Case Study: Brand Identity Design
Lunenburg Seaport
Overview
MindSentinel is a mental health tracking app that empowers individuals to live their lives by helping to prevent a relapse into depression. I was approached by the founder to develop a full brand identity. For this project, I brought Aleks from o2creative on board as my creative partner.
Strategic Solution
We guided the MindSentinel team through my Intensive Brand Story Workbook. We looked outward to define their ideal audience and to understand their competitive landscape.
We looked inward to uncover the heart of why they do what they do, how they do it and what makes them unique. This was distilled into a brand positioning statement and later, their tagline: Your mental health guardian.
Concept phase
The design phase kicked off with brainstorming the overall concept. This involved big nebulous mind maps to find the narrative angle, followed by moodboards to set the right tone. This was presented for approval in the form of a creative brief.
Sketchy, in a good way
Then it was time to crack open our sketchbooks (yes, kickin’ it old school!) to visually explore the big idea. We explored symbols around the idea of safety, guardians, heroes, and good mental health. All this before finally jumping on our computers to digitize and refine our logo drafts.
Refinement
The concepts were then presented on various mock-ups to show them in context. The concept around safety as represented by a lighthouse really resonated with all of us – a calm presence to keep you from danger, and to know you are not alone.
The chosen direction was further refined with a fine-tuned colour palette and customized typographic treatment.
Expanding and Finalizing
Various marketing collateral pieces were created including business cards, sell sheets, app interface & website mockups. All the final elements were collected into a hard cover brand guidelines book.
Working alongside great Dave and Veronica was an absolute joy! Their thoughtful and considered feedback was invaluable in defining a brand that we all felt proud of.
The MindSentinel ‘Visual Identity’ book arrived today. It looks fantastic! The hard work and care that you and Aleks put into this is so obvious and so appreciated. We feel so confident moving forward now that you have so perfectly defined what MindSentinel is.
