Logo Evaluation

For my logo design I knew it was important to hit certain criteria, a lot of which I was not aware of when I first started the course, therefore I knew it was important to research before I even designed any logos whatsoever. While I was designing the logo for myself, this was excellent because I know the needs of the client (myself) better than anyone else. For me, the most important part was to advertise myself as a luxury design brand, this would have significant impact of the way clients considered me and my work, it would also impact how much I could charge. I learnt by researching colour and current luxury brands certain things I needed to do create a luxury style branding. Once I had completed my initial mockups, I created computer versions and removed the ones I thought that were not appropriate, I made sure that my logo worked in black and white as I had learnt this was very important in design, next I added colour to the logos and decided between the remaining two which meant I was left with my final design which had meaning behind it. Next I added specific details to further enhance the meaning of the logo, I used the fibonacci sequence which I had researched to make smaller adjustments to the layout of the logo, and finally changed the font to create the logo I was finally happy with.

For me the most important aspect of my design was the research stage, not only did it allow me to form a meaning for the logo but also allowed me to be certain my logo was following the correct stages to get to the perfect end result. At the time I thought that colour was the most important element to the logo and I chose purple because it represented luxury, I didn’t realise at the time I was making a choice not only for the logo but for all future branding I produced. Equally, this is probably because I was focusing on the end result of creating a logo rather than the overall branding of my image.

For me, a useful idea came from my research about luxury branding and how by mixing serif and sans-serif fonts enabled me to appear to be a much higher quality designer. Initially I felt uncertainty as to whether it would work in my logo but once I started to play around with the design in Illustrator I started get a much better feel for it. By using this font scheme I have significantly changed the appearance of my logo and it now targets the audience.

I have learnt that that research and initial design design stages are the most important to the logo to ensure it has the appeal you desire. Colour and fonts are second most important, and I believe you can’t go too far wrong if you spend a lot of time on these stages. If I was to do this again though, I would try to re-imagine the the two lower sections within the logo that represent my competition because when printed, they are not as visible as it is on the screen.

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Business Card Design

I decided for my business card, I wanted to create something that would portray what I do much like the ones in my research (https://akbrodie.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/business-card-research/). I decided to create a laptop which had google’s search engine open looking for a local web designer. First I went about designing the laptop complete with keyboard and touchpad, next I added my logo on the front upside down like on the macbook range so that it can be seen the right way up from people looking at it. Something worth noting here is that created the word “Found” using the same typeface and colours as google to give it that recognisable feel, but avoided advertising them on my business card. You can see this mockup here;

After printing this version out I decided to turn the logo the right way up because the business card is all about the user experience. I also removed the details from the back of the card to ensure a clean look which is more appropriate for the ‘luxury’ styled branding I wanted to achieve. I also used google search to directly impact the design stage and here how I have used the same colour and style on my card;

– I must note here the reason for the circle shape ate the bottom is a line for me to cut out when it is printed so that you can lift the screen up. If you look carefully, I have also tried to avoid putting across the idea that there are other competitors, so underneath me at the top there are a few other ‘designers’ which are completely made up with names and descriptions that make them sound really bad. I have also faded them out the lower down you go so that the main impact was my details. The only way this card looks different to the real thing is the fact that it has an arrow and my telephone number to the side.

Below you Can see the different versions I printed out with the first on the left, you can see both outside and inside, the physical changes I made to the design.

Letterhead Design

With the unusual way I have designed my envelopes and letter shape, I thought it would be an important stage to design the layout of the content itself. Therefore I studied some grid layouts (https://akbrodie.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/understanding-grids/) and started to mockup a few of my own. I knew that using the same colour across all the promotional material I produced was important, so I decided again, to use purple, I knew from the traditional letter, and the legal requirements of any business that sends a letter that it was important to include contact details on the letter, so I decided to use the way I had folder the paper to change the layout. I created a blank space on the left to begin with so that the main content was on the right, this is like a letter I found during my research and you can see this here:

You can see my first design is similar but removes the box from the left, it is below. I found by having the content of the letter so far across the page just seemed unbalanced so I scrapped it.

To create a design much more like the one I was inspired by I moved the informational section to the left but maintained the width of the column since from my previously research I knew it was important that the line width wasn’t too long as it would be easier to read. Also, I disliked the text being so close to the left  as I feel it didn’t work with what I’ve learnt from my research about white space and overall layout so I moved it over a bit to the right, you can see this edition below.

