when American men yearned to revive the ideology of the frontier, the whiskey offered great potential as a symbol. This theme was first hit upon by men's magazines (Fortune, True), which published stories romanticizing the distillery as a place run by frontiersmen, little changed since the 19th century. The company's print-ad campaign simply emulated those stories, adding some folksy copy.

Jack Daniel's quickly became the aspirational whiskey among urban upper-middle-class men; the branding converted its once-stigmatized location into a place where men were really men. Conventional models would never build a strategy centered on such a downscale version of masculinity. But in cultural branding, inverting marginal ideologies is one of the tricks of the trade.

For industrial food, the tipping point came in 2001, when Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation powerfully challenged it. This was followed in 2004 by Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me and in 2006 by Michael Pollan's influential book The Omnivore's Dilemma. These critiques dramatically affected the upper middle class, quickly spreading concerns about industrial food and providing huge momentum to Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, and a host of other upmarket food purveyors. The same transformation is unfolding in other countries dominated by industrial food ideology. For instance, in the United Kingdom the celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have played a similar role.

Before social media, the influence of these works would have remained locked within this small fraction of society. Instead, crowdcultures grabbed the critiques and blew them up, pushing industrial food anxiety into the mainstream. News about every major problem linked to industrial food production-processed foods loaded with sugar, carcinogenic preservatives, rBGH in milk, bisphenol A leaching from plastics, GMOs, and so on-began to circulate at internet speed. Videos of the meatlike substance "pink slime" went viral. Parents worried endlessly about what they were feeding their kids. Crowdculture converted an elite concern into a national social trauma that galvanized a broad public challenge.

3. Target the crowdculture.

Challengers to the industrial food ideology had lurked at the margins for more than 40 years but had been easily pushed aside as crazy Luddites. Small subcultures had evolved around organic farming and pastured livestock, eking out a living at the fringes of the market in community-supported agriculture and farmers' markets. But as social media took off, an influential and diverse cluster of overlapping subcultures pushed hard for food innovations. They included advocates of evolutionary nutrition and paleo diets, sustainable ranchers, a new generation of environmental activists, urban gardeners, and farm-to-table restaurants. In short order, a massive cultural movement had organized around the revival of preindustrial foods. Chipotle succeeded because it jumped into this crowdculture and took on its cause.

4. Diffuse the new ideology.

Chipotle promoted preindustrial food ideology with two films. In 2011 the company launched Back to the Start, an animated film with simple wooden figures. In it, an old-fashioned farm is transformed into a parody of a hyper-rationalized industrial farm: The pigs are stuffed together inside a concrete barn, then enter an assembly line where they are injected with chemicals that fatten them into blimps, and then are pressed into cubes and deposited in a fleet of semis. The farmer is haunted by this transformation and decides to convert his farm back to its original pastoral version.

The second film, The Scarecrow, parodied an industrial food company that branded its products using natural farm imagery. The company is actually a factory in which animals are injected with drugs and treated inhumanely. It cranks out premade meals stamped "100% beef-ish" that kids, oblivious to the real process, eagerly gobble up. A scarecrow who works at the factory is depressed by what he witnesses until he gets an idea. He picks a bunch of produce from his garden, takes it to the city, and opens up a little taqueria-a facsimile of a Chipotle.

The films were launched with tiny media buys and then seeded out on social media platforms. Both were extremely influential, were watched by tens of millions, generated huge media hits, and helped drive impressive sales and profit gains. Each won the Grand Prix at the Cannes advertising festival.

Chipotle's films are wrongly understood simply as great examples of branded content. They worked because they went beyond mere entertainment. The films were artful, but so are many thousands of films that don't cut through. Their stories weren't particularly original; they had been repeated over and over with creative vigor for the previous decade or so. But they exploded on social media because they were myths that passionately captured the ideology of the burgeoning preindustrial food crowdculture. Chipotle painted an inspired vision of America returning to bucolic agricultural and food production traditions and reversing many problems in the dominant food system.

The bête noire of the preindustrial food movement is fast food, so the idea that a major fast food company would promote that story was particularly potent with the crowd. Chipotle was taking on pink slime! Moreover, boutique locavore food was expensive, but at Chipotle people could now assuage their worries with a $7 burrito. Because they tapped into anxieties percolating in the crowdculture, Chipotle's films never had to compete as great entertainment.

5. Innovate continually, using cultural flashpoints.

A brand can sustain its cultural relevance by playing off particularly intriguing or contentious issues that dominate the media discourse related to an ideology. That's what Ben & Jerry's did so well in championing its sustainable business philosophy. The company used new-product introductions to playfully spar with the Reagan administration on timely issues such as nuclear weapons, the destruction of the rain forests, and the war on drugs.

To thrive, Chipotle must continue to lead on flashpoint issues with products and communiqués. The company has been less successful in this respect: It followed up with a Hulu series that had little social media impact because it simply mimicked the prior films rather than staking out new flashpoints. Then Chipotle moved on to a new issue, championing food without GMOs. Aside from the fact that this claim challenged its credibility (after all, Chipotle still sold meat fed by GMO grain and soft drinks made with GMO sweeteners), GMO was a relatively weak flashpoint, a contentious issue only among the most activist consumers and already touted by many hundreds of products. These efforts failed to rally the crowdculture. A number of other flashpoints, such as sugary drinks and industrial vegetable oils, generate far more controversy and have yet to be tackled by a major food business.

Of course, leading with ideology in the mass market can be a double-edged sword. The brand has to walk the walk or it will be called out. Chipotle is a large and growing business with many industrial-scale processes, not a small farm-to-table taqueria. Delivering perishable fresh food, which the company is committed to as a preindustrial food champion, is a huge operational challenge. Chipotle's reputation has taken a painful hit with highly publicized outbreaks of E. coli and norovirus contamination. Chipotle won't win back consumer trust through ads or public relations efforts. Rather, the company has to convince the crowdculture that it's doubling down on its commitment to get preindustrial food right, and then the crowd will advocate for its brand once again.

Competing for Crowdcultures

To brand effectively with social media, companies should target crowdcultures. Today, in pursuit of relevance, most brands chase after trends. But this is a commodity approach to branding: Hundreds of companies are doing exactly the same thing with the same generic list of trends. It's no wonder consumers don't pay attention. By targeting novel ideologies flowing out of crowdcultures, brands can assert a point of view that stands out in the overstuffed media environment.

Take the personal care category. Three brands-Dove, Axe, and Old Spice-have generated tremendous consumer interest and identification in a historically low-involvement category, one you would never expect to get attention on social media. They succeeded by championing distinctive gender ideologies around which crowdcultures had formed.

Axe mines the lad crowd. In the 1990s feminist critiques of patriarchal culture were promulgated by academics in American universities. These attacks whipped up a conservative backlash mocking "politically correct" gender politics. It held that men were under siege and needed to rekindle their traditional masculinity. In the UK and then the United States, this rebellion gave rise to a tongue-in-cheek form of sexism called "lad culture." New magazines like Maxim, FHM, and Loaded harked back to the Playboy era, featuring lewd stories with soft-porn photos. This ideology struck a chord with many young men. By the early 2000s lad culture was migrating onto the web as a vital crowdculture.

Axe (sold as Lynx in the UK and Ireland) had been marketed in Europe and Latin America since the 1980s but had become a dated, also-ran brand. That is, until the company jumped onto the lad bandwagon with "The Axe Effect," a campaign that pushed to bombastic extremes politically incorrect sexual fantasies. It spread like wildfire on the internet and instantly established Axe as the over-the-top cheerleader for the lad crowd.

Dove leads the body-positive crowd. Axe's aggressive stand set up a perfect opportunity for another brand to champion the feminist side of this "gender war." Dove was a mundane, old-fashioned brand in a category in which marketing usually rode the coattails of the beauty trends set by fashion houses and media. By the 2000s the ideal of the woman's body had been pushed to ridiculous extremes. Feminist critiques of the use of starved size 0 models began to circulate in traditional and social media. Instead of presenting an aspiration, beauty marketing had become inaccessible and alienating to many women.

Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" tapped into this emerging crowdculture by celebrating real women's physiques in all their normal diversity-old, young, curvy, skinny, short, tall, wrinkled, smooth. Women all over the world pitched in to produce, circulate, and cheer for images of bodies that didn't conform to the beauty myth. Throughout the past decade, Dove has continued to target cultural flashpoints-such as the use of heavily Photoshopped images in fashion magazines-to keep the brand at the center of this gender discourse.

Old Spice taps the hipster crowd. The ideological battle between the laddish view and body-positive feminism left untouched one other cultural opportunity in the personal care market. In the 2000s, a new "hipster" ideology arose in urban subcultures to define sophistication among young cosmopolitan adults. They embraced the historical bohemian ideal with gusto but also with self-referential irony. Ironic white-trash wardrobes (foam trucker hats, ugly Salvation Army sweaters) and facial hair (waxed handlebar mustaches, bushy beards) became pervasive. Brooklyn was chock-full of lumberjacks. Amplified by crowdculture, this sensibility rapidly spread across the country.

Old Spice branding piggybacked on hipster sophistication with a parody of Axe and masculine clichés. The campaign featured a chiseled, bare-chested former football player, Isaiah Mustafa, as a huckster for Old Spice-"the man your man could smell like." The films hit the hipster bull's-eye, serving up an extremely "hot" guy whose shtick is to make fun of the conventions of male attractiveness. You too can be hot if you offer your woman amazing adventures, diamonds and gold, and studly body poses, all with aggressive spraying of Old Spice.

These three brands broke through in social media because they used cultural branding-a strategy that works differently from the conventional branded-content model. Each engaged a cultural discourse about gender and sexuality in wide circulation in social media-a crowdculture-which espoused a distinctive ideology. Each acted as a proselytizer, promoting this ideology to a mass audience. Such opportunities come into view only if we use the prism of cultural branding-doing research to identify ideologies that are relevant to the category and gaining traction in crowdcultures. Companies that rely on traditional segmentation models and trend reports will always have trouble identifying those opportunities.

A decade in, companies are still struggling to come up with a branding model that works in the chaotic world of social media. The big platforms-the Facebooks and YouTubes and Instagrams-seem to call the shots, while the vast majority of brands are cultural mutes, despite investing billions. Companies need to shift their focus away from the platforms themselves and toward the real locus of digital power-crowdcultures. They are creating more opportunities than ever for brands. Old Spice succeeded not with a Facebook strategy but with a strategy that leveraged the ironic hipster aesthetic. Chipotle succeeded not with a YouTube strategy but with products and communications that spoke to the preindustrial food movement. Companies can once again win the battle for cultural relevance with cultural branding, which will allow them to tap into the power of the crowd.

A version of this article appeared in the March 2016 issue (pp.40-48, 50) of Harvard Business Review.

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Social media was supposed to usher in a golden age of branding. But things didn't turn out that way. Marketers originally thought that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter would let them bypass mainstream media and connect directly with customers. Hoping to attract huge audiences to their brands, they spent billions producing their own creative content.

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What is brand identity?

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In this post, I've assembled information that's scattered across the web to provide an authoritative guide to corporate brand identity design. I've boiled it down to 7 elements that you'll need to include as you create your own brand identity design and work toward the larger goal of building a well-loved brand.

Table of Contents

What is a brand?

What is a brand identity?

How to create a brand identity

10 best corporate identity design examples

Before we go over the 7 elements of brand identity design, we need to align on a few key definitions. First of all...

What is a brand?

The word "brand" is used pretty loosely these days. For example, people might use the word "brand" to talk about logos, though a logo is just one part of a brand. It's a symbol that represents a deeper emotional tie.

Seth Godin has a great definition of brand that addresses this point: "A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another."

A logo, packaging, typography, and personality all represent a brand, along with customer service, price, product quality, and corporate responsibility, but a brand is a bit more intangible. It's emotional, visual, historical, and human. It's an experience that separates different products and services in a world where quality is often comparable or the same.

What is brand identity?

Brand identity is the face of a brand. As discussed in the previous section, a brand is an emotional and even philosophical concept, while brand identity is the visual component of a brand that represents those larger ideas.

Brand identity includes logos, typography, colors, packaging, and messaging, and it complements and reinforces the existing reputation of a brand. Brand identity attracts new customers to a brand while making existing customers feel at home. It's both outward- and inward-facing.

It's vital that brand identity be consistent. Because it's representing and reinforcing the emotions of a brand, the message portrayed by brand identity components needs to be clear, and it needs to be the same no matter where it's displayed.

To manage brand identity, organizations should invest in a brand management system that helps them stay consistent while still having the flexibility and the speed necessary to succeed in today's market. Components of this system might include a style guide, brand management software, and employee training.

