This week, we looked at research and application and how this can be useful for branding. Of course, I am already quite familiar with research for projects and brands through writing my Notion, which our lecturer pointed out at the beginning of the class. However, researching for branding can be much more in-depth, with different types and approaches.

Contextual Research

Contextual research is an umbrella term for types of research that widen your understanding of an area of focus, such as the centre of a brand, target audience etc. Contextual research is one of the first steps of branding, helping to build an understanding using real world context. Some types of research that can include are:

• Case studies involves looking at different examples of a subject and evaluating their success, how they achieved it and what it is about. Your takeaways from this can be useful in the future for other projects, such as taking inspiration from a very successful brand’s approach to UX design.
• Project and user research is researching the project and target audience for a project to ensure a full understanding before working on branding. Researching the project can include subject area and topic; such as education, sustainability, banking etc. Furthermore, user research involves looking at the target audience. Research findings on audiences can be gathered using surveys, existing statistics, competitor analysis and more.
• Self reflection is essential to pair with research, as it allows designers to evaluate their thoughts, justify their decisions and fully evaluate what they’ve learned through the process.

Reflection

Reflection should be used throughout the entire process less of designing, not just during research. This is something that I have used during my previous projects and work, even within my weekly blogs. I can definitely understand why reflection is so valuable, as I can see how when I do so in my lesson write-ups for example, it helps me to break down different aspects of what I’ve covered and evaluate how I understood and how I will use it.

We will focus on reflection more heavily during our NILibraries branding project, with part of our deliverable including two 500 word reflections. One of these focuses on an aspect of branding that we found interesting, with the other focused on what we took from the module altogether.

Reflection of this type can indirectly answer questions, much like teaching back to someone. Reflections explain why something is interesting, the topic, both sides of arguments and more.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are where people come into contact with a brand, impacting how they perceive and use it and its products. Brands often have multiple touchponts, both physical and digital. These aren’t always positive; some brands may have negative touchpoints such as fast food brands of whose packaging is often seen on the streets.

We looked at an example of someone going to the cinema, and the different touchponts that someone may come into contact with during this process. This example was very useful to look as, as I would’ve only recognised two touchpoints; the website and the cinema itself. Although these are where the touchpoints are focused, the example we looked at had broken this down into five.

Types of Touchpoints

There are a wide range of types of touchpoints that brands can be use to connect with their audience. Some of these include:

• Motion
• Merch
• Stationery
• Environment