Category: Crit

Planning and Moodboard here.

Branding and Visual Design: how will your brand express its mission?

In my research for my proposed website, I determined that the users of my site are primarily:

• women aged 35-44
• looking for a creative outlet
• keen to craft as a means of alleviating stress

Furthermore, these users may:

• have little free time
• be unsure of how to get started
• have varying experience levels and budgets

These concepts will factor heavily into the visual design and content of my website. As explored in my Commodity Crit, the site content will need to include:

• concise video tutorials with audio
• clear written instructions in tutorials
• a section on safety
• information on where materials can be sourced, as well as their cost
• An about section that gives some insight into the project’s concept and mission

Tone of language

Authenticity of tone

When writing content, it is important to strive to arrive at the ‘truth’. To clarify, there is a difference between writing what the author thinks sounds good, or what they think the reader expects to hear, as opposed to writing what actually needs to be said. This can arise if the author is overly influenced by cognate site content, and instead of searching for their own voice that fits their site mission, chooses to imitate what has already been said, regardless of whether or not it is relevant. I will therefore not look for inspiration from cognate sites when considering the tone of my website.

During my research for the project, I interacted with the Resin community on Reddit to find out what drew them to the craft. The replies were open, warm, and helpful. Some gave very detailed replies and were not afraid of opening up about their personal circumstances. The tone was therefore friendly and informal, but often struck more sombre notes as they disclosed more distressing reasons for needing to find a creative outlet. Several users also mentioned that they found it difficult to know where to start.

Setting the tone of language in my website is therefore potentially challenging in that it needs to bear in mind that users need to find information quickly, but also feel welcomed and ‘safe’ in introducing them to a craft that could possibly seem overwhelming for beginners. This means that the tone needs to be simultaneously concise and minimal while being warm and friendly in tone.

The focus on the therapeutic side of learning a craft also means that I would like to avoid using overly excitable, bubbly language, such as the use (or overuse) of exclamation marks and emphasis including uppercase ‘shouting’, which can serve as a distraction and trivialise the reasons that led to the user wanting to learn to make resin. Instead, the site should use soothing, friendly language. The underlying tone can be summarised as:

“Let’s have a nice sit down and make some lovely things together.”

Visual Design

To begin the process of establishing a brand identity, I started by brainstorming words that could be associated with the site’s content and mission.

Calming, therapeutic words:

tranquility

lagoon

oasis

azure

serene

cure

therapy

heal

raindrop

Artistic, crafty words:

create

curate

inspire

craft

canvas

pour

Name

cure8:

the concept of therapy and healing

the resin curing process

curate – appealing to those looking for artistic projects

8 – 5 mins of mixing, 3 mins of pouring, arranging, no video tut longer than 8 mins

Initially I had come up with resin8, but this was unfortunately taken by a resin e-commerce site. However, cure8 combines the idea of therapy and art, as well as the short time one can spend on the craft.

Colour

From these words (particularly the ‘therapeutic’ words), it is possible to draw connotations. In regard to colour, the words bring up ideas of cool, relaxing blues and turquoises reminiscent of the sea, or perhaps a swimming pool. These would contrast well against a cool, off-white background for a simple, minimalistic feel.

Next, I explored cognate sites to see if there were any commonalities in their colour schemes. I noted that resin8.co.uk uses a teal colour for its logo, while houseofresin.co.uk uses a similar shade for its headings. Indeed, there seems to be an existing connotation between resin art and the colour blue, or more specifically turquoises and teals. Furthermore, the dominant recurring colours in search results for ‘resin’ are shades of blue and turquoise.

A closer inspection of the resin8.co.uk site shows that there is a lot of red on banners announcing item sales, as well as confetti imagery and uppercase lettering. The result is eye-catching and loud, but highlights the site’s primary mission of being an e-commerce site. Red, with its connotations of aggression and anger, would not be suited to a site that promotes resincraft as a therapeutic exercise.

However, to prevent the turquoise and whites from looking too clinical and related to healthcare (such as the now defunct Theranos website), the turquoise should be offset by a contrasting, warm colour. Complementary colours for turquoise include deep reds and burnt oranges, but as established, these can appear alarming and subtract from the calm tone. It would be therefore worth considering a lighter shade of ochre or orange, perhaps reminiscent of sunshine and positivity. This shade could be used lightly throughout the site.

Type

As my users will most likely be busy people looking for clear guidance on how to start making resin, fonts for the site should be clear, easily scannable and simple. I therefore propose to use a sans-serif font for both headers and body text. There will certainly be no more than two font families on the site. I would like such fonts to be more rounded rather than angular to keep the theme of being soothing and calming, and not ‘edgy’. The Google Font Paytone One, with its thick, bold characters may suit this task, but Archivo Black might be easier for those in a hurry to skim-read due to its larger counters, making each letter more distinctive.

Information Architecture

The website structure will be simple and scaled down, primarily so that new crafters are not overwhelmed by too many options. The pages will consist of:

Home – the landing page

Getting Started – a guide on what equipment to buy, how a workstation should be set up

Tutorials (with a dropdown for each tutorial page) – video with text instructions beneath

Safety – safety precautions for working with resin and recommended gear/measures

About – describing the site’s mission

Layout

Due to user time constraints, I plan to take a minimalistic approach to the site layout. Users should not be overwhelmed by choice, and as such will not be presented with too many navigation options.

The homepage would potentially take a full page spread format, with the navigation options clearly grouped together in the centre. This helps guide the user to the exact content they need.

Other pages, such as the tutorial pages, would take on a more conventional design pattern, with a top and footer navigation. As there will be minimal nav options, I would prefer not to use a collapsible hamburger menu for smaller viewports, and let users directly see their options as soon as they arrive on the page.

Imagery and Iconography

Starting with the concept of art as therapy, I am interested in using images associated with healthcare as part of my imagery. Glass apothecary jars/Florence Flasks, as seen in chemists of yesteryear, might suit this idea. With their jewel-like appearance, these multicoloured jars of coloured water are also reminiscent of what can be created with resin itself. It would therefore be interesting to see if this could be incorporated into the logo.

A turquoise wave would also be an interesting addition, perhaps used to separate the footer. This would fit into the thematic ideas of the ocean explored during my word association exercise.

Icons that denote each page of the site in the navbar would need to be instantly recognisable to users scanning through quickly to view the site content. These will be created with SVGs.