So what is brand identity design, and how do you create a brand identity?

Basically, it's brand identity applied. Brand identity design is the actual process of creating the logo, color palette, typography, etc.

With these definitions in mind, what follows is an overview of the 7 key design elements you need to create a brand identity that is strong, consistent, and attractive.

1. Clear brand purpose and positioning

The first part of establishing a brand identity is determining what your purpose and positioning is. The brand purpose is the big reason for your existence. Brand positioning is the naming of who your product is for and why your product is a better option than the competitors. Defining these will inform your strategy as you create a logo, decide on a color palette, etc. A process called Purpose, Position and Personality is useful for answering these questions (we'll talk more about personality in the next section).

According to Arielle Jackson, startup founder and Google veteran: "Your purpose is how you want to change the world for the better." Jackson also recommends this diagram as a guide for determining your purpose:

Jackson explains the diagram this way: "In one circle, you have cultural tension. This is what is happening in the world that's relevant to you. In the other circle, is your brand's best self. This is what your company delivers at its prime," says Jackson. "The intersection of these two areas is... 'the big ideal' - or your purpose."

For a great example of a succinct, tangible corporate purpose, check out this statement from Apple:

"Apple's 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it."

Not too shabby.

Brand positioning is the process of making the purpose actionable. By naming your target customer and differentiating yourself from the competition, you lay the groundwork for your brand to accomplish your purpose.
For more in-depth information on the purpose, position and personality process, check out this blog post.
2. Thorough market research

A brand's purpose and positioning can be informed, at least in part, by market and customer research. To understand the cultural tension described in the previous section, research is crucial. For beginners to market research, there is a wealth of content online to help.

One of the best ways to conduct market research is to simply talk to people. Phone interviews allow for detailed discussions and place a helpful emphasis on the human element of research-an element that's essential if you want to make an emotional appeal to customers.

Beyond phone interviews, online survey tools, like Survey Monkey, are a fast way to gather a lot of information, and government resources can also be a powerful tool.

Good market research can also help you determine who your main customer personas are, a term which I'm using here to indicate a slightly different concept than "target customers," which was mentioned earlier. Your customer persona goes beyond just defining what problem a customer has and details some of the professional and personal traits of your focus customers. Defining these traits will help you know what kind of a personality your brand should have to be appealing to customers.

3. Likable brand personality

Something I've heard several times is the question "If your brand were a person, what would they be like?" It might be a bit cliché at this point, but it's a smart way to think about brand personality.

And brand personality is an important thing to consider. It will come through in every part of your brand identity if you get it right. Brand personality has a huge impact on the voice and tone used in your marketing materials and other communications. If a personality isn't established, customers will get mixed messages and have trouble connecting with your brand.

If you're having a hard time getting started, here's an exercise to try: Which celebrities best represent your brand? Is there an actor or actress, musician, or public personality that embodies the same traits as your brand? This could be a good starting point for nailing down different aspects of your brand's personality.

Once you've pictured the kind of person your brand would be and listed off a few attributes they have, it's helpful to boil down your brand's personality into a single statement. Here's what we came up with for Lucidpress:
Lucidpress surprises you with its intelligence, wit, and ability to get the job done.
How did we do?

4. Memorable logo

Which came first-the logo or the brand? It's difficult to say, because logos and brands are constantly being refined and adjusted, but by and large, a clear brand should come first, followed by a logo that matches, compliments, and enhances that brand.

Your logo is central to your brand identity design. It's the piece of your brand identity that people will be exposed to the most. It needs to line up with all the other elements of your brand identity, as well as the broader emotional appeal of your brand. For example, take a look at this logo:

What do you think of? I bet you noticed it earlier and instantly thought of nostalgia, magic, laughter, or something similar. The playful script oozes with creativity and fun, and that jives with the overall brand Disney has established.

To increase your chances of having a memorable logo that encourages a strong emotional response, go for a simple look. Take a look at the logos of the world's top 3 brands ( according to Interbrand):

They're simple and instantly recognizable. Even Coca-Cola's logo, the most complex of the three, is just a straight line of text in a single font, with no graphical elements surrounding it.

When a logo is simple, it becomes an open canvas customers can fill with positive experiences they have with the brand.

The final thing to consider when designing a brand logo is all the places a it could possibly be displayed. A logo needs to be flexible enough to look great on a huge billboard or as a tiny social media icon. Simplicity is helpful here as well.

5. Attractive color palette

Related to logo design is the color palette. This should also be simple, with only 1 to 3 primary colors (though Google got away with 4). Knowing a bit about the emotions conveyed by certain colors can help you select the right ones.

A lot of color psychology is intuitive, like blue expressing calm and red and yellow expressing passion and energy. Depending on the tint or shade of a color you use, that emotion can be adjusted. A tint is the color mixed with white, making it lighter, and a shade is the color mixed with black, making it darker. A lighter tint of blue conveys tranquility, while a darker shade of blue often conveys trust, an effect that many banks use in their color schemes.

As mentioned earlier, brands should have only a few primary colors, but you can also select secondary colors to be used alongside your primary colors in some of your materials. Selecting a few additional colors helps your brand stay exciting but still on brand.

6. Professional typography

Stressing about finding just the right font may lead others to designate you a "typography nerd," but you'll come out ahead when you pick a font that works in harmony with your logo and colors.

Fonts are powerful. The most famous fonts are recognizable even when taken out of context. You'll want a single primary typeface to lead your brand design, and it should work well with your logo and your color palette. It should also, like your logo and color palette, be simple.

If you'd like to know more, I found this beginner's guide to typography helpful. It covers a few best practices:

Don't use fancy fonts (especially if you don't have the experience or knowledge to use them well).

Don't avoid default fonts. They're readable, and you can set the typeface differently if you want it to stand out.

Don't mix more than two font families at a time.

Do mix contrasting fonts (such as a serif and a sans-serif).

Choose the right font size and line length for legibility.

Align your text to the left. A ragged right is easy to read.

If it's over 60 characters per line, it's okay to justify it. However, avoid hyphenation.

Don't use all-caps to emphasize text.

Of course, all of these rules can be broken if you know how to do it effectively. The key is understanding why the best practices work, so you can justify bending the rules for your brand identity.

7. On-brand supporting graphics

Since we live in a multimedia world, the final step in creating a brand identity is an extended visual language with supporting graphics, design assets, icons and photographs.

Take a look at Google's Visual Assets Guidelines to see how they carefully explain their take on icon design. They cover a whole range of brand design considerations:

A reductive (or "flat") approach

A preference for geometric shapes

Icons always face front

Straight, hard shadows as opposed to curved, soft ones

Standard background colors

Icons align to the pixel grid

Icon padding according to shape

Because of Google's close attention to their extended visual language, when you see a Google icon, you know it's a Google icon.

Next steps

There may be redesigns and re-evaluating ahead, but starting off with a strong, confident brand and a unified brand identity will add clarity to everything you do. And though change may be necessary in the future, stay fiercely consistent so that your brand is the one that comes to mind when someone has a problem you can solve.

10 best corporate identity design examples

So this is the list of the 10 best corporate identity design examples. Now, let's get one thing out of the way, this isn't really the best. (I mean, who am I to judge that? Is anyone really qualified to make that list? But I digress; I had to include "best" because our content manager said it would be good for SEO.) So, if you searched for "best" and ended up here, well, you're welcome. So, while this is not the authoritative list, it is a list of some very solid corporate identity branding designs that have turned up over the last few years.

Airbnb

A few years ago Airbnb decided that their brand needed a refresh, so they called in San Francisco-based DesignStudio for some help. When Airbnb rebranded, it was very controversial both inside and outside of the design world. But as with many logo redesigns, after some time has passed, it's easy to look back and see that they made the right decisions. It's obvious now that it was the right decision to move away from the then-trendy script logotype to the more iconic stylized "A."

DesignStudio worked hard to incorporate the international, friendly, adventurous and belonging nature of Airbnb. This meant simplifying the logo from words to just an icon, eliminating language barriers and making it universally recognizable. By incorporating a large palette of colors and a variety of photography styles, any culture or country can now identify with the Airbnb brand.

Read more: New logo & identity for Airbnb by DesignStudio

Key takeaways

In this case, the old branding for Airbnb did not align to the values and needs of the company. It called for not just a revision or an update, but a complete overhaul. I respect them for being willing to undertake a massive change to their corporate identity for the greater good of serving their customers.

Spotify

Spotify, the Swedish music streaming service, has taken music lovers by storm. But the original logo is probably foreign to most American listeners. It was a funky logo type with the "O" lifted up and (what I assume are) radio waves coming out of it.

In 2013 Spotify updated their design, focusing on the "circle with radio waves" motif. They stuck with the green and white but introduced a gradient that gave the mark some fake 3-D dimension. In 2015 the brand consultancy group Collins took a crack at refining the 2013 logo design. And in my opinion, they knocked it out of the park. One of the things I love about the Spotify branding is that it successfully uses a large color palette. While green is their primary color, it is certainly not the only color they use. I also appreciate the use of the duotone technique, gradients and pop art graphics. These techniques can help pull the branding together even though Spotify features musicians who represent a large spectrum of styles.

Read more: New identity for Spotify by Collins

Key takeaways

Don't be afraid of color. Consider using unexpected art styles, like duotone, as key parts of the visual branding.

Australian Open

The Australian Open went through a rebrand in 2016 by agency Landor Australia. They took a dated logo and completely overhauled the look. They eliminated any visual reference to tennis players or tennis balls and simplified the mark down to just "AO." They simplified that even more by knocking the crossbar out of the A. They then applied this "circle and delta shapes" motif across all other branding. The result is a branding system that is bold, athletic and fun. They eliminated all of the stuffiness that the previous logo had.

Read more: Landor helps Australian Open change game

Key takeaways

Sometimes a logo needs to be completely rethought. If the current logo is not true to the goals and values of the client, it's got to change. Also, don't be afraid to boil a brand system down to simple, essential elements.

City of Melbourne

A great follow-up to the Australian Open is the rebranding of the City of Melbourne back in 2009. Melbourne had a very safe, predictable city logo. It had all of the required "city logo things": Sun? Check. Roman column? Check. Some sort of plant? Check. It was very official-looking-and very boring. The city also had a problem in that every city department and event had its own logo, without any consistency.

In 2009 the city rebranded, completely overhauling the logo of the city and introducing a identity system. I just want to note that this is a difficult task for any large organization, but government organizations are notorious for being resistant to change, so kudos to the designers and their government counterparts for pulling off this redesign.

The new design is simply fantastic. It does so many positive things for the branding of the city. First, it better reflects Melbourne's vibrant culture and makes it more appealing to visitors. Second, it unifies the many different logos that existed before. Finally, it creates a visual language that can be used across all of their messaging. I appreciate the nice details, like how the logo can be broken up into individual shape elements, making it even more versatile.

Read more: City of Melbourne gallery on Behance

Key takeaways

Just because logos for a certain type of client are usually boring doesn't mean the one you make has to be. Cities are not known for having great logos, but Melbourne bucked that trend. Make the logo and identity system versatile enough that they can be used in a variety of situations and needs, so the design system is future-proof.

Heart & Stroke Foundation

The new Heart & Stroke logo is a master class in minimalism and reduction. Pentagram's famous Paula Scher took a busy, very official-looking logo and distilled it down to its basic message. I really appreciate how Scher tucked everything so close together. The stroke mark is neatly placed under the curve of the heart, and the closely tracked typography is snuggled in tight under the stroke. The Heart & Stroke mark is strong enough that the name can be eliminated and replaced with locations, departments, etc., making the mark multi-functional.

Read more: Pentagram's Paula Scher rebrands Heart & Stroke Foundation Canada

Key takeaways

The beautiful thing about this design is that it uses two extremely basic shapes that anyone could have made in Microsoft Word using Wingdings and Arial. But as is often the case in graphic design, it's not how complex a design is that proves the designer's brilliance, but how simple it can be. When making a design, delete delete delete.

Kodak

Kodak-you know, the company you used to buy film from. (I kid; I still buy Kodak film from time to time to take pictures with my Pentax Spotmatic.) The Kodak company has been through a lot of trouble over the years as digital cameras have all but eliminated the need for physical film. But Kodak has pushed through it. In a recent rebrand, they went back to their roots. In 2006 the company had already eliminated the big red "K" block in favor of a simpler wordmark, but then they reversed the decision. Using a fresh sans-serif font, they stacked the letters on the right side of the red block. The visual branding on the packaging is bold and simple, helping their products stand out.

