M07-02 · AI + Creative Production & Design

Brand Identity Design and Systems

Teaches students to design complete brand identity systems from discovery through delivery. Covers brand discovery sessions, logo system design (primary, secondary, icon, wordmark, reversed, favicon), comprehensive color palettes, photography and illustration direction, moodboarding, and brand guidelines documentation. Includes design system architecture — tokens, variants, auto layout — and a code comprehension expansion so students understand how brand systems translate to CSS custom properties, design tokens, and web components consumed by developers.

30 Hours

7 Learning objectives

Evaluate Bloom's ceiling (?)

4 Competencies

What You'll Be Able To Do

Learning Objectives

Objectives

Depth

Conduct a structured brand discovery session that extracts client positioning, competitive differentiation, audience profiles, and aesthetic preferences Apply
Create a complete logo system including primary mark, secondary mark, wordmark, icon, reversed versions, and favicon at all required export formats (AI, EPS, SVG, PNG) Create
Design a comprehensive brand color palette with primary, secondary, accent, and semantic colors, specifying Pantone, CMYK, RGB, and HEX values for each Create
Build a brand guidelines document (20-30 pages) covering logo usage, color, typography, photography direction, graphic elements, application examples, and do's/don'ts Create
Construct a Figma design system with reusable components, variants, auto layout, and design tokens that developers can inspect via dev mode Create
Evaluate an existing brand identity for consistency gaps across touchpoints (web, print, social, product UI) and recommend corrections Evaluate
Apply moodboarding techniques to translate abstract brand attributes ("modern but approachable") into concrete visual directions supported by reference imagery Apply

Levels: Remember · Understand · Apply · Analyze · Evaluate · Create — highest demands most original thinking.

Core Competencies

What You'll Master

Brand Discovery & Strategy

Facilitating discovery sessions, synthesizing client input into actionable design direction, translating verbal brand attributes into visual language, researching competitive landscapes visually.

Logo System Design

Designing versatile logo systems with all required variations and formats, ensuring scalability from favicon to signage, applying clear space and usage rules.

Brand Guidelines Documentation

Producing comprehensive brand guides that enable consistent application by non-designers, specifying rules for every touchpoint with clear do's/don'ts.

Design System Architecture

Building Figma component libraries with tokens, variants, and auto layout that serve as single sources of truth for both designers and developers.

Portfolio Artifact

What You'll Build

Complete Brand Identity System — Student conducts a discovery session for a simulated client, then produces a full brand identity: logo system (all variations and formats), color palette (all color modes), typography system, moodboard, 3 application mockups (packaging, social, web), and a 20+ page brand guidelines document in InDesign. Includes a design token file (JSON) mapping brand values to CSS custom properties.

Tools You'll Use

Industry Tools, Not Toy Projects

Figma

Design systems, components, dev mode for building brand system architecture and developer handoff.

Adobe Illustrator

Logo and vector design production with multi-format export (AI, EPS, SVG, PNG).

Adobe InDesign

Multi-page brand guidelines document layout with master pages and professional typography.

Milanote

Visual moodboarding tool for organizing reference imagery and brand concept exploration.

Midjourney

AI image generation for concept exploration and visual direction development during brand discovery.

Fontjoy

AI-powered typography pairing tool for exploring typeface combinations and building type systems.