Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Logo Teaser

I just read on my sister's blog that she likes to read other blogs while she's up late at night with Oscar. Therefore, as I'm working on my next Logo project, I will show you a little teaser of what I'm doing.



Our third project this semester is to make a personal logo. What you see above is my "W" logo, which has two wings flowing from its sides. This logo is being placed onto a business card design, letterhead, and an envelope. When every piece is finalized and finely tuned after it has been turned in next week, I will post the finished products for you to enjoy.

Monday, February 7, 2011

ART 235 - Project 2

So Merl Tosche commissioned me to design a new logo for this business of his down in Anchorhead. I told him would do it in exchange for some power converters. We shook hands and I and I presented to him a fresh and sleek logo for Tosche Station.



I began my sketches with a simple block lettering that read "Tosche Station," and made a few modifications of it on paper. The three lines (or wings, as they appear here) were the most frequent of the additions. I played around with the two suns of Tatooine, some different drawings of Tosche Station itself, a T-16 Skyhopper, Luke's Landspeeder, a moisture vaporator, a pair of goggles, and of course some power converters.

I searched for an appropriate font to use in the lettering, and in my sketches I wrote "narrow," "italic," and "sans serif." I wound up using Calcite Pro Bold. It had that very sleek look to, with a natural lean to the right. The Bold gave the strokes some necessary weight, but not too much, so we don't lose a lot of the characteristics that make this font stand out. All the lettering is capitals, and the first letters of the words are a larger font size.

I played around with other ways to layout the type, including keeping it all in line, all the same size, only the T being enlarged... but I couldn't just let "Tosche" detract the importance of the "Station," so I enlarged the S and dropped it down, eliminating some uncomfortable negative space between the words.

The wings were actually part of my second sketch, but it started with three lines to the left of the T, growing larger as they went down. While toying around a bit in Illustrator, I reversed the lines, made sure the angles matched that of the T, and copied them on the other side. It created a better balance and order in the design, and lets it look very clean.

Something I also really wanted to emphasize with the design was to give a retro/futuristic look. What I mean with that is how the future would be thought of a few decades ago. It has this new feeling to it, and the logo looks very fast, but at the same time, the whole thing is grounded.

What I think helps a lot, too, are the color choices. The darker blue is almost gray, and that's a personal favorite of mine. It's dark, but it's not black. It will grab the eye, but not weigh it down. I think in the image above, it's with a gray color, but on paper and in Illustrator it's more of a sandy-brown-beige-gray type color. That obvious is to tie into the desert planet where Tosche Station can be found.

In this logo presentation sheet, you will see the larger logo using the blue type and the sandy wings as the primary design. It has been scaled down twice to show its versatility, with both standalone colors. There is also an obligatory black-only design. The entire alphabet in Calcite Pro Bold is presented, despite no lowercase letters being used in the designs. The wings are showcasing the two colors used, and my name and class are included to finally balance the page.

I can say that I am truly proud of myself on this project, and put a lot of hard work and good effort into the finished product.