Read more: New logo & identity for Kodak by Work Order

Key takeaways

When working with a brand that has as much history and legacy as Kodak, you can't just throw it all away. The branding effort effectively evolved the logo to keep it fresh without losing its heritage.

Deliveroo

British food delivery company Deliveroo recently underwent rebranding with DesignStudio, turning away from a literal depiction of a kangaroo to an abstract version that also happens to look like a hand giving the peace symbol. They opted for large, angular swashes of bold colors to fill their palette, giving the brand energy and a fun personality. The design is also decidedly flat, falling in line with contemporary design trends. The vibrant design motifs work well with their delivery uniforms, making their riders unmistakably visible.

Read more: New logo & identity for Deliveroo by DesignStudio

Key takeaways

I love how Deliveroo successfully uses a large palette of colors. They are all exciting and work well together, but the branding is not lost by using different colors. While it can be difficult, using more than just a few colors in a brand can pay off in big ways. I also appreciate that they were able to make uniforms that were better-looking and more functional than the previous design. Improved form and function is always a design win.

Pandora

So, this might be a controversial brand to include in this list, considering that Paypal sued the company at the beginning of 2017 for trademark infringement. Nevertheless, we'll break down what makes the Pandora brand system work so well. Pandora's main logo is a modified, all-lowercase sans-serif wordmark. The alternate icon logo is a "P" with the bowl removed. It's interesting that, instead of reducing the wordmark to just the lowercase "p," they designed a different uppercase "P."

Much like Spotify, Pandora needs to represent a large spectrum of musical styles and cultures. They went even further than Spotify in this regard by modifying their logo to visually embrace a wide array of design and photography styles. In my humble opinion, this shows that Pandora is more invested in music than their competitors.

Read more: Pandora debuts new logo

Key takeaways

I really appreciate that Pandora went all in to pay tribute to different styles. That shows commitment to your user community. With something like music, which is so closely tied to individual identities and collective cultures, it is essential that brands show sensitivity to such things.

Optus "Yes"

This is one of my favorite rebrands in the last few years, also out of Australia like the Melbourne rebrand above. Sydney-based agency Re took the Optus cable brand and turned it into something awesome. By capitalizing on Optus' "Yes" mantra, Re made exciting new visuals that help the brand stand out. Compare that to the sad state of branding for U.S.-based cable companies like Comcast, Cox and Time Warner.

The branding is effective and beautiful standing alone (as seen in one of their clever patterns), as a vehicle to display their various entertainment options, or included with models who I suppose are there to represent their customers.

Read more: Optus rebrand on Behance

Key takeaways

While other cable companies are zigging towards being boring "high-tech" monsters, Optus zagged in the direction of fun, kind and personal. It's tempting to try and beat your competitors at their game, to outdo whatever design look they are going after. Often it is better to forge a new path and help yourself stand out.

99u

Okay, including 99u might be cheating slightly here, but hear me out. See, 99u is Adobe's creativity thought leadership arm. They run a fantastic blog, publish books and host a yearly conference. So one, they are already a creative powerhouse, and two, because the visual branding is tied so closely to the conference, it changes every year. But in case you're still not convinced, let's dive into it and see how genius it is.

A key part of what 99u does is the yearly conference. And each year, the branding is fresh and unique. At the same time, the branding always ties in with the books and website. That is the advantage of having a visual branding system that is based on design elements and principles. The specifics of the design can change, but everything still looks cohesive.

Read more: Search 99u on Behance

Key takeaways

For brands that need to be applied across a variety of applications or updated frequently, it's important to set up a framework that supports creativity and fresh designs while still keeping your brand identifiable.

Now since you made it this far, how about a bonus one?

Zendesk

Zendesk is help desk software that helps companies everywhere provide quick solutions to their customers. The original logo was a happy Buddha (hence the zen) wearing a headset.

On the surface, Zendesk could be a boring product. They just offer help desk services. The old Buddha logo was unique and interesting at the time, but it was aging poorly. By reducing the logo down to simple shapes, it makes the logo instantly recognizable. They also capitalized on this look by expanding the simple shapes across all of their services. Finally, the shapes were brought to life thanks to fun motion graphics.

Read more: The Zendesk rebrand

Key takeaways

Don't be afraid of simple shapes. Noted designer Aaron Draplin has spoken extensively about the importance of designing simply, eliminating the extra stuff, cutting out the fluffy details and getting down to the essential shapes. While there is a place for detail, simplifying designs almost always strengthens them.

Thanks for checking out this list! I have to thank the good people over at BrandNew and Behance for helping me find these examples. I'm sure I missed many great brands, and I would love for you to submit your favorites. Then I can put together another list of the "best" corporate identity examples.

For those of you about to design, I salute you.

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The 7 key elements of corporate and brand identity design + 10 corporate identity examples

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In this post, I've assembled information that's scattered across the web to provide an authoritative guide to corporate brand identity design. I've boiled it down to 7 elements that you'll need to include as you create your own brand identity design and work toward the larger goal of building a well-loved brand.

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Reasons to use pattern in branding

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Patterns make people smile and if you follow my work you know they make me smile too. More importantly, patterns can play a huge role in your brand recognition. They add a little something extra to the overall brand design and that is why I like to create patterns for my branding clients.

These three reasons will explain why patterns can make an impact in your brand design.
1. People Remember Patterns
Our brains tend to pick up and recognize patterns faster. We rely on repetition as a way of remembering things, so I use this notion when designing brand identities. I create patterns from different elements throughout the overall brand to reinforce the brand's essence and visual appeal. These patterns become memorable and add another layer of visual consistency to your brand.

Here are examples of brand patterns I designed for Brightside Creative Solutions. I focused on using the brand's icon (the "B") and created a series of signature patterns that could be used interchangeably across the brand. Repetition of the brand's "B" icon in the patterns was key to making the brand unforgettable.

You can see how the patterns were implemented in the collateral. The brand patterns are unique and unforgettable. People will remember getting their business cards and they will begin to associate these bold patterns with Brightside.
2. Break the Mold
What brand does not want to stand out from their competition? More and more businesses are realizing the importance of branding. They understand they need a strong logo and a brand color scheme, but then they stop there and think their visual brand is complete. But you shouldn't. Developing patterns makes your visual messaging more unique. Your brand will begin to stand out from your competition. The patterns will enhance your brand's personality and your audience will notice. Using patterns is a fun, visual way of engaging your customers.

Most people would think a dentist practice would not need brand patterns, but these patterns for Sweet Tooth Pediatric Dentistry add visual appeal that makes them stand apart from most dentists. I created several simple and sweet confetti inspired patterns that were used on their business cards, website and more.
3. Catch their Eye
Just adding your logo to your brand collateral or stationery does not count as branding. You want your collateral to be eye catching. You want your audience to recognize it as your brand and you want them to be engaged. Brand patterns add that eye catching interest that you are going for. They also allow you to stay consistent with your branding without heavily relying on just your logo. You can use them on your business cards, website, packaging, mailings, in your office or your storefront - the list could go on and on. In the end, your brand patterns add personal and memorable touches that your audience will be attracted to.

Not all brand patterns have to be intricate and bold. Sometimes the perfect pattern for a brand is subtle and not in your face. Your brand patterns need to reflect your business vision. For example, I created a very simple brand pattern for root + river. The wavy lines make you think of a river, but it also connects with how they help people, businesses and work cultures propel forward as they embrace the authenticity and soul of their brands.

Anyone can harness the benefits of brand patterns. They are beneficial for corporate companies, entrepreneurs, online shop owners, restaurants, clothing brands - basically they will work for all types of brands.

Don't have brand patterns? Reach out to me and we can strategize how patterns can impact your brand.

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3 Reasons Why to Use Patterns in Your Branding

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Patterns make people smile and if you follow my work you know they make me smile too. More importantly, patterns can play a huge role in your brand recognition.

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How to use patterns in branding

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Patterns are one of our favorite branding elements! They can play a vital role in brand recognition, bringing life to simple logos and helping create strong, memorable brand expressions. In some cases patterns can become even more recognizable then their actual logo! Because patterns are so fun in branding, we wanted to show some of our favorite ways that patterns can be used in the business world.

1. Stationary

Right off the bat, you can use your pattern to help keep the consistency of your brand with your company stationery. Every time you hand out a business card, send a mail piece, or print out an invoice, etc. the viewer develops a deeper sense of brand recognition when they see the pattern applied.

This branding created by Sherman Chia, uses a simple polka dot pattern. Paired with the brand palette and fonts, it creates a confident yet feminine look and feel that will help make the brand more recognizable. See more here.

Anagrama uses a watercolor pattern with the branding palette to reinforce their brand. The pattern is applied to business cards and as an envelope liner. See more here.

2. Packaging

A company that delivers or ships physical goods, or runs in a physical retail space has lots of potential in incorporating their brand patterns. This is a simple way to build brand recognition and keeps your branding cohesive.

Harvey House Diner incorporates a playful, typographical and illustrative pattern to build their brand. More here.

Another great example of the pattern element used in packaging. From Anagram, more here.

If you are a photographer, here's a fun way to incorporate many patterns in your client's print packaging. Ashley Goodwin Photography uses 3 very different patterns, yet ties them all in to her loose and organic brand. See more here.

This may be one of our favorite patterns we've done to date. How excited would you be to open up this box? We had to hold ourselves back from using this pattern too much throughout The Game of Love's branding! See more here.

Custom printed tissue paper is ALWAYS a good idea. We love this simple yet personalized pattern done by Kevin Cantrell for Hawthorne & Wren. See more here.

3. Environmental

There are so many great ways to include a pattern in your actual living or working space. From walls, to windows to trucks... these applications, just might be our favorite.

Oh, Anna Bond just keeps on doing things right. Here is the entry way to their Florida office with one of Rifle Paper Company's custom patterns from their new wedding line. More here.

The Falasophy Food Truck, by Nicole LaFave, shows how one can bring your branding to life through a pattern. See more here.

How great is this patterned store front? You can print custom designs on opaque or transparent adhesive to dazzle up those window displays. If you're thinking about it, call us : ) We'd love to get our hands on a project like this. See more here.

This gingham pattern is to die for in this Australian diner! The bold pattern doesn't feel overwhelming because of the constrained color palette. I'd feel right at home eating at Slurp. More here.

Playing with scale on your patterns is always a good idea. We love this enlarged "Bang" Pattern on the clipboards along with the contrasting detailed pattern of the menu. Well done Sofi Azaïs. See more here.

4. Website

Here is an easy one. Overlay text on your pattern or use it as a background on your website or blog. Below are some great samples we love of ways patterns are applied to a website.

This brilliant design is by Olivia King, incorporating a pattern branching from the shapes of the product and the geometric base of the logo to instill recognition. The pattern is used as a background for the minimalistic yet colorful website. More here.

Interwoven design by yours truly. We used the organic threaded tribal patten for different web backdrops. More here.

We hope this helps when deciding on how to implement patterns into your branding. Until next time!

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How to use patterns in your Branding - October Ink

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Patterns are one of our favorite branding elements! They can play a vital role in brand recognition, bringing life to simple logos and helping create strong, memorable brand expressions. In some cases patterns can become even more recognizable then their actual logo!

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How to incorporate pattern into branding

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Gillian Tracey Design | Artful and strategic branding and Squarespace web design based in Columbia, MO

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With most brand identities, you'll find the standard combination of primary logo, alternate logo, submark, color palette, and on-brand fonts. (Wondering what the heck a primary logo and submark are? Read this post first!) All of those elements work together to lay the foundation of a strong visual for your brand, but why stop there?

Why not take it your brand to the next level and give it an even more unique look?

A super simple way to do this is by incorporating patterns! Today, I'm going to do a brief overview on why patterns are a huge bonus for your branding and how you can incorporate them into your brand collateral.

Why Patterns?

If you have a beautiful logo and color palette, you may be wondering why do I need patterns?

1 | They add interest to design, both digital and print.

Use them on everything from your business cards, newsletter header, and Facebook cover image. Patterns create interest, texture, balance, and an extra special touch that flat colors just can't give you.

2 | Unique flair to help your branding stand out even more from the competition.

A pattern, particularly one that is custom-made for your business will add an extra special touch guaranteed to help you stand out from others in your niche. Patterns are one of the easiest ways to add an extra dose of personality and pizazz to your design pieces.

3 | Supports brand message.

Color is important in communicating tone and mood, but patterns are even more effective in taking it up a notch. The patterns you choose for your branding are great at supporting the brand message and personality of your business. Going for a preppy, clean look? Choose a classic stripe. Want something more vintage and edgy? Opt for something art deco and geometric. Or perhaps you want a pattern that helps show what kind of work you do. For example, if you're an interior designer you could use a pattern that is comprised of different pieces of furniture.

