Dave Sedgwick began the workshop by introducing himself and
the work he has taken part in before describing what it needed from a good logo
design.
The Briefing:
To start off the workshop we were given a choice of three
fictional branding briefs to choose from.
1) Juice bar for kids
Coffee shop for kids based around juice, 7-14 year olds, no
adults allowed apart from staff. Need to target children and teenagers. Plus
parents want to make sure they know their kids going somewhere safe, secure,
friendly and clean. Posh looking, friendly
2) Silence hotel
Boutique hotel with only 12
rooms, just outside London, aimed at young professionals who crave peace and
quiet. From check in to check out “A vow of silence can be taken in
order to sharpen senses, whether they be physical or mental, or to discover
certain aspects of oneself.” Relaxed atmosphere, ambient lighting, holiday
orientated.
3) Virtual Pub
Staying in is the new going out. Still want to go and see
friends but want to do it in our own homes. App, virtual reality which allows
you to visit a “pub” and take off headset, go straight to bed.
Also we were asked to devise a name for the “client” to
which we would design the logo for.
Sedgwick gave us the following key tips:
Name
Don’t go for the obvious, make it memorable with meaning.
Try two words added together to make a new name.
Can you come up with something totally new? Do a web search
as an example.
Don’t make your name too long.
Logo
Keep it simple, make sure it works in one colour.
Although it is only being drawn at the moment it will need
to be created in illustrator at a later date. This is so it can be resized
accordingly as a vector image.
Try to be original. Don’t go for the obvious.
Try to get a sense for the target audience, think about
size, it should work small and large. Eg: twitter’s logo.
Sedgewick then proceeded to show us examples of working and non working logo designs as examples to what works well. Below you can see that I have listed these.
Amazon,
Fedex
Tobelerone
Human,
Slice,
Pauce
If only.
Monograms – simple graphic logos joining two words/initials together
Loud, colourfilled, too many ideas in one, subtle innuendos accidently created.
Initial Ideas
Sketch lots of idea. Each time you draw a new idea your
thoughts and concepts will change.
We don’t need to be experts at drawing, its about getting
ideas down, do lots, refine it, tweak it, draw it again. Everytime he draws the
logo he does different changes, tweaks to it.
Finally before we set to work on the task he added that no idea should be discounted, at this stage every idea is good.
My Logo
I chose to tackle the virtual pub brief as my initial thought was that of the smoothie bar for kids, however i felt that the virtual pub idea would challenge me more.
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| Name Generation |
I decided to experiment with a few of the names, to see how the best ones would work as a logo design.
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| Initial Logo Design Ideas |
My next stage was to chose the name I was to stick with and develop further. I chose the name of GatheInn or G-Inn for short as I felt this reflects the social atmosphere of "gathering" with your friends, the use of the word Inn as an alternative for pub or bar creates a exclusive feel. Finally shorting the name down to G-Inn sort of plays on the name G and tonic.
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| Developed Logo Designs |
I eventually narrowed my choices down to the three designs shown below.
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| Final Three Logo Designs |
My first design(from left to right) was again playing on the name Gin and Tonic for the drink, I tried to visualise this with the G forming the glass and the I shape in the form of a toothpick holding an olive. The second design was that of a play on letterforms in which I merged the initial three letters of the logo, which spell Gin for the drink again playing on the idea of it being an app to socialise while having a tipple. Last but not least is another combination of letterforms to create the word Gin which indicates to the products name G-Inn as its verbal sound would be the same, if it were not for the hyphen.
Finally throughout my designs I began to adopt to the logo a shell like appearance which could symbolise that of one being at home, "within one's shell" as it were. Within the last three designs, although not obviously apparent I have aimed to incorporate this theory into the form.
Review of Workshop
I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and look forward to doing more work around branding and logo design. In my spare time I may create a vector image displaying what could be a Final Design for this mini project.
