@ribbonsofred: Brief: Company is called Ribbons of Red. Would like a new logotype inspired by Amélie: http://tinyurl.com/6w64oo
Renee Rist, is a freelance web and graphic designer in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company name is from a song (you can read the whole backstory on her website), I searched for it but couldn’t find it. Would have been cool to have it as music in today’s video.
I wanted to re-watch Amelie before designing this logo and it was rented out when I tried to rent it so I was really happy when Arctic Startup had made a deal with Headweb to give away a free movie to download.
Some of you may have recognized that in the end of today’s screencast I used the same version of Helvetica as I did yesterday. It’s called Helvetica Inserat and was used in a lot of good ads back in the Mad Men era, so I think it’s a good fit with modern marketing companies. In the start of the design process I wanted to do a whole script-font, but the ribbon flow I wanted made it too hard to read so the rest of the journey I just simplified and minimalism. If you do the design processes right there better be some phase with reduction of clutter. Design time around two hours.
Please tweet more briefs based on tv-series characters, I thought I would have time to watch all great movies featured in your briefs but some day’s I just don’t have the time, you know this is still my vacation activity And to Rist from Cincinnati I wish you and your charity based design venture the best, and it’s cool that you wanted someone else to do your logo.
I think the true spirit of being a consultant is believing adding a perspective that is not my own, is also adding credibility to me. There is too many consultants out there that still cries: Only by myself can I, and I alone solve any complex problem just with my gut instinct.
@orvet: Brief: A logo for Sharpenr sharpenr.net inspired by the Gary Hustwit documentary Helvetica
Today, an orgy in Helvetica. A lot of cool stuff has been done with Helvetica, so it’s a hard task to do something that is not just a worse version of a heavy hitters graphic poster.
The characters in Helvetica can all play lead if you ask them to, otherwise the are happy just being on the set, so in that regard they are easy to please. In todays movie they are trying out for parts in fx driven blockbusters but ends up in a character driven film.
Today is the 10th day of the project that will last to August 10th. There is also less then 10 open spots to get a free logo left since I have gotten a lot of good briefs, I haven’t said that enough I think. So if you thought of sending a suggestion for a brief but haven’t gotten around to do it, now is the time. Tweet it.
Also if you are a logotype designer, I love to do a “two designers, one brief”-movie, or just do one of the briefs I already did better and post it.
@mikaelf: Brief: Logo for my iPhone App called “Chawkle” with the base color #A51F26. Inspired by Kevin Mitnick in the film Takedown (2000)
I tried to google Chawkle but without luck so I guess it’s a work in progress. No professional designer can do a job that makes a difference without information or insight in what the product does or why people would want it. However it’s actually not that uncommon to get tech identity assignments for stuff you can’t get more information on, I call it a “place logo here”-job. The tech department have a space assigned for the logo and you are not allowed to change anything else. (I do try to avoid those types of jobs because it decor not design)
First I planned to do the work and screencast in Photoshop, but there is a lot of different opinions on what resolution and format that is best to avoid a blurry iPhone icon. Some dev-text said indicated that the iPhone added some part of the graphic, for instance a highlight on the top when browsing the app in iTunes Store. Too much conflicting info, so I decided to do two versions, one that would look good with automatically added highlights and shades, and one with the highlights already added. That’s why I changed top colors in the end, the red was just ugly with the automatic highlight. I used these iPhone icon templates for testing.
I also decided to deliver the job in a scalable illustrator format. Mikaelf can then save in different resolutions and formats for live testing in the dev environment for him self. If this was a real job I would have installed the dev-kit myself and done all the testing, but I just erased it last week since I needed the hard drive space.
The color was so specific in the brief that I felt that the influence of the hacker in Takedown was almost secondary. Chasing for a most wanted hacker gave me some network map and target board ideas, but since it’s a place-logo-here-job I didn’t want to be to literal. Design time under two hours.
