Project Documentation
Corporate Identity, Fall 2017
PROJECT DOCUMENTATION
Restaurant Logo
11/10/2017
For the last critique, we decided to change the boots up. I did variations of those and we decided we like how the boots create negative space to create the M and then it also creates a shape, like a dress with the remaining positive space within the M (top 2nd one). So with that, I made the M have serifs, to give it more edges to play off of, as well as Moving the “ ‘s “ over closer so it didn’t feel like it was sticking out. Once I did that I moved to the color variations. I wanted to used bright colors, mostly pinks and purples. Those are the colors I connect drag queens with. I included also blues and reds, and even a gold, as if a shimmery gold dress or something along the lines of that.
11/7/2017
Here are the three strongest logos picked by the class and transferred over to Illustrator. We have steak lady, kinky legs, and lady face. I think the steak lady might be the weakest since she’s not as simplistic as the others, it might be difficult to read what she is. Between the other two, I don’t know which one will be the strongest, but we shall see.
What I heard: for the logo with the legs, there’s an image that’s being created with the negative space so I should play more with that. Steak Lady was pretty cool but hard to read a little bit with black and white. And the face one is based off of stilly the drag queens logo. I don’t want to based it off of the face and I feel like the first one will be hard so I’m going with #2.
What I Think: I think the critique was fine. So I’m going with the direction of the legs and playing with the negative space that the legs create.
What I’m going to do: Fix the negative space for the legs. I’m going to have the legs be the main logo and then have the type underneath. I’m using the type from the third logo since the weight of that is nice and the placement is good. I’m just going to do variations and see what works
10/24/2017
Name Ideas
- Show Stopper Dinner Theater
- Drama Queen Dinner Theater
- Miss Juicy Lucy’s Dinner Theater
- Tex YAS
- Splits Dinner Theater
- WigOut Dinner Theater
- Big Dill’s Dinner Theater
- MissSteaks Dinner Theater
- Snag and Drag Dinner Theater
- Runaway Queen Dinner Theater
Tag Lines
Things are getting spicy
Drag and Dinner Theater
Dinner with a side of Drag Queen
Don’t be a Drag just be a Queen
Eat, Drink, and be a Queen
#SlayQueen
Dinner with a little bit of Drag
A Matchmade in Drag Heaven
The best food and Drag in Town
Restaurant that will go down in Herstory
10/17/2017
Restaurant Concepts:
- Southern Homecook Kitchen and BBQ located in the North (Boston, MA)
- Hot Dog Grill with all Gluten Free and Vegan Ingredients (located in a College Town/City)
- Industrial Coffee Shop set in large city (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Dinner Theather Drag Show featuring fun TexMex (downtown big city)
Ex. Clucks and Tucks, Hamburger Mary
NAME IDEAS: Show Stopper Dinner Theather, Drama Queen Dinner Theater, Miss Juicy Lucy’s Dinner Theater, Tex YAS, Splits Dinner Theather, Luauo Lucy, Big Dill’s Dinner Theater, MissSteaks Dinner Theater
TAG LINES:
Things are getting spicy
Drag and Dinner Theater
Dinner with a side of Drag Queen
Don’t be a Drag just be a Queen
Eat, Drink, and be a Queen
#SlayDinner
Dinner with a little bit of Drag
A Matchmade in Drag Heaven
The best food and Drag in Town
Restaurant that will go down in Herstory
So these were the concepts I came up with for my imaginary restaurant. At first I really like the idea of having a hot dog grill but made with entirely gluten free and vegan ingredients since there’s a majority of college students who are gf/vegan that don’t have a lot of options to eat while they attend college. I also then starting to really like the idea of having a southern kitchen but have it located up north where you wouldn’t really have that kind of cuisine, like Boston for example. Boston has a lot of cuisine and restaurants that is realted to seafood since the city is right by water, so it would be cool to have the total opposite restaurant in a region like that. The coffee shop is kinda cool. Having something bulky and heavy like an industrial feel versus the light and calming sensation of drinking coffee would be fun too.
Museum Logo + Identity System
11/10/2017
Wow I am BEHIND. Well I did the identity system ideas, and I talked to my peers outside of class on which ones they like the best so I have the favorites posted below as well as the originals. My only issue right now is the folder. I don’t know how to set that up yet, so I will figure that out this weekend.
