Archive for the ‘Logo Design’ Category
Design development for Wakeham Asbestos
Back in February we were approached by Wakeham, a new company in the asbestos industry who offers training and consultancy. The company required a full set of branding as well as brochure and website.
As with every design project, we start at the beginning - the logo. They felt that their industry was particularly male dominated and wanted a logo which was strong and bold yet quite simple. After an initial discussion we concluded that the logo could center around these themes:
- Utilise the “W” of the company name
- Focus on the “A” in the company name highlighting Asbestos
- Use the three strands of the business (training, management and surveying)
- Focus on some imagery or representation of asbestos
Other than requiring a strong, bold logo, Wakeham didn’t have any other specific requirements in mind. The logo was to be used online as well as brochures, stationary, invoices etc, therefore it had to work on all types of media.
Stage 1 - Sketching
We started by utilising the “W” of the company name combining it with shapes representative of the three strands of the business (training, management and surveying). A lot of time was spent sketching “W” type shapes. We wanted the logo to look contemporary as our research had shown that competitor logos were very dated, we therefore needed something different, something fresh and alive. However, we were also aware that the logo had to appeal to a B2B market as well as B2C so therefore had to look somewhat corporate.
Once again we combined the three strands of the business concept when focussing on the “A” in the company name. As Wakeham are a consultancy we liked the idea that they can handle all aspects of your project and so developed several umbrella type designs.
It’s easy to get carried away when you are designing and creating a logo and once we looked over the logo’s we decided to present the following concepts:
The client immediately liked one of the logos. They did have a few minor adjustments to the tracking of the text and the corporate blue colour so we experimented with both these aspects.
From the logo the stationary was then developed. This was quite a seamless leap and the logo transfered well to the letterheads, compliment slips and business cards.
We then started work on the brochure, Wakeham supplied all textual content as well as a rough layout. They wanted the brochure to be simple and easy to read and as there was a lot of textual content we decided to break the layout into sections. We ensured the contact information was repeated on the brochure so people could find it without too much trouble.
Wakeham had few minor text adjustments with the brochure, but overall they were happy with the design and the corporate branding that was emerging.
Using the style of the brochure we created a simple, clean website. Again the contact information is repeated on every page, allowing users to get in contact easily.
This was a great project as the client had some initial guidelines and ideas and knew a lot about their market and who they were trying to target. However, they also gave us enough free rein to explore other possibilities and ideas.
So what does everyone think? Did Wakeham Asbestos choose the right branding? We would love to hear your thoughts.
Tags: branding, brochure design, Graphic Design, identity, Logo Design, Web Design
Posted in Graphic Design, Logo Design, Portfolio, Web Design, branding | 11 Comments »
How easy is it for a graphic designer to brand themselves?
I don’t know about you, but it took us what seemed like decades to decide upon our name, logo and branding. We went through rigorous brain storming and research trying to iron out what we liked, what our market would like and what would stand out against the crowd.
Our main problem was that we wanted something that was a little crazy and ‘off the wall’ that would make us stand out from the crowd. We thought that having no client restraints would be great as we could do all the crazy design things we had always wanted to. However, we knew that this wouldn’t quite work with our potential clients due to our location as quirky branding may put off our target market (which consisted of mainly small to medium sized local businesses). Once we thought this through we had a much better idea of our market place (our potential clients and competitors) and how we could slot into that, so we started at the beginning (as it’s a very good place to start) with our name.
Step 1 - Our Name
We had several ideas for our name, but the first one that really stood out for us was (drum roll please…) Remote Media. We liked the idea that we were living in a remote part of England (sort of…) and also offered quite a range of services (video and dvd creation) so we felt media left it quite open to our expertise. Our style has always been really simple and we knew our logo had to reflect this. We created a simple type based logo with a simple colour scheme. To be honest, I don’t know where the grey and lime colour combination came from but I think it was something we had both probably thought of previously.
