Week 07 
Justin Nicholl Branding
This week we have been set another task; however, this time it is for a real life client. We were given a very quick brief at the end of last weeks lecture about what we have to do for this weeks homework. Justin Nicholl is our client and basically we need to brand him (if your wondering about the picture every time I hear branding mentioned I think about cow branding, not sure why, but there you go). Justin sells home made fresh paste and pasta sauces every Saturday in the St. Georges Market in Belfast. Currently his business is called "Gusto" but, from what I can gather, he would like to change this. That's pretty much all the information we have for now. We need to come up with a name (one that we can get a domain name for), tagline and logo. So first of all the name.
Gusto?
As I have already said the business is called Gusto at the moment but that can be changed. I'm not really sure about Gusto, I think something a bit different is needed. I started with drawing out a mind map to see what I could come up with. As I am not really a big fan of drawing by hand and then scanning, I've started using a nice brainstorming app called XMIND and I think you'll agree that the results (which can be seen on the right) are far neater than I could ever do! Nothing was really jumping out at me. I came up with a few ideas like "Justin's Pasta", "Pasta Man" or plain old "Pasta and Sauce" and also a whole heap of Italian words, some of which I can't even remember what they mean now. More inspiration is needed!
I've been looking at a few different web sites for inspiration but no luck yet. I did however see some good really logos which I will move onto later.
As I was getting nothing from looking at web sites I decided to seek help of a professional. My mother is a trained chef so I asked her to tell me everything she knew about pasta. After a few ideas she mentioned the words "Al Dente". As cookery isn't really my string point I hadn't really heard these words before, so wasn't exactly sure what they meant. I was assured it was a pasta thing and I liked the sound of it so I researched it a bit more. Wikipedia explains it as:
"The term (al dente) comes from Italian and means "to the tooth" or "to the bite", referring to the need to chew the pasta due to its firmness."… "It is often considered to be the ideal form of cooked pasta." (Wikipedia 2007)
So apparently al dente pretty much means perfect pasta to which I in turn thought…"Perfect!" My only concern with this name was people not understanding what it meant and thinking that it is just random jibberish. I was assured by my mother (the professional) that anybody who would be going to the effort of buying pasta would know what it means and pasta is the first thing she thinks of when she hears the words al dente.
Al Dente it is then! Now onto the second part of the task… a tagline.
What's A Tagline?
Anybody who I've asked about this task for help and ideas has always asked me the question "What's a tagline?" to which I would respond with my favourite quote from Wikipedia:
The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand. (Wikipedia 2007)
As I'm sure you can guess I got a puzzled look in return for this quote but no matter.
The latest article in A List Apart couldn't of been better timed. Titled "Greatest Copy Shot Ever Written"
After a bit of thinking I decided that it would be best to have a tagline that explained the name, or at least had something to do with it. Time for another brainstorming session with XMIND. My first thought was to use the literal translation of al dente which is to the bite, so I came up with "Pasta With A Bit of Bite" but that just didn't sound right to me. The fact that Justin sells sauces as well hadn't been mentioned. Al dente also means perfect, as in the pasta is cooked perfectly. So I thought perfect pasta and sauces sounded pretty good and went with that.
Logos
So the final part of our task is to come up with four different logo concepts and five variations of each of the logo concepts. Normally when I am trying to create a logo I work with Adobe Illustrator because I really like the easy manipulation of fonts. My skills with Illustrator aren't all that great so I have been looking for a few good tutorials. I came across this one from Team Photoshop. It explains very simply the concept of paths, hopefully I'll get a chance to try this out in my logo creation.
I've been playing around in Illustrator for quite a bit of time now, I'd forgotten just how much time it takes when working at something like this, but patience usually pays off. I've put a lot of effort into my first logo concept. I love how Illustrator lets me manipulate specific parts of a letter and be able to make it my own not just standard text. The final logo ideas that i came up with can be seen on the right and the final deliverables for the branding are linked below.
