Project Overview & Objectives
This project involved branding a dental clinic, which I named "Unity Dental." The objective was to develop a cohesive brand identity that would be consistent across all visual elements and communication channels—from the storefront design to stationery and promotional materials. The visual designs, including color schemes and graphic elements, were carefully crafted to reflect the clinic's values, personality, and tone of voice.
Programs Used
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign
About Unity Dental
Unity Dental is a Vancouver-based clinic that proudly serves its local community by offering a comprehensive range of dental services, from routine cleanings and preventive care to cosmetic dentistry. The clinic is known for its reliability and affordability, ensuring that everyone, regardless of background or walk of life, feels welcomed. Unity Dental values multiculturalism, community, multi-generational connections, and the importance of building long-lasting, trusting relationships with its patients.
I created the tagline "Our Better Care. Your Brighter Smile." This use of superlative language—"better care" and "brighter smile"—emphasizes that Unity Dental provides superior care and services compared to other dental clinics in the area, further distinguishing its brand.
Logo
The logo combines a pictorial mark with a wordmark. The pictorial mark features a “U” shape overlapping with a "D" shape, symbolizing "unity." The overlap between the "U" and "D" creates a blue hue, representing reliability and trustworthiness. The pictorial mark utilizes a three-color palette, which will be explained in the following section. To the right of the pictorial mark, the wordmark, in font Monserrat, displays "Unity" stacked above "Dental," creating a balanced and harmonious composition between the two elements.
Logo Variations
Regarding logo usage guidelines, the colored logo serves as the primary version. The dark grayscale version has been created for use on non-colored documents, while the light grayscale variation is designed specifically for use on very dark backgrounds.
Color Palette
Our logo features three colors: violet purple, blue, and cyan. The violet purple symbolizes approachability and compassion, while the blue represents dependability and reliability. Cyan, a common color in dentistry, was chosen to evoke a sense of familiarity, helping the audience to easily associate the logo with the dental field.
Font
Poppins is the font chosen for the usage across all of the brand asset designs as well as their internal/external communication. Poppins was selected for its clean sans-serif design and its humanistic, rounded curvature, which conveys reliability and trust. This font aligns with Unity Dental’s tone of voice, reflecting qualities such as warmth, friendliness, and a strong commitment to the community.
Imagery
To align with Unity Dental’s values and its friendly, welcoming personality, I defined the brand’s imagery to feature photos that are familial, multigenerational, and multiethnic. I intentionally avoided images of patients undergoing dental procedures, choosing instead warm, smile-filled pictures that emphasize positivity and comfort.
Graphic Elements
I also created graphic elements as part of Unity Dental’s brand identity, designed to mirror the curves in the logo for a cohesive visual experience. I intentionally avoided using sharp, blocky shapes which are often seen in other dental clinics. Instead, these curved and flowing lines evoke a softer, warmer feeling, reinforcing the welcoming nature of the brand.
Brand Asset Designs
Using the graphic elements and colors I defined for the brand, I developed a set of consistent brand asset designs that aligned with Unity Dental's branding.
Below were the designs created for the branding of Unity Dental:
• Grand Opening Advertisement
• Letterhead & Second Sheet
• Business Cards
• Envelope
• Unity Dental’s Organization Chart
• Unity Dental’s Infographic Styles
• Favicon
• Storefront Design
• A-Frame Advertisement
• Front-Desk Design
• Toothpaste Packaging
• Promotional Giftbox
• Mouthwash Bottle Packaging
• Dental Floss Packaging
• Chewing Gum Packaging
Grand Opening Advertisement
Letterhead & Second Sheet
Business Cards
For the business cards, the logo and the tagline are embossed; and on the back, the logo is also embossed.
Envelope
Unity Dental's Organizational Chart
The visual element of the logo would be used here in the organizational chart to represent each personnel.
infoGraphic Styles
For bar/column graphs, a picture that is related to the topic of the graph will be shown in the bars. For pie charts, different shades of the brand's color palette are to be used.
Favicon
Due to the very small size of a favicon, I have chosen to use the logo's pictorial mark in a single solid cyan color, instead of the 3-colored pictorial mark to keep it simple and visible in a small size.
Storefront Design
For the storefront design, I opted to prominently display the clinic's logo in the top banner to capture the attention of passersby and potential patients, making the clinic easy to locate.
Key contact details, such as the telephone number and website, were also enlarged for accessibility, ensuring that people could easily get in touch. To attract those seeking dental services, I emphasized the message "New Patients Welcome" in bold, eye-catching text.
Additionally, I incorporated warm, family-oriented images to reflect the clinic’s friendly and family-centric values.
A-Frame Storefront Advertisement
Clinic's Front Desk Design
PROMOTIONAL GIFTBOX DESIGN
Toothpaste & Mouthwash Packaging
Dental Floss & Chewing Gum Packaging
Challenges in the Process
One of the primary challenges of this project was ensuring that the visual experience across all brand assets remained cohesive and true to the brand identity. Achieving this required strict adherence to brand guidelines, including consistent use of fonts, colors, imagery, and graphic elements. To ensure this cohesion, I created and saved a brand color palette, which I imported into all design software at the outset of every project. This provided easy access to the defined brand colors throughout the design process. Additionally, I established and saved paragraph and character styles across all Adobe software, ensuring that the brand’s typography guidelines were consistently applied, regardless of the specific design at hand. These measures, among others, were instrumental in preventing deviations from the brand identity.
Reflection
This project was both enjoyable and rewarding, as it underscored the importance of maintaining consistent messaging and personality in brand identity and visual language. Such consistency is essential for creating a memorable experience for the audience and ensuring that they can easily identify with the brand in the future. Inconsistent branding could potentially damage the brand’s image, as it might appear disorganized or confusing to the audience. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and look forward to tackling future branding case studies.