Then I started to consider the experience of opening the letter and taking the letter out of the envelope, I folded the paper into thirds, the way I was planning on doing, and realised the section I created on the front of the letter wasn’t quite a third so I changed that to be exactly one third. Next placed the letter in the envelope and pulled it out as if I was opening it fore the first time, I visualised my logo on the centre and coloured sections on the thirds above and below. My logo is purple and I wanted to have a consistency across my branding therefore I decided to have the coloured sections in purple too, this mean’t I had to move the logo on the letter because it didn’t stand out against the new background colour.

Promotion Pack – Loyalty Card

I thought something that would be really useful to include would be a Loyalty card for the client, this way it almost guarantees they will keep the card if they have already thrown away the business card. A constant reminder of my business every time they look in their wallets. Although I’m giving the client a 25% discount off my services, firstly it makes them believe they’re getting a cheaper deal, and secondly I would account for that when pricing up my services. I have tried to stay in line with other luxury style cards you can see my inspirations and mockup below.

MY DESIGN;

I was reasonably happy with my initial mockup so I made no changes at all, below you can see the initial print and then the final print, as you can see this final version looks like a much higher quality.

References;

http://www.barcodesinc.com/cats/plastic-id-cards/loyalty.htm

Revisiting Logo – Typeface

I decided, having redesigned my logo with previous research of the fibonacci sequence to redesign my logo with previous research of fonts, to make sure I have the perfectly executed logo. I currently had Helvetica Neue as the font for the logo because from my research it was versatile and seemed to look appropriate in all my mockups. I looked at my research at the luxury branding post found here (https://akbrodie.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/researching-luxury-brands/) and noticed that there was a clever mixture of serif and san-serif fonts, I believe this is something that is common across a lot of brands and thought this is something that I should implement in my logo design. Again I want tho give my brand luxurious quality service type of feel, therefore I deuced to find a serif font for the word “AKB” and a sans-serif for the word “design.

I scoured the web for appropriate fonts for my logo, I found two typefaces that fit my logo design perfectly so I tested them to make sure they worked and then went through the process of spacing out the letters of design to match the bars and then also space them out again using the Fibonacci Sequence spiral (FSS), you can see the steps below;

First I made sure the letters of the word “design” were central to the six bars of the chart, I changed the colour of the lettering so I could see the letters better.

Next I used the FSS to make sure the chart was sized correctly, I then changed the line height of the lettering to make sure thy fit within the FSS parameters.

Next, I did the same with the word “design”, again changing the colour so I could see better.

Once the words were sized correctly, I made sure that they were spaced out equally again using the same FSS

The only job left was then to fix the colours of the words to match the logo and you can see the old and the new here:

OLD:

NEW:

Marketing Items & Content Ideas

First item I will include takes design cues from my letterhead research, in general I want to keep in line with my luxurious branding feel so I will create this to hold everything I put inside it. Inside this envelope, I will have a total of three different item. Number one will be similar to the Natwest item for promoting their mobile banking app, It will be shaped like an iPhone, the screen will feature an internet browser with search of a web designer and then the link to akbdesign at the top. On the second page it will be captioned “What I do” and then list with icons the specific things I actually do. These will be:

SEO

Logo Design

Web Design

Marketing

Video Production

Social Media

3rd page – Quote

“AS A WEB DESIGNER, I KNOW THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS IS IN THE INTERNET. I DREAM BIG, AND MOTIVATED DREAMERS MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. I CAN MAKE THINGS HAPPEN FOR YOUR BUSINESS.”

4th page – Contact me

Twitter handle

blog address

The second item I will create is aiming to close the sale, in effect convince the viewer to give their hard earned cash to me in exchange for my services, for this I will use a double sided A6 sized piece of paper. One one side it will be captioned “Am I right for you?” and then have sales lingo such as, “You need a quality service provided by multi-skilled designer who can capture your business visually and use current trends to present it to your clients in the best possible light. You want him to do all this whilst being affordable, friendly and professional with an edge to his the rest of his competitors”. On the second side I will have client comments and ratings of the service I have  provided them in the past.

The final piece with be credit card style item which has a discount for them off the services provided they use it within as certain amount of time, this will make them think they have got a quality service, with a discount and then potentially be pressured into taking the service before they  would have done otherwise.

Researching luxury brands

What sets luxury brands apart from the rest? If I want to give the impression my design brand has a luxury, very good quality service then I have to do some research into what people consider to be luxury brands and what sets them, apart from the crowd. In 2012 the US the luxury fashion market was estimated to be a value of $274 Billion with predictions of the value reaching $290 Billion by 2015. This would obviously prove that it can be very profitable to advertise your business as an outstanding service with a certain luxurious feel to it. Obviously, to come across as a luxurious brand you must offer an extremely good service, but a lot comes down to the branding and advertising, and this is something worthwhile knowing for my self-promotion.

