Ankott Studio™
Situation: I started a project to showcase the new visual design skills I learned from courses on platforms like Awwwards and Domestika. The goal was to create branding, UI design, and animation concepts for a fictional photography/videography agency, Ankott Studio. This project was an opportunity to experiment creatively while applying modern visual identity principles in both digital and print formats.
Task: My objective was to design a complete visual identity for Ankott Studio, which included:
- A new logo and wordmark inspired by vintage analogue cameras.
- A responsive web design incorporating modern, mildly technical elements like grids and animations.
- Print deliverables such as an office sign and business card.
The challenge was to create a cohesive identity that captured the client's request for a pleasant, relaxed, and smooth website with an agency vibe while embracing dark blue tones, gradients, and vintage photography inspiration.
Action: I began by modifying an online design brief to suit the goals of this project. Acting as both the designer and the "client," I conducted a questionnaire to clarify Ankott Studio's branding needs and preferences. These insights helped me define the challenge:
Create a visual identity for web and print that draws inspiration from vintage analogue cameras while conveying a modern, technical aesthetic.
To ensure the design aligned with this vision, I created a mood board with 15 visuals emphasizing colours, typography, and emotions. The mood board guided the design of the logo, wordmark, and brand identity posters.
The logo symbol represents a camera aperture, evoking photography's core essence. I selected PP Fraktion Mono as the typeface, balancing expressive clarity with a technical, grid-reinforcing monospaced design.
The brand identity posters used grids, geometric shapes, and shimmering grain effects, referencing the vintage viewfinder experience of offset and blurred images.
The most challenging aspect was translating the brand's visual identity into a cohesive and functional responsive web design. I needed to incorporate the shimmering grain animation, offset and blur effects, and technical grid layout consistently across pages. I also wanted the loading screen to evoke a camera's aperture, dynamically adjusting the brightness of the background images as if controlling light. Achieving this required multiple iterations to balance creativity with usability, ensuring the site remained visually engaging but intuitive for users.
Once the web designs were finalized, I created contextual mockups for desktop and mobile using After Effects and Photoshop. I also designed print assets, including the office sign and business card, maintaining consistency with the brand's identity. These mockups brought the brand's concept to life, showcasing how the visual identity extended across mediums.
Showcasing the desktop view of the website, demonstrating the grid layout, animations, and page transitions.
Highlighting the mobile view of the website, with its responsive design elements and adaptations for smaller screens.
Result: The project successfully demonstrated a cohesive branding solution for Ankott Studio. The final deliverables included a refined visual identity, responsive web design, and print concepts that embraced the technical, modern, and vintage-inspired aesthetic outlined in the brief. This project allowed me to put my new visual design skills into practice and experiment with motion design and branding techniques, which have since informed my approach to future projects.
