If you've read the last post, and many of you have, you know that I am currently in the midst of a rebranding. I roughed up a few ideas and then let them out into the wild of the internet to see what kind of feedback I would get. Sometimes when you do this sort of thing nobody responds but other times you get a flurry of feedback. The feedback I received, mostly from my associates through LinkedIn, was absolutely fantastic. Everyone agreed that I was heading in the right direction and that's always good to know.
I am most appreciative especially to my associates Chandler and Brian who gave me specific insights I hadn't considered. Chandler's thorough understanding of the User Experience is definitely beyond my point of reference and was especially helpful, and Brian's turn of a phrase equally so. they both brought up some key points throughout the initial progression which I have now incorporated into further revisions as you can see below.
I am most appreciative especially to my associates Chandler and Brian who gave me specific insights I hadn't considered. Chandler's thorough understanding of the User Experience is definitely beyond my point of reference and was especially helpful, and Brian's turn of a phrase equally so. they both brought up some key points throughout the initial progression which I have now incorporated into further revisions as you can see below.
For ease of reference I've numbered this layout and included the original 18 concepts as well as a large assortment of revisions. The general consensus from everyone is, as I had already assumed, that I should limit the new design to one or two colors. This has always been my own belief when designing logos for my clients for a number of reasons, not the least of which includes cost of reproduction and legibility. There's a reason that some of the biggest corporations on the planet have one colour logos, and it's not because they're cheap.
I'm going to continue a discussion of the process from design 19, which is pretty much just a color tweak of number 18. I've decided that the two "G"s have the greatest impact in black but I've fine tuned the pencil "L" to the traditional Yellow of a Staedtler pencil. This is a fairly recognizable image to many people in the design and business world, even if they don't actually register it right off the bat. On 20 I flipped the highlight in the left eye and added a nice rainbow flow from the tip of the pencil (which I then carried through the next four designs, subliminally in protest to the Russian political attitude). The eyes were okay but it wasn't adding anything to the design, so then I removed the left highlight but that just made it look like I was winking at everyone. As for the rainbow, its addition is fine for specific instances, but it's not very useful for a logo so I dropped that idea after making a few adjustments. Maybe a t-shirt design at a later date with the final brand . . . then again, maybe not. I also played with the pencil length at this point but finally decided that I wanted to maintain a closed image rather than having the point extending beyond the imaginary frame.
With the rainbows having fallen by the wayside I returned to the primary design and a comment another associate had made about the use of negative space. The pencil lent itself quite nicely to that as you can see in 24, which also has the added softness of the curved edges on the "G"s that I began in 22. I'm not really sold on the rounded edges so it was back to the hard edge in 25 and added color back in, but thanks to 24 I realized I don't need the eraser to be pink, there's no need to be so literal in the design. Out the pink goes for 26 which again tries to use the negative space. Better but it's still got room for growth.
Another comment that had been brought up was the lines in the pencil. If you look closely you can see that they knockout from the color but when you reproduce this at business card size they're just going to bleed together. In 27 I fixed that issue by just imprinting the black lines directly over the golden yellow of the pencil, the color of which I removed in 28 but kept the lines. The look was growing on me but there was still room for more adjustments. That said, I don't think 29 is it . . . the image now looks like an inverted raccoon. Great if I want a mascot or focus on being a children's illustrator, but not so much for the feel I'm after.
Brian had made some good points about the direction of the pencil and really liked the idea of the point going up so I've played with that off and on but there are two problems with that look for me; the first is that it makes the image look as though it's sitting on a stubby little moustache, probably not the best idea, . . . but secondly, when I'm using a pencil I always have the tip pointed down because otherwise all I'm doing is erasing things. I didn't give up on the "point up" option but I'm pretty sure that, in the end, the point will be down. As we were discussing the color of the pencil the golden yellow eventually merged into a gold, from which we get Brian's tag line "The man with the golden pencil." I'll have to buy him a drink for that one as soon as we get together.
There were a few amongst you who felt that I shouldn't mess with my current brand, partly out of concern that I would be losing that recognizability and perhaps out of the fear that you wouldn't do it to your own logo. That's a good fear to concern yourself with, but I've always been known more for who I am than what my logo looks like. If I asked my closest friends most of them wouldn't even remember the logo, just me ripping open my shirt like Superman. However, in defence of that belief, and because I still liked the original logo I went back and made a few tweaks as you can see from 39 - 44. It's definitely better than having the text run through the center of the curved design, but I'm confident that the new direction for the brand is better.
Something else that came up in these discussions and that some of you may have noticed is that I've dropped the "and Graphic Design" from the text. This was something I've debated on for quite some time but if you look elsewhere throughout my site you'll notice that most of my design work still has a heavy illustration influence so I felt it was safe to remove the extra wording. This also allowed for a more balanced weight overall and less crowded text. I really like 33, 34 and 38 and am leaning very strongly in that direction for the final product.
Quite a few comments mentioned how much they like the new direction but only one person compared the new design to the "golden ratio" and it hadn't even dawned on me during the initial process. It should have, this is after all what I do for a living, but I didn't consciously go out to match the shape to that "magic" formula . . . and yet somehow subconsciously I had. If you look closely in 38 I set a very fine outline of the "golden ratio" behind the image and it's almost a perfect fit, . . . once you add the tag line. Apparently I did consider it.
So there you have it. These last two blog posts have followed the evolution of a personal brand from the original design just about to the final choice. This isn't quite as intensive as a corporate rebranding could be but it does follow the same basic steps. I'm still open to feedback, which is something I don't get a lot of when I'm working in the studio, but I think I've managed to narrow it down quite considerably.
For those of you who are looking at your old logo and wondering if it's time for a change, it probably is. Some of the largest companies in the world tweak their logos from time to time to keep their image fresh. Maybe it's time for you to consider freshening up your image. If I can help to bring that change about then you should give me a call and I can add your rebranding to my growing list of projects for the spring.
The Man With The Golden Pencil
The Man With The Golden Pencil
The Man With The Golden Pencil