Exploring Brand Design Using Popular Transmedia Franchises and Characters

Project Brief

After a series of lectures and reflections on media franchising, branding practices and transmedia franchise characters — characters that anchor multi-media franchises such as Spongebob Squarepants, Harry Potter or Batman — students are asked to A) Create a set of brand standards for a transmedia character of their choice as the ‘brand,’ B) Follow a different student's brand standards to create an original packaging design, C) evaluate the relative success of their original brand standards based on what the other student created.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and reflect on academic writings about both branding and transmedia studies
• Understand the components that contribute to a brand platform; Apply this knowledge to create a brand standards brief
• Create original designs within brand standards
• Practice presenting design concepts
• Evaluate the effectiveness of brand standards

Deliverables

• Short Reflections on Readings
• Brand Standards One-Sheet
• Package Design
• SWOT Analysis of Standards

Readings/Resources

• Academic articles in the area of transmedia / franchise studies and branding
• Media sources including movies, television episodes, cartoons, comic books and video games

(Too numerous to list all)

Reflections

Everyone consumes popular media — movies, television shows, comics, video games, books, merchandise — in one form or another. Portraying transmedia franchises and characters as brands gives students a fresh perspective from which to articulate brand information beyond the typical combination of logo, color palette and typeface. Brand voice, personality and values are much clearer when they come from a character. Allowing students to choose the character they work with gave them greater investment and made the project a more rewarding experience. Every student ended up doing more research than they might otherwise have done, simply because they were enjoying themselves.

“It was cool to see how someone else would design based upon (the standards I created), to see what works, what doesn’t, what is helpful, what is not, and to look at what is too limiting but just limiting enough. I think I have grown a little bit as a designer from this.”

“Seeing the design in action helped me spot areas where my guide is strong and areas where I can tighten things up.”

“I truly enjoyed the freedom we had to choose a character that we enjoy … This was a fun assignment.”