Iron Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design · 2020
Occasional Motto Visual Identity
by Zhenqi Ji
- A' Design Award 2020 Iron Winner in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Awarded April 15, 2020
- CLIENT: Occasional Motto
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 11,642
- Verification code 30BCE5D8F0 · Verify this award
About Occasional Motto Visual Identity
The visual idendity of “Occasional Motto” was built based on the literal meaning of the company name, and extracted the essence of telling different experiences to people. The identity has several key colors, a typographic logo, and multiple illustrations which plays with a modern, and warm image that making each product unique, but cohesive with different contexts.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Inspired by the idea of memorizing little yet valued life moments. “Occasional Motto” is established since 2018, as an independent stationery atelier inside Irvine, a beautiful city located in Orange County, California. The identity was built with the name of the company, but a series of accompanying elements were created, such as the icon, seal and illustrations, each one of them playing a key role in the brand collaterals, giving the end result of a warm, clean and modern touch.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Dimension is 220 mm x 110 mm for the envelope to hold the invoice. The material is surfaced enhanced white wove paper.
- Tags
- branding, design, logotype, modern, stylish
- Design Challenge
- It is rather hard to create a brand system based on a long company name like "Occasional Motto" since it is not easy to come up with a memory point for consumers at just one glimpse when they are browsing thousands of products at the same time. To help the company earn more attention under the online shopping occasion, the core idea is to make the branding collaterals look different yet convey the core value in a unique and eye-catching way. The results of the brand research that took earlier before the design process showed that about 85 percent of the stationery products on online merchants have a price tag under 10 dollars, and 95 percent of them priced under 5 dollars. This shows that the price is really what customers care about the most when they consider purchasing products under this category, whether it is a notebook or a pencil case. Therefore, it is quite essential to bring Occasional Motto some unique features so that it doesn't have to compete for the price with other cheap and relatively low-quality wholesale products.
- Project Duration
- The project started in August 2019 in Irvine, CA
- Operation Flow
- We created 3 key illustrations based on this brand identity: Hands holding pens; hands holding polaroid films, and hands surrounding notebooks. These 3 illustrations help the brand convey their most important products: notebooks and a polaroid film album in an exquisite and elegant way.
- Research
- There are approximately 220 stationery brands on Etsy, which is the main online merchandise website that Occasional Motto sells its products. Among all these brands, only a few of them have their own brand system since most of these brands just sell products directly from the factory without any brand customization. We consider this as a result of the low-price competition under this category. With that being said, most customers could only get uncharacteristic products, even when they pay an above-average price for them.
- Inspiration
- We are inspired by the company name and idea that it encourages people to record each valuable memories in their life with the company's products, whether it's a notebook or a polaroid photo album so that consumers are connected between their memories and the current moment. Hence, we decided to do a ligature on the letter "a" and "l" in the company name, which ultimately becomes the major memory point of the entire branding.
Colors of Occasional Motto Visual Identity
Design Interview about Occasional Motto Visual Identity
I've been working with the company for on-going products' packaging design, therefore it will be a long-term collaboration.
Approximately 3 weeks.
Yes, Occasional Motto is being used already by the company.
I know the founder of the company very well personally, and we've worked on multiple projects before. So, when he mentioned that he was about to founding a stationery studio and asked me to design a brand identity for him, I accept the offer with no hesitation.
Nod Young from the A Black Cover Design
College students and people who works in art-related professions.
The unity of the design throughout the arrangement of the texts and illustration, and the refarain use of decorative design languages, Occasional Motto's brand identity shows a distinct and unique appearance among similar products.
Occasional Motto is the company's name.
Adobe Illustrator and photoshop.
The unity of the design throughout the arrangement of the texts and illustration, and the refrain use of decorative design languages, Occasional Motto's brand identity shows a distinct and unique appearance among similar products.
No I worked on the design on my own.
Yes and no. I did research a lot before starting the project, mostly on other stationery products, which is a vital part of the brand design process, the competing-products research. But I will not say my design is influenced by the data or the research, the research is just a supplementary tool, but not necessarily a decisive approach.
The design process of the Occasional Motto was very smooth. Because I know the funder of the company personally very well and had worked for him on multiple design projects before so I kind of know his personal tastes and fondness.
I just want to see how experienced professionals view my works as designer.
Communicating with my clients and see what they like and what they don't of the work.