01 developing the brand voice

Visual audit and brand brief

I began the process by doing a visual audit of the Galactic Empire as they are branded within the Star Wars universe in order to grasp their positioning. I then began creating a brand brief and developing the tone and objective of the Galactic Empire brand. Since Star Wars is such a well-known series, I used the process of writing the brand brief as a way of divorcing myself from any preconceived ideas or impressions I had of the Galactic Empire. The brand brief also helped guide and create consistency across the development of the brand.

creating the lockup

After solidifying the logo mark, I began to explore lockups and typefaces for the signature. I chose various typefaces that aligned with the overall look and feel of my brand and tried pairing each in several different ways with my symbol.

From this selection, I was able to narrow the decision down to one typeface, Titling Gothic, for my wordmark and then decide on the most impactful horizontal and vertical lockups.

type system

As one of my favorite professors used to say, “typography answers to the content”. This type exploration was to find which typeface(s) fit the brand voice and maintained legibility as the typeface used to set the content of the brand book.

the result

After creating settling on a grid and type system, I began laying out the book. In order to work quickly and efficiently and by the words of my professor, I blocked in all of the content, or copy, of the brand book. Next came creating assets and placing them in the appropriate sections. Lastly came the actual design. Meaning finessing each of the pages and stylizing the spreads and pacing. As a final sweep, I went through and proof read as well as massaged the rags and triple checked my use of em dashes versus en dashes versus hyphens and made sure there wasn’t a widow to be found.