Self branding

Initial ideas 

 In this studio brief, we were asked to promotes ourself as an individual, designer and learner.   As I am the only Asian in my class so I wanted to make something related to Hong Kong. The Aims of my logo is to introduce more Hong Kong culture to western people. Therefore, I looked at the traditional things, food, words, transport, human life and street in HK and see how could I put in my logo so that I could introduce more our culture or things to more western people.

  
  As I am from HongKong, I thought the best representation for me is the flag of HongKong. Therefore, I found the flag as my started point. Afterward, I research into six elements about HongKong included -Make a brand that can introduce most Hong Kong Culture
to people 1)Traditional things, 2)Food, 3Words, 4)Transport, 5)Human Life, 6)Street. I thought it would be great if I could make brand that can introduce most Hong Kong Culture to people as I guess most western people haven't been to HongKong before, even some of them have been to HongKong, they may still don't know the details of HongKong culture, the best is to have a local people introduce these things to them.

  In one of the lecture, I shared my ideas to some of my classmates, I thought the description to describe myself is " The Real Hong Kong Designer Living In Leeds". It was really funny.

  Basically, I designed to name to be “HongKers” which inspired from “HongKongers”. As I am from Hong Kong and my idea is to introduce the HK culture to western people so I decided that I should make the name be easy to recognise Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, I always heard people pronounced HongKongers as “HONGKERS”. Therefore, I came with the idea “HongKers” to be my brand’s name. At the beginning, I sketched different things that represent HongKong the most such as Dim Sum, HongKong Tram or the HongKong old buildings. I wanted to make it as a pictogram at the beginning, therefore, I wrote the word represent the "12 animals zodiac".

  

  Since, I got the very basic idea with my branding, I stopped a while and looked at my research to see how I could make them related with my branding.

1)Tradition culture in HK:

-The biggest festival is Lunar New Year, we have

to visit to families or friends house.

-We have to be polite to elders (may be someone not doing this nowadays)

-We believe the “12 animals of zodiac” which includes Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, 

Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.Each year is associated 

with an animal.

  

2)Food:

  As a culinary capital of Asia, Hong Kong boasts various delicacies in the local or from overseas. The best known is Dim Sum, many visitors came to Hong Kong because of Dim Sum. Moreover, we have something call “Street Food”, it is one  of the city's unique experiences, it is characterised as the ready-to-eat snacks and drinks sold by hawkers in the street such as stinky tofu(臭豆腐) or fishball(魚蛋). As the price is cheap, many people really like “Street Food”.

3)Word:

-We use Cantonese in daily life or even English

-Cantonese has spoken language(口語) and written language(書面語)

-When we writing a word, we have to follow the handwriting step

4)Transport:

  The transportation in HongKong is really well, we have 

-Train which we call it as MTR,

-Ship which we call it as Star Ferry

-Buses which we call it as KMB

-Taxis which have three different colours, red taxis are for Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, green taxis are for the New Territories and blue taxis are for Lantau Island

-Trams which is cheapest way to get around and only costs $2 HK dollars

-Mini-buses run all around Hong Kong, they have red and green

-The LRT which just for people who are in the New Territories, can go to the street

5)Human Life:

-Basically, people work from Monday to Friday and go out on Saturday and Sunday

-Work really hard because the houses in HongKong are too expensive

-Normally, people like to listen Asian music such as J-pop and K-pop

-Always care about the health so we eat really healthy

-We have a busy life-style

6)Street and buildings:

-A lot of shopping malls as HongKong named as “Shopping Paradise”

-The best view is the night, all area will light up, it is really beautiful 

-Buildings are really tall, unlike UK.

  When I looked at those research, I found that the "12 animals of zodiac" is an amusing idea, as I was born in 1997 so the animal that represent that year is OX. Therefore, I thought if I can put an OX into my logo of my branding, it would be great. Hence, I sketched an OX and then designed a really basic logo, I found that the result of using all in upper case was better than lower case, it looks more attractive.

  For the name,   I designed to name to be “HongKers” which inspired from “HongKongers”. As I am from Hong Kong and my idea is to introduce the HK culture to western people so I decided that I should make the name be easy to recognise Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, I always heard people pronounced HongKongers as “HONGKERS”. Therefore, I came with the idea “HongKers” to be my brand’s name.

  Since I got the idea how my logo would look like, I scanned the "OX" to my computer and then used pen tool drew again to make it digitally. Actually, when I designed my logo, I thought I have to make something related to HongKong and also can represent myself. As we believe the "12 animals zodiac", it was a great starting point for me to develop the logo. As I was born in 1997, it was the year of OX so I came with that idea. I wanted to make my design really simple so I just used black and white at the beginning. Afterward, I got a better idea, I used the flag of HongKong which was the "bauhinia". However, the result doen't look really good so I gave up with that and then I looked at the other thing, I thought it would be great to have some Cantonese in my logo because I asked some of my western friends, they feel really interest to see the handwriting style of Cantonese. And I also tried with other elements that could represent HongKong or me, such as the street in HK or the map of HK. However, I choose the one work with an OX and Cantonese.

  For the font, I choose Helvetica because of it clean style, even my brand is about HongKong but the actual company will locate in Europe, as I know, western people prefer simple design so I decided to use Helvetica as the typeface. At the end, I changed the colour to red and white so that the logo can look more like the flag of HongKong. Moreover, in HongKong, red represent lucky. Therefore, I thought it would be more interesting and meaningful by using red and white rather than black and white.

                    

  Since I designed the final logo, I wanted to make some mockup to see how my logo works. I made a business card so that I can see how exactly my logo works as a business branding. Afterward, I made a mockup on a packaging, basically, it included some HongKong culture based on my research. To make the mockup even more interesting, I tried to make a simple website for my logo, I put some graphic works that I did in my graphic design learn journey.

  Overall, I think this project was really interested because it was mainly about myself, as a oversea student, I miss my home very much because of a far distance, however, when I did that project, it seems I was in HongKong. Therefore I felt really happy when I was doing that.