Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Fletcher.

Thank you for joining me for today's design and technology lesson.

Today's lesson is called "Branding Packaging Designs" and it's part of the "Shell Structures: Packaging" unit.

In this lesson, we'll get to look at how companies apply a brand to help them stand out from the other products on the market, and you'll also get to apply your own branding to your packaging designs.

So let's have a look at what we'll be learning about today.

The outcome of today's lesson is I can ensure branding logos are clear on the final product.

And by the end of this lesson, we've learned a little bit about what we mean by branding, why companies use it on their products and what it can help do for their products on the market.

You'll also get to apply your own logo to your packaging design.

There are some key words that we are going to be using in today's lesson, so let's have a look at those together before we get started.

First of all, we've got that word branding that's key to today's lesson.

Can you repeat that after me? Branding.

Well done! By branding, we mean a company or a product's identity.

So, how we identify that company or product.

Then we've got the word logo.

Can you repeat that? Logo.

Well done! And a logo is part of a company's branding and it's a symbol or a design that represents that company or one of their products.

And finally, we've got the word simple.

Can you repeat that? Simple.

And this is key to making a logo and branding design, is to keep it simple.

And by simple we mean clear and easy to understand without any unnecessary details.

So we're going to be applying that to our logo and branding design today.

Today's lesson is going to be split into two parts.

First of all, we're going to be looking at product branding, what it means and why it's done.

And then we'll be looking at designing our own logo to put onto our own packaging designs.

So let's get started with product branding.

We've had a letter from the local biscuit company and they need your help.

Let's have a look at what the letter says.

Dear Design Pupils, thank you for your help so far with redesigning our biscuit packaging.

We are very happy with the new designs, but we need your help again.

Can you help us create a brand for the biscuits, including a new logo? Your sincerely, Mr. Oak.

And if you remember, it was their strawberry cream biscuits product that they needed help repackaging and now they need help rebranding.

Branding is a way that a company can make themselves or a product that they sell easily recognisable to everyone.

It makes the company or the product memorable so it sticks in people's minds so they can recognise it and tell it apart from sometimes very similar products that are out on the market.

Can you think of two famous sports brands that you might wear or know about? How do you recognise them? Pause the video, have a think.

Welcome back.

What did you think? So there's lots of different companies and brands out there that sell sportswear and you may recognise them by the places that you see them, by their logos or branding that they have or items of clothing or products that you have at home as well.

So there's lots of ways that you recognise those different companies.

So branding can include lots of different things.

For example, it can be a logo, so that symbol that represents the company or the product.

It can be the colours that they use can sometimes stand out as being recognisable as a certain company or product.

It can be a character or an image that they use all over their products or their advertising.

It could be a slogan or a tagline, so a memorable or catchy word or phrase that sticks in your head.

Or it could be a jingle or a song that they use on their adverts or on their radio advertisements, something that helps you keep that product in your mind and remember it later on.

Companies use their logos, the colours and the images that they've chosen to promote their brand in different ways, including directly on the product themselves, on the packaging that the product comes in, on social media, through their merchandise that they might sell to promote the product, through websites and through television advertisements.

And Alex here is saying that he likes to wear clothes that have the logo of his favourite sports company on them so that everyone knows that he likes them.

So by producing products that have that logo on, it helps people to recognise it and even to wear it for a specific reason, just like Alex.

We see logos and branding every day.

Even if you're not always aware of it, they're all around us.

So as Alex is saying here, he can easily spot his favourite place to get lunch when he is out shopping and he always buys a sausage roll from there.

So I wonder if you can think about where his favourite place is to eat.

And Laura is saying that her favourite football team is sponsored by a mobile phone company and that their logo is on her favourite football shirt.

So, when we are going about our everyday business of getting lunch or watching our favourite football team, we are still seeing those logos and that branding all around us every day.

A quick check then before we move on: what brand could this logo be used for? So you can see here we've got a little image and then underneath, it says add some crunch to your lunch.

So they've got a tagline or a slogan that goes with the logo.

So we're looking for clues to what products it might be selling.

Do you think it could be selling fantastic footwear, sunshine holidays or crispy crisps? Pause the video and have a think.

Welcome back.