I like to do some more iPhone or perhaps Android app icons, so please tweet in briefs for those. Hint what the app is good for is also something that makes a brief better
The music in today’s screencast is Memories – Gentle Touch.
When I asked for a food related brief yesterday I meant a restaurant or a food package. I think we’ve seen enough blog logo brief now, I will still do some, but I would rather do some logotypes with other applications then a nice wordpress header. However since Lady Fi has been commenting almost everyday I did the first blog brief she asked for today. Comment love should be rewarded ;D
Also, the first week was filled of rather serious characters as inspiration, so kicking of the second week with the more whimsical but witty Dame Edna felt right. Design time two hours.
So if you have briefs for logos with another primary application then a website header I would really like them. It will give more variation to the screencasts as well. Tweet it in! The music in today’s screencast is Think of you – Le Sport.
Oh, I almost forgot, the briefs that centers around illustrated trademarked characters like Disney or other big lawyer infested companies, I’m just staying way from that, and you should too.
@kristianb: Brief: My blog will be: kristianbengtsson.com – I’d like a logo inspired by the stunning/flamboyant Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks).
Today I thought I had a good idea for the first two hours, but then I just looked at it and it felt totally wrong. Sometimes that happens. The first logo sort of worked, but then I sat back and looked at it… It didn’t feel like Audrey at all, it was too much in your face flamboyant sexy and Audrey is more Lolita hidden sexy, so I had to scale it back. I think it was because of my strongest memory of Audrey is when she applies for a job at the sex club by tying a knot on a cherry steam with her tong. I bought cherries just to practice knot tying ever since, but I still can’t do it. I’m also practicing lighting a match with one hand in one fluent move without success. Anyway, design time today is four hours.
I’m hungry right now so I would like to do some food related logotype. So if you have a brief for a savory logo tweet it in. The music in today’s screencast is Expectations – Gentle Touch.
@VeronicavS: Brief: would like logo for my books about profiler Althea Sang Min Molin. Inspiration: Dr. Cristina Yang fr Greys Anatomy
I haven’t read Veronica von Schenck’s books, and usually that would be something one would do before designing a book-series logo. But I did read the information on the Althea’s profile website (all in swedish). So I got that Althea is half Korean, and although I was born i Korea I can’t speak or read korean, but I thought the typeface for the Korean text that is on the Althea website and on the book covers looked rather weak, so I started a whole unfilmed session with researching hangul (the Korean alphabet).
I went a different way from the previous designer here and focused on the Althea part instead of Sang Min, so I got someone that could write hangul for real by asking for help on Aardvark. So a nice person transcribed Althea as 알태야 AL-TAE-YA for me. (Thank you Dae Punt!)
I think that the Cristina Yang reference is Veronica’s way of describing that Althea is both a capable focused character but also a chick lit woman. So I started with a more strong and rational typeface, like Helvetica, DIN and Interstate, my thought through the whole process was to go with strong and add chick lit and murder in the end. I struggled a bit with the hangul since it dominated the logo too much, especially the 태 part the became confusingly like EH, but I think a managed to dial it down in the final version. Design time around two and a half hours + two hours unfilmed research time.
And so the usual request for more briefs, yes I still want them coming, so please send them in! The music in today’s screencast is A room without you – Moto Boy.
If you want me to do logos for your blogs in languages other then English it helps if you have a character I like attached to it. Like @hejgustav.
I really like Dexter, especially the first season, however he was a hard character to combine with a tech blog named after an other famous character. Maybe I went too literal with the blood splatter, in the end I toned it down to just mess up the shiny of the aqua inspired symbol. I like doing 3d rendered stuff in illustrator but it’s hard to get though the printing press, believe me I tweaked those files for days. On the other hand today’s 3d photolike icons is pretty hard to use from a interaction design standpoint, since they don’t translate well in small sizes. When I look at the result now I think I could have simplified the A/rss symbol with one less line to get the A to read clearer, but that’s the thing with quick logos, no time to do it again, just produce! Design time around two and a half hours.
And so the usual request for more briefs, and another thing, if you have some music that you want me to use please feel free to sent it in. To paraphrase Heidi Klum: Musicians, this is a competition for you as well. But seriously, not every logo fits with the great music from Songs I Wish I Had Written. But todays does, the music in today’s screencast is Transistor Tropics – The LK.
So I lot of you have asked for logotypes inspired by crazy creepy characters, what’s up with that? Usually clients ask for a logo that feels traditional but yet contemporary or something oxymoronic like that, but this is a new challenge because I don’t really believe that you want your logos to indicate that you’re paranoid schizophrenic mass-murderers. By the way the request to have crazy people as inspiration comes mainly from bloggers, I might do some stats analyzes on that later.
About todays logo, citizen journalism and twitter are making us all into town criers, peeping toms or wannabe Woodwards and Bernsteins. This is a good thing but also a bit creepy, just like monkey lovin’ Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys. After the usual first drafts of ugly (that for some reason we designers must visualize just to see how horrible they really are), I decided to go less ransom note. After all citizen journalism is about doing creative stuff with gadgets and not digging though newspaper recycling bins. I pictured the primal use for the logo as a on screen header for the blog so I didn’t care that it’s hard to print and wouldn’t work in really small sizes. Design time 2 hours.
I you like my project please tweet about it. I still need more briefs, for instance I’d like to a redesign of a logo for a charity organization. The music in today’s screencast is another from Gentle Touch – Fascination.
Oh and I almost forgot: @nordgren who orderd The Shoreditch Hacker House logo has already used it at the Music Hack Day. Watch this:
@aDeSe: Brief: The name of my client’s company is Vision Ventures and I want a logo inspired by the movie Godfather.
This brief does not contain a reference to a specific character and therefor I should ignore it, however this gives me a reason to explain why I choose include that part as a must. This project is more about entertainment than branding, and for a broader audience to be entertained by logotype designing they need to relate to the brief. So if the assignment includes an element that we all know we can all have fun. I also believe that logotypes are pop culture and are not suppose to be highbrow, you should get them without having to educate yourself or the design has failed.
Another reason why I shouldn’t have taken this assignment is that I strongly believe that the name Vision Ventures is trademarked already but that’s @aDeSe’s client’s problem not mine. I might be different tm-laws in Mumbai, and after all you want a Godfather like brand so…
Today’s movie is filmed more in FontLab Studio than in Illustrator. It is around 3 hours design time compressed into one minute. I think that made it a bit epileptic, so please comment if you think I should change the format for logos that takes longer to design.
I still need more briefs, if you can’t write one yourself there is a whole profession that prides them self with being masters of brief-writing. They are called planners and most of them hangs out at twitter to do netnography these days. Reach out to one of them and let them write the brief for you.
@nordgren: Brief: The Shoreditch Hacker House, a geek flat share in London, needs a logo inspired by spirit of Acid Burn in Hackers.
Great response yesterday, thank you, all of you! Today’s logotype is based on Angelina Jolie’s character in Hackers named Acid Burn. She is a l33t hacker with an strong personality and she is actually a rather decent female movie character for being from that era.
I’m not really sure where @nordgren and the hackers in the Shoreditch House will apply the logo? Maybe laptop stickers? Well since this is not a planning project didn’t do my usual diligent research and just started to design.
The whole design took slightly under 2 hours and the music in today’s screencast is Gentle Touch – Pieter van den Hoogenband. And keep commenting and tweeting so I know what you like to hear more or less of. I would like to do a logo for bank, so if you know a marketing director at a cheap bank please tweet “You can still apply to Tomas’ free logo summer project, instructions at http://logotyp.se #logotypse” or tweet something else, just tweet if you like the project.
And to Rist from Cincinnati I wish you and your charity based design venture the best, and it’s cool that you wanted someone else to do your logo.