These Design Briefs are specifically designed to test your skills in Branding, UI/UX, Logo, and other forms of design. These design projects will include various design forms, but they all have the same general spine. The Additional Design Projects for each Design Brief will also include some unique design requests that will require some of your focus.
DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THESE COMPANIES ARE FAKE AND ONLY BEING USED AS EXAMPLES. Calling another company “competition” is for comparison use only.
Project One: Towster
Towster is a company that creates ease for roadside assistance. Think Uber, but for tow trucks. Clients will use the app to find tow trucks when their car breaks down (or needs other services) in a user friendly way that explains pricing, availability and user ratings for all the nearby tow trucks. Clients will pay for towing services directly through the app, protecting them from “cash only” tow truck ripoffs. As a towing business owner, you will use the app and accompanying online dashboard to see all the trucks in your fleet and manage them with streaming live data. The ideal design will be a very open market, so we need a designer who can cast a really wide net for branding.
Additional Design Projects
We will need to sell this idea to a lot of tow truck companies, so presentations, print collateral, infographics and pitch videos MUST be amazing. We will need the designer to go above and beyond in these areas. We will be exhibiting at trade-shows/exhibitions as well, so we will need some really cool booth designs & swag!
Designs We Like
We like clever logos, clean and simple. We think that a clever logo with a play on words would work best for a wide audience.
Our Competition
Our current competition is a company called Urgently, who we will be taking on directly. We think with a fresher brand and some powerful marketing we could corner this market.
Project Two: Blackhat
We at Blackhat aim to keep your credit and personal data safe and secure. What we do is scour the web 24/7 for your personal information, and when we find it we capture it and notify you. If you give us permission, we to on the offensive for you by digitally redacting the information, or deleting it where possible. Lot’s of identity thieves and other nefarious creatures use things like your email, phone number, social security information (or just about anything else) to ruin your credit, or even open accounts for themselves in your name. We envision a world where YOU control your online footprint. We need a designer who can give our company a sleek and attractive brand, with an emphasis on security and safety.
Additional Design Projects
Since we are all about eSecurity, we want our online marketing to be absolutely tops. We will be aggressively chasing animated/interactive content to both sell the idea of what we do to large firms, but we will need a lot of social media stuff to bring in independent clients. Our designer had better be good with banners, animation, short videos, interactive content… the works!
Designs We Like
Since most of our users are between 20 and 40, we feel it’s a good idea to approach our branding from place of maturity. We really like the “redacted” feel, but we aren’t against new ideas.
Our Competition
Our biggest competitor is Lifelock. We think that if we build an even easier to use interface and competitive price model, we can become even bigger. We want to play on the same feel as these guys!
Project Three: Spex
We are a startup that focuses on all things PC. We help our customers build their own rigs, and we will sell directly to the customers with a one click buy and ship of a “rig in a box”. We want to have a very approachable branding that tells our clients that we are trustworthy, that we know our stuff, and that we are on the cutting edge. Our App will include various questions to help people find the right parts, and even have a live chat structure with one of our specialists to help our customers even more. Additionally, we offer tech support on all sorts of windows or apple product, like having a genius bar right in your pocket! Our whole process is sleek and fast, and doesn’t require any rig building knowledge to use. We want to have our identity and interfaces be super modern, and be attractive to a very wide audience.
Additional Design Projects
Our whole idea is about screen to door, so our packaging must be fully custom, and really REALLY attractive. The designer we work with will need to really bring their A Game to the packaging design, invoice prints, custom packing tape and shipping boxes. Our packaging must absolutely shine.
Designs We Like
Since most of our users are using our “rig in a box” feature to build new machines, we really like the idea of blending designs that mix “pc” with “shipping”. If you can think of something even slicker, that would be great.
Our Competition
Right now, the only company that is really competing with us is PCPartPicker. As you can see, we think with some fresh and clean branding and marketing, we could own this industry.