The business card, I like the accordion fold. I think that could be something totally different. The outside of the card has the normal information like the business name as well as the business card for that person. But on the side, there are image traced images from the Mutter Museum itself, which is cool. And it also gives a brief paragraph about the Museum for those who are contacting the Museum for the first time. If the accordion fold business card is too much, then I have just a plain and sleek business card that will also work.
For the Letter Head, I was told that the favorite front would be the one with the black shape at the front. I think with that, it adds contrast to the letter head, and the overall mood to the identity system and the logo. The favorite back to the letter head is the logo pattern in red. I like the red, but if there’s any other suggestions for color for the back, I would love to hear it. For the envelops, the favorite front was the all red one with the logo overlay, and the favorite back was the red envelop back with the white flap. I’m just trying to add contrast to the whole system, so the last thing I need to work on is the folder.
UPDATE: I figured out how to work the folder template I found so I started with this design first. If it needs adjusted, I will make sure I do that!
10/26/2017
Choose one you redesign you think is successful and one you have issue with. Talk about why.
I think the one redesign that I thought was successful was the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The original logo was difficult to understand with a torch layered on top of a maple leaf layered on top of a heart, making it look messy. The type wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either. So with the new logo it went very simplistic and just had an icon heart, and then a stroke mark next to it, with the type on the right. It was designed by Paula Scher so her use of smart symbolism and type really brought this logo into a new light and generation. The only issue that I have with the stroke mark. I mean I understood what it meant when comparing the two side by side. “Oh that’s suppose to be the Heart and Stroke Foundation”, but if you showed the new logo (just the symbols, not the type) to someone, I don’t think they would get it right away. And even with the type it took me a second to get the point. So that would be my only issue with it, but overall I think it’s a very modern logo.
• Choose a third that has a strong identity system (business card, letterhead, envelope). What elements do you find most interesting? How do they relate to the logo, the design concept?
10/17/2017
Critique:
Align the vertabrae, have three dots on top, and 2 below. The type for the museum should be bigger than the logo since the logo is overpowering. Look up double T ligature since those are close. The U and the T are also close together so try to space that out a little bit. For the Umlat for the U, use the dots from the vertabrae. For Explore the Body signature, lower case E for expand. Typeface is good.
What I’ll Do: make the logo much smaller in realtion to type and fix the alignment of things.
10/16/2017
I’ve been a little behind with this project due to an unexpected surgery, but I’m trying to make good decisions and come up with a cool idea. I’ve asked fellow peers outside of class which of the 24 variations did they like the best and the majority of them said the 1st one on the 2nd row. And I agree with them that is my favorite one. I did then 24 color variations of the logo. I wanted to keep close to pinks and reds since that’s the color of the lungs. Later on in the variations, I incorporated the color blue since there are blue blood veins as well as red. It’s a very contemporary design. I wanted to keep close to red since on their website uses mostly black, white, and red.
Personally, my favorite logo color is the burgundy variation. I think the colors would match the website as well as somewhat matching the human anatomy of the lungs.
For my signatures here they are listed:
- We are all connected in some way
- Science connected
- Anatomy gone werid
- Strange is the new cool
- Blink and you might miss us
- Eye opening experience
- Open up your mind and explore
- Human Anatomy to the extreme
- Explore the body, expand your mind
- Explore, Expand, Grow
Color Variations
Signature Variations
For the signature variations, I think the strongest that works would be the vertical word stacks. It just fits better than it being horizontal since I have those rib cage elements sticking out. Out of the three vertical word stacks, I feel like the third one would be the strongest, since there’s a contrast between sans serif and serif typefaces. I used Georgia and Helvetica. I also Italics for the signature to add movement with the word stack.
10/9/2017
I made my 24 variations for the museum logo. I based it off of the lungs look. I tried to do some that looked like lungs, but I also tried to make it abstract. I’m not sure which one to go with. I honestly like the abstract shapes more than the literal translation of the lungs. But if someone can’t tell that those are lungs I will go more towards the literal lungs logo.
9/28/2017
Critique
What I Heard: For my critique, I had my three logos looked at. The MU design is considered to be too modern. So I’m going wit the M that looks like the lungs. The only issue is that there was a lot going on, like a lot of detail. So they recommended doing the 24 varriations of the lungs, but simplifying the M. However, I was also told to look at sceintific illustrations of lungs. Once I understand that, I can possibly combine the scientific and modern look for the logo.
