25 logos in 25 weeks!
Project: 25 collection logos for PID Floors • Agency: Kalakatta Design Studio • Client: PID Floors • Award: GDUSA 2020 Award
Kalakatta is a rising design studio on the horizon based in Bridgewater, New Jersey serving clients worldwide. Sonal Gadre-Shintre, the founder of this boutique studio is a multidisciplinary award-winning graphic designer with a keen eye for typography and expertise in branding, design, and communication.
With a decade of prolific experience in India, the USA, and Europe, she has developed a clean and elegant design style with a contextual approach. She has won several awards from IDA — International Design Award and GDUSA — American Graphic Design in the past. In 2020, Sonal has added the most well-deserving feathers in her cap in the very first year of establishing her own design studio, by winning 3 awards from the GDUSA — Graphic Design USA 2020!
One of the awards was given to her for her extensive collection logos project with the client — PID Floors. “25 logos in 25 weeks”, she says triumphantly as we discuss the details of her project. For three decades, PID Floors has earned a reputation as a leader in the hardwood flooring industry, offering extraordinary products — unrivaled in variety and accessibility — and exceptional service. Apart from PID Floors, no other hardwood floor company has ‘collections’ for their hardwood products. “That’s really a unique feature — something that made this project interesting and challenging as I did not have references or benchmarks to study other competitor brands”, adds Sonal.
Keeping the values of the umbrella brand in mind, Sonal decided to design monochromatic collection logos where the unique features of each collection are showcased through clever design elements and minimalistic nuances of typography.
As the name of the collection is ‘Angle’, the wordmark is beautifully angled. Sonal incorporated the torch in the logomark that symbolizes the Statue of Liberty for the special ‘Made in America’ — Liberty Collection. The Reclaimed and Cork Collections uses a stylized ‘Recycle’ icon to showcase the recycled and sustainable nature of the collection. For the super wide and long product of the Board Collection, Sonal thought of extending the horizontal bars of the letterforms ‘b’ and ‘d’ to depict its nature. The letterforms ‘C’ and ‘H’ are inspired by the pattern of the Chevron and Herringbone respectively. Sonal created an elegant custom lettering for the wordmark — Parquet Collection, while using French-inspired typography for the Chene Collection.
She brought out the essence of the raw and grungy finish of the Well-Treated and Drift Collections with playful use of textures and rough brush strokes. The artistic treatment of the In Love Collection depicts the handmade nature of the flooring. Sonal utilized layered typography for the Smart Click and Core Collections to highlight the special layer base system and to highlight 5 available colors in the Metro Collection, five letters in the word ‘Metro’ are laid out in the five different weights of the same font.
Sonal acknowledges and appreciates that — “The team PID Floors has been very collaborative and given me complete artistic liberty without which the project would have not gone on smoothly. Our efforts helped give each collection a distinct identity that highlights a key feature or function of the product line.”
The client had full confidence in Sonal’s ability to deliver even in the year of the pandemic where it was not easy to have face-to-face meetings. All communication was carried out virtually through emails or video meetings. PID Floors and Sonal have a successful client-designer relationship based on mutual trust, respect, and love for the design industry in their respective fields.
“It was a true dream come true project. I never imagined that I would create 25 logos for one client in the first year of starting my own studio. I am grateful to PID Floors for trusting me. I am also thankful for Adobe Fonts. It is a great source of fonts! I could easily try out 100 different fonts for each logo without worrying about licenses.” Sonal adds at the end.
Follow Kalakatta’s Instagram handle — @kalakattadesign to view upcoming projects and feel free to reach out to Sonal for your creative requirement at Sonal@kalakatta.studio • www.kalakatta.studio
