Coldwood Community Foundation_Logo Design

Creative Typography_Design Tips

For any Graphic Designer, typography can a daunting subject if they are not familiar with the principles of typography even at a basic level.  I personally had an ongoing battle with typography in my less experienced years in design.  How do you choose the right font? And all fonts look the same !  Those were primarily my negative thoughts.  However with age and experience I am personally getting to grips with typography. I see typography as a more skeletal structure of your design now, because its not visually pleasing as an image, typography can often be neglected.

In this blog I'd like to share with you a basic understanding of using type creatively from my personal experiences.  This isn't a full detailed and outlined course on typography looking at the anatomy, hierachy, composition of typography. This post is a more of a playful experiment in using type creatively. 

Creative Experiment:

My quick typographic experiment

Sofiya Make-Up Artist_Logo Design



Final logo in colour, and solo tone black and white

Studio Momentum_Logo Identity Creative Process

ClickBox_Logo Identity Creative Process

Logo Design Process_Stock Box

Logo Design Project Questionnaire

Before commence any Logo/Branding Project, the first task for me is to sit down with the client or email them over a quick questionnaire for them to fill in regarding the project.  The questions are simple and help to get the client involved with the project from the start.  An involved client is a happy client. The collective answers then provide the designer a design brief to focus on and follow as a ground foundation.  The questionnaire can also protect the designer if a client turns around and disputes something they mentioned at a later stage; having the questionnaire written in the clients words helps the designer to fall back on the answers written by the client for any disagreements.  Written information from the client is a much safer source than verbal information, as verbal information gets forgotten or misinterpreted. 

My New Business Cards



Business Card Front

Reading Society Crompton Library_Logo Design

Red Jolokia_Logo Design Process

Logo Design Process - Motion Still Pictures

Design Brief

Motion Still Pictures is a new start up business and in need of an identity to start the new business project.  The nature of the company is Media based, offering services from Film, Video, Design and Photography.  The client wants a Logo Identity which describes the business as Creative, Technical, Sophisticated, Contemporary and Dynamic.      

The final logo has to work both in full colour and also solo black and white, to make it more versatile to implement across all mediums of the business.  The logo has to be iconic where it can stand alone, such as used or watermarking the company’s creative images.  The icon should also be simple and effective enough to be transferred onto promotional materials such as t-shirts, caps, mugs, pens and so on.

There should also be opportunity to animate the Logo.  Due to the company’s nature of being Media based company, it is vital for the final logo to have a company ident to portray its nature and to attract business of similar kind.  The Ident will be the dynamic face of the business. 


Brainstorm

Quick Brainstorming helps to generate ideas and design pathways to aid the intial sketching process

Logo Design Process: Oldham Youth Forum

Design Brief:

A new non-profitable Charity Organization called ‘Oldham Youth Forum’ were in need of an identity to kick start their campaign.  The aims of organization are to help support the local youths in the local community and prosper them with a better future through the organizations support and guidance.

The look and feel of the logo has to illustrate a welcoming feel, freedom, fun, safe environment, colourful, energy and illustrate youth.   

The final logo had to work both in full colour and also solo black and white, to make it more versatile to implement across all mediums of the organization from stationary to physical implementation of the logo on uniforms etc.

The logo had to be also iconic, where it can be used as just an icon on its own without the Organizations name, to make it further more versatile.  The icon needs to be aesthetic and clearly state the organizations aims and objectives of helping Youths.

My Logo Identity Project Process

Why am I writing this blog post?

I always get asked by aspiring designers and clients how I come about tackling each design brief.  So to illustrate my process, I have decided to put together the process of how I tackled my Re-branding Identity Project recently from start to finish.  Both peers and clients therefore would see the depth of how much thought and creativity goes into a project and therefore isn’t an ‘Overnight’ job.  Each designer would have their own personal ways of working on a project but this is simply my personal preferable way of working which I always find very comfortable working in.

·      Design Brief: Receiving, understanding and negotiating the Initial Design Brief.  Ask client all necessary questions to get the best understanding of the requirements.  Asking questions also helps to eliminate any early problematic areas.

·      Research:  I then research existing brand identities of the clients market competitors looking at what’s already out there, any trends and how to differentiate the clients business from the competitors.

·      Brainstorming Ideas: This is the earliest part of the creative stage where I explore imagery, words, look and feel of all the possibilities I can think of relating to the clients business.

·      Initial Sketching Process:  This part of the project is the start of using the brainstormed ideas into rough thumbnail sketches, very simplest form; the general idea in this stage is to get all my thoughts sketched down as possible without worrying about making pretty little drawings.

·      Concept Development Stage:  From the initial sketch stage, I choose the best 3-5 designs which I can draw up roughly in digital format in vector format in Adobe Illustrator to present to the client, and the best possible idea gets chosen to be further redefined in the final stages.

·      Final Design Defining Stage: At this stage, the 1 chosen idea gets explored further by looking at colour, shapes, simplifying, and other sort of variations.

·      Final Design: At this stage the design is complete and how to apply the identity throughout the company is discussed, from stationary to other form of presentation of the brand mark.

·      Feedback: Throughout the stages above, feedback between the designer and client is ongoing at each stage.