Within our first class of IXD103 Daniel gave us our first project brief and it was to create a modern banking company with the target audience being 16-25 year olds (students) and that to help start off our research we would begin by creating a user persona and empathy map for our target audience and that these pieces of research will give us an understanding of our audience. I had never created either of these before but Daniel explained that a user persona is simply an overview of a fictional person that is within your target audience who you can base your research off. A user persona is created by speaking to people who fall within your target audience and combing different pieces of your research to create a user persona that will give you and overall idea that you can aim your work for. An empathy map is made up of 6 sections which are think and feel, see, hear, say and do, pains and lastly gains. It is a visual tool that allows for you to gain a better understanding of your target audience and gives you a detailed insight within our targeted audience. When creating these we had certain factors that we needed to keep in mind such as gender, age, geographical location, employment status as well as types of employment they are looking into, social class/status, the effect the pandemic, payment choices i.e. cash, cheque, straight into account and many more. Each factor contributed to our research as well as changed our outlook on our research and it was important to keep in mind that every persons banking experience is different and has been influenced by many different factors.

This first piece of research was really helpful and was a great way to start us of in user research. I was able to build these documents off research I had conducted when Daniel had given us time to go conduct some user research on our new project.During this time a group of us went out to conduct some research in the banks near the University. We went into different banks such as HSBC, Santander, Nationwide and more and we were able to get leaflets and information from these banks and the people within were more than happy to help. I then went asked certain people who looked around 16-25 year olds (our target audience) and asked them if they would be happy to answer a few questions on their banking choices for research purposes for my project. I reassured them that I wouldn’t be asking any personal information and most of them were happy to help and I then just asked them so basic questions such as “Do you have accounts with more than one bank company, if so, why?” “Do you feel like you are getting the most out of your bank experience?” “As a student, do you feel that your current bank/s are helping you in terms of being a student for example helping you with student loans, how to budget money and if they offer student accounts which has helpful features to aid students within University?”. There was a good mix of feedback I received but the overall pattern I found was that as students they feel too busy to go to physical banks and wish that they were able to control all accounts within one bank company from their phone. A few people explain that this is the case for them as they use modern banking apps such as Monzo and Revolt however this was only a small minority of people. The majority of people I spoke to knew what Monzo and Revolt were but refrained from opening accounts with them as they shared their anxiety of trying to switch accounts as the stress that comes with it and the fear that they could lose money throughout the process.

Further Research

I felt as though I had gathered enough face-to-face research and so I then went back to class and then set up a survey through surveymonkey and used the same questions I had previously used to gather further user research and once it was created I left it for 1 hour and afterwards gathered together all the information and sorted it all out to give me a clear visual of what people struggle with in terms of their banking and what they want to gain from banking and this is the research I began to work off. Through my research I found that students feel as though they don’t have enough time in their busy schedule to go into banks to deposit money or resolve other issues, they may have and prefer to be able to look after their accounts on their phones as they find their phones easy to use and since they always have them, they can access their accounts at anytime and transfer or pay money across accounts and businesses. After my research I felt happy enough to continue in creating my brand as I had a clear understanding of the issues students face with banking these days and understood that they wish that their banking experience was simple and secure and could be accessed 24/7.

Brand Values

Our next task within our project was to define 5 values that for your brand and I firstly done some research on values and what they mean to a brand I found a quote from the website Brandfolder which explain values as the company’s core beliefs and what your brand stand for. They go on further to explain that brand values are “the compass that guides your brand story, actions, behaviours, and decision-making process.”(1) After a lot of research into different values that I would love for my brand to encompass I was able to narrow it down to five wit the first being Diversity and I chose this value because I believe it is an important value in any successful brand and in today’s society a diverse brand allows for you to reach further audiences because it allows for your brand to cater to everyone in terms of all languages available to use as well as all currency can be used. For young people, diversity is extremely important as we have grown up learning to accept all and never to discriminate and I believe that this idea should be applied to all brands. The next value I chose was for my brand to be customer-focused because customers are an integral part of any successful brand and they are who we are creating for and they should always be the brand’s focus. Since we have been given the target audience age range which is 16-25 year olds I feel that I need to be very customer-focused since I will be creating a brand that is suitable for younger people and I need to have an extremely good understanding of what they are looking for from this banking brand. Following on, the next value I picked was sustainability because with the current climate crisis ongoing, sustainability should be a key value in all brands as they set an example for their customers. For my brand, since it is an online banking app, it could have the option of going paperless which will help cut down own carbon footprint as well as help with deforestation. The issue of deforestation has been ongoing for years but only now are we seeing how dangerous it is and it has been reported that it is the second biggest cause of climate change. Amazon Conservation have said that deforestation has “rose by 21 percent in 2020, a loss the size of Israel”(2) which is frightening to think about and that why I believe my brand should have sustainability as one of its key values and it should play its part in trying to protect our world. The next value I chose was creativity because this value will help my brand to stand out and the more creative ad suited it is to your target audience, the more likely they will engage with your product and overall, it is an extremely important value to have as a brand. For my fifth and final value for my brand I chose trustworthiness because I believe that customers will only be willing to work with new brands if they believe the brand is trustworthy and honest and they feel that like the brand provides them with a sense of security and this is vital for my brand since it would be trusted to protect our customers money. I feel like the values I chose for my brand are important and helpful and I feel like if I can build my modern banking brand off these five foundations I will have a successful and engaging brand that the customers will love.

