Working website

Evaluation of HMV re-brand project

Why I chose to re-brand HMV and where they went wrong:
HMV is a popular games, music and electronics retailer that has become progressively worse over the years, especially with their branding. Their logo went from bad to worse, losing the dog with a gramophone that gave them their name. Their logo is now just the plain pink text, HMV. This is part of their branding failure. Also, their website is dominated by the first banner, and then laid out in a way that is without any design and looks plain. When designing my logo and website for HMV, I decided to go completely against this, and have a more complicated logo and a site that makes sense and where all features are equal, rather than one taking over the whole website.

<- Before                                   After ->

What, why and how I did each stage of the project:
Ideas generation and sketching out designs:
I looked on the internet for inspiration of digital retailer re-brands and combined them with some of my own ideas on a mind map. I used other re-branding companies for examples of how they re-branded various companies. I started with rough ideas for the designs then put the ones I preferred in more detail.

Mock ups:
I made a template design for the lava lamp style, which had been voted as the best of my designs. I made it in four different colour schemes to see which ones worked best, as well as testing different sized bubbles. I liked the blue/green colour scheme and the fewer bubbles design so I combined them for the final logo.

Studio and location photography:
All photos are computer generated or sourced from HMV website.

Edit/photoshop process of making poster:
Step-by-step of designs can be found further down on the blog.

All strengths and weaknesses of the project:
Ideas generation and creativity:
I liked my selection of ideas. I had quite a lot of designs that are only slightly related to the HMV logo. I could have created a few more logos that were not as complicated so that the final design might have worked out better.

Appropriate to target audience and company:
I think the design is good for the target audience as it has a good colour scheme but it could be better related to new technology such as touch screens, consoles and computers rather than a lava lamp.

Mock up:
The mock went well. It helped me choose the correct colour scheme and design and was easy to transfer onto the computer for my final design, but it would have helped if I had made another mock up with the combination of colour scheme and design.

Photographs:
None taken.

Photoshop process of making final designs:
The photoshop process was quite easy. I copied the design through and then photoshopped it together. The logo took a bit of experimenting to get the lava lamp design which could have worked better if I had found tutorials on lava lamp effects online, but unfortunately I found none. The website was easier to create but started off looking too bright, so I changed the colour scheme so that the site is easier to look at, and is more attractive than blinding.

Designs used practically:

This design worked well, but the website was square rather than widescreen so I had to stretch it slightly to fit onto the monitor.


Overall:

The designs are suitable for the target audience of teenagers to middle-aged people. It is good for the whole range of people that HMV is aimed at because of the subtle colour scheme and lava lamp theme.
The designs match the brief well. It is aimed at the right audience and contains a high quality logo and new website design.
It is an interesting and creative design and is hooking to the buyer.
There were no technical issues affecting the final project.
The designs show that HMV is a upbeat company that is good for all ages, though primarily teenagers.

HMV final website design

Final HMV rebranded logo & step-by-step

I started by putting the largest of my paper designs onto photoshop so that I had a good template for the text. I went over the outline with a black brush. I the put a dark blue border on the logo, then a light blue background on the letter. I went back to the layer with the picture and used the quick selection tool to take the bubbles through. I went over the outlines of the bubbles with dark green, then used light green for the centre. I used the blur tool to make the design have a good gradient and not look very obviously photoshoped. I went to the background layer and put a dark border around the bubbles and blurred it again. Finally, I used the burn tool on the whole letter to make it a more realistic lava lamp colour. I repeated this on the other two letters to get my final HMV rebranded logo.

Variations of main idea

 My first design was greyscale (black and white). I liked the tone of this design but the lack of colour would not attract a very big audience. It would attract people who liked older logo designs before they were made in colour.

My second design is orange, yellow and red. The fiery colours would attract a teenage audience but might make other customers not want to go to HMV anymore. Because it would attract a certain audience but repel others, I decided not to use this design.

My third design was green. The green could be related to a calming mood or the Xbox company. This would attract a lot of younger people which matches the HMV target audience however green can also be associated with sickness if in a large quantity, which the design is. I have also chosen not to use this design.

My fourth design was blue with  green bubbles. Both green and blue are calming colours and because the green is in a small amount, it would not be associated with sickness. Both of the colours are used by major games console companies such as Xbox and PlayStation an would therefore be good for a games retail company. This is the design I will use as it attracts a much wider target audience, would not repel anyone and it links in with the major console companies that are around at the moment.

Ideas mind map & base design

Above - mind map of ideas

The base design for my remade HMV logo is a wavy lettering of HMV. From my mind map, I took the lava lamp style design and made it in a wavy text pattern, as an improvement suggested by friends. The text ended up covering 2 pages, so it will be a long rectangular logo rather than a square one. My inspiration for the lava lamp design was a HMV rebrand that used neon lights to create the letters. I used this to come up with making the letters out of something else and saw another rebrand where there were lava lamps in the background. I combined the ideas to get what I now have.

Company i'm re-branding

I have chosen to re-brand HMV as the logo is too simple an does not tell you anything about the company itself. HMV sells a lot of electrical items, from headphones to speakers, games to consoles. Their target audience is mainly gamers, but can reach to musicians, music lovers or people who like to play the odd game with their family. They do not currently have any advertising, but they could put adverts on TV, radio, the internet, in-game, or on billboards.