The Brief: I need a logo that is robust enough to be displayed both on-screen and at a small size in print. As I'm just starting out, for economy I need a logo that will reproduce well in one colour, even if that colour is the black toner of my laser-printer. The logo must also be able to be developed easily as and when I have more money to spend on fancy reproduction and/or it's necessary to display it on other display media. This development should not modify the logo so much that it becomes too different to the logo I started with.
Initial Logo Development
Stage 1: [a]
Begin with a proven typeface that will convey brand values without alteration. This typeface is Univers - the font is Light Condensed.
Stage 2:
Increase the letter-spacing so that reproduction at a small size will not interfere with readability.
Stage 3: [b]
Begin abstraction. I could see at this stage that the ascenders and descenders of my name in lowercase made a distinctive pattern.
Stage 4:
I thought I'd try using the character boxes as abstract characters themselves, so I spaced the boxes out a little.
Stage 5:
Without the original characters inside the boxes the taller abstract characters look a little too close to the x-height.
Stage 6:
Here I've differentiated the tall and small characters by doubling the height of the taller ones in comparison to the smaller ones.
Stage 7: [c]
Although the vertical proportions now look OK, I'm not happy with the width to height ratio of the logo as a whole.
Stage 8: [d]
A little bit more adjustment gives me the final logo that is now in use.Notes on the design stages:
- Why use all lowercase and no spaces?
My business is web-based and the main point of reference is this web site. The convention for writing URLs is all lowercase, no spaces. - Why that particular type of abstraction?
I'm a no-nonsense graphic designer who likes to KISS. - Not happy? It looks fine!
It just looked a bit squat after converting the lowercase characters into rectangles. The relationships between the spaces and the character widths doesn't look right to me. - What adjustments? Why does it need any?
I've formalised the proportions by making the spaces 1-unit, the x-height letters 2-units by 4-units and the ascenders and descenders 2-units by 8-units. This may seem unnecessary but it will allow me to display the logo in full and proper sharpness at a minimum pixel size of 32px by 12px (
). Very useful for display on the web.
- Why use all lowercase and no spaces?
Logo Versatility & Variations
Any brand should allow it's owner the room to modify rendering style for use with different target markets.
This is just a load of quick variants to demonstrate the flexibility of the logo with regards to style of rendering. These different styles also show how this logo retains legibility under differing amounts of distortion.
Variant 1:
Squashed to half it's original height, this version has square x-height characters.
Variant 2:
Odd shaped character forms do not interfere with the legibility here.
Variant 3:
Possible environmental distorters such as glass need not significantly reduce legibility.
Variant 4:
An exaggerated viewing angle with heavy distortion due to perspective do not hinder legibility.
Variant 5:
80's nostalgia does not significantly reduce legibility. Credibility is slightly damaged.
Variant 6:
This rendering could be used on promotions of my illustration services.
Variant 7:
I'm quite taken by this rendering and may even use it on a planned development area on this site.
Variant 8:
Even when severely distorted by a flame effect, the logo is still recognisable. A supporting corporate identity would help a lot in this instance to provide a brand reference.
Variant 9:
Woah... Trippy dude... This one suggests animated content to me.
Variant 10:
This one also looks like a still from an animated sequence.
Variant 11:
A polished looking and shiny version could possibly be used in a motion graphics ident.
Variant 12:
A 3D rendering with perspective may one day represt my 3D modelling skills (I don't have many at the moment).
Variant 13:
I believe this one demonstrates that a differentiation between andy and leppard is unnescessary.
Variant 14:
An isometric 3D rendering retains more clarity than the previous 3D variant.