Case Study of Designing “Logo”, “Ebook Cover”, “Website”, for Credit Repairing Client.
Overview
The project includes designing a logo, ebook cover, and website for a credit repairing service providing company. The company held the contest for all these three tasks, with a prize of 1000$. The project itself is challenging, for everyone. Many dedicated their work to one profession like if some are good at logo design then it is hard to make him shift on ebook design and vice versa. Whereas website design is totally different from both of them.
It is a great experience to work on this project, as this is a contest and as I am uploading this case study I don't know who is the winner, but love to share my workflow with you.
The Problem
Basically, these are three separate work folios, each task requires a different set of skills, tools, and designer persona to work on it. As the client requires this has to be the same person. The client stated that initially it was considered to post three different contests for each, but it will not create harmony in the whole process and design.
Many websites or UI/UX designers do not have experience in designing Ebook covers, and many logo designers do not have experience in designing the whole website, UI/UX journey, and Ebook design.
Time was also short for me when I personally saw this contest, I could only get 5 days to complete these three tasks.
Also, the wide & large user persona of the design makes it impossible to finalize the key element set and conclude the design quickly.
The Objectives
There are three main objectives or tasks completed in this project
- Design Minimalistic logo for website and company that will show company persona and growth & success of the user.
- Design an Ebook that showcases the great & popular American culture & history appealing to users to buy the ebook from the website.
- Design a Website that allows users to buy the ebook, user onboarding for credit repair, and financial assistant.
Client
The name of the client is “Empire Financial Strategies”. A credit repair company aimed at those who want to build their empire! Help to raise your “score” or dispute negative items. Work with customers to help them achieve their life and business goals using credit as an asset!!
Project Background
This is an open contest posted on the freelancing website Freelancer.com with the name “Build me logo Website and Ebook Cover for my business”. The total prize money for the contest is 1000$. There are around 800+ entries submitted by an equal number of freelancers. The client asked for original work and required three different tasks completed by the freelancer.
Process & insights
Logo Design
Research and survey
The client asked for a minimal concept for the logo and looked for some serious logo with some city skyline or bank building structure, company name, and company not embedded in the logo. The same logo must respond to all designs including, printing, website, mobile, business card, letterhead, and so on. The logo should be easily converted into a monochromatic tone if required. Online resources like Pinterest, Behance, Canvas, Dribble, and other visual inspiration websites are visited for inspiration.
Workflow
Rundown with all the existing credit repairing service provider’s websites for their logs and user persona understanding.
Primary logo design included city skyline with a famous skyscraper of America including world trade center, empire state building, a statue of liberty, and others.
Keywords selected for representation are “Rise”, “High”, “Above”, “Horizon”, and “American financial legacy”.
The final work includes five geometric elements,
A full circle on a background representing the sunrise, and the rise of the empire.
Rectangular building block with the triangular top representing the high and rise of the empire of clients’ users.
Rectangular building block on both sides with the right angle triangle top supporting the main building block representing the support of empire financial strategies to the users.
Rectangular building block on both sides with the quarter circle top supporting the adjusted building block representing the flexibility and personalized policy support of empire financial strategies to the users.
Name of company “Empire Financial Strategies” as the base of the whole geometric structure and base of users financial empire.
1–8000 No of the company as the client asked, showcasing the 24/7 online support of the Empire Financial Strategies at each moment to the user.
The geometric shape of the circle resembles the rise of the sun whereas the building structure can be seen creating a 3d visual perspective to the user.
The colors scheme is inspired by the National Flag of America using red, white, and blue. Typography is kept simple so that it will be easily fetched by all types of devices.
Tools & Resources
All the tools used in this are open source
Inkscape, Figma, Google Fonts, Awwwards.com, Pinterest
Final Work
Ebook Design
Research and survey
Clients asked to design the book cover that showcases the great & popular culture of America in a single illustration which is a big challenge for me as a web designer. For the research session, I have gone through various online book stores for inspiration first in the financial genre and then the art & history genre of the store.
The cover must be original work and appeal to users to purchase the book from the official website of Empire Financial Strategies.
Workflow
Collect info regarding what is put on the Ebook cover.
The initial design I concluded is to go with portraits of all American Presidents so far on the ebook cover.
(As every president is dominated by American finance, as well as the culture of America from Mr. George Washington to Mr. Joe Biden, every person, has marked their style and uniqueness on the history of America.)
The first draft is made with a collection of American presidents from Wikipedia source for images and illustration. (As all the images look open source but might have some copyright issues so it is omitted)
The second draft’s initial sketch is created by myself. This draft is made to give some artist feeling to the ebook cover so that it will apply to the users.
For the third draft, I consider being more dramatic. It contains all the 46 president caricatures while only the dressing style and hairstyle can be spotted.
(as every president has unique hair and dressing style including their color. But I considered showing them all young with black hair.
In the fourth draft, I created a caricature of more artists applying black skin tone to 23 presidents.
This is because American culture could not be completed without noticing the black movement and their contribution to freedom and making America great can not be easily covered with only one black president ie. Mr. Barack Obama.
Many previous presidents already advocate the liberty and status of equality to all men and women regarding their color and race.
For the final draft, I have added the name of the book “From Broke 2 Boss: Earn your Empire” as the client asked, then presented the company logo on the top and the company website link at the bottom so that users can easily notice it. As the client wants to buy this book by the user from the official source ie. www.empirefinancialstrategies.com
The colors scheme is inspired by the National Flag of America using red, white, and blue. Typography is kept simple so that it will be easily fetched by all types of devices.
Tools & Resources
All the tools used in this are open source, Inkscape, Figma, Google Fonts,
Final Work
Web Design
Research and survey
Research is conducted through visiting various credit repairing service providers for user flow and a deep understanding of clients' user persona. There are more than 50+ service providers in the market thus the website should be unique and convey the message. Visiting websites include the web-flow, WordPress, awwwards, canvas, Pinterest, and various credit blogs.
Workflow
In the first draft, two choices are going with the one-page website or a multi-page website, I decided to go with a multi-page website because one page is not capable of presenting the client's personality and work.
In the second draft, the following pages are concluded to add on header navigation ie. Homepage, About us, Services, Ebook, Contact, Log In. Header navigation includes Call CTA for quick user connection.
In the third step pages and submitted with the following sections.
The fourth step includes a collection of images and illustrations for graphics for the website, this should be open source so that the client does not have to pay another charge for this.
The following list showcases the images collected from open source.
Other icons and including images are contributed using Figma PlugIn called Iconify and Unplash.
Icons are modified as required and other Unsplash images can easily be found on the company official page.
Typography is kept minimal ie. Google Font Type “Roboto” so that it could be easily accessed by every device and can be responsive to.
The color scheme is also inspired by the National Flag of America as shown below.
Tool & Resources
All the tools used in this are open source, Inkscape, Figma, Google Fonts, Pexel.com, Pixabay.com, Unplash.com
Final Work
Final Word
This is another project that makes me push my working boundary. Starting as a career as a UI/UX designer to a graphics designer, this project is perfect for me. Designing logos, ebook covers and websites took me 7 days of working.
It is not clear who is the winner of the contest but if you want to see who is then you can visit with the following link. https://www.freelancer.in/contest/Build-me-a-logo-Website-and-Ebook-Cover-for-my-business-1970214?w=f&ngsw-bypass=
See you in the next case study.
