1. Design Brief
Idea Birmingham: Visual Identity
Prepared for: MA Design Management, Team Project Module
Prepared by: Monica He, Enid Chen, Sam Roberts, Laura Katriina Pollard of MA
Design Management, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City
University
Submission Date: 23rd January 2012

3. Contents
Section Title Page
Introduction 2
1. Project Description, audience and objectives 2
2. Graphic Design Intervention – your challenge 3
3. Graphic Design Style Guide 6
4. Key Dates and Deadlines 10
5. References 10
6. Contact Information 11

4. Introduction
Idea Birmingham is a university-business collaboration aiming to promote design-driven
innovation, drive emerging talent and promote growth within the midlands. We want you to take
this project and prove the subject of the brief Idea Birmingham correct, that emerging design
talent from this region’s universities is some of the best in the nation. We have left this brief
deliberately quite open for discussion, and whilst we’ve set out the type of graphic design we’d
like to see produced, we want to talk, see and hear what you think about how a graphic design
intervention can improve a project such as this.
We see Idea Birmingham as trying to make an impact to improve global awareness of
Birmingham as a centre for design-led innovation, they want to re-focus peoples' minds and eyes
onto Birmingham by exposing the innovation, talent and achievements in the area. The project
wants to champion the successes of wealth-generating businesses that exist in the region, and
highlight the emerging businesses centered around design.
1. Project Description, audience and objectives
Project name: Idea Birmingham
Project vision: “design disruption with purpose”
Project Aim: “Made in the Midlands: A creative competition bringing together leading business
brands and the best of the Midlands design and entrepreneurial talent to showcase radical new
design opportunities inspired by our distinctive culture for future commercial development”
Project type: Design event consisting Exposition, Awards, Fringe events, Design Guide.
Location: Birmingham, key locations including Mailbox.
Date: June 2012
2

5. Design Brief – Idea Birmingham
3
Key Personnel: Project Director (BCU Director of Employability)
Audience: A mix of commercial and consumer;
We’ve split the audience sector into major and minor so to show you priority:
Major sector: business interested in investing in the region, the design community, advocates and
policy makers in creative, cultural, educational, innovation sectors.
Minor sector: consumers engaged with design, students and researchers of design, design-driven
business.
Audience Values
Who are we talking to?
Businesses and practitioners involving design, design-savvy consumers
What do they read?
Design week, Creative review, Wallpaper, GRAFIK, Monocle, Guardian/Observer, Financial Times
How to Spend It.
What do they think? feel?
Birmingham’s potential is not realized, UK Business can find talent from its regional universities,
UK Business and UK Educational institutions can build growth through adding value by
innovation/design research.
What makes them tick?
Creativity, innovation, ideas, visual communications, cross-pollination of ideas, art-business
collaborations.
Objectives: 'Idea Birmingham, enterprising design excellence within the west midlands'
Single Minded Proposition:
‘Idea Birmingham; promoting generation, wealth and design driven innovation’
Idea Birmingham represents the heart of the West Midlands, as well as attracting business
investment interest, a priority of the project is to create a new perception of our region.
The project will bring together design and innovation driven businesses to create platform for

6. growth, wealth and networked collaboration.
The visual identity of idea Birmingham must support the project purpose but also display the
passion that we as a region have for design. It is through this passion that creatives and
businesses will be pulled to the Idea Birmingham event.
- The identity must create a personality of Idea Birmingham
- It should engage businesses & practitioners within design
Design Values & Objectives:
4
Birmingham and the West Midlands has a lot of negativity floating around, it’s no surprise from
the collapse of the manufacturing industry in recent decades and current economic recession.
The region and it’s people are sometimes described through these values:
Worst Accent - Stupid - Ignorable
Grey - Concrete - Decline
Old - Middle England - Motorway City
These values are a very poor reflection of who we really are, what we’ve achieved and where we
can go. Idea Birmingham wants to promote the real positives and real values we have:
Heavy Metal - Friendly people - Welcoming
Industrial might - Surprising - Solid
Resourceful - Talent - Innovative
We were the workshop of the country, but we have the capacity to change people’s perceptions
within this project. Consider what makes the west midlands, our heritage and history, what our
workshop looks like now? It's important for the region itself to recognise the talent it holds, many
people are unaware of the design sector in and around Birmingham. The event has to create

7. 'worth', 'value', so to speak to businesses, the visual identity will support this by being
consistently professional, clear and engaging.
Design Brief – Idea Birmingham
5
The Market place: the city as a centre for design-led business, culture, events.
This kind of event is sometimes known as a city design festival and is positioned within the
exhibitions market sector.
Idea Birmingham could be compared with Cardiff Design Festival www.cardiffdesignfestival.org -
which has awards, events for the city’s best design ‘thinkers’ and is supported by university and
business.
Internationally, cities compete for the title of World Design Capital and in 2012 Helsinki Finland
holds this title, there is a great deal of resources online which show how these design-led cities
have shown themselves to be at the top of this market. http://wdchelsinki2012.fi/en
2. Graphic Design Intervention – your challenge
We would like you to develop & produce the visual identity:
Produce concepts – develop at least 3 potential concepts, from which one will be
taken forward to a fully developed version.
Consider how the visual identity concepts can be applied to print media; choosing
suitable formats that are suited to the target audience and meet the project’s aims.
The Visual Identity
The Idea Birmingham project has already taken the first step and created a provisional
identity/logo that is attached to the brief. You could develop this initial identity further offering
improvements, or choose to produce entirely new identities. What’s important is that your