Step 2 - Our Website
The next stage was to build a site using our new name and develop our branding. We had several branding ideas and we felt the strongest of which was that we stood out against the crowd (well, we thought we did anyway!) so we adjusted photos to illustrate this. However, after hours of creating one green pebble in a group of grey ones, or one green phone box in a group of red ones, we felt that this was too cliched and overused so decided against it. We also liked the idea of using photo’s merged with vector art but felt it didn’t reflect what we wanted to say about ourselves. By now we were getting a few jobs and realised that very few of them were related to video or dvd, and the fact we were finding it so difficult to decide on branding made us nervous about our name. So we decided that before we went too far down this route we would stop and start right from the very beginning.
Original Remote Media Business Card Design - Side 1
Original Remote Media Business Card Design - Side 2
Step 3 - Our Name… again
So we began brainstorming again and the same names cropped up, however this time a new one came into play… eightyone design… and we both loved it! Why eightyone design? Well, that was the year we were both born. We were sure we were onto a winner with this one and after several sketches we came up with a logo and applied our beloved lime green and grey colouring. Using the lines we created for the logo we started to develop simple branding. Our business cards came from the logo, and our website came from our business cards. The whole process seemed to be a lot more seamless than the first time round (Well, with a slight detour to a more distressed style - see the initial ideas for the website below). Company stationary and letterheads flowed easily and before we knew it eightyone had a style we were pleased with. Don’t get me wrong there are times we look at other peoples sites and branding and think “why didn’t I think of that?”. We also sometimes cringe at our company name as once people know that eightyone represents 1981 and that was the year we were both born it usually sparks looks of concern for our age and experience. This then leads to people talking about what they were doing in 1981 - very cringy indeed, but a good talking point.
First draft of the eightyone design logo
initial ideas for the eightyone design website
Conclusion
So to my question ‘How easy is it for a graphic designer to brand themselves?’ the answer from our point of view is no, it is not very easy! I am sure that in a couple of years we will have to review our branding and style to ensure that it is forever evolving and fresh. However, I do feel so much more prepared for it. I am prepared for us to critique it from every angle and spend a ridiculous amount of time on ideas you know are wrong. I could quite confidently say to a client that we put 110% effort into making their branding right for them and their market place. However creating our own branding seemed so personal and there is the possibility that we thought about it too much and tried to go against what we felt was right.
Final eightyone design business card - Front
Final eightyone design business card - Back
What about you? We would love to know how other people went about branding themselves and what they think of ours?
Tags: branding, Logo Design
Posted in Graphic Design, Logo Design, branding | 12 Comments »
It’s all black and white
When designing a logo, do you design in black and white? Or do you jump straight in and use all of the many wonderful colours and shades the latest packages allow you to use?
When brainstorming an idea for a logo, consider the worst common denominator - where the logo will look its absolute worst. This is normally a photocopied / faxed / laser printed document. All of these have one thing in common, they will display your logo in black and white. So if you start your design process in single colour, you ensure your logo does not rely on colour to work.
I always tend to start any design with some rough sketches on paper, which of course means my ideas are entirely black and white. Then, when you move to your mac or pc, leave the design in black and white. This will give you one less thing to worry about so you can really focus on the design. You can make sure every little detail fits together without worrying about what colour each part is going to be. It is only when I am fairly happy with the design that I then move into colour.
Be vary careful with the choice of colour(s) for a logo. A good logo rarely uses more than 2. If you think of all the iconic corporate logos we see in our everyday life, there are few examples that use more than 2 colours (Coca Cola), with the majority making use of just one (Apple, Nike, Adidas).
Size is also very important. Test your logo at varying sizes. If you logo makes use of text, then it will probably not work as a very small thumbnail, so a visual element may be required for use when displayed small. Work on the size of a postage stamp. If the logo does not look good at this size, then play around with it until it does.
When pitching a colour logo or design to a client, always have a black and white version to hand. Many people can be blinkered by colour and not see the true potetial of the design. If someone does not like green, then a green logo would be there last choice. However, if you also show the logo in black and white with the colour version being just a suggestion, the client is much more likely to see past the colour and look at the design.
So the next time you start thinking about designing a logo, make the colour choice the very last step
Tags: branding, identity, Logo Design
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