Course  ·  Part 5  ·  Assignment 8

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Guided Brief: Build a Brand Identity

Conduct Some Research

 Time limit: 2 hours

Remember to use your visual timer! We recommend the inventor’s iOS and Android apps — just search for “Time Timer” in the app store.

 

Explanation

In this assignment, you’ll conduct some research related to the design brief you just studied. We’ve included detailed instructions and tips to guide you.

Instructions

1

Research direct competitors

 Set your timer: 30 minutes

First, research direct competitors. A direct competitor is another business which offers the same service.

Using a search engine, identify some other online plant delivery services, and note down things like:

  • Brand name
  • Any prominent keywords, taglines, or slogans (for example, “Plants next day, or your money back!”)
  • How simple or complex it is to sign up or place an order
  • What typography they use in their branding
  • What colour palette they have
  • How they use photos or illustrations
  • How the brand writes or “sounds” (for example, “friendly”, “authoritative”, “concise”, etc.)
  • Your overall first impressions of their brand identity (for example, “established”, “fun”, “professional”, etc.)

Consider saving screenshots of competitors’ websites so that you have the option of including them in your report later.

Tech Tip

Here’s how to take a screenshot on different devices.

Mac: Hold down command shift 4. This will change your mouse pointer to crosshairs. Click and drag around the area you want to screenshot. By default, the image is saved to your Desktop.

PC: Hold down ⊞ windows shift S. This will change your mouse pointer to crosshairs. Click and drag around the area you want to screenshot. By default, the image is saved to the clipboard.

Alternatively, you can press the print screen key to capture the whole screen, or alt print screen to capture the active window.

iOS: Briefly press and hold the volume up and power buttons at the same time. If you see the “SOS” screen instead of your screenshot, you held them for too long! The image will be saved to your device.

Android: Press and hold the volume down and power buttons at the same time. The image will be saved to your device.

2

Research indirect competitors

 Set your timer: 30 minutes

Repeat the process from Step 1, but this time search for indirect competitors. An indirect competitor is another business that provides a different product or service, but which targets the same customers.

In this case, the most obvious indirect competitors are physical garden centres, and conventional online gardening stores (i.e. ones where you choose all the plants yourself, and place one-off orders rather than subscribing).

3

Research similar services

 Set your timer: 30 minutes

Repeat the process again, but this time search for similar services. In this case, look for online services that offer subscriptions to product deliveries — for example, meal kits, fruit and veg boxes, shaving kits, etc.

The purpose of researching similar services is to learn how those brands present themselves, and assess whether any of their ideas could help us.

4

Write a short summary of your research

 Set your timer: 20 minutes

Finally, write up a very rough summary of your research. Don’t spend more than 25 minutes on this. It doesn’t need to look good — we recommend just typing up some of your notes in a Google Doc, and pasting in a screenshot for each site.

5

Review the example solution

Once you’ve completed your work on this assignment, take a few minutes to review the example solution below.

Example solution

 

Coming soon!

We’re currently in soft launch, and this example solution will be added in the next few weeks.

Questions or comments? feedback@baselinehq.com

In conclusion...

Next up, let’s consider some options for the brand name.

Assignment version 1.0
Last updated 7 June 2021

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