8. concepts meet the project business objectives.
Within this project we want you to focus on reviewing the identity itself. We want you to think
creatively and form strong ideas, initially formed through sketches and drafts.
We will help provide input on each design phase through discussion and hone down concepts
through critical analysis and evaluation, against the brief criteria.
Based upon your conclusions, we would like you to develop the visual identity in a way you see
fit, remember, changes in aesthetic will be expected to be supported by credible evidence.
Points to remember:
6
• The visual identity will dictate many of the design aesthetics, which will be implemented
within the print.
• The style guide attached will provide some scope on the direction you could potentially
take, we are not asking you to simply replicate the visual suggestions but have an
awareness and gather inspiration.
• The Idea Birmingham identity will be used across formats of print but also digital/social
media. Therefore it is important that the design is both flexible and applicable.
Printed media - examples
Idea Birmingham will publicise itself through promotional printed media as well as digital media.
As you will have developed a number of visual identity concepts, it would be beneficial to see
how it can be applied to a piece of print.
You could develop piece of print design or apply a chosen visual identity to a piece of print in situ.
Consider the following:
• Type/format – interesting formats include tabloid size newspapers, fold-out leaflets, point-of-
sale graphics, posters and tableau.

9. • Audience – will some of these only speak to a particular sector of the audience?
• Distribution – the type of print material may dictate how this can be distributed, think
Design Brief – Idea Birmingham
7
about possible outlets, methods, any packaging?
We have included a number of examples in the style guide.
The Print Material should (where suitable)
• communicate a sense of what the project is about
• Show sponsors involvement in the project,
• give a basic outline of the events surrounding the project
• provide contact information, linked with digital/social media outputs
Format:
We want you to decide how best your work will be presented, however if we can suggest the
following delivery of work,
Week 1: Draft designs: Mood boards, sketch storyboards and imagery to discuss initial ideas
Week 2: Interim Designs: to be discussed and agreed with you.
It may be useful to ‘test’ the concepts on the target audience, speaking with a potential
consumer of the Idea Birmingham project about your work can help you understand whether it
meets the brief’s objectives.
Week 3: Final Design: to be discussed and agreed with you, however it will be necessary to have
all work in electronic format so we can import it into our team presentation, which will mark the
end of the project.
3. Graphic Design Style Guide
Here are a few suggestions, as a starting point:
Colour
Birmingham has often been associated with Grey, Concrete, Modernist architecture – is there a

10. way to turn this on it’s head, and celebrate this colour, or, move away completely?
Consider how colour may effect the budget, for example, Mono-chrome or Duo-tone schemes
on printed materials can be effective, and keep costs low.
Layout
A good layout and visual identity can have: Balance, Contrast, Rhythm, Unity, Harmony.
Currently there is a good deal of text-based information about the project and not much original
artwork or imagery; the printed material you design is heavily text based or you source suitable
illustrations from emerging talent related to the project.
Changing size and form of text can help make an essential piece of text more novel and
fashionable.
Image quality and style
Consider the subject matter – design and innovation – and how this can be reflected in choice of
images, visuals, illustrations.
High-quality imagery can be found from the brands involved in the project.
In addition to the above, please see the pdf document ‘Newspaper_StyleGuide’ for further
information.
8

11. Design Brief – Idea Birmingham
9
Newspaper style promotional graphic layouts – a monochrome print on an off-pink paper, colour helps
distinguish to readers the paper the subject-matter is design related.
A fold-out newsprint type booklet (top)

12. A duo-tone newspaper type magazine uses large-scale graphics to fill a page opposite factual editorial
listings (below)
A poster layout for a tour celebrating a design innovator.
10

13. Design Brief – Idea Birmingham
11
4. Key Dates and Deadlines
Date time event
31 January 14.00-15.30 Project Briefing from MA design management students
2 or 3 Feb Tbc MA and BA teams meet: discuss and review Initial Design ideas
7 February 14.00 – 15.00 MA and BA Student teams meeting – interim review and critique
(location tbc)
14 February 14.00 – 15.00 MA and BA Student teams meeting – discuss final design work review
15 February tbc Hand-over graphic design work to MA Students
tbc tbc MA students issue presentation to BA students for feedback
21 February 14.00 – 16.00 Team Project Presentations (location tbc)
Lets discuss your timetable and schedule at the meeting, the above timetable is for discussion and
agreement.
5. References
http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine
http://www.100percentdesign.co.uk
http://www.artsthread.com
http://www.monocle.com
http://www.studio360.org
http://www.triennaledesignmuseum.it
http://www.triennale.org/it
http://www.clerkenwelldesignweek.com/
http://wdchelsinki2012.fi/en
http://www.dandad.org
http://www.wired.com
http://www.wallpaper.com/