Teacher for a day
No-Logo Branding @PrattFreeSchool
I still have fond memories of some of my favorite teachers and professors from elementary to grad school. I believe teaching is the most noble profession although it is one of the least appreciated. Teachers should be the highest paid and cherished professionals in our society, because education is the key solution to confront many, if not all, of our current social problems.
In the end of 2012, Pratt Institute’s Graduate Communications Design program launched an open call for proposals for a full day event of free design-related classes. Long story short, I was honored to be selected as one of six recent alums to present a 1-hour class at the event called Pratt Free School. The event was held this past Saturday April 6th at Pratt Institute’s Brooklyn campus.
I was fortunate to present my class, No-Logo Branding to a crowd of about 30 students. The lecture included a discussion of principles of branding, messaging, content, semantics and syntactics as well a series of case-studies providing examples of a basic ideology:
That a brand is a living, breathing entity defined by what it says, how it acts and how it looks. That branding is the search and definition of a company’s promise, values, mission and objectives. And most important, that branding should communicate emotions, not looks.
The lecture presented the fundamental notion that a clearly defined message, tone and relationship with our audience are the essence to a successful design project. And, that focusing only on aesthetics only detriments to our ability to establish an engaging connection with the users, customers and audience.
The ability to build a cohesive brand system by merging consistency with flexibility was further discussed with a look into 10 case-studies. I also incorporated the process of building the class presentation as an example of how we can develop a coherent branded look and feel using only type, color, graphic elements, tone of voice, content direction and messaging strategies instead of relying on logos as the center of a brand.
The event was a great opportunity for us to engage with the public and share some valuable ideas, concepts and experiences. It was a valuable learning experience and one that I hope all attendees genuinely enjoyed. I was able to gain an even greater appreciation of the task and challenge facing all teachers in our country, even if I only had to do it for an hour.
Here are some images of the process of building the class:
