During my time working for the SFU Beedie School of Business, I was tasked with creating the branding, marketing materials, and merchandise for the annual First Year Orientation event, Beedie LAUNCH. As a faculty-run event, SFU's strict brand guidelines were definitely a challenge to work with as there were limited colours, fonts, and no graphic logos allowed, but it also became a great learning opportunity.
Understanding limitations was the first challenge. The design guidelines would not allow any logo or symbol to represent the event, nor could it use any non-brand aligned fonts. It also must incorporate the Beedie School of Business logo.
The first item to design was for student leaders. These basketball jerseys were inspired by the teamwork, spirit, and sportsmanship demonstrated by athletes. I wanted to embody these great qualities in the merchandise, thus, the Beedie LAUNCH Jerseys were born. As the jersey only featured text, ensuring the design fit within brand guidelines was a simple task.
The next few items were to be represented by students and volunteers. As t-shirts are not as defining as jerseys, they would need a more creative, outstanding design to stand out. Instead of looking for specific symbols to represent LAUNCH, I began to think about what was representative of the Beedie School of Business, what both faculty and staff would identify with. One of SFU's unique points are the three main campuses across the lower mainland, each with distinguished architecture.
The finishing touch was to incorporate a paper plane as a connection between the three campuses. As the three campuses stood approximately an hour transit from each other, it is hard for students to make connections across each campus, especially as business students' courses were primarily at a single campus. This finishing touch was meant to combine the identity of our entire SFU campus network as one, to promote inclusivity and connection, but also to embody the journey that first year students will experience throughout their time at the Beedie School of Business.
All designs were created using Illustrator from scratch.