Something that should be noted here is the work Sigmund Freud did  when he completely changed the way we consume, he was the one who had the idea to promote things so that the customer had an emotional connection to the product. Due to Freud, we now connect certain emotions to products, so power would come with expensive cars and watches, nice clothes would make someone more attractive, drinking expensive champagne would make someone classy and so on, this is partly how these luxurious brands manage to charge so much for their products, they simply appeal to consumer nature with emotion and psychology.

Chanel – The colour black is relatable to elegance, mystery and prestigiousness and the logo is symbolic of the luxury products they sell

The famous interlocking C’s were originally in chapel which had stained glass windows which featured them. You can see the window here:

Their website is full of attractive, well off people advertising their product in the best possible light, thew website itself is a wonderful experience complete with white space, nice hierarchy and beautiful design. When shopping their products section they keep it really simple and they actually have no models but instead show the product against a white backdrop, this means the entire page is entirely white other than the menu and the products themselves. Even after selling the customer this lifestyle of beauty, extravagance and wealth, the site then sells the product itself rather than an image. It used the image for the basis but then relies on the quality of its products to do the rest, so mixing the quality of the product with a vision of a certain lifestyle is how Chanel brand themselves. You can see the two different screens below;

Burberry is another famous brand given the luxury label – it has a value of $4.1 Billion and is rated 8th most valuable brand in the world. Again their logo;

is in black which has the same connotations as Chanel, these are of elegance, mystery and prestigiousness. The logo, designed in 1901, features an equestrian horse and is one of the most iconic logos in modern fashion. The shield of the rider is a symbol of protection but also the equestrian stands for pride, purity and grandeur, these things give the brand a certain luxurious feel before you have even stepped into their shop or looked at their product. The same can be said for Burberry’s website as Chanels, they feature images of attractive people on the homepage wearing their products but then when you click on the indivual products is ore about the quality of the product than the experience that goes with it and as you can see they have cropped out the models face for this reason.

Rolex is an expensive watch brand which has a market value of $7.9 Billion and is the worlds 5th most valuable company.

Their logo is also in black, which has the same connotations elegance, mystery and prestigiousness. To add to this though their symbol is of a crown which is recognised to be worn by royalty, so again, the logo gives the brand a certain feel of luxury before they have even looked at their products, this is something my logo doesn’t do so would have to make up in other ways. The word ‘Rolex’ is mean’t mean’t to have some french relation to the word exquisite.

The Rolex website is a bit different to the two previous sites, the homepage simply features the product with a small amount of text. Then when you click on the product you get lots of images with more text, there are no models, no impression of a certain lifestyle if you buy their product, simply just shows the quality and detail of their product in all its all glory

Finally, the Bugatti logo depicts the initials of Ettore Bugatti who invented the company in 1909 in the oval which is meant to represent elegance and technology.

The Bugatti website like Rolex amplifies the quality of their product rather than likening them to a certain lifestyle, while their products are things of beauty, even when you click on the different sections of the site, all you see is the car itself. Therefore you don’t need to show a certain lifestyle too become a luxurious brand, just present your product in the best light possible. You can again see their website below:

So, what have I learn? I believe to come across as a luxurious brand, you have to consider who your target audience are and allow them to relate to your product. Everyone wants nice things, and they want to come across well, and just like Freud’s early ideas about connecting emotions and feeling with products, you can very easily make people think in a certain way. By showing respectable, good looking person using the service, then the consumer will almost look up and aspire to be like him. By putting this image in their head of what they could potentially be and look like is enough to drive them to believe that your service/product would do that for them. I need to take full advantage of this psychological manipulation to make my audience perceive my brand in a certain way. I need to focus on being seen as a luxury brand but not forget about still having really good quality products to back up the psychology.

References:

http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/fashion/10-most-powerful-luxury-fashion-brands-in-the-world/3/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/

http://fashionista.com/2011/11/the-origin-of-chanels-interlocking-cs-logo-and-six-other-cool-things-we-learned-about-the-history-of-chanel

http://famouslogos.net/rolex-logo/

The Selection Process – Colour

Once I had chosen a couple of designs to take forward, my next step was to create the same logos in much better quality with a bit more taken, I applied the colours I had chosen from my colour research and ended up with an entire set of five logos in the desired colour. Here they are;

I am now left with the task of deciding which colour logo to keep. To start this I look back to my colour research and firstly realise that blue is a corporate colour that large banks and technology companies use, whilst I was going for the down-to-earth cool & reliable designer look, it would be too easily mixed up with the corporations so I decided to scrap this colour. Next, I printed the previous pictures out so that I could see what they would like on my marketing material. This was a brilliant idea as the gold turned into a dark yellow colour on the paper and the orange-red didn’t look as bright as it did on screen. Great so i’m now left with brown and purple versions. I decide not to go with the brown as it looks like a dirty colour, and has connotations of nature and thought that purple best suited my design.

