Brand Development Guide: Dreamera

Left page: a calm river in the misty morning. The Dreamera chimera is drinking from further down the river. In the foreground is a white hand holding a fishing pole. The caption says "Secret Ingredient: still capture from the dream, Quiet River Fishing." Right page is the table of contents, listing the elements included in the guide: About the COmpany, names, philosophy, history, ideas, contemporary mood board, historical mood board, type exploration, logotype variations, final logotype, color palette, custom mark and variations, secondary typefaces, social media image examples, and brand applications.

I love learning things, so I’ve taken lots of courses on Coursera. One of them was CalArts’ Specialization in Graphic Design. The capstone project for the specialization was to invent a company and create a brand development guide for it.

The “secret ingredient” requirement was any extra addition to the guide that wasn’t already in the requirements. I chose to illustrate a scene from one of the dreams my company, Dreamera, rents out.

The appearance of the chimera downstream illustrates my idea that branding in the “off-the-rack” dreams would be non-invasive and would seem to be a part of the dream. (Because the point is for the customers to relax, and invasive ads are not relaxing!)

Left: About the company. My start-up rents dreams to replace nightmares. Names: Dreamera, Dreameo, Dreamflix. Philosophy: Boundless and Intrepid yet Serene. Right: History. Carrie Belefonte used to have stress nightmares working her old corporate job. She tried for years to find ways to stop them. Meditation, nature walks, better diet, she tried them all. She knew other people had the same problem. How could she help them all? If only there were some way to change the channel, to turn on a different dream… Carrie teamed up with a sleep scientist and a software designer, and they came up with a patented dream rental system that uses light and sound emitted through the Dreamband sleep-friendly headband to give the user a predetermined dream.

The course does a really good job of walking students through each step and what to include in a brand development guide. My company was inspired by the fact that I have very similar experiences to the company founder, Carrie Belefonte, and by companies like Netflix and Blockbuster.

I thought it would be a great idea to replace nightmares with the good dreams of one’s own choosing, so I set out to create a company that allows for just that.

Ideas. "Dream rentals" is in the middle. Maine ideas off of that are custom, aspirational, adventure, relief, change the channel, and dream. There are a bunch of ideas off of those, including quirky, tailored, success, nirvana, fun, travel, relax, different, choice, vision, slumber, cinema, and chimera.

Including the mind map was one of the requirements. My thought process isn’t always this organized and legible (especially if no one else is going to see it). But this exercise really helped me see what direction I wanted to go in.

Contemporary mood board. From left to right, starting at the top: Viveport Video, a woman holding a VR device to her eyes and surrounded by scenes in outerspace, on a mountian, and under the sea. A moon resting on the shore of a body of water and auroras in the sky. A woman facing a horse. Their forms are made from trees and waves. A green-to-indigo gradient flower shape with the word daydream. a silhouette of a bird taking off on the word dreams. the House of VR logo on a purple gradient background. Silhouette of a person standing on rocks past reflective water, the sky lit in blues, teals, and a little light purple. An angel with 4 wings holding a set of scales. She's dressed in yellow and orange. A logo that's a yellow eagle head within a blue lion head. A gray, low-profile VR eyeband. A 3D rendering of a river and mountains, in purples and blues. A yellow tiger with purple stripes, long puffy tail, and ram horns resting on stacks of books. A creature that has long horns curving in an s from front to back, white cat liek face, front lion or bear like forehand, white ungulate-liek hind quaters, and a long tail that ends in a tuft of yellow. And a person standing in a waterfall of white, yellow, and pink lights.
Historical mood board. Left to right from the top: an early style viefinder, whcih holds only one phorograph. A more recent style viefinder, with the wheel of cels you can click through. A pair of nude angels embracing, slightly covered with purple cloth. A painting with women bathing in a lake and angels floating above. Two people, one in pink and one in brown, floating through the air dropping flowers. The ET movie poster with Eliot and ET biking in front of the moon. An old Fantasia movie poster, with characters from the movie in muted blues and pinks. The Steve Miller Band pegasus logo. An impressionist painting of a tree by the ocean and mountains in the distance. A front-on image of a horse rearing and architectural arches behind. A still from a silent movie with a woman lying on a crescent moon, with stars painted yellow, pink, and cyan, and someone climbing up a ladder toward her. A painting of someone in white lying on their back, asleep, and someone with blueish skin standing over the,. And an impressionist painting in mostly blues of lilypads on water.

We included our visual research, consisting of both contemporary and historical moodboards. I focused heavily on the concept of dreams, and the relaxing color scheme of blues and purples.

