As a starting point for the research stage of studio Brief 01 an area that suggested its self was department stores and how they apply their branding to their frame fillers.
As you can see the minimal colour and smooth crisp edges create a clean cut image for the John Lewis Brand, the careful and considered use of space in the image above also suggests a controlled a stolid sensibility. The use of green stops it looking too harsh in its minimalist shapes which have very subtle flourishes such as the angled finishes to the stems of the L and J. These suggest a certain caligraphic origin to the design, brining together sensible and practicle mimimalism with something traditional and well aged. The gentle suggestion that the brand is old is done in such a way as to show the longevity of the brand and therefore its trust worthyness.
The smooth sans serif font continues throughout the website along with the green, black and white colour scheme. Hwever, gradients are used to soften this otherwise harsh look and the images of the products have a very traditional look to them, sticking with the continuety of the brand. This is done through the simple arrangement of products, for example, above you can see the photo frame page topper on which a number of different sized frames are hung on a wall; basic simple and clean cut with the green adding a touch of warmth. This warmth the green is adding comes from the connotations the colour provides, the natural summery links made subconciously by the audience adds to the brand identity.
By using negative rather than positive space the clean cut aspect of the brand is maintained because the eye of the audience reads the visual as if it were a single connected layer on top of the paper. The nuetral light brown used in this design once again follows the warm but controlled brand identity and the type only design ensures only smooth clean cut shapes are used.
The design runs throughout their range of photo frames with the only difference being the quotes found at the top of each design, these are an attempt to convey the emotional importance of the images to be placed within photo frames. The quotes are intended to evoke a certain reflectiveness which relates personaly to the customer, relating to the fact that they will become quite personal items. This is an interesting way to get around the problem caused by photographic frame fillers which attempt to capture generic emotional moments with their images but simply alienate the audience.
A theme that rns throughout the entire web site is the use of layers and negative space. If this prodject were to lead to creating frame fillers for John Lewis this could be and aesthetic starting point for the designs.
The House of Fraser is much more of a department store than John Lewis in that it is made up of many different brands being sold under one general name. As such its brand has to be incredibly general and over-arching in its connotations. Once again negative space is used to create the impression of a single shape rather than many indevidual letter forms makeing the brand seem clean cut and simple.
The brands that House of Fraser sell seem generally along the same lines aesthetically. For example, they all have nuetral greys as the backgrounds but in fact the brand identities vary greatly. Above the shabby chic brand plays off french ornate architecture in a simplistic manor capturing its essence and in so doing overlays its connotations of luxery and decadance.
Linea keeps a absolutely clean and uncluttered appearance which is to balance out the elegant and quite decorative font used for the brand name. This is done to add a sense of quality in a similar way to the John Lewis logo by suggesting caligrphic origins which in turn suggest connotations of handmade and therefore quality items.
The frames above have a definate look of the technologically angular in a way that feels a bit out dated. This could be because there is no place where the design softens but rather it continues to be sharpe and singy throughout the pictographic and typeographic aspects of the design. This approaches the suggestion of quality from the other end, with subtlty and quietness, creating the impression that real quality doesn't need to be shouted. Once again the background colour is a grey, be it a slightly darker one, this brings to mind the idea that a unifying design could be made for all house of fraser frames that was inspired by all the brands that they would be used for. However, so far this brief's research has mostly been on vector image or type frame filler designs so maybe more should be done on photo graphic designs.
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