Project Four: Stöv
We are a new company with a dream. We want our users to search different recipes on our app, watch quick how to videos, and then allow them to order all of the ingredients fresh, delivered to their door in an hour. We want an upscale, mature and luxurious feel to our branding that will set us apart and make our users feel like five star chefs, in the comfort of their own kitchens. Users will be able to rank and review recipes, drivers, and even enroll in online cooking courses offered on our various platforms, as paid members. The whole user experience should be easy to get into and even easier to use. We are only interest in a “vintage” feel, with modern UI/UX to keep it fresh. The designer who we work with will need to blend the old with the new in way that is beautiful and functional, without taking away too much attention from the food pictures, of course!
Additional Design Projects
We will need custom packaging made for all of our deliveries which needs to seamlessly match our app, site and all other branding venues. Our delivery drivers will have fully branded shirts as well, so the designer we work with will need to provide apparel & packaging designs as well.
Designs We Like
Our users are sophisticated and worldly, and don’t mind spending an average of $75 to cook a meal for four. We also want to attract a new younger audience (hipsters), so we really like the vintage feel, so long as it retains it’s elegance.
Our Competition
Currently, the main competition we are watching is SideChef. This company does NOT offer a “ingredient ordering” system like we plan to, but they have a LOT of users that we would like to get the attention of.
Project Five: Ništa
We are a start up company that focuses on trending fashion, and making sure that our users get it first! Our company offers professional fashion experts that will help you build outfits from your closet using today’s fashion trends, and we want to have a seamless system where you can purchase an entire outfit or look with just one click. Our members will just pay one bill (to us) and we will find and collect all the pieces from all the different vendors, and ship it to our clients in one box, with a free gift included. The app will remember all the correct sizes for dresses, suits, shirts, shoes, belts, and whatever else we will need to know to handle the order for you. Basically, if you see a look you like, you can get it shipped to you in your size with one click.
Additional Design Projects
Nista is all about the seamless delivery of new items, which will be expertly packed and shipped in branded boxes, as well as internal packaging. We want very natural packaging, with natural papers with a craft feel, and want to incorporate our own old school paper tags, tissue paper, and other high end packing. We want our shipments to feel almost like a gift, because we will always include one in every order.
Designs We Like
Our users are fashion bloggers, reviewers and fashion forward middle income folks, so we want to project a certain amount of elegance, but also would very much like to keep it feeling “indie” without being too retro. Something with a nice bespoke feel, with a focus on the products and not a lot of messy screens and menus. We want to keep it simple, but not completely minimal. Somewhere in the middle, we need a designer to lead us there. We really love the mix of yellow, grey, black (like in the bird logo we found) but other color palettes could work, so long as they look great!
Our Competition
Stylect is doing great, and gets a lot of attention. However, we think our hand tailored approach to the fashion build app, as well as our gifts, wrapping and customer service will lead us to the top!
Project Six: Forma
Our company is all about photography, and getting new tech loaded into smartphones to get them up to date for photography standards. We want to give full control to the users, like allowing them to custom set f/stops, ISOs and Shutter Speeds, using the phone’s built in camera systems. Additionally, our users will have a whole new bag of tricks for editing built right into the app, allowing them to do simple or complex edits to the shots taken via the Forma App. Last (but not least) our clients will be able to sell posters, canvas, or even different portrait photo collections directly through the app, shipping right to their customers, with no hassles through our printing partnerships around the country! The app will even handle the transactions, and charge a small percentage for each sale, while the photography just snaps, edits and lists the shots while getting instant, daily, or weekly deposits from their sales.
We would also like to branch out and sell high end tech made by other companies such as Smartphone DSLR Conversion Kits and things of that nature, but that is a few phases away from us. The designer who works with us should have great eCommerce UI/UX design skills down the road.
Additional Design Projects
Our app and eCommerce platform needs to be cutting edge, however we also really want to have a hand-crafted and bespoke feel to all of our shipping, packaging and stationery to contrast the sleek UI/UX of our online works. We thing the two elements mixed would make the best for our branding, so we need a designer who can produce these elements as well.
Designs We Like
Most of our clients are hobbyist, beginner or moderately experienced designers, who prefer a sleek and modern set of interfaces and branding, but at the same time retain elegance. We have looked around at some logos we like, but are open to suggestions. We really want our branding and designs to be muted and monochromatic to make the actual USER photography stand out.
