Methembe Darikwa

Evaluation

The company I chose to rebrand was the korean record label Sm entertainment (star-muesum).
The company has a great reputation for producing some of the best korean boyband and girl
bands in the country; who have all become international icons not only in Asia but also Europe
and in America. The target demographic is mainly girls aged between 12-18, having a
socio ecominoc grouping of E-D, they would be living in large cities such as Seoul. The
reason why I chose this is because the logo didnt look right for what it was representing.
Instead it looked more like a fashion, makeup or a clothing brand than a record label.
The primary research was a success. I used questionaires to get quantative data and
mqualitive data. The majority of the particapants all said that the colour scheme needed
more improvement. As expected most of the people said that it was either a television
program or a fashion brand. The focus group went well and it was more successful than the
questionaire because i got more qualitve data and I got great responses from the particapants. I
strayed away from biased questions because i wanted it to be more objective. The feed back
did influence my designs as well as the research and images. It helped me pick the colour
choices as most of the feedback from both primary research methods stated that the . The
secondary research did have some influence as it provided me some history and the success of
the company.
My pre production was veryuseful. The font test was good because it helped me think about
which fiont would be suitable and I chose around ten potentail fonts as well as changing them
and picking new ones during the production phase. The mood board was the most effective tool
in decieding what The logo was going to look like I had ideas of making the letters sm leggato
as well as looking at past rebrands such as the new coke in the 80s which influnced the way I
conducted the research because it was failed re brand that didnt take caution during when the
researchers where carrying out the research.
The data I gathered from the research from the questionaires was intresting because most of
my hypotheises care me into forwhissing and in some cases it was the oppostite. When I asked
what type of brand this logo presented the most common answer was televison 26.1%
and surprisingly with only 21.7% record label, I orginally guessed that the particpants
would have picked fashion 21.7% or beauty and care 13%. This showed that the logo was
misleading and it needed to be stripped away from its fashion elements and it needed full scale
rebrand. When asked which element needed changing 68.2% of the particapants picked
the colour scheme, this can be reflected in the focus group. One of the particapants said
that the female demographic have moved on to more intresting colours such as yellow, red,
blue black and warm colours instead of the sterotyipcal pink. Using this information I used the

Methembe Darikwa

idea i decided to use neautral colours because they have some intresting combonations and
they attract both males and females. The reason why is because they have a secondary
auidence of males and I wanted the logo to interpollate both males and females.

At first I thought it was a bad rebrand because I felt that it wasnt good enough to be called a
successful rebrand. After hearing what my focus group, peers and tutor responses I felt like I
met the goal of rebranding the record label. They liked the buisness cards and the layout as well
as the elements on the card. The chosen logo was meet was good praise, the letter heads was
met with mixed reviews Some of them said that they prefered the black and white colour
scheme for the letter head because it looked more professional. The buisness card is where I
got the most praise because they liked the look of it. They were confused on the person who
appered was on the card. I kindly explained that he was the founder. The buisness card had a
website, the logo and the name written under the logo.
The success of it was well reviced by critics had mixed reviews, but they generally they had a
lot of postive feedback. For example they enjoyed the asthetic of the buisness card. They liked
how simple the colour choices are just by using black and white. There was the company
address, the founder, the website and the logo on it. Most of the logos I showed them had some
good critisim and there was only two that they liked. This was a success because the logos
attracted the auidence and it represented the company very well.
Over the unit i developed a lot skills such as using the pen tools, i was stretched to my limit
as i learned many tools such as the graident tool, threshold and guassian blur ect.. Before
starting the unit I was fimular with photoshop as I have used in the first year of level 3 as well as
level 2. I was encourgaed to think outsite of the box instead using the fonts as just the logo it
self, I stretched my imagination and had a go at tracing around inspirational images to add more
character to the logo. The designs started to improve as i added complicated methods along the
design such as using the opacity tool to decrease the transparency of a layer. There was a few

Methembe Darikwa

problems such as tracing around complicated shapes like the triangular based priyamad
because of the lines and adding colour to it as well as adding graident.
My final design commincates a lot of things. A powerhouse in the k-pop industry is one of
them. It communicates love and passion (the colour red), it communicates happniess (yelloCw,
this was a refference to one of theit artist Super junior happy) and vibrance and energuy
(orange). It interpollates both boys and girls due to the netraul colours.
The design does fit the original intention which is a record label instead of a fashion brand. It
does meet my original attention as it interpollates both boys and girls. The name of the company
is Star Muesam which and i incorprated it into my design. I stripped away the fashion brand
elements (the brush font and the colour pink) and replaced them with neautral colours
and a smooth typography. Personally I think this logo represents the company brand better. It
is fappropriate for the target auidence because it represents them and the company itself.
What I like about my final design is that it looks great on a buisness card and on the website
and its my favourite out of all the designs. I have used my favourite tools such as the elipises to
make the shapes. I like how the graident blends all the colours creating a smooth texture and a
dazzling contrast between the yellow, orange and red. I also learned about the masking tool
which allowed me to make realtisic images and shapes.
During the procesess I decided to make a few changes such as removing a lense flare I felt
that it was just too much for a logo and it didnt look pleasing to the eye. An Area for
improvement would be to combine both my chosen logo and a vinyl because I beleive that
would make a wonderful design and that it will communicate that its a record label and that they
are the future of k-pop as well as what the initial stands for.
There was another idea company I wanted to do was rebrand the monstercat logo but it didnt
really have any isssues with it, at first I thought it would be an intresting idea because its a
successful record label that started out on youtube and over six years it grew into a brand that
has over thirty artist and rebranding the company would bring them more mainstream appeal
and keeping the established fanbase intact and their principles. Another issue i found was that I
couldnt trace around people because of the position they would be in instead I would use the
threshold tool and maniuplate the images.