Here's My Card

Photo from FeelGrafix. 

After acquainting ourselves with the finer points in InDesign in PR pubs last week, we began and submitted our first design assignment this week, a business card for a brand of our choosing. 

This assignment actually began last week, when we were instructed to make Pinterest boards for our chosen brand and competitor brands. I have always like the marketing of Air France, especially after their rebrand in 2015 when they updated their logo, produced new commercials, and published a new safety video which reflected the new brand focus. In addition, Air France changed its slogan to "France is in the air."  In addition, I am a francophile with a French minor, so I felt this was a good marriage of that passion and public relations. 

Once I had decided upon Air France as my brand for this project, I put together my Pinterest boards. One, of course, focused on Air France. I looked for as many of its publications and brand materials as possible, whether they be pictures from social media or passed branding. In the next board, I found branding from Air France's competitors, like Lufthansa, British Airways, Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, etc. With these two boards in mind, I began to form an image of what I wanted my business card to look like. 

Air France Logo from Solar Decathlon

In much of Air France's marketing, the company uses solid, bright colors and relies upon its main logo, the company name with the red wing graphic. A secondary logo is also used the hippocampe aillé, or winged seahorse, which has been an extensive part of the company's identity since its beginning. Its latest campaign depicts France almost in terms of chic stereotypes of French culture. For my initial design, I wanted the background to be a sky blue gradient. The main logo would be placed on the front side and a bled version of the winged seahorse logo on the back. The font needed to be a simple sans-serif to match other marketing materials. I also wanted to feature the company's slogan somewhere in the design. 

We began class Tuesday by setting up our InDesign document. I surfed the Internet to find high-resolution versions of the company's logos. I created blue gradients for the front and back. I then placed the main logo on the front in the upper right-hand corner of the card and the winged seahorse on the back, bleeding off the bottom left corner of the card. I then set up all my text boxes and putting in all the necessary text on the front, giving me an idea of where to place the text and which weights and sizes to implement. I initially wanted to use white in my text and the seahorse logo to evoke clouds in the sky. I placed the slogan on the back next to the winged seahorse. Class was over by the time I had my document set up. 

Wednesday, I worked on my project in my spare time. I found a font similar to the sans-serif used in marketing materials. I lined up my text in a logical manner, starting with a bold font for the name and using lighter fonts for position title and contact information. Heading the advice of my instructor, I did away with white in the design. Instead, I used Air France blue. I wasn't certain of how the gradient looked. I wanted to make it look like the sky, so I tried another gradient using pink orange to blue. When I had my business card basically designed, I stopped designing to get some feedback in the next class period. 

Front

Back

On Thursday, I began by asking my instructor his thoughts on my piece. He suggested using a solid color and rearranging my logos around. Working with that and thinking about the brand, I decided to do away with the gradient entirely and go with a plain white background to mimic the look of Air France's airplane livery. I also did away with the winged seahorse, since I couldn't find a natural way of incorporating it into the design. Instead, I substituted the seahorse with the design from the airplane tail fins. On the front, I changed the logo slightly, featuring the red wing across the front of the card and the "Air France" prominently close to the red wing. I wanted the red wing to take the eye to the contact information. After a little rearranging of the tail fin design and slogan on the back, I finally reached a satisfactory level with my project. 

I feel like this project was a successful first step into designing public relations publications. I am looking forward to our next project, the letterhead, which will be based on the business card.