4 | Reinforces branding through consistency and recognizable elements.

Oftentimes patterns will incorporate an element from a logo, submark, or some other design element of your branding. This helps builds consistency, which is always a good thing! By using a pattern that's unique to your business, it helps create more brand recognition.

5 | Gives you versatility and variety.

When you work with a limited brand identity, it can be a challenge to make things look distinct. It can get repetitive and boring. Patterns are a simple fix to branding boredom! They'll give you an extra tool to use for creating interest in your designs while still keeping within your branding family.

How do I incorporate patterns?

A common design mistake I see is that people don't know how to use pattern within their designs, so they avoid using it altogether. Patterns can be intimidating! When you're accustomed to only working with flat colors, learning to incorporate patterns effectively can take a bit of practice. Once you play around with some options and get the hang of how to incorporate them into your designs, you're not going to want to stop.

Depending on what kind of pattern you're working with will determine how you'll incorporate it into your design. The key things to remember when designing with pattern are these: is it balanced, is it legible, is it adding or detracting to the design?

Is it balanced?

Since patterns carry more visual weight than a flat color, you need to keep that in mind when you're designing. Don't use a pattern that is too bright or distracting when you want the focus to be on your text. Instead, opt for a pattern that is more subtle and acts as a texture.

Is it legible?

If you're using patterns and text together, one thing to be certain of is the legibility and function of your design. Don't overlay text on a busy, multi-colored pattern; instead, use a more simple, understated pattern. You don't want to discourage someone from reading something because it's too busy and hard to discern.

It is adding to or detracting from the design?

It's definitely possible to add too many things to a design. Sometimes a pattern is great for filling in some negative space and adding some much-needed visual interest. At other times it may be unnecessary and end up making the design look cluttered. Once you've finished designing, take a step back and look objectively. Oftentimes good design means paring down, not adding in #allthethings!
Pattern tip: When you're working with branded patterns, it's a good idea to have several color variations (all within your branded color palette, of course!) to give you the most flexibility and variety possible. This should also include a plain white option. If you want a subtle pattern in your background, white is a perfect option to use. You can overlay it on any of your branded colors and change the opacity to suit the project and desired look you're going for.

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Using Patterns to Boost Your Branding - Gillian Tracey Design | Artful and strategic branding and Squarespace web design based in Columbia, MO

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Want to learn how to add extra visual interest and unique flair to your business branding? Incorporating patterns is a simple way to take your design to the next level. Keep reading to learn more simple tips on how to start using brand patterns!

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Case study: Falls Festival 2014

Investigate how patterns are adapted and created for different audiences.

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Music Merchandise Trends

The music merchandise sphere is the fastest growing. Within that is a large need for surface designers and product developers to create new designs, including patterns, that address the target audience and communicate the artists identity.

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The Merch Trends of 2020. Infographic of the Market

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ChampionHoodie blog offers our take on recent figures, some of the merchandise business’s biggest goings-on, and what we should expect in 2020. Merch Trends 2020 analysis.

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They do pay! Event merchandise attributes that affect sales and profits at a folk festival

Case study: The role that music merchandise plays in sales and profits

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Oran Park Library

Case study of how pattern is used for in interior design and interior architecture.

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Oran Park Library: Weaving tales into the wayfinding - BrandCulture

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Our role as designers was to help weave the story of Oran Park Raceway into the library wayfinding so that future generations feel connected to its past.

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Rosenthal Project

A case study of how pattern is used for wayfinding

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Rosenthal Project: Growing a new (car) park - BrandCulture

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Temporary signage keeping the public up-to-date on the redevelopment of Rosenthal Avenue Car Park as it transforms into a vibrant community space.

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The art of using patterns to create memorable brands

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Patterns play an important role in branding and identity design. They can help your brand stand out - or overwhelm your logo. Here are a few tips.

Patterns are part of the language of communications. They create texture, interest and balance. And because our brains are naturally drawn to patterns - seeking out order in a chaotic world - they also increase brand recognition.

Today, we're in the middle of a pattern renaissance. Slick, stark modernist designs are now so common that brands are using patterns to add personality, create warmth and evoke emotions. They're also looking for more versatility in their brand expressions. Patterns allow this: they can be used anywhere from digital platforms to packaging design, advertising and within built environments.

We can also thank Instagram for the rise of patterns in branding. The world is being styled to be social media-friendly, and brands are leading the way.

Patterns have been used as a branding device for decades, but today's brands are experimenting more bravely with shapes and colours. Here at BrandCulture, we love using patterns to create brands that are as memorable as they are versatile.

"Friendlier" geometric patterns in branding

A few years ago, Telstra invited BrandCulture to celebrate the company's brand principles inside its Sydney headquarters. A colour-shifting patterned film brings Telstra's vital brand drivers to life: colour, energy and angularity.

Our designs echo the rise of " friendlier geometrics ", which are a big trend in 2019. Geometric patterns use grids, straight lines and abstract, angular shapes. But they can come across as cold or intimidating. So, today's geometric patterns are being combined with warm, vivid colours to make them more approachable.

Friendlier geometrics are the reason Telstra's workplace is as cutting-edge and modern as it is warm and bright, in line with Telstra's vision of creating a workplace that's brilliant and connected.

Patterns in wayfinding and experiential graphic design

When Lane Cove Council asked BrandCulture to design a wayfinding strategy for the Rosenthal Project, we created a brightly-patterned signage system. We wanted to support the visibility of local businesses while Rosenthal Avenue Car Park is being redeveloped. So, signs are adorned with vibrant patterns. This brightly-patterned wayfinding system also provides a playful platform for project updates, while providing bold, unmissable directions.

We're now working with Lane Cove Council to create a brand for Rosenthal Project's new community space. The new brand will also incorporate patterns as part of its brand architecture - watch this space!

Patterns can be highly functional: we often use them as a screening device to provide privacy within built environments. Our experiential graphic designs at the UTS Fabrication Workshop are a good example.

They can also create a sense of arrival or address, as with our bold orange façade stripes adorning the walls of the State Emergency Services' Sydenham headquarters.

Patterns in branding: dos and don'ts

The first rule of using patterns in branding is legibility. If your pattern is busy and uses lots of different colours, avoid overlaying text onto it. If you do want to layer text over your pattern, choose a more understated, uncluttered design - try not to overwhelm the viewer with visual clutter.

It's a good idea to create your pattern in several colour variations, based on your brand's colour palette. Don't be afraid of combining vivid colour combinations with soft colour transitions and gradients - another trend we're seeing lots of this year. Try playing with scale, mixing more delicate elements from your brand identity with larger, more dramatic patterns to add texture to your brand.

Typically, corporate brands lean towards more structured, geometric, organised compositions. Lifestyle and leisure brands opt for more playful, random patterns; while eco-friendly brands often choose organic shapes inspired by nature. The options are limitless, but make sure you choose patterns that echo your company's vision and personality.

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Insights: The art of using patterns to create memorable brands - BrandCulture

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Patterns play an important role in branding and identity design. They can help your brand stand out - or overwhelm your logo. Here are a few tips. Patterns are part of the language of communications. They create texture, interest and balance. And because our brains are naturally drawn to patterns - seeking out order in ...

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Process of designing a pattern that will address client needs

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Process of designing a pattern that will address client needs

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Bauhaus design has a legacy beyond its style

Bauhaus as a political movement

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The Bauhaus, considered by many as the most influential design school in modern history, opened its doors 100 years ago this month.

The small school in Weimar served as a beacon during the post-World War I malaise in Germany. Founder Walter Gropius proposed that by unifying art and design under one roof, students could direct their talents toward rebuilding a broken society. "Let us strive for, conceive and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline," he wrote in the school's heart-thumping manifesto. "[The Bauhaus] will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come."

Many world-famous artists and designers studied or taught at the Bauhaus, among them Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Anni and Josef Albers, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marianne Brandt, Herbert Bayer, and Marcel Breuer.

The mystique of the Bauhaus also hinges on its dramatic demise. Nazis despised the school's avant-garde experimentation and rejection of traditional German aesthetics. They forced the school to move its campus several times. From Weimar, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, then finally to Berlin, where they finally closed in 1933. But the Bauhauser school spirit couldn't be totally quashed. In fact, students and masters spread the school's ideas when they immigrated to the UK, Switzerland, the US, Israel, Russia, and other places around the world.

Today, the Bauhaus influence can be seen in minimalist home furniture, fashion, graphic design, modern buildings, and the shape of entire cities. Amid this great inventory of products, some worry that the school's original intent may be lost. The history of the Bauhaus is a lesson in how easily earnest action can be co-opted by the commercial.

"There was always a tension in the Bauhaus between the aesthetic and the functional," MoMA curator Barry Bergdoll tells Quartz. "I think it came to the surface when the public began to talk 'Bauhaus style.' People at the Bauhaus were extremely upset because their aim really was almost non-style. What they were creating was almost a necessity of the conditions of modernity and was not at all anything so frivolous as style, which for them meant fashion."

On its centennial, Bauhaus champions are trying to exhume the school's true legacy. It's not the curvy forms or primary colors, but a fundamental philosophy: that good design can be source of renewal and hope.
Quartz News is a weekly video series bringing you in-depth reporting from around the world. Each episode investigates one story, breaking down the often unseen economic and technological forces shaping our future.

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Bauhaus design has a legacy beyond its style

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The Bauhaus, considered by many as the most influential design school in modern history, opened its doors 100 years ago this month. The small school in Weimar served as a beacon during the post-World War I malaise in Germany.

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The Bauhaus movement and its influence in graphic
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What is Bauhaus?

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The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969). Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius explained this vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus (1919), which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living.

The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum commenced with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies. This preliminary course was often taught by visual artists, including Paul Klee ( 1987.455.16), Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Josef Albers ( 59.160), among others.

Following their immersion in Bauhaus theory, students entered specialized workshops, which included metalworking, cabinetmaking, weaving, pottery, typography, and wall painting. Although Gropius' initial aim was a unification of the arts through craft, aspects of this approach proved financially impractical. While maintaining the emphasis on craft, he repositioned the goals of the Bauhaus in 1923, stressing the importance of designing for mass production. It was at this time that the school adopted the slogan "Art into Industry."

In 1925, the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau, where Gropius designed a new building to house the school. This building contained many features that later became hallmarks of modernist architecture, including steel-frame construction, a glass curtain wall, and an asymmetrical, pinwheel plan, throughout which Gropius distributed studio, classroom, and administrative space for maximum efficiency and spatial logic.

The cabinetmaking workshop was one of the most popular at the Bauhaus. Under the direction of Marcel Breuer ( 1983.366) from 1924 to 1928, this studio reconceived the very essence of furniture, often seeking to dematerialize conventional forms such as chairs to their minimal existence. Breuer theorized that eventually chairs would become obsolete, replaced by supportive columns or air. Inspired by the extruded steel tubes of his bicycle, he experimented with metal furniture, ultimately creating lightweight, mass-producible metal chairs. Some of these chairs were deployed in the theater of the Dessau building.

The textile workshop, especially under the direction of designer and weaver Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983), created abstract textiles suitable for use in Bauhaus environments. Students studied color theory and design as well as the technical aspects of weaving. Stölzl encouraged experimentation with unorthodox materials, including cellophane, fiberglass, and metal. Fabrics from the weaving workshop were commercially successful, providing vital and much needed funds to the Bauhaus. The studio's textiles, along with architectural wall painting, adorned the interiors of Bauhaus buildings, providing polychromatic yet abstract visual interest to these somewhat severe spaces. While the weaving studio was primarily comprised of women, this was in part due to the fact that they were discouraged from participating in other areas. The workshop trained a number of prominent textile artists, including Anni Albers (1899-1994), who continued to create and write about modernist textiles throughout her life.

Metalworking was another popular workshop at the Bauhaus and, along with the cabinetmaking studio, was the most successful in developing design prototypes for mass production. In this studio, designers such as Marianne Brandt ( 2000.63a-c), Wilhelm Wagenfeld ( 1986.412.1-16), and Christian Dell (1893-1974) created beautiful, modern items such as lighting fixtures and tableware. Occasionally, these objects were used in the Bauhaus campus itself; light fixtures designed in the metalwork shop illuminated the Bauhaus building and some faculty housing. Brandt was the first woman to attend the metalworking studio, and replaced László Moholy-Nagy ( 1987.1100.158) as studio director in 1928. Many of her designs became iconic expressions of the Bauhaus aesthetic. Her sculptural and geometric silver and ebony teapot ( 2000.63a-c), while never mass-produced, reflects both the influence of her mentor, Moholy-Nagy, and the Bauhaus emphasis on industrial forms. It was designed with careful attention to functionality and ease of use, from the nondrip spout to the heat-resistant ebony handle.

