nsw4133

Welcome! This is a place where I brush up my art skills. If you feel inclined to tip me, head over to www.ko-fi.com/nswnsw. Or even better, send me suggestions at [email protected]

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #3: Dark Tarot

A big problem about this tarot website is it lacks personality. Which is somewhat of a headache. Like, usually for niche sites like this, I imagine you would want to push its aesthetics a little further, but in this particular case, it kinda lacks it… and that makes the whole website looks sad.

So far, I’ve been doodling about its logo… um so far it only looks like this… ack...

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #3: Dark Tarot

I knew I wanted to rebrand a tarot related website, just for fun. But I didn’t know what kind of tarot website I would work my rebrand magic on. And then I came across this one. So of course I had to do something about it.

I would say this website is more of like a bare bones wireframe than a website. Its navigation could use some simplification and if given to the right web designer, its aesthetics could also be elevated. Make it look more mysterious and beautiful, rather than just being a website that gives computer generated reading for free. I imagine that putting in some parallax effects for its landing page would be amazing, but we’ll see if my technical side is able to keep up with it or not.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

I'm not too sure if this business will ever advertise their services on Youtube, but if they do, it probably looks something like this.

All in all, it was pretty fun doing this month's rebranding. I forgot that financial advisory firms are available even in the cannabis industry, so it becomes fresh to me. Most days I get bored of doing collaterals for serious companies, but when you put the same lens on a different industry, that's when it hits different. Initially I thought the logo would be a simple fix, but turns out that in order to get a formal logo to be taken seriously, it definitely takes a lot more work. But hey, I get to practice making HTML email template, which means I've reached my target for this month!

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

Another thing I did was some mockups for social media. It's not too difficult since I got the most difficult part (email template) out of the way. The only thing I regretted is not thinking of "We make protecting your business easy" earlier, because it feels secure as hell.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

The next thing I did was creating an HTML email template. I kinda already knew I wanted to practice making email templates, but I didn't really know what kind of content I would put inside. So I went around looking at what other businesses do. Turns out that there is such thing as introductory emails. Alrighty, off I go to make one! I had fun hunting for suitable pics, but I'm not too sure about "Our focus is ON your growth". I'm pretty sure the grammar is wrong, but I'm not going back to fix it hahaha.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

Since I already had a brand new logo, I might as well put it in a gif form to show how it would look like as a video format.

It was a fun time putting it together in After Effects, not gonna lie.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

In the end, I settled for this 3 drops design. The 3 drops is used to symbolize the 3 branches of services this firm offers as well as to show abundance. I mean, if you just use one drop, it feels like water or coffee bean. I used a serif font to make it feel more formal. Everything else was done in sans serif, but I figured that since this is the most official expression of a business, so it's probably better that a financial consultancy business like this to continue use some form of serif. The one thing I retained from the original case study was their usage of dark green. I made that to be the primary color, and put in some secondary colors to go with it.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

Now, a little something about the sketching process. I had to admit it took me quite some time to figure out what makes a professional logo, but at the same time not repeat the No. 1 cliché found in most cannabis business, aka use a cannabis leaf logo.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #2: Plant Your Financial Seed

Cannabis is quite interesting in that its medical and recreational use is not always legal in every country. Anyways, I came across a business consulting firm that feels interesting for this month's rebranding attempt. This is how their before pic looks like.

So the strange thing is, it has a really well made website with great copy, BUT this is how their logo looked like. It's a shame, because honestly everything else looks great. Therefore, this month's mission is to create a logo that looks professional and feels pretty close to their cannabis-friendly business.

[nsw4133]

New website who dis

Woo hoo! Got a free website up so you can see ALL the steps behind making these lovely #rebranding things! https://ngshukwei.wixsite.com/nsw4133

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

Alright, now is the time for the much needed web design practice! Here’s a before pic to remind you what Frolicon used to look like.

Aaaaannddd here’s the after web design look. You can visit it at https://rebranding-1-frolicon.webflow.io/

But ok, in truth, I can’t code to save my life, so I used Webflow to get the basics done. I wished I knew how to code better, but considering that Webflow allows hosting for free (I’m sure there are terms and conditions somewhere) and all I need to do is doing some drag and dropping, OK I’m using it.

Webflow offers one level more control than Wix, and during figuring out how it works, I got a quick guide on how it looks like in its code form, which is very helpful for me. I was struggling with making it responsive, and even modified my content just so it fits into the design, but I’m sure it’s because of the struggling, that’s how I’ll improve.

[nsw4133]

500 posts!

I can’t believe I reached to this point, albeit that took me a 3 year break in between. But now I’m popping back occasionally with some content, and then I got this benchmark, so hey, not all things went wrong in this day and age.

Of course I wish I could have achieved this milestone faster, but I realised that along the way, it’s not worth it to race it down if racing makes me unhappy. It’s much nicer to reach 500 posts because you find meaning in each and every single posts. After creating content for so long, you’ll reach a point where you will only create stuff because you give a damn about it, and that works for me.

After 500 posts, I’m still not an influencer, I’m still part of obscurity, so I guess with this continued anonymity, I’ll go on to create more meaningful stuff for me. Stay tuned for my adventures!

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

This convention takes a lot of effort in putting their program online, so I thought, hey maybe do a programme brochure sample out of it.

Admittedly, it’s very satisfying to pop in my designs on a template. It’s as close as it gets to seeing the complete product.

I had a lot of fun with the cover, it’s so... suggestive.

It was interesting to read through their rules. Actually Frolicon has a lot of rules for every single fetish event, but I think it’s necessary. For simplicity, I took the general one and try making an infographic out of it.

Ah... tables, the bread and butter of graphic design.

I also included a mock section for panelist profiles.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

Boom! I picked me some pretty stock images from Unsplash and dump in some dummy text for social media post mock ups. 

It really grabs your eyes lol. I also did one for a pretend Pride post. Gotta put that pride edition logo to work!

And here’s how its FB profile would look like.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

One of the first few things I noticed in the Frolicon website is that they were selling shotglasses to fundraise for this year’s Frolicon. Originally they were gonna use it for 2020′s Frolicon, but alas the plague happened. Anyways, the moment I got the logo done, I got quick at slapping them on some shot glass mockups.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

So, here’s my thought process behind this logo. First of all, it needs to be bold. Stylistically, I’m borrowing a bit from those harem VN logos, but I’m staying away from cursives, because I need it to be a bit more gender neutral. I was thinking of throwing in a few comic book styled bubbles and gradients, but we’ll see if it works or not.

In terms of colours, I’m throwing in all the fun bubblegum colours, because bubblegum colours. Yeah, it has purple and magentas, but I’m just gonna say that it’s all in the name of “passionate” colours.

OK time to flesh out the logo! Right at the start, I figured that this logo has a really cool full colour mode, but I also want it to have a single colour mode, and I felt that magenta brings it out better? I also noticed the Frolicon has queer friendly section, so it would be good to have a Pride edition logo. I’m stoked to be able to fit in all 11 colours from the inclusive pride flag. Added in the font choice last.

[nsw4133]

Rebranding #1: Frolicon

One day, I decided to scour the internet for really badly designed adult entertainment sites, and spin my own graphic design magic on it. I needed to practice anyways, so I might as well find a genre that I can’t do in real life. Well today, we have this case study here, Frolicon!

Here’s the before pic. At first glance, it has a poor colour contrast, mediocre font choice. But plus points for having an anime bondage girl mascot. Upon greater inspection, it has a messy website organisation. So what I aim to do with this fun rebranding is redo their logo, do some key event collateral mockups, and do a website mockup.