Our Competition
Currently our only real competition is Snapseed, but they don’t offer anywhere near the amount of things that our company will. No websites, not very well branded and least of all powerful for social sharing and sales.
Project Seven: Snout
We are a non-profit company, who seeks to place shelter animals into good homes by using all the technology we have at our disposal. Primarily, we will use an app that will match up owners with pets that need good homes, across the country. Carmax does this with vehicles, so we think that by using this same theory but for such a better cause will reduce the number of animals in shelters dramatically. Our users will be able to search for breeds of animals across the country from one database, and even set up alerts if no pets of a certain type are available right that moment. We would ask the clients to help cover the transit cost, as well as the checkup and vaccination fees. We would use the app to store all the info about the pet, like a profile that contains all the pertinent details and records, but also the profile would need to tailor itself to the specific breed with helpful information on diet, exercise, etc. Lastly, our app would also list all veterinarians with user reviews, and even allow for direct messaging with the doctors! All in all, it would help stop animal cruelty, shelter overcrowding and help the users care for each and every type of animal with training and information! We even want our users to be able to order pet supplies through the app, tailored to fit the specific pet. We also want it prominently featured and known that all profits proceed animal shelters, the ASPCA and the Humane Society. Since this is a non-profit, we think we could do a LOT of good with commercial price markups.
Additional Design Projects
We would want a very nice informational magazine monthly made for all of our users with news and updates from the company, added to any online order. Also, we would need a full line of apparel made to be able to donate shirts, hats or other things to the different shelters for employees to promote the app. Lastly, we will need a full set of stationery & shipping materials with reports and envelopes, so that users can request/order documents and pet supplies delivered right to the door!
Designs We Like
We really love the double negative logo design approach, and we feel like it could be really easy to use across multiple platforms and media types. The following logos are ones that we love already, but the designer who works with us can feel free to show us new stuff too.
Our Competition
Currently, AllPaws is doing the pet adoption part of the idea, but we want to grow even more, and include services like veterinary connection and pet supply ordering, like Chewy is doing.
Project Eight: lēt
Gamers rejoice! We are building an all-in-one solution for voice chat, streaming, profile building, clip showcasing and of course game sales in a single app! The desktop app will act as the primary product mixing Steam, Discord, Plays, Humble Bundle and Twitch all in one location, and pair with a mobile companion app which can be used for chatting, ordering new games, and voice connection when not at your gaming rig. The system would allow for profile design, streaming, channel overlay design, flash sales on games and of course, STATS! The profile for the user will work similarly to a social network, where gamers can connect, grow followers, share awesome gaming moments, and earn badges & achievements right through the system. The app will be free to users, and charge a small fee for expected things like purchases, game server hosting, apparel, streamer donation currency, etc. The profile should include the users PC Specs (or console types) as well as stats of legend (hours played, titles owned, etc) as well as a collection of badges for achievements from our app. We think that if we blend eCommerce sales of swag with digital downloads, streaming, chatting, and even game server hosting directly through our desktop app we will take over this industry!
Additional Design Projects
We will need a LOT of cool apparel made (for purchase and as giveaways for achievements), as well as packaging to ship them in. Additionally, we will want all sorts of other swag (stickers, phone cases, bags, other cool stuff) to give away in Loot Boxes for users who earn certain achievements, or pay a monthly subscription (which comes with free games from indie developers). We would also need to see a design template for achievements that fits well with our branding, too.
Designs We Like
We need to have a “character” type logo, something that will become iconic and can be used with our achievement systems. We like the idea of looking different than the Twitch or Plays logo, and need to have a character that can be recognized even when we change the gender, race, nationality, culturally, etc. We will be changing our logo “character” to celebrate different types of people and promote inclusiveness and social awareness.
Our Competition
There really is no all-in-one system like this, but we will be competing with all the big guys of the industry, in an attempt to disrupt them all. We need to be able to sell, stream, badge, and chat with all the best guys.
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