University of Alberta Cereal Breeding Lab

The University of Alberta’s Cereal Breeding Lab was taken over by Gurcharn Brar in 2024. The lab only had a social media presence on X (formerly Twitter) and were in need of a visual identity and website. The new branding and logo needed to follow the University of Alberta’s brand guidelines but still have its own unique identity. Their research is focused on cereal varieties (mostly wheat) so they required a simple logo that showcased that. The final logo incorporates the university’s brand colours with wheat florets in the “L” of CBL acronym and a handwritten style typeface was added with the full lab name to reflect the hands on research this lab is doing. There is potential for the full lab name to be removed in the future as the lab grows and becomes more recognizable. The curved wheat plant imagery that is prominent on the website was derived from an idea during the logo ideation process of combining a DNA strand with wheat plants. The client wanted to incorporate this idea into the final website so I chose to use different versions of one wheat “DNA strand” as part of the hero image on the homepage and as visual throughout rest of the pages. This gives a subtle nod to the wheat varieties they are developing throughout the website. The wheat floret branding from the logo was also incorporated in a more simplified fashion throughout the website in the image shapes and important information callouts. My web design can be viewed on CBL’s new website by clicking the button below.