Background
I spent my internship at a company called WarpVR, It's a company that combines 360 degrees video and virtual reality to make interactive trainining scenario's for various professional training purposes. One of the largest projects I worked on there was creating a brand book for them and helping them further define their brand identity along the way.
Introduction
As stated my task was not only to present the identity of the company in a comprehensive way but also help them define their identity. When I worked there the company was a 2 year old startup project of just over 10 people and it had started growing fast. The founders of the company had built a strong company culture and already had sense of identity. However up to this point they had not documented it, with the company growing they wanted to be able to communicate their identity clearly.
Briefing
I was asked to build a comprehensive brand identity guide for future employees and as a reference for internal and external use. Initially the project included a visual styleguide but the lead designer and I quickly concluded that the focus had to be on the identity of the company alone.
Components
I made a full list of potential components that could be included in the brand guide. I did this by collecting examples of brand books made for other companies. I discussed with the founders and other employees to find out what we would need to concisely communicate warp's brand identity. I also used my knowledge of branding to come up with components such as brand values, mission, vision, personality, tone of voice and target audience.
Collaboration and feedback
While I was working on the brand communication two of my colleagues were working one defining the brand identity itself.
We ended up combining our projects and discussing both the identity of Warp itself as well as the means to communicate it.
In this phase we had a lot of discussions and revisions and we started to approach a more solid view of the identity of the company.
All the while we made sure to keep the founders and our colleagues informed on our progress. We recieve a lot of feedback and this helped us create an image of the company in the minds of both founders and employees.
Versions
I designed numerous different versions of the brandbook and kept both a printed and website version of the brandbook.
Versions of the web and printed brandbook respectively
Presenting Results
We also presented our conclusions to the whole company.
Brandbook content as it was depicted in the presentation
Final book and Site
At the end of my internship I delivered a final version of the brand book in Book and Website form.
A few highlights of the final brandbook
The final landing page
Reflection
This project was both very challenging and very satisfying and I feel like I truly contributed in capturing the identity and culture of Warp as it was. I have learned a lot about branding, the startup world, collaborating with different disciplines and communicating complex information in a visual way.