What I Thought: I totally agreed with everything that was said in class. The two logos that looked similar were just variations of the other and I didn’t realize that. I made an extra logo that was an eyeball with the M. I guess it wasn’t as strong as the lungs. But I can understand how to make the lungs successful for this logo.
What I’m Going to Do: 24 variations of the lungs. Look at scientific illustrations of lungs. I’m going to do that first before I combine the simplicity of shapes to the logo.
9/26/2017
Here are my final three designs for the Mutter Museum. Both of them are very modern. The first one has more modern aspects than the second one. The second one is based on the lungs and ribcage, it matches the theme of anatomy. But for the third one, I wanted to combine the first style, but keep the rounded shape of the lungs for it as well. I honestly like the first one. I know people said it was too modern for a museum. But when I looked online at their website, I think it can work. The typeface used for the logo is a serif typeface. All I’m doing it making it one extreme serif, one at the bottom on the M and one at the top of the U.
9/21/2017
Alright, it’s three in the morning, but I was able to muster up some ideas for thumbnails that I acutally kinda like. The first part of the sketches aren’t my favorite, since I was just sketching because I wanted to be done. I was using eyeballs as my main focus, but then I decided to switch to more type based. And then those were starting to look good! I was playing around with the U and then two Msm focusing on line length and position. And THEN I thought of another bodily function to try, so I looked up a picture of the lungs and the heart. So I based off the letter M as the main strokes for that letter. FROM THEN ON OUT, I WAS LIKE LET’S PLAY WITH THE WEIGHT AND SHAPE OF THE M AND THE U. And you know what, I actually kinda like it. It creates a rhytm to the logo, but still keeping it modern but classy. I think this round of thumbnails are better than before, so I could work off of these probably better than the others.
9/18/2017
For the museum logo design, I decided to do the Mutter Museum of Philidelphia. The museum is known for medical history and anatomical specimens. For the Logos, I wanted to keep one basic form, and eyeball for the Logos since it’s the first thing you see when you go on the website. I also wanted to incorporate the U with the umlaut. I want to be able to add two eyes above the U to make it interesting. But I just wanted to keep the eye theme going for all of these and we’ll see where it goes.
Olympic Bid Logo
10/16/2017
Final
Rationale:
The goal of this project was to design an Olympic bid logo for a city at random. From a hat of options, you were to pick a city a random with the chance of it either being during the summer or winter. The city that I chose out of the hat was the city of Cleveland for the summer. With Cleveland being known for its location on Lake Erie and its sports teams, I wanted to convey Cleveland that everyone around the world would recognize. I chose to base the logo from the Rock and Roll hall of fame. I took the shapes from the building and abstracted to create a unique mark. I incorporated colors from the Olympic rings, but super saturated them to make them almost neon and bright, something different from the primary colors of the rings. I also took the element of the Olympic flame and placed that on top of the logo to also represent a torch, which is like the ultimate meeting ground for all countries.
10/12/2017
Critique Notes:
Overall I think it went well. I’m going to bump up the saturation of the colors in the logo to make them more vibrant. I also am going to fix the negative space between the two triangles. They’re pretty close right now so spacing them apart a little bit more will help. Also I need to fix the placement of candidate city (and fix the spelling), but I can stack the two of them so the spacing is better.
10/3/2017
What additional tweaking/editing/revisions you could apply to your Olympic logo to elevate craft and/or communication of the intended concept/message?
I think I need to have more of a stylized flame at the top since that’s the focal point of the logo. Right now it’s two wavy minimalistic lines. I need to expand on that and see what kind of flame looks good on the logo. I guess you can say it has contrast due to the wavy flames versus the geometric shapes underneath it. But I need to expand it more I think.
How can you avoid revisions/additions that may unintentionally become decoration, a passé trend, or compromise readability?
JUST DON’T DO THEM. IGNORE EVERYTHING. FOLLOW YOUR HEART. …just kidding. I guess just look back on other Olympic Bid Logos and see what they did. I feel like the whole point of this project is to create something new. You don’t need to add all those fancy decorations for it to read as an “official” logo. It just needs to get the message across: this is the Olympic Bid and this is where it is. Some do it straight forward message or some just do it abstractly. As long as we know what it is, we don’t need to do anything extra to it.