The typography workshop, while not initially a priority of the Bauhaus, became increasingly important under figures like Moholy-Nagy and the graphic designer Herbert Bayer ( 2001.392). At the Bauhaus, typography was conceived as both an empirical means of communication and an artistic expression, with visual clarity stressed above all. Concurrently, typography became increasingly connected to corporate identity and advertising. The promotional materials prepared for the Bauhaus at the workshop, with their use of sans serif typefaces and the incorporation of photography as a key graphic element, served as visual symbols of the avant-garde institution.

Gropius stepped down as director of the Bauhaus in 1928, succeeded by the architect Hannes Meyer (1889-1954). Meyer maintained the emphasis on mass-producible design and eliminated parts of the curriculum he felt were overly formalist in nature. Additionally, he stressed the social function of architecture and design, favoring concern for the public good rather than private luxury. Advertising and photography continued to gain prominence under his leadership.

Under pressure from an increasingly right-wing municipal government, Meyer resigned as director of the Bauhaus in 1930. He was replaced by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( 1980.351). Mies once again reconfigured the curriculum, with an increased emphasis on architecture. Lilly Reich (1885-1947), who collaborated with Mies on a number of his private commissions, assumed control of the new interior design department. Other departments included weaving, photography, the fine arts, and building. The increasingly unstable political situation in Germany, combined with the perilous financial condition of the Bauhaus, caused Mies to relocate the school to Berlin in 1930, where it operated on a reduced scale. He ultimately shuttered the Bauhaus in 1933.

During the turbulent and often dangerous years of World War II, many of the key figures of the Bauhaus emigrated to the United States, where their work and their teaching philosophies influenced generations of young architects and designers. Breuer and Gropius taught at Harvard. Josef and Anni Albers taught at Black Mountain College, and later Josef taught at Yale. Moholy-Nagy established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937. Mies van der Rohe designed the campus and taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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The Bauhaus, 1919-1933 | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969). Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts.

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How did manufacturing advances impact on the bauhaus movement?

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Bauhaus was an art-school that existed in the Weimar Republic and invented the design for the 20th century.

Following the rapid European industrialization of the late 19 th century, World War I became the first historical instance of a global conflict waged with advanced machinery. But when Walter Gropius, a German architect, returned to Berlin at the conclusion of the war, he dreamt of a different purpose for the machines. For Gropius, industrialization was to be reigned by humans for the benefit, rather than destruction, of humanity.

The world of the post-war Europe created an intellectual climate receptive to the ideas of Gropius. On one hand, the communist revolution in Russia ignited the populist feelings across the continent. Reflecting on the communist ideals, intellectuals like Gropius envisioned that the masses were to become the focus of the new economic and political institutions. On the other hand, the intellectual openness of the newly founded Weimar Republic came to replace the rigidity of the Imperial Germany, creating an opportunity for the new ways of thinking to flourish.

It is in this environment that Gropius founded Bauhaus, an art school that would define the design philosophy of the 20 th century. While in existence only from 1919 to 1933, Bauhaus gave birth to a design methodology that inspired development of products, furniture, and architecture in the service of people.

I chose Bauhaus as an example of a highly effective organization because of the way its business and operating models aligned to ignite a new movement in the art and design.

The business model of Bauhaus stemmed from Gropius' desire to make products that could be enjoyed by a broad range of demographics, regardless of the individuals' socioeconomic status. Bauhaus created customer value by integrating three key elements into their products:

Aesthetic simplicity;

Practicality;

Accessible pricing.

Gropius believed that beautiful design does need to belong solely to the upper income strata of the society. On the contrary, by creating products that are simple, functional, and inexpensive, the designers at Bauhaus hoped to enable anyone to live a happier live surrounded by beautiful objects.

The operating model of Bauhaus abandoned the rigid methodologies of art education in favor of engendering an intellectual environment that sparked innovation and an open-minded intellectual examination of the physical world. The Bauhaus operating model can be defined by four characteristics:

Constructivist (ie combination of the arts) thinking;

Form follows function and need for mass production;

Fundamental understanding of colors, shapes, and materials;

Designer as both an artist and an engineer.

Not unlike IDEO today, the Bauhaus methodology of ideation at the time can be characterized as a constructivist funnel. Bauhaus attracted some of the most distinguished artists of Europe to join its faculty, comprising the fields as diverse as theater, sculpture, music, and painting. The diversity of artistic ideas exchanged at Bauhaus was then channeled into focused development of useful household and architectural products.

Moreover, the designers at Bauhaus employed the function-first approach in their thinking. The products they created were meant to be useful, practical, and mass-produced. As such, form were to follow function.

To arrive at a better understanding of the interplay between form and function, the students at Bauhaus were required develop an in-depth appreciation for the most basic building blocks of the artistic production: color, geometric shapes, and materials. Bauhaus considered these to be the language of design, mastery of which would enable the development of highly practical products.

Finally, the operating model of Bauhaus is characterized by the removal of the distinction between an artist and an engineer. Gropius believed that in order to develop an appreciation for the industrial production process, artists had to be trained to operate the machines while the machine workers had to be trained as artists. A Bauhaus student was expected to be able to handle a brush just as effectively as a piece of heavy equipment.

By carefully intervening the business and operating models of Bauhaus, Gropius was able to craft an environment where-not unlike Bauhaus designs themselves-the organization's form followed its function. By developing an appreciation for the basic materials (like steel and leather), simple colors (like pure red or blue), as well as fundamental geometric objects (like triangles and spheres) the designers at Bauhaus could break away from the ornate and expensive products of the era. At the same time, by training the artists as engineers, the school enabled its designers think of how their products could be mass produced, thus driving down their costs.

A perfect example of a Bauhaus project is the Haus am Horn, a building created by the school's students in 1923 to showcase their work. According to Gropius, the goal of the building was to combine "the greatest comfort with the greatest economy by the application of the best craftsmanship and the best distribution of space in form, size, and articulation." The layout of the building was shaped as a perfect square, constructed with inexpensive steel and concrete. Each of the rooms was meant to have its own specific function (for example, kitchen and the dining area were strictly separate) and to be well illuminated with the natural light. Gropius hoped that the building would provide the government of Germany with a way to house its lower income citizens.

Building on the uniqueness of its dovetailed business and operating models, Bauhaus inspired the modernist movement of the 20 th century-from an Ikea shelf to Marina City in Chicago. Bauhaus became the model of a different kind of art school, characterized by its desire to abandon tradition in order to understand the world anew at its most fundamental level in the service of humanity.

Sources:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm

https://dessaubauhaus.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/the-bauhaus-dessau-masters/

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278340/

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Designing the future at Bauhaus - Technology and Operations Management

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Bauhaus was an art-school that existed in the Weimar Republic and invented the design for the 20th century. Following the rapid European industrialization of the late 19 th century, World War I became the first historical instance of a global conflict waged with advanced machinery.

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What is Art Deco?

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Art Deco’s symmetrical, geometric, and streamlined architecture and design has had a tremendous influence on visual culture all over the world.

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What is Art Nouveau?

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If you've been to Paris or seen it in photos, you'll recognize the swirling, plant-like gates, with their distinctive lettering, that serve as entryways to the city's subway system, or metro, as it's known there. Of the many terms for Art Nouveau in France, Style Metro remains one of the most persistent, thanks to Hector Guimard 's enduring design for the entrances. Unveiled during the Paris World's Fair in 1900, the design would become a symbol of the Art Nouveau movement.

But it had begun years earlier. From the 1880s until World War I, artworks, design objects, and architecture in Western Europe and the United States sprouted with sinuous, unruly lines. Taking cues from Rococo curves, Celtic graphic motifs, Japanese masters Andō Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai, and William Blake's Songs of Innocence (1789), Art Nouveau artists took the plant forms they saw in nature and then flattened and abstracted them into elegant, organic motifs.

The Movement's Origins

The term Art Nouveau first appeared in the Belgian art journal L'Art Moderne in 1884 to describe the work of Les Vingt, a society of 20 progressive artists that included James Ensor. These painters responded to leading theories by French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and British critic John Ruskin, who advocated for the unity of all arts. In December 1895, the German-born art dealer Siegfried Bing opened a gallery in Paris named "Maison l'Art Nouveau." Branching out from the Japanese ceramics and ukiyo-e prints for which he had become known, Bing promoted this "new art" in the gallery, selling a selection of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, and objets d'art.

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If you've been to Paris or seen it in photos, you'll recognize the swirling, plant-like gates, with their distinctive lettering, that serve as entryways to the city's subway system, or metro, as it's known there. Of the many terms for Art Nouveau in France, Style Metro remains one of the most persistent, thanks to Hector Guimard 's enduring design for the entrances.

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Works of Antoni Gaudi

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Celebrated for his colorful creations and avant-garde approach to architecture, Antoni Gaudí is held as a key figure in the modernist movement. In addition to introducing Spain to the Art Nouveau style, the Spanish creative is renowned for the eclectic-yet-unified nature of his projects. Though most of these works are found in and around Barcelona, his influences can be found throughout all of Europe and beyond.

Here, we present the unique aesthetic and artistic genius of Gaudí, as we trace the evolution of his personal style, explore the movements that inspired him, and take a closer look at 5 of his most well-known, world-famous works.

Iconic Architecture

Casa Vicens
As Gaudí's first major commission, Casa Vicens in Barcelona is one of the architect's most important creations. Constructed between 1883 and 1885, the house is celebrated as a premiere example of Art Nouveau architecture. Specifically, with its Moorish influences-including painted mosaics, repeating geometric patterns, and multifoil arches-it is regarded as a catalyst of Catalan Modernisme.
Casa Vicens is currently being transformed into a Gaudí Museum, which is slated to open later this year.

Bodegas Güell
Built between 1895 and 1897, the Bodegas Güell, or Güell Wine Cellar, is a complex commissioned by Eusebi Güell. After viewing Gaudí's piece at the Paris World's Fair, Güell asked the architect to design a winery in the seaside village of Garraf.
The Bodegas Güell captures Gaudí's interest in Neo-Gothic architecture, as its stone façade features steeply slanted roofs, several arches, and stylized spires.

Park Güell

Güell was so pleased with Gaudí's work that, in 1900, he commissioned him to design a housing site on a Barcelona hilltop. While the initial plan fell through, it has since been adapted into a park, with Gaudí's original work serving as the main attraction.

Renowned for its polychromatic mosaics, fanciful pinnacles, and stone grottos, the park exhibits the extent of the architect's flamboyant style. Featuring Gaudí's typical focus on fluid, naturalist forms, it is now regarded as one of his most iconic creations.

Casa Batlló
Situated in Barcelona's bustling center, Casa Batlló is one of Gaudí's most well-known houses. In 1904, he was commissioned by Josep Batlló-a textile tycoon- to renovate the building, which was originally built in 1877. Unhappy with the home's conventional look and inspired by Gaudí's avant-garde designs for Park Güell , Batllóhoped that the architect could transform the home into a modern masterpiece.
Casa Batlló showcases many of the features associated with Art Nouveau, as it is almost entirely composed of curved lines and fluid forms. Gaudí's attention to detail is evident in its stained glass windows and glimmering mosaics that incorporate color into its stone façade. Finally, the building is highly organic in appearance, with its tracery resembling a skeletal frame or the delicate wings of an insect.

La Sagrada Família

Known as Gaudí's most important-and ambitious-project, the unfinished la Sagrada Família has towered over Barcelona for 135 years. In 1883, Gaudí became involved with the project, which he would work on until his death in 1926.

Like much of Gaudí's work, the church is praised for its naturalistic forms, intricate details, and wealth of color. Given the fact that the architect dedicated the second half of his life to the project, it is unsurprising that it combines many of his earlier influences-Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Gothic Revival, and Orientalism-into one architectural marvel.

Today, though the church remains unfinished, it is the most visited attraction in Barcelona-and we can see why!

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Magnificent Art Nouveau Architecture of the Great Antoni Gaudí

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Celebrated for his colorful creations and avant-garde approach to architecture, Antoni Gaudí is held as a key figure in the modernist movement. In addition to introducing Spain to the Art Nouveau style, the Spanish creative is renowned for the eclectic-yet-unified nature of his projects.

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Antoni Gaudí
Biography, history of architecture and style (pattern)

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What is surface design?

