Genesee Scientific
Genesee Scientific is a life science products company, supplying products and equipment to global life science research markets. Its markets include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, medical research institutions, research and development laboratories, universities, hospitals, and quality control laboratories.
I was brought on to lead the way in revitalizing Genesee Scientific’s branding under the direction of the Head of Marketing. With this new brand strategy, I implemented it across their quarterly brochure, packaging, marketing materials, and online advertising. I also helped advise UI design approaches for their website and worked directly alongside the Marketing Department, offering input and suggestions to ensure better consumer engagement.
Position: Graphic Designer
Duration: 9 months
Proficiencies Displayed: brand strategy, print design, packaging design, photo editing, marketing strategy
Tools: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Wordpress
Brand Strategy
While Genesee’s branding and individual sub-logo work was quite strong, proper implementation and execution was haphazard at best. My first project for the company was to establish brand guidelines and create a style guide for each individual sub-logo the company had. It was also my role as designer to ensure Genesee’s brand strategy was being properly implemented across all aspects of company marketing collateral.
Print Design
By far the largest project the myself and the marketing department undertook was the Genesee’s quarterly brochure. Sixty pages highlighting the newest and best products of each season, it was by far the most important, and most lucrative, project the marketing department worked on. My role focused on layout design, photography, proofing, negotiating pricing with the printer, and ensuring proper warehouse delivery, inventory, and distribution. I also took care of smaller brochures and booklets, like the annual FlyStuff, Invictus, and Nutrifly catalogues.
Packaging Design
Genesee Scientific drew most of its business from manufacturing it’s own life science products and equipment, each type of product with it’s own unique logo, branding, and of course, packaging. While most packaging design had been established by the time I joined the team, I was able to help design the die-lines for the GenPure family of products.
Marketing Collateral
Since my role fell under the umbrella of the marketing department, alongside my other projects I assisted in producing various types of marketing collateral for the company. This included everything from internal employee documents to online banner ads and paper flyers. Some of this collateral had to be redesigned and rebranded from our suppliers in order to distribute to our customer base (with their approval of course.)
Takeaways
When I was brought on to Genesee Scientific, the company was going through a bit of a renaissance with new investors, new leadership, and growing internal teams. An update to the company’s brand strategy was appropriate during this time, changing the whole look and feel of the company, even if it was only slightly. Both office and warehouse workers noticed and appreciated the updated look.
Here I learned how to tactfully advocate for myself and my designs, not because they were my designs, but because current design choices were cluttered, inconsistent, hard to navigate, and outdated. I wanted to help bring Genesee Scientific into this new, modern age and help them stand out in the competitive field of life science and biotechnology. This required patience, perseverance, and diplomacy when advocating for my design choices, explaining the principles of design that made certain ideas work, and receiving and incorporating feedback from management into my work.