Now I’m simply left with one decision, which logo do I prefer? Well looking at both logos it actually seems reasonably easy given that the graph has more of a meaning to my work and the progression I hope to have at Hull college as a student. So I have decided to stick with this logo. Below you can see the final editions of the logo with a little extra detail added in to add in a bit of interest in rather it just being a plain gradient, then I have also reduced them to really small sizes to make sure they work from a distance, which they do. This is the logo I will use for my self promotion.

Cover Image (http://blogpchcom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/redcarpet-1024×770.jpg)

The Selection Process: Sketch – Digital

When designing the logo, I took into consideration all of my research about colours, fonts. I looked into my target audience and what my competitors were doing with their logos, then started to draw logos on paper, after that I scanned them into the computer and designed them in Adobe Illustrator in black and white first. This was the start of the ‘elimination’ process as I have found through my research, logos have to work in black and white first before you add colour, that meant I was able to ‘eliminate’ a few. After that I scaled them up and down to see how they worked at different sizes, again allowing me to ‘eliminate’ more. The next step I took was to add gradients in the background as this meant I how see how the weight of the fonts and the overall feel would look if I were to use that logo, this allowed me to eliminate further. Then I started to add the ‘pre chosen’ colours from my colour research into the actual designs, this allowed me to see whether the logos actually worked in the colours In wanted, this again eliminated more. The final step was to make adjustments to the fine details and typography which meant I had final versions of a the few logos I was happy with out of the 20 I started with from the beginning. To allow me to decide which one was my favourite, I again put a coloured background to the images and peer reviewed them to help me decide on my final version.

Design No.1 – PASSED

The thought process behind this logo design was basically that I wanted to create something that would somewhat copy a graph that shows good statistics. Simply by aligning the bars on a upward slant would show constant improvement. This is something that I should hope will occur with my college work over the next three years and since this logo is meant to represent myself and the work I produce, I thought this design was ideal.  The text is aligned with the edges and when it scaled down, the text removed appropriately, the logo is still recognisable. As you can see even against different backgrounds the logo still stands out, doesn’t become distorted or illegible. Given the facts I have just discussed I believe this is a good piece of design therefore I passed the logo.
Design No.2 – FAILED

  Again, similar to the previous design, the reason for the graph like format would be to indicate the improvement of my own personal work over the three years I study the web design course. Unfortunately this logo had it’s difficulties when in the Illustrator design stage with size of the font, and spacing within the shape. It looks good against multiple different backgrounds. The problem with this design is that the text becomes illegible when you scale down the image, there are issues with the fact that there six columns therefore would look uneven if I were to delete blocks meaning there would need a colour code and because logos need it work in black and white before you add colour, for these reasons I have failed this logo.

Design No.3 – FAILED

I started to look into luxury within design because I wanted my work to become across as high-standard, I came across the two images of the watch faces, my idea was to remove the digits from the clock face to give the impression that my design work was timeless and would work years later, much like many iconic brands in today’s market. As you can see I have two hands that are in the same time position as the Rolex image shown, the reason why clocks show this time is because it is meant to indicate a smile. Once I had completed this design in Illustrator, I realised it wasn’t going to work, firstly the hands looked like the propellers of a plane, secondly when the logo was reduced to the smallest size and lost the words it looked like a bird with wings. This is not what I wanted to put across to my target audience, so I decided to fail this design.

Design No.4 – FAILED

In this design I tried to create something simple, effective yet eye catching. I feel the logo feels very clip-art like and too simple, then when the logo is reduced down the text is illegible and makes a very pointless logo. On this basis, it was easy to fail this logo.

Design No.5 – PASSED

I really like this logo as it represents the web as an endless space which has no edges. It is simple, eye catching and effective. As you scale the image down, it is still recognisable. This is easily my favourite out of my twenty so I have passed this logo to the final stage. During peer review of this logo, people suggested that I should redesign the the shape myself instead of using an 8 on it’s side, give it a proper hierarchy and fit them in size order.
Design No.6 – FAILED

This design is one of my least favourite designs, I dislike the curve and I don’t think it represents me as a designer. It has no meaning and would still look reasonably boring with colour. When you scale this design down it loses the slight impact it had therefore I have failed this design.