10/2/2017
So I did 24 more variations of the Cleveland logo from last class. I was told that the strongest logo was the third logo on the top. So I took that logo and I focused more on typefaces and placement of those. I used four typefaces for the variations, but I placed them in different parts of the logo to see what kinds of shapes I can create with the type. I used Nexa Rust Sans Black, Futura Condensed Bold, Franchise Bold, and Great Lakes. These typefaces were blocky in some sort of way, but they’re different since they have contrasting weights. So after Playing with the shapes and having some of my peers review the variations, I was told that the strongest logo out of the 24 is the Cleveland in the white text with the Franchise typeface. The Franchise type is a thinner typeface but still with that geometric feel.
After taking that logo, I then moved on to the color trials. I took the color scheme from the reading questions and used that for part of my color trials (it was the analogous color scheme). I first did a monochromatic color scheme for the first four, then I built my way up to complementary, and then finally using the full analogous color scheme. For the second half, I just did the color scheme of the olympic rings to see if the colors read better than the other color scheme. Did the same thing again, built my way up from monochromatic to analogous. Since I did all of them, I don’t have a favorite yet. I just wanted to try them to see what worked and didn’t.
9/26/2017
According to the article, 81% of logos are one or two colors max. Why?
Because it’s easier for the consumer to read and understand quickly what the product is for. Plus it would also be cheaper since you’re minimizing your color pallet.
Other than simply applying the Olympic ring color palette, what color combinations can support visual aesthetics and deepen your Olympic Bid Logo concept, especially in regard to your city?
For Cleveland, I can incorporate blues (to represent the Water forms around the city) and then incorporate oranges to represent the Olympic flame. Red is also A color to use since it’s feature in the Rock and Roll HOF and that’s what my logo is based on.
Please create a one-color, two-color, three-color and full color palette with a rationale for each.
Monochromatic Red
For this, I chose monochromatic Red because Red can be represented as a strong color. I want the feeling of the olympics to mean strong, powerful. Just like their athletes.
Complementary Blue Green and Red Orange
This one goes back to the bluish green representing the water forms around Cleveland and then the red orange to represent the Olympic Flame.
Tetriad primary Blue, Red, and Yellow.
A simple color scheme, but here you already have some of the Olympic Ring colors picked. The blue represents the water and calmness in Cleveland. The yellow shows the excitement with the olympics and with the city itself. And the Red shows passion for the games.
Analogous Color Scheme
I chose to pick colors that were out of the ordinary. More vibrant, neon styled colors. That represents the vibrancy and life of Cleveland. It’s growing more and more everyday. So instead of sticking with primary colors, I chose some secondary colors and went with it.
Critique
What I Heard: It was good that I did variations of the shapes. They liked #3,#4 and #7. They said probably work more with #3 and #7. #4 is too abstract to know what is being referenced. Also try using geometric flames and typefaces.
What I Think: Surprisingly it went well. I agreed with everyone’s comments so that was good.
What I’m going to Do: work on #3 variations with typefaces and more shapes. I’ll do 24 more variations of that.
Below are my 24 Variations on the initial Cleveland logo. I focused on looking at more views of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as creating more abstract forms to make one big form. If I would pick some favorites, I would say #4, #3, #16
9/19/2017
Here are my three favorite designs from my thumbnails. I really tried to make these as minimalistic as possible. With previous olympic bid logos, there didn’t seem to be a lot with minimalisitc designs, so I wanted to try that and see if it was successful. I think when we add color to the logos, I think the logo will read better than it might read right now.
Class Critique: It was suggested that I develop more of the shape of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to more abstract shapes. Instead of just lines, I can use typography and shape to create the form. I could also use different viewpoints of the building to help with the variations of the shapes of the buidling. This can help me find a more interesting composition for the logo. I should also add elements to show that this is for the Olympics, like the torch or rings. For the C logo, I was told it looks like a mother and child, something that would be found in a pediatric hospital which I can see now. Maybe if I played with the position and the line weight of the C it would read better. For now, I am keeping it on standby incase I want to be able to go back to that.
9/18/2017
For my Olympic Bid City, I had to design a Bid logo for Cleveland for the summer Olympics. For this city, I found it difficult to have many known factors for Cleveland. Mostly I looked up more of historical and architectural factors in Cleveland. I tried to add simplistic styles to the logo. I don’t want to try to add much detail to the logos, but I wanted to make it recognizable based on the location. I wanted to use the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a main one, as well as the shapes of other buildings. I also used trees, which Cleveland was originally called the Forrest City. They are all pretty basic so I hope to expand more on the designs later on.