What did you think? Well, we were looking for clues.

So we are looking at the image and working out what that might be and then we are looking at those words that they've chosen to represent their products as well.

So add some crunch to your lunch.

So we are looking for something that might be edible.

So that means you are right if you said it was Crispy Crisps.

Well done! Alex is helping to create a brand identity for a chocolate milkshake product and he began the process of coming up with the brand by thinking about any kind of idea or image that might be associated with the product.

So he is just having a bit of a brainstorm of anything he can think of that's associated with that product.

So a chocolate milkshake is the product.

So we started to think.

It's made from milk.

Milk comes from cows.

Cows like to be and feed on grass and in fields.

That gives us the impression of it being a natural product because it comes from an animal.

He's thinking of the colour green, which he thinks of to do with natural products and those grass and field images that he's got in his head.

He's thinking about the milkshake itself.

So the words creamy and frothy is coming to his head.

He's thinking about the ingredients again, thinking about cocoa beans, making it that chocolate flavour.

He's thinking about it being a healthy product.

That milk natural product is healthy.

He's thinking about the colour brown, which might have come from the chocolate ingredient.

And he's also thinking about the colour white coming from the milk ingredient.

So those are all colours, images, phrases that you might use to help him come up with a brand identity.

He then organised all of those ideas into a table to help him come up with some branding ideas to make the product stand out.

So he sorted them into different categories.

So he is thinking about product names, colours he could use, slogans he could apply to the brand, characters that might go with this brand and types of images he might use on the branding as well.

So we can have a look here at some of the names that he's started to think of.

So he's got Frothy Choc, Choccymilk, Chocomoo, and Mooshake.

So he is thinking about the ingredients, the chocolate and the milk.

He's thinking about where they come from.

So the cows, that's where he's got the moo, from the sound that a cow makes.

So he is making all these links to the things that he associated with the product.

The colours that he chosen to associate with the brand could be green because that represents natural and healthy.

Could be brown to represent the chocolate, could be white to represent the milk.

He thought of some slogans that might go with this brand as well.

So one of them is, "For when you're on the moo-ve, but he changed the word move to incorporate that moo-ve from the cow as well.

So he is linking together those thoughts again.

It'll shake you awake so he is using the word milkshake.

and making it give an impression of what it might help to do.

And "Milk on the moo-ve", he's thought of another way to use that move with the moo-ve from the cow as well.

He's come up with a character, Connie the Cow that might use to sell the product.

And he's also thinking that it might include an image of a glass of milk with a cow pattern on it and maybe a straw in there as well because the product itself comes in a carton.

So he's organised those thoughts, those associated thoughts to do with the products into some actual ideas for branding.

Which of these then would not be part of a product's branding? Would it be the logo, the price of the product or the colours used on the product? Which one would not be part of the branding? Pause the video and have a think.

Welcome back.

What did you think? Well done if you said it's the price.

So as we've already discussed, the logo and the colours that are chosen for a brand are part of the whole wider brand for that product.

Well done if you got that right.

So for the first task in this lesson, you are going to be developing some ideas for a brand identity for the biscuit company's strawberry cream biscuits.

So remember that is what they wrote the letter to us for to ask for help to rebrand their biscuit product.

So that's what we're going to help them with.

So you're going to start by setting yourself a timer and you're going to write down as many ideas that are linked to the product, the strawberry cream biscuits as you can.

Just like Alex did with his brainstorm to do with his chocolate milkshake product.

You're going to do it for the strawberry cream biscuits.

You might want to think about the different colours you associate with the products, the ingredients and what that brings into your head, into your mind, and any objectives describing words that you might use to describe the biscuits or the ingredients.

Pause the video while you have a go at that and come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? So we've made a start.

We are coming up with some ideas.

So now it's time for the second part of the task.

So we need to organise those ideas now.

So you're going to use them to think of some possible ways to brand the strawberry cream biscuits.

So you're going to think just like Alex did of some names that you could use for the biscuits because the product doesn't currently have a name.

You're gonna come up with some colours that could be used, some slogans that might be applied to the brand, any characters that might link to the product or any images that you might want to use when you are promoting the product.

So you can have a few different ideas in this table in this chat.