Major Project Research
Last week I looked into the current competition and this week I want to continue with that a bit. I want to look into what kind of lessons should be included in my Irish tutorials. Right now I have some ideas in my head as to what words and phrases would be best to teach kids, for example household items or farm yard animals, but as I am not an expert on how kids learn I'm going to do a bit of research into how other similar sites do it.
I found a great article on Ezinarticles.com about teaching children to speak Spanish. There's maybe not a lot of in it for what I am currently researching but it will definitely be useful when I am researching my user interface design.
Again another site from the BBC this time teaching Spanish to primary school children. Very simple and easy to use; it starts out with a few easy topics like how to say hello and how to say your name, topics that I think would be very beneficial in my Irish tutorials. It then goes on to topics like how to tell the time, I think these topics may be slightly too advanced and I would be better keeping it to simple words and phrases rather than constructing full sentences.
I've found quite a lot of stuff on the BBC, this time an interactive French tutorial for ages 4 - 11. I had a look at the basic lessons and got some good ideas. An item appears on the screen and audio plays and says what it is in French. After several items the user can go back to any one of them or go onto a song where they have to click on the item that has just been sung to test what they have learned. I had never thought of the possibility of song before, it's definitely worth considering, although trying to find someone who can sing Irish could prove to be difficult.
One more from the BBC, this time it's Welsh for 4 - 6 year olds. I know it seems like I've been using the BBC a lot for this research but turns out finding such sites was harder than I first thought. Anyway this site used some very simple tutorials, the kind that I could apply to my project. For example counting animals, matching pictures to spoken phrases and filling in missing letters. Although I'm assuming that these games are intended for children who already have a bit of a grasp of the Welsh language, because there wasn't much english involved and would definitely be to hard for someone who knows no Welsh.
Books
I was talking to one of my teacher friends from Dublin and asked her what books are used with the Irish curriculum. She pointed me in the direction of the NCCA (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment) web site. My knowledge of how Irish schools work isn't great so I had to find out what age of kids are in which class. From Wikipedia I found that kids start school in Junior and Senior Infants (similar to our nursery school) and from there go into first class (same as the start of our primary schools). First class is generally 5 year olds, so I figured this is the class I need to be looking at and is my "target market".
My thinking is that if I can get the final outcome of this project to coincide with the actual Irish curriculum then it will appeal to more people. Not just people that would like to learn a few words in Irish but also parents wanting to help their children along with the school work.
When I lived in Dublin there was always ads on the radio for SchoolBooks.ie, especially close to the start of the new school term. Using what I had found on the NCCA web site I picked out two books that I hope will be of help to me in researching this topic. Hopefully they'll be here before the end of the week and I'll be able to put up some stuff on what I've learned.
Bualadh Bos - Trina Cheile 1st Class Pupil's Book
Both the books I ordered at the start of the week have arrived and there is a lot of good information in them that will definitely help in my research. This book is the better of the two as it is in full colour. The book is completely in Irish so I've had to recruit the help of an Irish speaking friend to translate for me. Each page has a word or phrase in Irish at the top and then a number of pictures on the rest of the page for the child to associate that word with. Near the back of the book there are a few exercises like filling in missing letters to complete the word. All really simple stuff but similar to the format I would like to use in my project.
Inis Dom Book 1 1st Class
Unlike the other book there is no colour in this book, which is slightly disappointing. This book is maybe slightly more advanced with complete words missing for a child to fill in instead of just one letter. But there are some good exercises like word searches that I had never thought of before. It is very interesting to see what sort of things are included in the curriculum and has definitely given me a better idea on what to include in my major project.
Conclusion
After this weeks research I am currently think that the following kinds of Irish lessons should be included in my major project:
- Numbers
- Colours
- Days of the week
- Months of the year
- Household items
- Farmyard animals
References
Wikipedia. (2007). Al Dente. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_dente. Last accessed 12 Nov 2007.
Wikipedia. (2007). Tagline. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagline. Last accessed 12 Nov 2007.
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Jonathan is an enthusiastic web designer with a great passion for all things technical, extreme sports, photography and the church he attends. After spending almost 18 months in Dublin Jonathan has returned with his sights set on making his mark in the multimedia industry.