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What is Surface Pattern Design? | Elizabeth Silver

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Pattern in historical and social contexts - design movements

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Pattern in historical and social contexts - design movements

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Design a repeat pattern with Adobe Illustrator

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Design a repeat pattern with Adobe Illustrator

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Design elements and principals

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Balance in visual communication refers to the arrangement of components on two sides of a seen or implied vertical axis. There are two ways to balance a composition.

Asymmetrical balance is where the two sides of a composition are balanced, yet are not mirrored. In order to achieve balance off centre different sized components are given more or less visual weight. Visual weight is increased of decreased by changing on or more of; tone, colour, size or proximity to the central axis. Visual communications employing asymmetrical balance create a more dynamic composition and are suited to purposes where audiences are encouraged to interact with the design.

Balance in communication design may also refer to components set either side of the horizontal axis. This will involve the broader study of composition and includes grid layout, random layout, radial balance, spiral balance, triangular composition.

Balance in industrial and environmental design will involve the physical balance of a stucture.

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Design elements and principles for visual communication

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Balance in visual communication refers to the arrangement of components on two sides of a seen or implied vertical axis. There are two ways to balance a composition. Asymmetrical balance is where the two sides of a composition are balanced, yet are not mirrored.

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Section Resources

Environment and Manningham City Council. (2020). Wurundjeri Stories at Pound Bend Visitors Information Guide. Manningham Council.

Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation. (2021). Cultural Heritage. Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation. https://www.wurundjeri.com.au/services/cultural-heritage/

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Wurundjeri Stories at Pound Bend
This document explores some of the signs and symbols of the Wurundjeri people. Teachers are encouraged to explore Pound Bend with guidance from a member of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation. You can find their contact details above.

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Wurundjeri Cultural Walk
Indigenous perspectives of Wurundjeri signs and symbols

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Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation

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For our community, the natural world is also a cultural space. We have a special interest in preserving not just our cultural objects, but also landscapes of cultural importance. The acknowledgement of broader attributes of the landscape as cultural values that require protection (encompassing, among other things, a variety of landforms, ecological niches and habitats as well as continuing cultural practices) is considered to be essential to the identity and wellbeing of our people.

The purpose of cultural values recording is to inform the cultural significance of archaeological material identified as a result of field assessments.

Cultural values recordings take place onsite with nine Wurundjeri Elders, comprising representatives from each family group. A Wurundjeri Council anthropologist and archaeologist may also be requested to participate in the field assessment.

Where relevant, a Cultural Values Recording Report will be made available documenting the oral and written data.

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Cultural Values Recordings & Research - Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation

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For our community, the natural world is also a cultural space. We have a special interest in preserving not just our cultural objects, but also landscapes of cultural importance.

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Cultural issues that affect design

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'Normal' is a function of culture
The chart below illustrates different methods of learning a to use a new technology, and the variation by country

2. Advertising in Different Cultures

Why would this ad not be effective at selling coca-cola in the Middle East?
In Arabic speaking countries, people read right to left

Cultural issues associated with treadle pumps:

In certain parts of India, it is necessary to construct an enclosure around the pumps because it was determined through trial and error that community members thought the movement of the women's hips were provocative.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a group spent 17 years setting up businesses centered on low-cost water pumps. Once the group left the community, the treadle pumps were no longer in use. The problem was that the community's courtship procedures were centered on the women walking to the river to collect water. The treadle pumps eliminated that social construct.

In Kenya, it is customary to either package food products with clear materials or put a picture of the contents on the outside of the product because so many citizens cannot read or write. (Azuri Health Products contain fruit and vegetables as shown above) Imagine the cultural reaction then, when Gerber implemented their food products.
3. Appropriate Design

Ensuring Equity between Stakeholders
Who are the marginalized stakeholders?

Power Relations

Identifying Champions
Micro-jealousy and Public Relations

Business Planning with Non-Cash equity (see case study)

Basic Philosophies that Ground HESE Products

Relationships are critical to long-term success

Our work is participatory

"Harambe" Swahili phrase meaning Let's Work Together

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."- Chinese Proverb

Sticky Information = information embodied in the people, places organizations, and societal constructs and other contextual entities

Essential to the context - helps you to identify power relations

Key and marginalized stakeholders are RESOURCES to be considered in the design process

How to get to Sticky Information?

Deconstruction of social situations

Role-play - How will I act in various scenarios?

4. Cultural Issues that Affect Technology Design

Culture

The "lens" through which you view the world. It is central to what you see, how you make sense of what you see, and how you express yourself

Different for everyone

Cultural Dimensions

Directness (get to the point vs imply the messages)

Hierarchy (follow orders vs engage in debate)

Consensus (dissent is accepted vs unanimity is needed)

Individualism (individual winners vs team effectiveness)

Priorities of the Culture
time, equality, money, harmony, self-respect, family

Must have an understanding of...
history, religion, lifestyle, politics, economics, humor, slang, irony

Characteristics of True Collaboration

relationships between equals

How to find equity?

Bureaucracy

Kenya has a very formal environment

How do you navigate unknown norms?

Courtesy calls

Start with the problem and not the "solution"

Communication

Identify with the people you are working with

Establish a spirit of camaraderie

Avoid Colloquialisms
How many words describe rice in the Vietnamese language? (over 100!)

Overlap of Social and Economic Networks
If the pastor of your church is also the owner of a shop and sees you buying and selling copious amounts of alcohol - will you be ostracized in both environments?

Saving Money on Power Windows
In India, a major car company tried to save costs by only installing power windows in the front seat. However, individuals wealthy enough to afford this car would always have a chauffeur and therefore be sitting in the back seat.

Burqini
A Jordanian woman living in Australia wanted to swim but was uncomfortable wearing a typical swimsuit because of religious beliefs. She then created the Burqini to preserve her modesty and still be active.

5. Countdown of Real Stories about Cultural Issues
11. Power Relations

The truck projects a movie onto the screen shown above. However, as you can see viewers sit on both side of the screen even though one side will be viewing the movie and the other side will be seeing the reflection. Where in individuals sits is entirely dependent on class dynamics - representing a power dynamic
10. Gendered objects, roles and activities

Certain activities are assumed to be male/female associated

Gendered roles include caregiving, cooking, nursing (female)

Gendered objects - power tools

In Kenya - women never buy meat because it is a man's job

Teaching women to use computers crosses lines

9. Informal Communication

- When interviewing individuals about Mashavu: Networked Health Solutions the team was unable to talk to their target audience (women and children) because when they would approach houses they would only be invited to speak with the male head of the house. After changing their strategy and organizing a community skit, the gender dynamics were altered and women were able to give feedback in the informal environment.

Bruce Martin - Indigenous Ways of Knowing
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
8. Tension in Communities

Micro-jealously arises when certain individuals have the opportunity to work on projects and ventures. It can come about for legitimate reasons or also because of wrong perceptions. Proper PR is necessary to diffuse tension.

7. Accessibility and Inclusiveness

Is your system accessible to everyone - men, women, elderly, children? What changes must be made to accommodate all groups?
You want to aim to meet the needs of as many people as possible.

Think about Johnson and Johnson BandAids which are Skin-Colored ... whose skin does that include?

6. Working Harmoniously

5. Opportunism, Racism, Corruption

Are opportunism and racism the same?

When you are a white student working in Kenya, you will not be charged the same rates as a native Kenyan because an opportunity exists to make extra money.

Corruption: Bribes vs. Grease Payments

4. Minimalist Designs Survive

When in Tanzania, a team was working with batteries that had acid leaking out of the top because of faulty covers. The team came up with the idea of creating a battery hat - a special cover that prevented injury. However, the solution was not sustainable because it added $10 dollars to the cost of the battery. Additionally, once the product broke, no one had the resources to repair the product.

3. Incentivize Participation

2. Ensure Equity

1. Do your Best

* Blog Questions

How do these social issues & situations affect your project? Give at least one compelling example.

Have you experienced or observed any of these social situations at home? Describe atleast one such situation.

Pick one story. How would you have approached the situation differently?

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'Normal' is a function of culture The chart below illustrates different methods of learning a to use a new technology, and the variation by country 2. Advertising in Different Cultures Why would this ad not be effective at selling coca-cola in the Middle East?

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Cultural patterns in product design ideas: comparisons between Australian and Iranian student concepts
This article explores how ones culture influences future design

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Section Resources

Art and Design. (2020, February 4). Ultimate Procreate Tutorial on Ipad for Beginners | Create Amazing Digital Art [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSmr3V1oWsE

Brave the Woods. (2020, March 7). How to: REPEAT SEAMLESS Pattern in PROCREATE [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uVqgucwuYg

Drew Walton. (2020, September 24). How to turn a SKETCH to DIGITAL art with PROCREATE![Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXHwedrUC5k

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Section Reference

BBC. (2021). Motifs—Pattern—GCSE Art and Design Revision. BBC Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3c4jty/revision/2

Levanier, J. (2021). The power of using symbolism in design—99designs. 99Designs. https://99designs.com.au/blog/design-history-movements/symbolism-design/

Razzaghi, M., Ramirez, M., & Zehner, R. (2009). Cultural patterns in product design ideas: Comparisons between Australian and Iranian student concepts. Design Studies, 30, 438–461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2008.11.006

Will Paterson. (2021, April 6). How To Sketch Logo Design Ideas (Professionally) 🚀[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikrVDEhblg8

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Section Reference

BBC Ideas. (2019, November 29). How fractals can help you understand the universe | BBC Ideas [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_MNQBWQ5DI

Rose, M. (2012). Explainer: What are fractals? The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-fractals-10865

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Foundational explanation of fractal patterns

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Section References

TED-Ed. (2015, May 15). The complex geometry of Islamic design—Eric Broug [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg1NpMmPv48

TRT World. (2016, July 12). Islamic geometric patterns | Showcase Special [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wqhb-6Xwrs

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Section Reference

French, C. (2017). Patterns Around the World: Japanese, Maori, Islamic, Aztec/Mayan, African. Curricula, 25, 1-32. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1025&context=cap-curr

Saddhono, K., Widodo, S., al Makmun, T., & Tozu, M. (2014). The Study of Philosophical Meaning of Batik and Kimono Motifs to Foster Collaborative Creative Industry. Asian Social Science, 10, 51–61. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v10n9p52

Victoria and Albert Museum. (2020). V&A · Kimono. Victoria and Albert Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/kimono

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Section References

Roberts, R. (2018). Design elements and principles for visual communication. Helveticamediuma.Com. https://helveticamediuma.com/learn/design-elements-principles/

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How to turn a SKETCH to DIGITAL art with PROCREATE!

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Visualisation sketching tips

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How To Sketch Logo Design Ideas (Professionally) 🚀

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Ultimate Procreate Tutorial on Ipad for Beginners | Create Amazing Digital Art

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Symbolism in contemporary design

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Symbolism (also called semiotics) is a powerful tool in human communication. It is how we convey ideas that are too complex or nebulous for words, and it allows us to do so across language barriers. And graphic design, which is all about communicating through recognizable imagery, regularly depends on symbolism.

Symbols are so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that we often use them without thinking. Sometimes, they are so old or obscure that it can be easy to forget their meaning. This presents a problem for graphic design: in order to use symbols effectively, designers must understand the ideas behind the icons. Otherwise, they may end up sending unintended messages through their work.

In order to make sure that this doesn't happen and that you are able to tap into the ancient power of symbols, we're going to provide an overview of the history of common symbols, their meanings, and modern interpretations of symbolism in design.

What is symbolism
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Symbolism is the use of written marks, shapes, images and/or physical objects that have meaning assigned to them. They are all around us. The letters that make up the words on this page are technically symbols-we collectively agree that these abstract markings represent the sounds of human speech.

Symbols are useful because they provide a visual expression of meaning. For example, a red octagon is universally understood to mean "stop" and this can save lives on the road where reading longer words at high speeds is not practical. Often, the intended meaning can be much more complex than a single word, and symbols foster simplicity to speed up comprehension in the viewer. This is why graphic designers use symbolism in design to communicate visually.

Graphic designers often both reuse common symbols in their work and design new, original symbols. When it comes to logo design, for example, the goal is to create a unique pictogram that encapsulates what a brand is all about. In order to do so effectively, it is important to understand where many common symbols have come from and how they have historically played a role in visual language.

With that said, there are an overwhelming number of symbols that have cropped up throughout human history. For the purposes of this article, we will be grouping symbols into three general categories, diving into some particular examples, and discussing the ways in which modern designers have repurposed them.