You don't need to decide on a final one yet, just write down as many as you can come up with.

Pause the video while you do that and come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

Okay, so hopefully you've got lots of ideas in your table.

So for the final task, I want you to choose your favourite idea from each group.

So choose the favourite name you want to use.

Choose the final colours that you're going to use.

It could be more than one colour that you want to use.

Choose a final slogan, choose a final character if you've got more than one and choose any images that you want to use for your product as well.

Pause the video while you make those decisions and come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

So Alex has chosen his favourite ideas to brand the chocolate milkshake product that he's working on.

He's chosen the Chocomoo name out of the few names that he's selected in the table.

He's chosen to go with brown and white as the colorway for his branding because that represents the chocolate and the milk ingredients.

He's gone with "Milk on the moo-ve" as his slogan, and he's chosen the glass of milk with the cow pattern as the image he's going to use to represent his product.

So just like Alex, you should have made a definite decision about which name, colours and images and slogans you're going to use as well.

Well done if you've got all that ready.

Let's move on to the next part of the lesson.

In this part of the lesson, we're going to look at designing a logo to fit that brand that you have started to come up with in that first part of the lesson.

The biscuit company wants to include a new logo in its branding.

And a logo is a very simple symbol or design that represents the business, the brand or just the product itself.

Can you think of any logos that you know from any brands or products that you see every day? So it could be a sports company, a food company, it could be a computer game company, it could be a football team.

Can you think of the brands or the logos of the products that they sell? Can you even draw them quickly on a piece of paper? Do you know them that well? Pause the video while you have a think about how many could you think of and can you draw some.

Come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? How many did you think of? There are hundreds and hundreds of logos that we see every day, so I bet you managed to recall a few of those and maybe even draw some.

Well done if you did.

A good logo usually follows a few rules.

So there are some simple rules that make a logo work really well.

It needs to use a very simple design and that's key, the keyword, simple.

The easier it is to see and recognise, the easier it is to remember.

So keeping it very simple is very important.

It needs to include only one or two colours.

So it makes it stand out, makes those colours recognisable for that product or brand as well.

It needs to be recognisable even from a distance.

So, even if you see a shop or a product or an advertisement from quite far away, you should be able to identify what product it is selling by the colours it uses or by the logo that you can see on that as well.

It might include a simple drawing, so it could be a shape, could be a simple image like we saw of the Crispy Crisps logo earlier.

It was a very simple image of a crisp that had been used to make a logo.

So something very simple works really well.

And if it has any lettering or wording, it needs to be very clear and easy to read so that everybody can see and read what it is.

The key takeaway from that is that simple designs always work best, so don't need to keep that in mind when we come to design our own logos.

A quick check before we move on though.

What was the logo? Was it a symbol or design? Was it a written description or was it a slogan? Pause the video while you have a think.

Welcome back.

What did you think? Well done if you said it was a symbol or design.

Exactly, it's the symbol or design that represents the company or the product.

Well done if you got that right.

So, then let's move on to colours.

So this is another important part of branding.

Colours can have meanings and they can change how we think about something.

For example, red might be seen as a dangerous or exciting colour because our brain links it to hot and spicy things.

Green can make us think of nature, so that might make us think something is healthy or natural.

So our our brain makes these links to colours and things that they're associated with.

Colours can have different meanings in different countries though, and designers must think about that when they're creating logos and branding, especially if it's going to be used around the world because they need to make sure it's inclusive of everybody that's going to be viewing it.

For example, we might see red as a symbol of danger or even love when we see it around Valentine's Day.

But in China, red is seen differently.

Red is seen as a symbol of good luck and celebration.

So they might as make different associations to that colour than we do.

The choice of colours, lettering and the images that we choose are very important when we are designing a logo.

Have a look at these two logos here.

Which one do you think would work best for a children's play centre? Have a look at them carefully.

Maybe pause the video while you have a think about it.

What did you think? Well, Alex says that the colourful logo, the first one you can see there with the triangle, square, and circle would work best because it's more fun and easy to read.

So the lettering is clear.

There's only one or two colours, but they're nice and bright and colourful, which is something that's associated with children and things that we play with.