Stand Together Process
9/6/2017
After class on Tuesday, I talked about how I liked the type logo. But at the same time, I still liked my image only logo. So after that critique, I decided to move forward with my image only design for my final. I changed the colors of the eyes to white and black, and I then animated the gif to make it an eye opening and closing. The first time it opens, it’s a normal eye. The second time it closes and opens, hearts appear in the eyes. I then took a risk and added new type to the image saying “Open your eyes to love.” I wanted this to help connect the gif to the content of the #westandtogether project. Overall, I am pleased with the final product and I hope it will be useful for future #westandtogether projects.
9/5/17
In the response to the article about copy and stealing ideas, I feel like every young designer can relate to it. It’s hard to come up with an idea or vision of your design sometimes so you turn to something someone else did. I have never directly stole someone’s design before. The only thing that I would copy is an icon or layout that I would like. In my views, I use that opportunity to expand my knowledge on compositions or different styles so I can use that in the future. With some changes I make to the final design in the end, the use of copying helped in that case. But In the end copying still isn’t the best. We need to have original thoughts and come up with things that haven’t been seen yet. I mean with the most common logos or designs it’s probably been done because of the overall appeal of the design. I feel like with today’s generation of designers, there are still new and original ideas coming up. And I have not had any designs stolen or copied from me yet.
My strongest logo design for the we stand together project would have to be the love let’s bring it back together. I feel like with this design, it gets the message across easily. I like how I’ve broken up the love to make it seem like it’s broken and needs to be out back together. The only weakness I would see is the contrast. I feel like there should be more greys in the logo so it helps the logo pop out more. I also feel like I could really make love more broken up, but still easy to understand. I also really like my image logo but I don’t know if it’s as strong as the love logo or not.
9/3/2017
From the notes that I have recieved from last class for my critique, I understand what some the students have to say. They liked the idea of the image logos, the plant growing into a heart. They also like the social media type and image. It was suggested that I also incorporate an animated finger, almost like Tinder, which I think is a great idea. For my let’s bring love back together logo, it was suggested that I adjust the kerning for love so that’s its spread out more to emphasis putting it back together. Lastly, they enjoyed the cute heart eyes for the image logos, they said it represented rose colored glasses. So with those notes, I took those suggestions and revised the top three. For Image, we have the Rose Colored Glasses. I incorported a rose to the eyes and background so it read more to that idiom without the words. For my Type logo, I fixed the kerning and switched the background color to black and the type color to white to add more contrast so LOVE pops out more. Finally, for my image and type logo, I adjusted the overall design to make it feel like a screenshot from Facebook. I want to revisit the idea of using Tinder, but if I choose to stay with the Facebook design, I think I want to put it in a phone and then animate a finger clicking the like button to show the heart icon now on Facebook.
8/30/2017
Okay, so I came up with my thumbnails for the idea of love. Instead of creating more of love as in “I love you”, I wanted to show more of a love as in appreciation for each other, for humankind. For images, I used mostly hearts as a symbol, to show a common theme amoung us. I don’t think my images are as strong as my type or even type with image. I wanted to keep the typeface simple and clean. The only time I used a script typeface was when I really wanted to emphasis the meaning of Love. Other than that, I just used Bebas Neue, as well as Helvetica. For type and image, I feel like I have stronger ideas for the outcome. So far, I don’t have a style I want to convey with the logos. I was thinking of using thick outlines and more rounded lines, to make it more sleek. But that might interfere with the more blocky typeface. Overall, I have to say my top three favorite logos are 1)Image: 3rd one down, hands with heart. 2)Type: Love thy neighbor (I really like the idea of making this a gif and have alternating type, so it would say love thy neighbor, then switch to another term like friend, sister, brother, teacher, etc. to show you should share love with everyone) I also like the MLK Jr. quote with the typography I created. 3) I like either the eye and the Ghandi quote (3rd one down) or the facebook status featuring MLK Jr.’s quote again. I feel like the Facebook quote can be realtable to everyone since all of the information is given through social media. I also feel like the Ghandi quote with the eye (3rd one down), I feel like I can do more with that. Overall, just starting to clean and have coherent ideas.
8/29/2017
First day of class in Corporate ID. Hope it goes well. Got to work ahead tonight so I can have work for Thursday even though I won’t be here.