Nature symbols
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When you consider the proliferation of scenes of animals in cave paintings, it is clear that the early humans understood their lives through their interactions with nature. This has remained with us even through the advancement of civilization and technology, and almost all symbols have some foundation in reverence for the natural world. Let's go over a few of the common categories of nature symbolism and how they are implemented.

Animal symbols and medieval heraldry

Animal symbolism usually associates specific, personified qualities to animals. These qualities have been built up over millennia through mythology and stories: the deceptive serpent in the Book of Genesis, the graceful swan of Grimm's Fairy Tales and the slow and steady tortoise of Aesop's Fables. As such, many of these qualities are fairly intuitive (though they can vary by culture), for example in Western cultures:

Lions symbolize royalty

Doves symbolize peace

Bulls symbolize rage

Owls symbolize wisdom

Dogs symbolize loyalty

Animal symbols were popularized by heraldic charges in the Middle Ages, in which shields and flags would bear coats of arms signifying group affiliation. Although all sorts of iconography (especially religious) were used, the most common heraldic charges included lions, eagles, wolves, bears, stags and even mythological creatures such as griffins or dragons-all of which were backed by decorative floral elements. This tradition has continued into modern flag designs, with many states and countries adopting specific animals as representative mascots.

Designers today sometimes repurpose medieval heraldry for brands-the competing factions of the modern age. Because coats of arms are archaic symbols in and of themselves, they are useful for brands cultivating a sense of old world tradition, as in the case of family owned businesses or classic services like wine making. Though they favor an illustrative style, designers can also use modern techniques, such as designer Skilline's monoline approach below, to merge the past and the present.

The important thing is that they embody specific and unique personality traits through the use of thoughtful animal symbolism in design.

Parts of animals can also be isolated for their symbolic meaning. Wings are often used to represent freedom, antlers can represent authority (being similar to a crown), and paws, talons or tusks can symbolize strength.

Floral symbols

Floral symbols often infuse plant imagery with growth-related meanings like renewal, serenity and aspiration. Many have their roots in nature worship common in ancient religions-for example, the Knot Tree of Celtic symbology. But just like animal symbols, many plants have historically been associated with specific qualities, such as:

The olive branch as a symbol of peace

The 3-leaf clover as a symbol of luck

The rose as a symbol of love

The lily as a symbol of mourning

The laurel as a symbol of victory

In heraldry, plants often provided decorative flair, and similarly, modern designers tend to take advantage of curling vines and roots as framing elements. But some were relatively commonplace as the main subject of a heraldic charge, such as the rose in England and the fleur-de-lis in France (both of which became symbols of monarchy in their respective countries). It is important to research these medieval associations when designing floral coats of arms.

One of the more famous floral symbols of the new age has been the Lotus flower. In Hindu and Buddhist tradition, it is symbolic of divine purity, with gods depicted sitting or standing on one. It is also often depicted splayed flat with symmetrical open petals symbolic of the different chakras, energy that sustains human life. These associations have led to it becoming popular with art and design associated with health and wellness.

The four elements and zodiac symbols

Nature symbolism in design typically seeks to portray harmony and balance-in other words, nature as an interdependent ecosystem. This idea is exemplified by the four elemental symbols: earth, water, fire, and air. Together, these elements summon Captain Planet... er, contribute to a sense of well-being and wholeness. Separately, they each possess their own qualities: earth being solid and stable, water cool and calming, air light and moving, and fire dynamic and strong. Designers often portray them through color and/or abstract line art.

The elements of nature and their attributes are specified further within zodiac signs. While these signs have their basis in starry constellations, they each represent different animals and coincide with one of the four elements:

Earth sign: Taurus, Virgil, Capricorn

Water sign: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

Air sign: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius

Fire sign: Aries, Leo, Sagitarius

Likewise, the particulars of each zodiac sign informs the associations of the element to which it is attached. Designers today often use zodiac symbols-both their animals and elemental colors-as shorthands for attributes which embody the subject of their design.

Goddess symbols

Plants and animals are the most obvious subjects for nature symbology, but for a long while, humans-or more specifically gods and goddesses in the shape of humans-represented personifications of nature. Well-known Greek examples include Artemis, Pan and Gaia.

More commonly, you will see these coalesce into a singular goddess mother, also known as Mother Nature. Designers these days use goddess symbols as a reference to nature as a blessing, an icon of the wisdom and power of the natural world.

Celestial symbols
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As we know today, the night sky is in effect part of nature, but for the most part, humans have not experienced it this way. The celestial world is remote, inscrutable, and at night it is riddled with cryptic signs and symbols. This often leads celestial symbolism in design to represent mystery and supernatural portent. Let's go over some of the most common.

Celestial stationary, by Alina Gronska via Behance

Solar symbols

Being the giver of light and the most powerful object in the sky, the sun is one of the most prominent celestial symbols, often associated with royalty. For much of history, it was depicted as a perfect disc with a dot in the center, the circle itself symbolic of the cycle of rising and setting. Later, it transformed into a sphere with a cross in the center to indicate the four seasons, and the Hindu swastika would be derived from this version.

Eventually, the Greeks gave us the Vergina Sun, which was the precursor to the common style of solar symbol we know today: a golden circle with a ring of triangular rays stretching out from it. Much later, medieval knights added a face to the sun, called sun in splendor, with alternating straight and wavy to adorn shields.

By Taynara Lima, via Behance

For modern designers, solar symbols typically represent power and joy. Though sun in splendor iteration has been repopularized by emojis, it still tends to give a subtle, heraldic flavor to designs.

Lunar symbols

The moon, meanwhile, both acts as contrast and compliment to the sun. While the sun is gold and often mythologized as male, the moon is often represented as silver and female. Both sun and moon represent cycles, but the moon undergoes more dramatic changes, albeit predictably, every month. For this reason, it has become a symbol of transformation.

The most iconic of these forms, the crescent, was the moon's symbol for eons. Because the crescent is a seemingly impossible shape in the sky and because it comes out in the cold darkness of night, it is typically associated with mysticism. Designers today use this symbol to lend brands an air of transformative magic.

It is important to note, however, that the crescent-especially when paired with the morning star-is often attributed to Islam after the symbol was adopted for medieval heraldry of the Ottoman Empire.

Constellation and planetary symbols

Star constellations are associated with the zodiac, but many also derive their meaning from mythological tales and the characters therein, such as Orion and Ursa Major. Being immortalized as a constellation was often the divine reward for a heroic quest or sacrifice.

The planets each have symbols as well, largely based on their Roman god counterparts-the symbols for Venus and Mars being where gender symbols come from-and each are associated with a metal, both of which designers can consciously use in their projects.

Constellations work well as backdrops or frames in graphic design compositions, similar to floral elements discussed earlier. Conversely, by outlining subjects in starry lines, designers are able to give their projects the same mythical weight which storytellers of old imbued their constellations.

Geometric symbols
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In addition to nature and cosmology, humans have historically interpreted their world through recurring shapes. This has much to do with pattern recognition: people naturally recognize repetition in the world around them, and one of the most commonly repeating elements is basic geometry.

Triangles, pyramids and the all-seeing eye

The thing about simple geometry is that it tends to express purity and balance, all of which are ripe for symbolic meaning. Much of this is abstract and based on construction-for instance, circles can represent infinite cycles, and squares can represent stability.

One of the more meaningful basic shapes has been the triangle, or more specifically its 3D counterpart: the pyramid.

An equilateral triangle is essentially an arrow pointing upwards, and it tends to be associated with divinity.

Consider the worship of sacred mountains, including Mount Olympus, Mount Sinai and Mount Fuji. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the celestial North Pole in the night sky was the realm of the gods, and pyramids were built aiming towards this point presumably to give the deceased a pathway to the heavens.

The divine association is also why the Eye of Providence is often depicted within a triangle and/or on top of a pyramid. It represents both the idea of a deity who sees all and is the architect of the universe. It is also a possible relative to the Eye of Horus, used in Ancient Egypt to signify royalty.

In modern times, the eye has come to symbolize conspiracies due to its association with the Freemason secret society and its association with the government on the US dollar bill. Many designers use the All-Seeing Eye to suggest customers are part of an underground counterculture or will have access to exclusive knowledge following their association with a brand.

Sacred geometry

While basic shapes can contain subtle meaning in their simplicity, complex geometry invites mathematical precision into the equation. In many ways, math is the fundamental expression of the laws that govern our universe. Sacred geometry, which is a wholesale term for geometrical symbols that have spiritual meaning, can be understood as a way for ancient people to visualize and tap into the universal power of mathematical proportions. There are many sacred geometrical symbols across many different cultures, but we'll name some notable ones here.

The Mandala can take a variety of shapes, but the most basic construction consists of a square containing four T-shaped gates on each side and a bindu (a central point). Various geometric configurations, lotus petals, colors and/or depictions of deities emanate from the bindu. The meaning varies depending on the construction, as outlined in Hindu scriptures, but the mandala generally aids in meditation.

The Yin Yang was used in Ancient China to represent the interconnectivity of opposing forces through perfectly proportioned curves.

The Pentagram, or five-pointed star, originally represented various Catholic ideologies such as the five joyful mysteries of Mary. It later became branded as a symbol of evil and the occult, particularly when faced downwards so that two points are positioned at the top, reminiscent of devil horns.

Metatron's cube, aside from having an undeniably cool name, is made up of a series of interlocking hexagons, triangles, and circles which form a 3D cube at the center. Like the Pandora's Box, Metatron's cube is often symbolized as a container for divine knowledge, after the function of its messenger namesake.

The Penrose triangle, while not sacred in the strictest sense as being tied to any religion, was created in the 1930s by Oscar Reutersvärd and represents impossibility in geometric form.

The Golden Spiral is likely the most well-known to graphic designers. It is a spiral created using the golden ratio, and it is typically used in design as an aid in proportion and composition.

As there are many different possible configurations for sacred geometry, designers must do research when using one for symbolic meaning. It's easy to think of sacred geometry as simply pretty and complex-like a piece of jewelry-but remember it is called sacred geometry for a reason.

These symbols are often associated with specific cultures and/or religions, and you should be mindful of your justification for using a symbol like this in your project. Not only is it respectful to do so, consumers will likely respond negatively to a brand that appropriates cultural symbols for commercial gain.

Assuming you have done this and are moving forward with sacred geometry, in general they are useful in projecting order and balance onto a design composition or supporting some focal imagery, such as an illustration.

Create your own symbolism design
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Like all communication, graphic design relies on symbols. But while there is a long history behind the common symbols and their meanings, designers must do more than repurpose these symbols. Often, being a designer means coming up with a unique symbolic language for a business, so that consumers can understand their values and what sets them apart from competitors-all at a moment's glance.

In order to do so effectively, it is important to look back at the symbols that have come before. If you're considering using symbols in your own brand's designs, be sure that you are working with a talented designer with an eye for symbolism.

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The power of using symbolism in design - 99designs

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Symbolism (also called semiotics) is a powerful tool in human communication. It is how we convey ideas that are too complex or nebulous for words, and it allows us to do so across language barriers. And graphic design, which is all about communicating through recognizable imagery, regularly depends on symbolism.

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What is a motif?

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This textile design by George Haité (c 1850) is based on a twisted teardrop shape motif typical of a Paisley pattern.

This shape, called a buta, dates back to ancient Persia but became popular in the west in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Here the motif is mirrored - sometimes it twists to the left, sometimes to the right. The colours change creating different versions of the buta, but it is always recognisable as the same motif.

The drawing room of Hill House (Charles Rennie MacKintosh, 1902-04) features a rose motif that has been repeated to create a border round the room.

A very similar rose motif has been used in the wall light to link these two features into one interior design.

A series of motifs within the bedroom of Hill House (Charles Rennie MacKintosh, 1902-04) are used to a similar effect.

Again, a rose motif and a repeat of simple squares are used to unite different elements of the room, and to link this room to the design of other rooms in the house.

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Motifs - Pattern - GCSE Art and Design Revision - BBC Bitesize

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Page 2of 12 This textile design by George Haité (c 1850) is based on a twisted teardrop shape motif typical of a Paisley pattern. This shape, called a buta, dates back to ancient Persia but became popular in the west in the 18th and 19th centuries.

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How to make a repeat pattern in Procreate

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How to make a repeat pattern in Procreate

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How to: REPEAT SEAMLESS Pattern in PROCREATE

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The Study of Philosophical Meaning of Batik and Kimono Motifs to Foster Collaborative Creative Industry
Journal article explores the meaning associated with Japanese Kimono motifs and they communicate meaning, specifically on pages 56-57

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Islamic Geometric Patterns
This video focuses on the cultural meanings of Islamic Geometric Patterns and link to religious practice.