But the grey colour in the other logo, Alex thinks is a little bit too serious and the lettering on that logo is a little bit harder to read.

So when we are choosing colours, shapes, and lettering, they all need to suit the product that they are representing, but they also need to be easy to read and clear to see for everybody who's viewing them.

Which style of lettering then would work best for a computer game company? So have a look at these three ideas for lettering to represent this computer game company of high tech games.

Which one do you think would work best for them? Pause the video and have a think.

Welcome back.

What did you think? Well, if we're thinking about a computer game company, we are thinking about easy to read lettering, then B would be the best choice out of those three.

The lettering is easy to read and it's nice and clear.

Well done if you chose that as well.

Rapid sketching is a method of quick drawing that designers use and that we can use to generate lots and lots of ideas very quickly.

So it's a good way to start thinking about a new logo.

Now, Alex is using this method as well to come up with some ideas for a logo for the chocolate milkshake product.

And here he said he set himself a 32nd timer for each idea.

So he kept resetting his timer and having a go at coming up with a new idea every time.

And he's not worrying about the details, he's just thinking about lots of different ideas that he can use for his milkshake product.

So, we are going to use that same method to help us come up with some ideas for the strawberry cream biscuits.

So your task is to create a new logo.

So we're going to start by generating some ideas using rapid sketching.

So you're gonna set yourself a timer for 30 seconds.

You could use one minute if 30 seconds feels a little bit too quick, a bit tricky.

You're going to work on one idea until the timer runs out.

Then, you're going to reset the timer and work on a new idea that's different to the previous ones that you've done.

And you're going to repeat that until you've got six ideas for a logo to use for the strawberry cream biscuits.

Pause the video while you have a go at that task and come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Well, hopefully you've got six ideas now that you could use for the strawberry cream biscuits.

So it's time for the second part of the task.

So you're going to choose one of those ideas, and it might be a combination of ideas that you choose here, but you're going to go with one idea in your head and you're going to develop that into a final logo.

To do that, you're gonna to think about using a very simple design.

You're going to make sure you only include one or two colours to make it stand out.

You're going to ensure it's recognisable even from a distance.

So we want a very clear, easy to see symbol or image with very clear, easy to read letters or writing.

It should feature very simple shapes and images and it should have very clear, easy to read letterings.

We need to make sure whichever logo you choose has got all of those criteria ticked off.

Think about the choices that you made for the brand in task A.

So you're thinking about those ideas you've already got, but you're turning them into a moss, a simplified version to make it work as an effective logo.

Pause the video while you have a go at this task.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Well have a good look at your final logo design.

Maybe show it to your partner or to your group and check against the success criteria to see how effective your logo is.

Is it simple? Have you kept it simple? Has it only got one or two colours that you've chosen and used for your logo? Is it easy to recognise from a distance? If you move away from people, can they still see the images and shapes and colours that you've used? Does it have very simple shapes and images? And is the lettering or letters that you've used on there, clear and easy to read? Get the opinion of your partner or your group and make your own decisions as well.

Make sure that you've checked off all of those points.

Make some tweaks if you need to so that you've got an effective logo to use for the strawberry cream biscuit brand.

Well done if you've managed to complete that task.

Have a look at this logo that Alex came up with.

He has chosen a logo for his chocolate milkshake product.

Do you think his product meets those criteria? Is it simple? Has he only used one or two colours? Do you think it'll be recognisable from a distance? Is his lettering clear and easy to read? How well do you think Alex has done? I think he's done a pretty good job there.

Hopefully, you have too.

So we've come to the end of the lesson now.

We've learned a lot about branding and why companies use it on their products.

Branding is the process of creating a unique identity for a company or for a brand or just for a product that they use.

A logo is a visual mark, something that we can see that represents a company or a brand.

Different writing styles can be used when we're considering logos, so we can use different styles of lettering as long as they're clear and easy to read, and simplicity is the key.

So those simple designs is what we were looking for when we were designing our logo.

They are the most effective because they're clear and easy to remember and easy to recognise by the public who will be viewing it.

Thank you for joining me for this lesson.

I hope you managed to brand your product effectively.

I hope to see you again in another lesson, but goodbye for now.