Design No.7 – FAILED

This design was meant to represent timeless design, meaning that something I design today would still be relevant in 2, 5 10 years down the line. While it was an interesting concept, and a good idea, I don’t believe the logo really worked. Scaling down the design the text was undecipherable and the logo unrecognisable, for these reasons, I have decided to fail this design.

Design No.8 – FAILED

This design was a nice idea because it has a certain element of luxury to it, the bottom section to be coloured black white the top remains white with a black border. The circle is to represent an an old style wax stamp which was used to seal letters in years gone by. When showing this logo to my peer group I had feedback that it looked like a logo for a restaurant or an actual restaurant menu. This along with the fact that it doesn’t work in just black and white and that I have added colour means I am failing this logo.
Design No.9 – FAILED

I drew this logo based on road signs, I wanted my logo to stand out at a quick glance. This takes simple shape and type into account to make up the logo but I found this logo to be too simple, therefore I have failed it.

Design No.10 – FAILED

The aim of this logo was to focus all the attention into the typeface just like the ‘Range Rover’ logo with spacing between the type, while in theory a great idea, I thought I needed an actual graphic to assign to the type, therefore I failed this design.

Design No.11 – FAILED

This logo was inspired by this luxury packaging I found, I thought it would be interesting to see what it would turn out like, in the the end I found it looked like I was ‘boxed in’, maybe couldn’t think outside the box, which is not the image what I want to put across as a designer.

Design No.12 – FAILED

This was the worst design I made, I wanted to created a logo that would look like a smile, to present a happy designer that enjoys what he does, this logo is very poor in quality, and I very easily failed this design attempt.
Design No.13 – FAILED

This logo was meant to represent a certain status among my competition. The logo is too simple and I don’t think it looks very professional, therefore I have failed this design.

Design No.14 – FAILED

In this design, I wanted to give a clear example of hierarchy and order, somewhat how pyramid works, while in theory it is a good concept, it is either not going to work or just poorly executed, therefore I failed this design.

Design No.15 – FAILED

This design i one that I favoured from the beginning as I believed it ‘looked good’ but after realising it had no meaning whatsoever, it became an almost pointless logo. I have decided to fail this logo on the basis that it has no meaning behind it.

Design No.16 – FAILED

This logo again was designed using inspiration from the clock face to create the impression of timeless design. This time though (bad pun) I decided to enlarge my initials to make it more about me. Unfortunately, when placed against a coloured background you start to loose the detail in this logo, so for this reason, I have failed this logo.

Design No.17 – FAILED

The purpose of this design was to make me stand out from my competitors, placing myself on the top of a column or pillar rises me above the crowd. It gives the design an automatic hierarchy as the font has to be smaller to give the impression it is resting on a a pillar.

Design No.18 – FAILED

I didn’t expect this design to amount to much, but it actually surprised me when it got to the black and white stage. The problem is that it didn’t have any meaning and that

Design No.19 – FAILED

This design was an interesting one to work on, I wanted to recreate the luxurious feel in the images I have show, but because of the font just wasn’t good enough and the overall feel of the logo wasn’t up to scratch, I decided to fail this logo.

Design No.20 – FAILED

This design was an interesting one to work on, I created the following logo with the idea of having salt poured on the table with someone drawing my initials into it, while it looks okay, it is difficult to recognise at a small level and lacks meaning, therefore I have failed this design

Target Audience of Logo

I started to research which part of the demographic my blog was for, I was able to look at the statistics for my blog, to find out who my target audience was. It turns out in the 2 months my blog had been available for the public to read, It had been viewed 401 times from 12 different countries;

This means my blog logo has to be simple enough to be understood by people whose first language isn’t english, the best way to do this is through universal language such as colours and shapes. Simply using my initials would be enough for people to understand that its relating to myself, in simple shapes, using colours with psychological meaning. I want to portray myself as a professional who is cool and dominant enough within the market to stand out from the crowd, a happy, cheerful & trustworthy designer, whose work screams simplicity. To portray this image, I examined my colour research and found the following colours to be relevant to my overall feel.

Red-Orange:

– Desire

– Sexual passion

– Pleasure

 – Domination

Gold/Yellow:

– Wisdom

– Wealth

– Joy

– Happiness

– Intellect

– Energy

– Cheerfulness

– Loyalty

Blue:

 – Trust

– Wisdom

– Confidence

– Intelligence

– Truth

– Masculine

– Expertise

White;

– Perfection

– Coolness

– Simplicity

Purple;

– Royalty

– Luxury

– Ambition

– Wisdom

– Dignity

– Independence

– Creativity

– Mystery

This gives me something to apply to my current designs that are still in the black & white stage.