Self branding development

In the 1st year of university, I had created my self branding that was inspired by the Birchbox concept where you would be sent a box containing 5 surprise items. As I love surprises myself and like the enigmatic concept, I personalised it to me but over the years, the items in the box from 1st year didn't make any sense and I only did them as I didn't know what else to put inside of the box.

Now I am in my 3rd year, I have since developed in my design skills and decided to change the pattern. I still liked the idea of the 90s themed geometric pattern as I was born in the 90s. I developed the design by keeping it simple, using a white background colour but having a fun pattern that consisted of shapes to represent packaging or 3D design. I used mainly pastel colours as I wanted it to be easy on the eye but also use a range of colours to represent my personality.

My original self-branding design tried to use the 'She' part of my name so it seemed like an extension of who I am but it didn't work out too well. The branding looked confusing and it wasn't direct enough to make sense unless I explained the concept. So, I developed the idea by using a simple typeface that is a reflection of myself - I chose Six Caps, which is a sans serif typeface as I feel I am a sans serif person. The typeface isn't too bold but I felt it stood out enough to be easily legible as the stems are equally weighted throughout each letter. I had to readjust the tracking so it didn't look bunched together like it would without any changes. For the body text typeface, I have chosen Baskerville which is a serif as I thought it worked well against the Six Caps typeface and they balance each other out. I've always liked the Baskerville typeface as it is a classic serif type and it looks clean and is easily readable. I did use a serif typeface in my current website however, I don't feel that I am a serif person so this time, I have kept it for the body text instead.

I had chosen a yellow colour for my self-branding name as the name 'Huang' when pronounced in Chinese has a double meaning and is the same pronunciation as yellow. I feel that yellow is a lively and bold colour which again, would hopefully show my personality.

The 'She' in Shelley is more obvious than the previous branding design therefore it allows me to emphasise on who I am as a person and a designer for example, 'She is...', 'She can...', 'She will' etc...

As I've developed more as a person and a designer, choosing elements to be featured in the box was easier. Most of the items in the box have my pattern design or name included as it would hopefully allow the receiver to think of me whilst using my items.

My self-branding box includes:

• An A6 plain notebook
• A pencil featuring my name
• Mini packaging design
• Teabag 
• A card that shows the type of design I mainly do which also doubles up as a mini illustration poster.

The final outcome of my self-branding turned out better than I expected. I think the design and the elements inside the box really does reflect me as a person and as a designer.