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Islamic geometric patterns | Showcase Special

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The complex geometry of Islamic design
This video focuses on the maths component of creating Islamic geometric design.

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The complex geometry of Islamic design - Eric Broug

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Japanese Kimono Symbolism

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Japan has a very rich textile history, with the kimono being a major focus of interest and artistic expression. Meaning 'the thing to wear', the term kimono was first adopted in the mid-19th century. Originally worn by commoners, or as an undergarment by the aristocracy, from the 16th century kimono became the principal item of dress for all classes and both sexes. It is still an enduring symbol of traditional Japanese culture today.

Kimono are simple, straight-seamed garments. They are worn wrapped left side over right and secured with a sash called an obi. The length of the garment can be altered by drawing up excess fabric under the obi. Other adjustments can be made to suit the wearer, such as pulling back the collar so that the nape of a woman's neck can be more sensuously revealed. The wrap style allows for ease of movement - a useful feature for a culture where many activities are performed while seated on the floor. The kimono is also well-suited to Japan's climate, with unlined kimono worn in the humid summers and multi-lined kimono worn in the winter.

In kimono it is the pattern, rather than the cut of the garment, that is significant. Indications of social status, personal identity and cultural sensitivity are expressed through colour and decoration. Only the elite regularly wore luxurious kimono; the majority of people would only have worn silk garments on special occasions. The choice of obi and accessories, such as combs and pins worn in the hair, are also important.

The images used on kimono often have complex levels of meaning. The most popular bird depicted on kimono is the crane. Believed to live for a thousand years and to inhabit the land of the immortals, it is a symbol of longevity and good fortune.

Specific motifs were used to indicate virtues or attributes of the wearer, or relate to the season or occasion such as weddings and festivals where it bestows good fortune on the wearer.

Colours also have strong metaphorical and cultural meanings. Dyes are seen to embody the spirit of the plants from which they are extracted. Any medicinal property is also believed to be transferred to the coloured cloth. Blue, for example, derives from indigo (ai), which is used to treat bites and stings, so wearing blue fabric is thought to serve as a repellent to snakes and insects.

The introduction of the concept of the five elements from China to Japan in the 6th century gave colours a cosmological dimension. Fire, water, earth, wood and metal are associated with particular directions, seasons, virtues and colours. Black, for example, corresponds to water, north, Winter and wisdom. Colours also have strong poetic significance. Purple, for example, is a metaphor for undying love, the imagery deriving from the fact that gromwell (murasaki), the plant used to create the dye, has very long roots. Perhaps the most popular colour for kimono is red, derived from safflower (benibana). Red signifies youthful glamour and allure, and so is suitable for the garments of young women.

The richest source for kimono motifs comes from the natural world. Flowers such as peonies, wisteria, bush clover and hollyhocks frequently appear on garments. Many of them, for example cherry blossom, chrysanthemums and maple leaves, have a seasonal significance.

Pine, bamboo and plum are known collectively as the Three Friends of Winter (shōchikubai), and are symbols of longevity, perseverance and renewal. The pine tree is an evergreen and lives for many years, bamboo bends in the wind but never breaks, and the plum is the first tree to blossom each year. The plum is particularly favoured for winter kimono as its use suggests that spring is not far away.

Birds, animals, butterflies and dragonflies also appear on kimono, along with other motifs drawn from the natural world such as water, snow and clouds. On some kimono whole landscapes of mountains and streams are depicted.

Elements of the natural world that appear on kimono usually have strong poetic associations, while more complex landscape scenes often refer to particular stories drawn either from classical literature or popular myths.

Although such stories invariably involved people, it is relatively unusual to find human figures depicted on kimono. Instead there are objects which suggest their presence or recent departure, a pair of dropped fans, for example, alluding to lovers disturbed.

From the early 20th century increasingly graphic imagery was used on kimono. On garments for young boys, in particular, symbols representing Japan's modernity and progression are depicted - cars, trains, aeroplanes and skyscrapers. In the 1930s such motifs became increasingly nationalistic and militaristic.

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Japan has a very rich textile history, with the kimono being a major focus of interest and artistic expression. Meaning 'the thing to wear', the term kimono was first adopted in the mid-19th century. Originally worn by commoners, or as an undergarment by the aristocracy, from the 16th century kimono became the principal item of dress for all classes and both sexes.

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Japanese and Islamic Patterns
Information about signs and symbols

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How is pattern used in contemporary visual communication

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How is pattern used in contemporary visual communication

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If you need to brush-up on the design elements and principals then this is a great place to start.

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At level 7-8 of the Victorian curriculum, students identify, analyse and evaluate what constitutes a pattern and how pattern has been used to communicate throughout different cultures. Students will explore the design elements that influence pattern and how these elements can formulate meaning to create identity. Students gradually become more involved in self-directed work by designing a motif that signifies a form of their identity and learning how to transform their motif into a repeat pattern using entry level software. In addition, students will gain a foundation understanding of how pattern has evolved over time and is used in contemporary visual communication.

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What are fractal patterns?

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Fractals are exquisite structures produced by nature, hiding in plain sight all around us.

They are tricky to define precisely, though most are linked by a set of four common fractal features: infinite intricacy, zoom symmetry, complexity from simplicity and fractional dimensions - all of which will be explained below.

The next fern you encounter will provide a great illustration of these features if you pause for a closer look. First, notice that the shape of the fern is intricately detailed. Remarkably, you can see that the leaves are shaped like little copies of the branches.

In fact, the entire fern is mostly built up from the same basic shape repeated over and over again at ever smaller scales. Most astonishing of all, fractal mathematics reveals that this humble fern leaf is neither a one- nor an two-dimensional shape, but hovers somewhere in-between.

Exactly what shape does this fern have?

The classical Euclidean geometry taught in high-school leaves us at a loss to answer this simple question. Though cylinders and rectangles may be great for modelling the shapes of technology, there are precious few regular shapes to be found in the natural world.

How can we describe a fern as a precise mathematical shape? How can we build a mathematical model of this wonderful object? Enter a completely new world of beautiful shapes: a branch of mathematics known as fractal geometry.

1. Infinite Intricacy

Many patterns of nature are so irregular and fragmented that, compared with Euclid ... Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity. - Benoît Mandelbröt, The Fractal Geometry of Nature

In 1861, the discovery of the world's first fractal sent shockwaves through the mathematical community.

If you pick up a pen and doodle a zig-zag, you should end up with a number of sharp corners connected by smooth lines. To show it could be done, the German mathematician Karl Weierstrass constructed a zig-zag that was so jagged, it was nothing but corners - the ultimate mathematical staccato.

No matter how many times the shape was magnified, any glimmer of a smooth line would invariably dissolve into a never-ending cascade of corners, packed ever-more tightly together. Weierstrass' shape had irregular details at every possible scale - the first key feature of a fractal shape.

Mathematicians labelled Weierstrass' shape as "pathological," as it stood in defiance of the tried-and-tested tools of calculus that had been so painstakingly assembled over the previous few hundred years. It remained just a tantalising glimpse of a completely new kind of shape until modern computing power gave mathematicians the keys to the promised land.

2. Zoom Symmetry

I found myself, in other words, constructing a geometry ... of things which had no geometry. - Benoît Mandelbröt, 1924-2010

The blossoming of fractal geometry into a new branch of mathematics is largely thanks to the Polish-born mathematician Benoît Mandelbröt and his seminal 1977 essay The Fractal Geometry of Nature.

Mandelbröt worked for IBM New York in the 1960s. With the company's immense computing power at his disposal, he was able to explore the strange new world of fractals for the first time.

Perhaps the most famous fractal today is the Mandelbröt set (as shown below), named after its discoverer. To draw it exactly is impossible, but it can be approximated by painstakingly colouring each point in the plane separately.

To choose the right colour for a specific point, we apply a simple movement rule to the point over and over again and watch how long it takes for the point to "escape" off the page. Though practically impossible to create by hand, modern interactive applets (such as this one, created by British designer Paul Neave) allow you to create and explore these sets in real time.

These computer programs allow you to spot a new kind of symmetry associated with fractals. To mathematicians, a symmetry is an action that when applied to a shape will leave it looking (more or less) the same.

For instance, we say that a square has rotational symmetry because there's no way to tell if a square has been spun around by 90 degrees when you weren't looking.

The infinite intricacy of fractals permits them a completely new type of symmetry that isn't found in ordinary shapes. Incredibly, zooming in on a small region of a fractal leaves you looking at the same shape you started with. Tiny bits of the fractal can look exactly the same as the whole.

Far from being a mathematical curiosity, this zoom symmetry can be found everywhere in nature - once you know to look for it.

3. Complexity from simplicity

Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules which are repeated without end. - Benoît Mandelbröt, 1924-2010

As Mandelbröt was putting fractals under the microscope, the British mathematician Michael Barnsley (currently of the Australian National University) was approaching the same objects from a different angle.

Though the geometry of fractal shapes is infinitely complex, a third trait of fractals is that their complexity arises from very simple core definitions. The shape of a fractal can be completely captured by a small list of mathematical mappings that describe exactly how the smaller copies are arranged to form the whole fractal.

Barnsley's influential 1988 book Fractals Everywhere contained an algorithm, known as the Chaos Game, that allowed computers to quickly generate any fractal shape from its known mappings.

The Chaos Game took a starting point in space and tracked its motion as it hopped around. Each hop was determined by selecting one of the mappings at random.

Remarkably, no matter the starting point and the order in which the mappings were traversed, the point would quickly be sucked onto a "strange attractor" - the fractal shape - and once there, it would dance around on it forever.

These fractal attractors lie at the heart of Chaos Theory. Since the behaviour of a chaotic system also dances around a fractal attractor, the infinite intricacy of fractal shapes means the slightest nudge to the system can move the point off the attractor entirely.

Crucially, Barnsley found a way to take any desired shape and calculate its list of fractal mappings. Since the complex shape could be completely reconstructed from the simple maps, Barnsley's algorithms were instrumental in the new field of image compression - allowing the original edition of Microsoft Encarta to pack tens of thousands of images onto a single CD.

4. Fractional dimensions
Nature has played a joke on the mathematicians. The 19th-Century mathematicians may have been lacking in imagination, but Nature was not. - F J Dyson, as quoted by Benoît Mandelbröt, The Fractal Nature of Geometry
The last and most striking feature of fractals is that are not one-, two- or three-dimensional, but somewhere in-between. Nature seems perfectly happy to use fractional dimensions, so we should be too. In order to do so, we must first clarify what we mean by "dimension".

The idea of "dimension" has many different (but consistent) mathematical definitions. Intuitively, we can think of a shape's dimension as a measure of how rough the shape is, or a score that reflects how well the shape fills up its surrounding space.

These intuitive ideas can be made mathematically precise. To illustrate a fractional dimension, think about a piece of paper, which is (practically) 2-dimensional. A solid sphere is 3-dimensional and fills up more space than the piece of paper.

Now crumple the paper into a ball. You now have a fractal-like shape that fills up more space than the paper, but not as much space as the solid sphere. It scores approximately 2.5 for its dimension.

Similarly, your lungs are about 2.97 dimensional - their fractal geometry allows them to pack lots of surface area (a few tennis courts) into a small volume (a few tennis balls). Packing such a huge surface area into your body provides you with the ability to extract enough oxygen to keep you alive.

Fractals can be found everywhere in the world around you, from a humble fern to the structure of the universe on the largest of scales.

Even certain parts of your anatomy are fractal, including your brain. If you are mindful of fractals, you will be struck by the sheer variety of places you can find them as you go about your daily routine - from clouds, plants and the landscape to church windows and laboratories ...

Fractal mathematics not only allows us to begin modelling the shapes of nature, it can also reawaken our childlike wonder at the world around us.

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Fractals are exquisite structures produced by nature, hiding in plain sight all around us. They are tricky to define precisely, though most are linked by a set of four common fractal features: infinite intricacy, zoom symmetry, complexity from simplicity and fractional dimensions - all of which will be explained below.

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Patterns in branding

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The intricate world of pattern design (and how to create one for your brand) - 99designs

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Pattern design is an amazing way to build and strengthen brand identity and style. There’s a pattern out there for everyone. In this article we’ll introduce you to the world of patterns: what they are and how they’re created, what types of patterns are out there and how you can find the right patter…

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The history of patterns, in graphics design

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The history of patterns, in graphics design

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Welcome!

The resources are grouped together according to the Victorian Curriculum levels as indicated on the pattern schema map. For example, levels 7-8, levels 9-10 and VCE. Within the levels, are the overarching topics that are to be investigated throughout the schema and have been resourced and grouped according to the big idea.