OUGD203// Self initiated brief: Logo for Peace Day..

As part of the self initiated brief I have decided to re brand Peace One Day to make it fit more with my target audience. My target audience is students aged between 18 and 24, I need my logo to be modern and communicate a clear message about Peace one Day. It needs to appeal to my target audience and make them want to join in with the event.

The first thing I though to when it came to peace was the peace symbol and doves, although these may seem like obvious ways to communicate peace, I didnt want to over complicate something unnecessarily. I started by experimenting with the peace symbol within the logo to see if I could keep it simple but still communicate Peace One Day.

This is the first logo that I created using the peace symbol. I raw the peace symbol in Illustrator and then added the text, but missing out the word peace so that the symbol would replace this. I feel this is a clear way of communicating Peace One day. I added a texture over the logo to give it a more rustic look. I dont think this works too well though as there is no particular reason for me doing it.

This logo is the same as the one above apart from I have changed the one into the number 1 to further more simplify the logo. I have then made the 1 bold italic so that it stands out from the day.

I then moved on from the previous designs and tried something a little different. I simplified the peace symbol and sat it next to the 1/day so it flowed like a sentence. I then changed the logo to a bright sky blue. The reason for the blue was because I felt it was very pure and it represents clear skies and new beginnings, which is what Peace One day is all about.

With this logo I tried using the word peace and then placing the peace symbol within the counters of the letters. This looks awful and doesnt really do itself much justice. Its far to complicated and doesnt communicate the message of Peace One Day very well at all.

I then looked at changing round the previous design. I went back to the sky blue and made the symbol smaller so that it would line up with the text. I also added the word peace to help the symbol communicate peace. I kept the symbol as just a stroke because if it was filled it was too distracting from the text. I have then put a texture over the text but im not sure if this works or not.

I then made the symbol bigger and placed the text underneath it. I feel that this works better than them being side by side as the symbol is easily recognizable when it comes to communicating peace.

This is the same as the one above apart from I have added another copy of the symbol and placed it over the top in a green colour with a texture. I think I am starting to over complicate the logo by adding elements that do not help the communication of the logo.

So I took the logo back to using one symbol and then added the date of Peace One Day which is a very important detail. I have tried to change the weight of the type for each piece of information to emphasise it.

I have tried the logo with filling the symbol with the blue and then changing the date to a darker blue to make it stand out. I dont think that this works very well as the symbol over powers the text and the date looks odd because the change in colour.

I then started to experiment with the word peace and placing the symbol in place of the letter a. I dont think that it is very clear what the word is even though the symbol is the peace sign. Again I feel its far to complicated.

I then tried adding a dove outline in place of the letter a, which I feel works a lot better because of the shape of the dove. The full name of the event also works better as it tells what it is. I have used Century Gothic as my typeface as I feel that it fits well with what I am communicating. I have added a white stroke to the words so that they appear to have a lighter weight, this makes the logo feel more elegant and fits with the symbolism of peace.

I have experimented with the peace symbol and the dove to see if I could create some designs that could be used within the logo but also on its own so that the design could become recognised and associated with Peace One Day.

This is the finished logo that I have decided to use, it will be used alone but also along with other elements within my product and range. I think it works well because its simple and it communicates all the important information. I will be taking off the texture over the peace symbol as it doesnt really fit with the rest of the logo.

The design below shows how the dove and peace symbol combined works with the other logo.

Design for print: Good is// Logo development..

As part of the Good is brief, I have designed a brand and identity for my final solution which will be used on my promotional material for my polka dot event. I have tried to keep my logo simple and clear to understand the appropriateness with polka dots.

This logo came from the task set by Fred, to design 150 logos related to our concept (mine being polka dots). The circlr represents the dot and the two shapes inside the circle are a p and a d, standing for polka dot. I think the design really works because it is simple although this logo was said to look like 69 or remind people of that figure. After having a crit my tutor said that the logo worked well even with the sexual interpretation because it keeps it a bit cheeky.

I tried experimenting with different gradients over the logo above to see how it effected its communication. I dont really think that this logo works too well as the white on the left hand side bleeds into the p which makes it less clear than the d.

This one again doesnt work too well in my opinion, I think its because the pd is black and it doesnt stand out as much as the white in the above logos.

This logo is altered from the second logo down where I have used a gradient. On this logo though I have changed the letters to black and the gradient is reflected. I think this version works better than the one similar as the letters stand out more.

With this design I tried to create a two toned effect by using reverse tones on either side with the semi circle and the letters. I dont think it works particularly well because the lighter semi circle is using too many different tones which I think over complicates things.

This design still uses a gradient but I have used a stroke around the circle to make it more complete and together, the gradient is also a lot more even in terms of a brighter or darker side, which helps the pd stand out.

