Michelle Ni

Before I started my designs, I did a bit of research and saw that most waffles shops go for a very classic or vintage look while focusing on browns and yellows. I decided that I wanted my logo to stand out from the rest so I created my logos with an emphasis on minimalism and modernism. I also added another element to stand out from the traditional waffle logo: a penguin. Almost all of my designs were just penguins and just one was an abstraction of a waffle. Both the penguin and waffle design were strong, however they seemed to be missing something: the penguin doesn't represent a waffle shop and the waffle wasn't unique. When I combined them both, they complimented each other very nicely and made up for what the other lacked. The final design is at the top.

Business Card Draft I wanted my designs to embody the lightheartedness of the cafe so I kept everything very simple and light. The two cards on the left were candidates for the front of the card and the top right is the back. In the end I chose the blue design for its simplicity and use of space. On the bottom right, I placed a color palette to show my use of color and for future reference.

Business Card Final I placed the designs into a mock-up to make it more presentable and visually appealing while sticking to my color scheme of soft colors. I made the card a standard 3.5" x 2" business card because the clean, straight lines and horizontal shape complimented my design the best.

Cup Final Since Frostie Waffles is a cafe, it also sells beverages, such as coffee, so I chose to make my next application of my logo a coffee cup. I used the same idea for my card on my cups and got positive feedback for it so I did not modify it any further. Any additional elements would make the cup look cluttered or imbalanced.

T-shirt Draft 1A Since Frostie Waffles is a cafe, it has employees who need uniforms so I designed some t-shirts. I made one with yellow because my other two applications used a lot of blue and the employees would have to stand out so they would be easier to identify. The logo used is the simplified logo since the black looked cleaner on the yellow shirt than the original which has a white outline. I placed the logo over the left chest of the t-shirt because I wanted to keep everything simple and clean.

T-shirt Draft 1B The third main color of the brand is white so I decided to make a white one. This only also used another variation of the logo reserved for white, the plate-less waffle. I wrapped the text around the logo to retain the circular shape of the logo.

T-shirt Final Draft I chose to make the t-shirts white because it is a very neutral color so it would be less likely to clash with any other colors. I removed the text on the front since it was superfluous as the name of the store is also on the back of the t-shirt.

Cover for my Brand Identity Brochure

Table of Contents This page has a lot of white space to make it easier for navigation and finding information. To help prevent the page from looking too empty, I added the waffle pattern from one of my business card drafts and broke up the monotonous pattern with one of the logo variations. This prevented the page from looking too bland without overwhelming the small text.

About Us Since this page described the store, it should reflect the store's attitude in its design. To do this, I used a very simple and understated layout with no embellishments other than a soft yellow covering the whole page. Its soft colors are gentle on the eyes and juxtaposes the clean sharp lines of the text. This makes the page feel very open despite all of the text.

Original This is different from all the others because this page contains the iconic logo set so to highlight its importance I made the page blue unlike the majority of the pages in this brochure. It's a subtle enough highlight without being too loud and sets some general guidelines for how the logo can be used.

Variations The text and images alternate because this is one of the more text heavy pages and I didn't want to overwhelm it with larges blocks of text; that would cause it to look busy and detract attention away from the logos. By alternating, I can give equal attention to all of the page's elements. This layout also makes it more enjoyable to read since the eyes will have a lot of space to breath and move around.

Color Scheme (1) I drew inspiration for the layout of this page from the abstract waffle pattern that I used on the table of contents and back cover. This kept everything comprehensive and neat as the rounded squares could neatly fit together.

Color Scheme (2) The layout of the color samples is different from the previous page but I uses the same shapes and grid layout as the last one so they still look very similar. The different layouts of the two pages also make the design more dynamic and visually pleasing.

Typography I did not add any colors to this page as they would take away attention from the topic of the page: typography. I excluded the Freescript font (the logo font) because I do not want people to use that font for anything besides the logotype. All other words have to use Century Gothic which I chose for its geometric shape. I wanted something geometric because the logo itself is very geometric so they would compliment each other well. A san serif font was also very important when considering all other font because it is more modern looking which fitted the image of Frostie Waffles.

Applications The next three pages show mock ups of the logo on various items. I chose not to include any text in these pages as I felt that the pictures were strong enough to speak for themselves

Application (2) Preferably I would want to make each of the application pages match the background of the images however, excluding the last one (t-shirt), it was difficult to apply my idea to them. The pictures have shadows and/or textures that I cannot seamlessly recreate to extend to the white space of the pages. Since the idea was unfeasible for the majority of the applications, I had to make all of them have the same white borders to keep the designs coherent.

Back Cover of Manual For the back I focused on using colors from the secondary palette to add variety to the brochure. I took a few elements from my waffle patterned business card and placed it here because I felt that the playfulness from the design showed another side of Frostie Waffles that the main blue one could not show. I also felt that it was important for the brochure to set a strong example of how the guidelines look when put to use.