The Born Of #Call And Its Logo
#CALL stands for Creative Action Learning Lab
Designing logos and brand visual identity is one of my favorite habits. I learned the skill and knowledge during the early stages of my career when I was a copywriter at an advertising agency. After I left the advertising field, I moved to strategist investment consultancies such as VC/IPO service for enterprises and startups and moved to web/mobile product research and design.
It was so fun to design the logo and the whole visual identity system especially when I was a member of the project. I feel I am a person who builds the foundation of the enterprise because I always worked in Reorganization companies, developing strategic growth plans and building corporate culture systems with founders and CEOs. One thing I did more than a normal strategy consultant is I used to use my skill in logo design and brand identity for these projects since I was an internal consultant.
I also like to design logos and visual identities for digital nonprofit projects such as a self-organization blogger conference, several volunteer-based translation communities, and education projects for kids, youth, and adults.
Of cause, I always design logos for my own ideas and projects. The newest one is CALL which stands for Creative Action Learning Lab.
The Vision of CALL
There are three basic types of creations: Content, Object, and Action. Beyond these basic types, there are some complex mixed types. For example:
- Content: Books, ads, visual design, music, course, news, law, etc.
- Object: Tools, toys, instruments, clothes, vehicles, new materials, etc.
- Action: Dance, sport, party, rituals, process, etc.
- Content/Object: Sculpture, architecture, school, museum, library, aquarium, etc.
- Content/Action: Recipe, rule, guidelines, game, speech, etc.
- Object/Action: Restaurant, park, playground, church, dance hall, shopping mall, ice rink, stadium, etc.
My preference for types of creation has slowly changed from Content to Action during the last several years.
After spending many years in digital nonprofit communities, I changed my attention to theory and research. During the last almost five years, my personal learning journey focused on ecological psychology, practice theories, cognitive science, and the philosophy of science. One of the most important things I want to do is to bridge theory and practice.
The “bridge” has two meanings to me. First, I want to bridge my past with my future. There are various miscellaneous work and learning experiences within my past career, after learning some theories, I feel my chaotic experience suddenly become an invaluable asset for my future career. Second, there is a huge opportunity for transformation between scientific knowledge creation and everyday life creation.
Another interesting thing is that two of the theories I learned highly tie to Action. Ecological psychology is about the perception-action loop and Practice Theories are about acts, actions, and activities within everyday life.
Finally, I and my partners recently decided to work on building a brand-new social platform that aims to encourage people to take action.
These threads weaved together and guides me to a new creative space: why not start a learning community about action design, action study, and action theory?
Ten days ago, I got the name idea. I can call this creative space #CALL which stands for Creative Action Learning Lab.
#CALL is not only for me. It is not for the project we are working on too. #CALL is for people who love these three keywords: Creative, Action, and Learning.
Design a logo for #CALL
I got the name idea at 7:37 pm and drew the draft of the logo idea at 10:03 pm. I guessed it only took 2 to 3 minutes for me to find the idea. I just opened a notebook and started to play the word. Quickly, I found it.
It was just lucky. Sometimes you need to spend several months to find a good idea design.
Two days ago, I started to put the draft into Photoshop and ran the form-only test.
A logo is a combination of form and color. The form-only test is only using the black/white color logo to make some design examples. This method removes the effect of color and requests you to focus on the form. Once you decide on the right form, you can start the color test to find appropriate colors.
Designers usually adopt one of two logo strategies: logomark or logotype. Logomark is an image or symbol and logotype is a styled brand name. For example, Apple’s logo is a logomark and Google’s logo is a logotype. But, sometimes it is hard to say the logo is a logomark or a logotype, such as #CALL.
I use a 3/4 circle as the basic unit of the #CALL logo. Four different positions form C, A, L, and L. Since there are four basic units, I can play it more with different configurations. The most attractive configuration is Design B which presents a house in a negative shape.
Why do I like Design B so much more than others? The layout of a house within Design B inspired me to think about the idea of “Creative Spaces” which was coined by John Hagel in his book The Power of Pull. According to John Hagel, Creative Spaces help participants achieve their potential.
Creation spaces help participants engage with each other around collaborative creation activities and, in the process, to build long-term, trust-based relationships. These creation spaces encourage individuals to come together in teams, not only to engage in challenging problem-solving activities within the team but also to create ways for individuals to connect with each other across teams to explore innovative approaches to particularly vexing problems. In the process, they provide robust places for participants to learn rapidly through the creation of new knowledge. Everybody who takes part can achieve their potential by pulling out higher and higher levels of performance.
(The Power of Pull, p.129–130)
Though the author did mention TEDx as a Creative Space, I do believe TEDx is a great example of a Creative Space. I’d like to share some stories about TEDx in other posts.
Design C is for testing the vertical context. Instead of aligning the bottom of the name with the logo, I just move the name a little bit up. You can guess what the purpose is.
The Future of #CALL
Another test task of form only is testing with various contexts such as different colors, and different pictures.
The above designs are color-only contexts. The following design use pictures as context.
The following one uses white color for the brand name.
The following one uses small-size logo.
The last one is very nice. I really like this.
These designs show the future of #CALL, and how do we use the #CALL logo in the future. The name and the logo are just the layouts of the Container. The value of the container depends on how we pour water into the container.
