Brand Studio Workshop: Lead a Design Team Challenge

Real designers rarely work alone. In this advanced three-week workshop, teens join a small studio team and take on a branding challenge for a fictional client, such as a new café, an eco sneaker company or a community festival. Together they research the client, explore ideas and deliver a complete brand identity.

The first session is all about strategy. Teams read a creative brief, define the brand's audience and personality, and build mood boards. Each team member takes a turn as team lead during the workshop, running a short stand-up, keeping the team on track and making the final call when ideas clash. The teacher coaches leads on how to give clear direction and fair feedback.

In the second session teams design the core identity: logo concepts from thumbnail sketches to clean digital versions, a colour palette with reasons behind each choice, and a typography pairing. Teams critique each other's work and refine their strongest concept.

The final session turns the identity into a mini brand guide and real-world mockups such as a sign, a social post and packaging. Each team then pitches its brand to the 'client', explaining its decisions with confidence and answering questions.

This workshop suits teens who already have some design experience and want to stretch their skills, build a portfolio piece and practise leadership in a creative team.

How classes work

Each 75-minute session opens with a short design lesson, followed by team studio time in breakout rooms with the teacher visiting each team. Sessions close with a quick share-out and critique, and team leads rotate each week.

What we'll cover

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  Week 1: Creative Brief and Brand Strategy – Read the client brief, define audience and brand personality, build mood boards and assign team roles.

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  Week 2: Logo, Colour and Typography – Sketch and refine logo concepts, choose a colour palette and typography pairing, and critique as a team.

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  Week 3: Brand Guide and Client Pitch – Assemble a mini brand guide and mockups, then pitch the brand identity and answer client questions.

Learners should have some experience with digital design tools such as Canva or similar and a basic understanding of colour and layout. They should be comfortable collaborating on camera in breakout rooms.