Left. Type explorations. The word "Dreamera" in five different serif typefaces. First is the embellished all-caps typeface I ultimately chose. Next is a softer one in italics. Then one with a high contrast between strokes and tall x-height. 4th is one with open counters and a short x-height. Last is an engraved-style font. Right. Logotype variations. 1. A large flourish on the tail of the last A. 2. Same, but with increase of size and thickness on the D. 3. Normal D, exchangeed the large flourish on the last A with a small one that mirrors the one of the first A, looking link two closed eyelids. 4. Same, but with three long lashes radiating from the flourishes. 5. Replaced the three long lashes with two more subtle ones.
Full spread is the final logotype in various sizes. I chose the one with the subtle lashes.
Top center of the spread is the color palette I chose: Indigo, purple-blue, dusky pink, lavender, and yellow cream. On the left is the logotype in each color. On teh right is the logotype on a background of each color. (Indigo on cream, purple-blue on lavender, white on pink, lavender on purple-blue, and cream on indigo.
Custom mark and variations. On the left is the full chimera logo. A purple-blue lion, sitting, facing the right. It has a lavender ram hornover where its ear would be and an indigo snake for a tail. Under it and to the right are the reduced logo (the snake tail over the lion's chest, instead of the full body) with the logotype in four different color combinations. 1. Lion and logotype in pruple-blue, horn in lavender, snake in indigo. 2. Lion and logotype in indigo, horn purple-blue, snake pink. 3. Lion and logotype lavender, horn pink, snake purple-blue. 4. Lion and logotype pink, horn indigo, snake cream.

Next was the logotype. I tried different typefaces, then different styles of my chosen typeface. I tested it in the different colors I chose for my brand, then added the logo itself.

The logo, a chimera, is also where I got the company name from. The idea being a chimera is an amalgam of lion, ram, and snake, and Dreamera dreams (if you pay for customization) are an amalgam of characters and settings of the customer’s choosing.

Secondary typefaces. Both pages have the purple-blue/lavender/indigo logo and logotype combo at the top. On the left is the slogan and test paragraphs in a sans serif, and on the right they're in a serif. They read: The Dream of Your Dreams. Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom. Well, who am I to keep you down? It's only right that you should play the way you feel it. But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness, Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost And what you had And what you lost. Oh, thunder only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. Say, women, they will come and they will go. When the rain washes you clean, you'll know. You'll know. Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions. I keep my visions to myself. It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams And have you any dreams you'd like to sell? Dreams of loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost And what you had Oh, what you lost. Thunder only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. Women, they will come and they will go. When the rain washes you clean, you'll know. Below is the slogan in three different styles, in each typeface.

Next I had to choose the brand’s typeface for the slogan and copy text. I had it narrowed down to a sans serif that, when bold, made me think of thought bubbles and a serif that, ultimately, I felt looked more professional.

Instagram stories. Left. Top is an image of evil-looking eyes in yellow clouds, crows flying, lighting, gnarled tree, and eerie yellow sky. Bottom is a floating island with a cozy home carved out of it, with a ship with balloons to make it float docked outside. The text, from top to bottom, says "Turn your nightmares into the dream of your dreams." Bottom left is teh Dreamera logo, bottom right says Rentals start a a night. Right. Thre's a collection of fairytale creatures clustered at the top. A mermaid, a faun, an orge or ent type creature, a person with butterfly wings, and a queen with red hair and black dress. Under them is a little black mechanical bird-like creature. Text says be whoever ... or whatever... you please. Across teh bottom is the Dreamera logo and slogan.
Left is a screenshot from the Dreamera app. The full indigo/purple-blue/pink chimera is at the top and it says Best Sellers. The background is lavender. There are three thumbnails, each with a title, and each has a dollar sign and a heart next to it (buttons to buy or to favorite). 1. Romantic day at the Beach shows two people holding hands by the water at a rosy red sunset. 2. A Quiet Contemplation shows a person sitting crosslegged on some rocks by the water against a blue sky. 3. Moonlight Tryst shows two people standing close to ech other among tall plants with the moon large behind some clouds. All the people are black silhouettes. Right. The Dreamera menu. "Ways to experience the Dream of Your Dreams." The background of each packages it a different color: cream, lavender, pink, blue-purple. 1. The Dreamera Collection. Choose from any of our growing library of dreams: currently at over 1,000! 2. The Hesiod. Pick a location from our list of over 500 presets and redesign up to 2 main characters using over 800 preset details. 3. The Apollodorus. You pick the place, customize up to 5 main characters, and change any of the major plot details. 4. The Homer. Work with one of our expert sleep designers to come up with the dream of your dreams. Every choice is yours! Option to buy to remove all Dreamera branding. Rent a dreamband for a night. Buy your own for only 9. (Ask us about payment plans!). Order yours at Dreamera dot com or download the app.
Left: mockup of the Dreamband. It looks kind of like an eyeshade you'd wear to block out light when you sleep. It has the Dreamera logo in lavender across the front and is displayed on the bust of a male model, shown from the front and from the side. Right is the introductory email. Subject: Try One on Us! The blue-purple logo is centered at the top of the email on a cream background. We want to give you the dream of your dreams. You probably haven't heard of us. (That's okay! We're new here!) So we want to introduce ourselves by giving you a free one-night rental of the dream of your choice. Just scan the code below in the Dreamera app and pick your dream! [QR code.] Scan me for a sweet dream! We get it if you're not ready to try it out just yet. Check out our website to get to know us first, and join our regular mailing list to get the latest updates. Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest logos in indigo are centered at the bottom, just above the Dreamera physical and web addresses.

Finally, we had to create images (I chose Instagram stories) and apply our branding. My applications include the headset (available to rent or purchase), an introductory email, a screenshot from the Dreamera app, and the “menu” of dream packages available.

Return to my portfolio.