Naming my brand

Daniel then gave us our next task which was to create a name for our brand which would simultaneously be an enjoyable but difficult task. I began by writing down a few in my notebook such as Rely and River and even the name Allani with the slogan A students Allani for banking. However, none of these were truly standing out to me as great names and I was becoming extremely frustrated but once I was in class with my peers I found that we began bouncing ideas off each other and I actually found it a lot easier to come up with names and was able to note down a few new ones which I had more confidence in such as Botanical Banking and Solstice Savings.

After generating a few more names I had two that I really liked, the first name is Athena Accounting and it's based of Greek Mythology (one of my favourite topics) as I have done a lot of research into these myths and lores and my knowledge of Athena being the Goddess of wisdom and knowledge would relate heavily to banking as you want to be able to place your money into a company that has an extensive amount of knowledge in how to keep your money safe and how to help it grow as well as improving your knowledge on finance. Athena was seen as a very intelligent and respectable God and I liked this aesthetic and it could be applied to my brand as the simplistic and minimalistic aesthetic would fit perfectly for my target audience as it would include a clean and simple colour theme and design. The name also uses alliteration of the letter A and overall invokes the feelings of sophistication which want I want my brand to do. Although, I really liked the name I ran into a few issues with Daniel pointing out that although it makes sense to me since I understand Greek Mythology and know what Athena is known for, most people won’t and therefore that idea of knowledge, wisdom and security is not present for them and we want to avoid this as much as possible.

The second name is Antlers Accounting and this name stems from my love of stags and the strong symbolism that follows the stag. Since I was young I have memories of me attending hunts with my family where they would try and catch stags with the dogs barking while at the hooves of the horses and you could hear the shouts of the people when they caught a glimpse of something running away. In one particular case we were at a hunt and we saw the beautiful stag with it’s huge antlers at the edge of the forest and this image is burned into my mind as I will never forget the feeling of awe that engulfed me as I was looking at the strength the antlers possessed and the taken aback by how huge they were. Growing up I have been surrounded with paintings and decor and symbols of stags as my mum too shares a love for them and it it was part of my inspiration when creating this name as I was at home and had been admiring the pieces of artwork that we have surrounding stags and their antlers. Another big influence I had when creating this name was with my new job as a tour guide within the Game Of Thrones studio tour where I am surrounded by a lot of props and piece of work from the show especially costumes and jewellery. The House of Baratheon’s design is one of my favourite because as you can guess their sigil is surrounding the stag and within their crowns, broaches, armour and costumes, the stag’s antlers are repeatedly used. The colours used on these pieces of work such as gold, black and blue help emphasis how powerful the house of Baratheon was and the continual use of antlers shows how they would never back down from a fight. I loved the idea of using a antlers as my brand because they symbolism maturity which ties in perfectly with my target audience as they are students who are constantly maturing into adults and they need a trustworthy and secure banking company that can help guide them throughout these times. The imagery of antlers shows them branching off which can symbolism how in later years this banking business can branch off into not only student banking, but loans, mortgages, everyday accounts and much more. The image of the antlers also visualise the idea of this company protecting your finances and information like how stags protect their families with the use of their huge and strong antlers. I had always loved the elegance and sophistication that is thought of when a stag is seen and I wanted to place these ideas into my brand and I believe using the imagery of antlers encapsulates what I am looking for my brand to express. After a lot of research and thought I have decided to go with the name Antler Accounting as I believe that the use of use of symbolism is strong and it encompasses my 5 values that I want to build my brand on.

Creating a Wordmark, Logomark and Monogram