I then started to experiment with colour and how this would effect the design. Again I used a gradient. I think this colour palette works really well with the logo and the white pd really stands out. But the colours have no relevane to polka dots. It is not one of the first few colours I think of when I think about polka dots.

This design just uses one colour and white, the one colour keeps it simple and helps it to really stand out, again though I dont really think of orange when I think polka dots.

I then went back to gradients and tried using reds into oranges, because red is a colour associated with polka dots. I have kept the pd white as I think it works better with the red, rather than keeping it black. It feels as though there is too much going on though.

The gradient on this design is a lot more subtle, which simplifies it.

Another example of the one above but using orange.

This one again has an even subtler gradient over it, but it makes such a difference by just having it there ever so slightly.

This design uses a purple and blue gradient, I think the colours work really well with the white, it looks really crisp and the gradient is very smooth compared to some of the above.

I then looked at changing the logo ever so slightly to see if I could perhaps make it communicate my message a bit clearer. I took away the pd on this design and replaced it with the words polka dot. This made it more obvious and clear on what I was trying to communicate. It is still very simple, I have used Century Gothic for this particular design.

This design is a lot more 'quirky', I think this is because the type looks more hand rendered and it flows very well. The type face adds character and interest. This logo could be used for a kids polka dot clothing label. I want my logo to be quite neutral, because my event is for everything polka dot, not just clothing so I need it to be suitable to represent everything polka dot, as well as appeal to my target audience and varied age range.

This one got a bit too complex I think. I tried to combine the Century Gothic logo with the original, by taking the pd and using them to replace the p and d in the words. Im not really sure if the underlining on this design is nessessary.

This design is similar to the one above but I have moved the p down (as they are both lowercase). This made the design very uneven, hence why I underlined it, which made it look even worse.

I then tried to combine both of the logos again but in a different way. I literally took their two circles and placed them next to eachother. But I think it makes it less clear as to what I am trying to communicate.

This is using the same principles as the one above, but combining the other logo.

This works slightly better than the two above. It uses the same technique but I have made it more obvious that it is two circles next to eachother.

I then tried taking away the circles as an 'enclosure' and used them as counters instead. I think this looks really good and works well. Not sure if I needed the polka dot at either end as it makes it look like it says 'opolkadoto'.

This is the same as the above, but without the two circles either end and a full stop instead. I think it makes more sense now and again it keeps it simple.

This one is still using the cirlces as counter replacers, but here I have used the two o's as polka dots and left them with white counters. Its just a simple way of making the message even clearer and simpler for my target audience to understand.

This design has just used a black counter for all the letters, it makes a huge difference to the typeface which I quite like.

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It has helped me a lot by experimenting with what I could do with my logo and how it has effect on what and how my target audience would percieve it.

Logos, logos and more logos..

After having the lateral thinking workshop with Fred, we next had to draw out logos that related to our good. First we did a small exercise where we had to use a word from a list of nine things from the previous workshop and make a logo from one word. After doing 23 of those we then had to use the logos we sourced that related ot the list of nine and incorporate their structure and elements into another set of 9 logos. The final task was to use just images to represent our good.

The above image is the images and elements of existing logos. I dont really think any of these particularly work well to represent my good but it was interesting to see what I could come up with using the resources that I had. The images in particular were difficult to explore as I felt that the list of nine didnt really have any significant relevance to an image I could have used to clearly communicate my good. One particular logo that I did think worked on this design sheet was the Cath Kidston inspired one. The typeface and layout was very sophisticated and stylised and I think it seemed to sum up polka dots.

This design sheet had the 23 word logos on it, these designs were purely based on my own creative mind and what I thought represented the list of nine things and my good. We had a limited time to which we were to do as many as possible, so there wasnt really any time to think about what you were doing, you just had to do it. There are some that work better than others, I think that the 2nd one in on the top row works well because of the typeface I have used, it has a light weighting to it and the kerning is set quite wide. This makes it look very elegant and sophisticated but without being too stylised and overworked. I also like the design 'pdm', the p and d look like an apostraphy and a comma, but I have tried to make the counters look like they are polka dots, I do think it would look better without the m as it doesnt really fit in with the other two letters.

At the end of the workshop Fred decided to set us a bit of homework, he had written four numbers on four seperate bits of paper (50,100,150,200) and scrunched them up, we then had to pick a hand until we had chosen one bit of paper which held our fate! Unluckily for us we picked the hand with 150! Which meant we had to design 150 logos which represented our good. These logos had to combine 2 (no more, no less) of the logos from the workshop, we were to use one colour and they were t be produced at an A6 format.

This task seemed impossible as 150 was such a huge amount! It made me remember the collection 100 brief from 1st year and gave me shivers! I was told to spend no more than a few minutes on each design so then it would not theoretically take that long!

