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Teaching

Branding

This advanced course asks students to build identity systems that hold across research, strategy, packaging, motion, interaction, and social content. Students develop brands from briefs, audience research, and style systems, then apply them across multiple touchpoints.

Soma and Soul branding coursework preview with packaged brand applications.

Course

AD 488: Branding and Social Media

Institution

Northern Michigan University

Level

Advanced branding

Primary tools

InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Figma, After Effects

Course logic

Identity has to travel across formats.

Branding is framed as research, voice, system, and application. Students learn that a strong identity must work in different contexts while still feeling like one clear visual and strategic world.

Research and Audience

Students begin with briefs, target audiences, competitors, personas, and visual research so identity decisions are tied to a clear strategy.

System and Voice

Logos, color, type, imagery, tone, and application rules are developed as a cohesive brand language rather than separate deliverables.

Rollout and Context

Brands are tested across packaging, print, social, web, app, motion, and presentation formats so the system can adapt without losing its identity.

Assignment sequence

From campaign systems to rollout logic.

The projects move from individual brand systems into packaging and social formats, then into collaborative rollouts that require shared decisions across web, app, motion, and social media campaign work.

02

Packaging, trifold, social content

Multidimensional Branding

Students create a cohesive cereal brand system and apply it to a digital packaging mockup, one context-specific trifold, and a small social media content set with clear audience and channel logic.

Selected outcomes

Cocoa Kind trifold brochure with brand messaging, QR code, and cereal product illustrations.
Cocoa Kind cereal box mockup shown in a packaging presentation scene.
Coco Kind trifold brochure with testimonials, contact information, and cereal imagery.
Coco Kind cereal box mockup shown in a packaging presentation scene.
Garden Crunch trifold brochure with plant-based cereal messaging, QR code, and product illustration.
Garden Crunch cereal box mockup shown in a packaging presentation scene.
Maple Morning Co. trifold brochure with comic-inspired cereal branding and a QR code.
Maple Morning Co. cereal box mockup shown in a dark packaging presentation scene.
North Trail trifold brochure with hiking map imagery, trail snack messaging, and a QR code.
Oat and Oak cereal box mockup shown in a packaging presentation scene.
Sun Sprouts trifold brochure with cereal ingredient messaging, QR code, and character illustration.
Sun Sprouts cereal box mockup shown in a packaging presentation scene.
03

Team system, web, app, motion, social

Brand Rollout

Students work in teams to develop one shared brand direction, then each student owns a core rollout area such as a landing page prototype, mobile app prototype, motion ad, or social campaign.

Rollout group 01

CMD+C

CMD+C mobile app screen presentation with home, inspiration, events, and jobs screens.
CMD+C vertical brand screen composition.
CMD+C branded page and mobile interface presentation.
CMD+C portrait promotional graphic.
CMD+C branded digital rollout presentation.
CMD+C social and interface rollout presentation.

Rollout group 02

Harborlight

Harborlight creative festival brand screen.
Harborlight mobile and campaign rollout screen.
Harborlight branded promotional screen.
Harborlight digital interface screen.
Harborlight campaign system screen.
Harborlight final rollout presentation screen.

Rollout group 03

Jaspilite

Jaspilite Tours brand screen with bear logo and map-inspired graphics.
Jaspilite Tours campaign rollout presentation screen.
Jaspilite Tours digital interface presentation screen.
Jaspilite Tours promotional rollout presentation screen.
Jaspilite Tours social and campaign application screen.
Jaspilite Tours final rollout screen.

Methods

How brands stay coherent.

The course is built around research, iteration, critique, system checks, and presentation so students can show how a brand holds together across touchpoints.

Strategy Before Finish

Research, moodboards, audience snapshots, tone words, and personas give the brand a reason to exist before the polished applications begin.

Systems Across Media

Students are asked to keep identity decisions consistent while adapting hierarchy, content, and format to different channels and audiences.

Presentation and Fit

Final critiques focus on whether the brand feels believable, whether the rollout is cohesive, and whether the design decisions can be explained clearly.

Related course areas