Overview
In today’s competitive market, emerging brands need a strong identity and strategic direction to stand out. As part of a collaborative project in my Advanced Visual Communications course, my team and I developed Sugar Rush, a brand built from the ground up. This semester-long initiative involved creating a comprehensive brand identity, brand guidelines, and a marketing strategy to support a new business concept. My contributions focused on design consistency, print assets layout, brand guidelines, unconventional marketing and social posts, ensuring a cohesive and impactful brand presence across both digital and print media.
My Role
As Lead Creative & Graphic Designer, I focused on:
• Compiling and refining brand assets.
• Creating a cohesive brand guideline.
• Using brand assets effectively within a multitude of different channels.
• Leading feedback sessions amongst the group and providing support where needed.
• Campaign Ideation and planning, aligned with our demographic needs.
Tools Used
• OneDrive – Storing documents and working files to work collaboratively.
• Illustrator – Logo and branding elements, reusable brand assets like patterns, symbols and social posts.
• InDesign – Brand style guide, Presentation design, and report templates.
• Trello – Task tracking and iterative design workflow.
• Figjam – Planning, empathy mapping and mind mapping.
Team Planning, Empathy Map & Mind Map
Research & Process
Our design process was feedback-driven and involved:
• Collaborative Branding Process – We collectively ideated on brand elements including the colour palette, brand symbols, and name. Each team member contributed ideas, which we then combined and refined together.
• Project Planning & Workflow – I created a planning document in FigJam to outline resource allocation, group roles, iterative workflows, and necessary digital tools.
• Brand Guideline Development – Once the logo, colours, and typography were finalized, we expanded our branding discussions. I created a comprehensive brand guideline to ensure consistency across all future designs.
• Strategic Branding & Audience Research – We planned our brand guidelines, initiative goals, and target audience approach, using personas, empathy maps, and mind maps to refine our strategy.
• Asset Creation & Marketing Execution – From our brand foundation, we developed assets across multiple formats. I designed print materials, social media posts, outdoor signage, and unconventional marketing through plantable seed packets.
Key Features
• Style Guide – Sugar Rush branding and style guide.
• Document Templates – Marketing campaign documents and document templates.
• Marketing Campaign – The Sugar Rush Initiative for their new 100% recyclable packaging, empathising with their users wants and needs for more sustainable and transparent marketing.
• Print Assets – Bookmark design, informational handout, initiative mail insert.
• Digital Assets – Social posts with mockups.
• Unconventional Marketing – Plantable seed packets as an interactive bonus for the marketing campaign.
Potential Iteration & Features
• Landing Page Prototype – The digital assets could be extended, creating a landing page prototype could add to the overall branding and give more depth to the overall marketing initiative.
• Animated Elements – For a fun, interactive brand like Sugar Rush, utilising motion graphics on digital assets could be beneficial and appealing to their target audience.
Challenges & Pain Points
• Consistency Across Assets – With multiple team members contributing to assets, we held consistent check-ins to ensure brand and campaign alignment. This strengthened my communication skills and reinforced the importance of a structured feedback loop.
• Time Crunch – As this was a large-scale project, maintaining consistent updates and effective use of Trello was crucial. Since I had set up the Trello board early on, we were able to stay on track and meet deliverables efficiently.
Learnings & Improvements
• Narrowing in Earlier – Identifying key design elements earlier would have streamlined branding decisions and allowed us to leverage target audience research more effectively.
• Timeline & Planning – Managing multiple projects sharpened my ability to schedule, prioritise, and execute tasks efficiently under tight deadlines.
• Colour Palette Shifts –Due to early feedback collection, there were valuable shifts to the brand colour palette to increase contrast to the primary pink and blues, enabling them to be more vibrant and versatile across marketing materials.
Final Outcome & Impact
This project resulted in a cohesive brand identity and a fully developed marketing campaign, ensuring a consistent, engaging, and strategic brand presence across all deliverables.
• Consistent Branding – Established a refined visual identity, including a logo, colour palette, typography, and UI components, ensuring brand cohesion.
• Comprehensive Brand Style Guide – Created a detailed guideline outlining voice & tone, typography, colour palette, and imagery, providing a framework for future brand assets.
• Marketing & Communications Campaign – Developed strategic campaign messaging and promotional materials to support Sugar Rush’s 100% recyclable packaging initiative, aligning with consumer values and market demands.
Brand Guidelines
