Unit 1 of this course was all about the basic concepts of a "brand". Most of it was things I was already familiar with, being a graphic designer by profession, but I found the project for the unit to be a lot of fun: creating a moodboard for a brand of our choice. The project brief was thus:

Let's consider the multi-faceted nature of brand design by thinking about a brand familiar to us. Pick a brand — any big brand you might have access to right now: Safeway, Starbucks, a car dealer, Wholefoods, Trader Joe’s, etc. Doing a little research online is fine, but it's best to go out into the world and look, hear, taste, or touch representations of the brand.

Only a few weeks removed from the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals at the time, I decided to go in a slightly different direction from the consumer-focused brand examples and chose to explore the brand of my beloved San Jose Sharks. I had a lot of fun delving into their brand and the things that make the Sharks organization so unique.

Process Notes: Initially I was focused on the actual design aspects of the brand (and spent a lot of time trying to hunt down the standards with no luck, ha!), but as I was assembling it, it felt important to incorporate more of the "community" focus of this underdog team and its fans.