Brand Identity — Digital Futures

🎯 Learning Objectives

✓Create a consistent visual identity system (logo, colour palette, typography)
✓Apply brand guidelines to produce on-brand marketing materials
✓Evaluate a brand identity using professional design criteria

📚 Key Vocabulary

Brand identity

The visual system (logo, colours, fonts) that makes a brand instantly recognisable

Colour psychology

How colours create emotional associations — e.g. blue = trust, red = energy

Typography

The style, size and arrangement of text as a visual design element

Style guide

A document that defines how a brand should always be presented

Vector graphic

An image defined by mathematical paths — scalable without quality loss

⏱️ Lesson Timing (50 mins)

🪝

Hook

5 mins

Logo quiz: show 20 logos with company name hidden. Students identify them. How do they know? Discuss the power of colour, shape and consistency.

👨‍🏫

Teach

12 mins

•Brand identity vs. logo: the logo is just one element
•Colour psychology in famous brands: McDonald's red/yellow (hunger/energy), NHS blue (trust)
•Typography classes: serif (traditional), sans-serif (modern), display (character)
•The 60-30-10 colour rule: dominant, secondary, accent
•Style guides: why brands document every decision
•Canva Brand Kit: set colours, fonts, logo and apply across all materials

🛠️

Create

38 mins

Students create a brand identity for a fictional school tech startup of their choosing (e.g. an app for homework tracking, a revision tool, a gaming club). Deliverables: (1) Logo (Canva — simple, vector-style). (2) Brand colour palette with 3 colours justified using colour psychology. (3) Typography pair (heading + body font) with rationale. (4) One marketing material using the brand (social post, flyer or poster). (5) One-page "mini style guide" showing how the brand should be used.

Tools:

Canva

📢

5 mins

Brand reveal: each student shows their logo without the company name. Can classmates guess what the company does just from the visual identity?

🔧 Tools & Resources

Canva for Education

✅ Free

https://canva.com/education

🤖 AI Angle

Use Canva's AI features to explore colour combinations and suggest brand concepts — but the final design decisions must be yours and justified.

📝 Evidence of Learning

Logo + colour palette + typography pair + one marketing material + mini style guide

📚 Homework

Find a rebrand (a company that changed its logo) from the last 5 years. Research why they did it and whether it worked. Write a 200-word analysis using design vocabulary.

⏱️ 25 mins

♿ Differentiation

Support (for students who need help)

Limited palette choice (3 options per variable) to reduce decision paralysis

Extension (for advanced learners)

Create a complete campaign pack: logo + poster + social post + email header, all consistently branded.

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