It was one of those tasks where you just have to get stuck in and just get on with it, and the more you thought about it the harder it got. It wasnt until I had finished the logos that I really appreciated having been given the task. It just gets your creative juices flowing and it was really good to experiment and explore all the possibilities. I think that part of being a Graphic Designer is to be creative (obviously) so this task should have technically been fairly easy! The thing that I learnt the most from this task is that you can never have too many ideas, this may seem obvious but im sure there is still so many logos I could come up with. It has also set a bench mark for any future work that I do. Also I think its good to see what you can create from a small amount of resources, the less ideas and initial developments you have the more you are restricting yourself and probably creating something that isnt as original as you would want it to be!

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After looking at our 150 logos we then had to pick 10 of our favourites which we layed out with our list of nine things for a group to decide which one they thought best represented out good.

The design that they chose is top right. This design was based upon Cath kidston logo, mainly the 'C' of her first name on her logo. The counters of the two 'O's have been filled in to show reference to polka dots and the typeface is flowing and fun. I wanted the logo to represent the personality traits of the polka dot and how fun they are, the style in which I have designed this logo does represent this.

The feedback I recieved about that particular logo was this:

- Represents polka dots

- Doesnt need the circled R

- The LTD could be replaced with something else

- Maybe use spot colour for the O's

- Put it in a circle

I have started to develop my logo using this feedback as first hand ideas. I have done things such as:

- Put the whole logo in a circle

- Put half the logo in a circle and reverse out the type

- Take away the underlining

- Replaced the underling with dots

- Blocked in all the counters

- Reversed out the type

- Experimented with the weight of the type

- Elongated the type

- Used spot colouring in the O's

- Used one colour for the whole logo (not black)

- Taken away the counters

- Played around with the use of the underlining

I still have a lot of experimenting to do before I have my finalised logo, so far I have hand rendered all of my developmental designs but I will be digitising them so that I can play around more with colour and also how I can apply my logo to a variety of different things.

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One thing that I found though was that I didnt feel my logo linked fully to what my good is: good is the mathematical values of polka dots. After getting feedback from a tutor and my peers I found a way in which I could link maths of polka dots to fashion or even just the way in which I formulated my logo. The original logo had been drawn perfectly into thirds without me even realising, this could be an element that I link to in order for my logo to still link with mathematics. Another option which I feel would give me more scope for this brief, is to design a brand of fashion clothing that focuses on really geeky clothing, this way I can design tshirts that have polka dot math designs on them. In a way its taking my initial concept and applying it in a different context. Again its just something that I am going to have to explore.

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After my peers had chosen my logo for which I had to develop, I first started by digitising it so I could start to experiment and play with it whilst also thinking how I could apply to other things.

The group who gave me my feedback suggested that I put my logo into a circle. I have tried that with this logo and also added a curved line that links the two 'o's to make a smiley face. Although I dont think that it is appropriate for my 'good', I do think it is rather clever, it could be used if I decided to aim my project at a younger target audience (5-11 year olds for example).

With this design I tried to seperate the word but keep it together (if that makes sense). I basically inverted the middle letters and kept the two 'o's right at the edge of the circle. I tried using a centralised circle because placing the whole logo in a circle didnt look right. I felt that the descender of the 'p' made the logo (when in a circle) very unbalanced.

I really like this logo, again I have played on the smiley face. I decided to take away some of the details from the other design similar to this. It makes it less obvious what it is without the pupils and larger circle, which is a good thing, I want it to be subtle. Someone will notice it and be like "ooooohhh".

This design works okay too with the small circle only covering half of the logo. I have kept the type white and then just added a light black stroke to the 'dot'. There is still something missing though and I cant quite put my finger on it! It just seems that the more I develop and work on this logo, the more I start to not like it, or even think it represents my good!

Again this logo plays on the smiley face but it doesnt work as well as the other two similar designs. I think this is because the curved line is too long, it kind of looks like a shy smiley face. Also the letter 'p' is still making the whole thing look uneven.

I tried adding colour to my logo, I used a Pantone spot colour. I think it works quite well adding the colur just to the two 'o's, it kind of makes it that little bit more obvious that its a logo representing polka dots.

Another piece of feedback was to experiment with the line underneath the words. With this design I have added a simple straight line and also increased the weight of the type. Just by increasing the weight of the type, creates a whole new feeling to the logo.

With this one I have added 3 small dots with a line either side. This seems to balance out the logo. I did try it with just one central dot with lines but it felt like the dot was trying to push the letter 'a' out of place and it just became confusing.

This is similar to an earlier development but I have decided to fill the word 'dot' in black. This works so much better because the black text balances out the black circle. I do think that I should have tried making the dot at the end white so it went black/white/black/white etc.

This was just looking at different CMYK colours for my logo. I do actually prefer it in black and white but its always useful to see how it could work with colour. It works particularly well with the lighter blues, the white just seems to compliment it, it looks very elegant and not too in your face!

I then had a look at greyscale and pure black, I think this ^^ image would look pretty cool as a poster or tshirt design.