These just in: more logo ideas. Below are Kathryn’s logo sketches and her comments about them. Below that are Jennifer’s sketches, and finally at the bottom a couple of my own ideas. Bear in mind that these are all roughs; some polishing,tweaking and playing around with colours etc will be needed for a final design. As usual, please provide some feedback by posting a comment (or more)! Thank you. – Emily
Kathryn's logo sketches
Just wanted to include a few explanatory notes:
01a and 01b – same idea in both b/w and colour. Playing with a return to the ‘O as a bug’ image.
The idea was we could indulge our love of smooth, polished gradient colours on the shiny beetle image (very roughly rendered here). I took the colours from Jeremy’s original versions. I think the greater contrast gives the image punch; and with the larger initials it can be read at a much smaller size. On the colour version i tried using a lower-case ‘n’ – it’s slightly too bold right now. I also added a light cast shadow under the beetle to help pop it into 3 dimensions.
02 – have only made this in b/w for the moment but it likewise could have a full colour version. Again playing on the idea of a slick, shiny beetle, in the circular format. The initials on its back need to be a bit stronger (if they should be there).
03a and 03b – I thought the trillium needed to stand out more strongly, particularly the green sepals against the blue BG, and the white petals against the white. It occurred to me that if the trillium were placed against a contrasting BG it might show up better, so i tried it against blue, colour again sampled from Jeremy’s original work. I slightly brightened up the tone on the trillium using a levels adjustment.
Same idea in grayscale. Really thinking about contrast – remembering the classic CRAP principles of design — C being for contrast.
04 – 05 – Just playing with the original circular ideas, to see what it would look like without the green borders that kept reminding me of metal plates or badges. I slightly rotated the trillium in 04 to see what it might do if it were less stable, maybe more dynamic. One concern i still have with the round design is that when reduced it turns into a dot, and the name is harder to read.
06 – For me this is the strongest of the lot – i find the turtle’s contour to be so nice and organic that at any size it holds its identifiable form. Again i have only tried this in b/w for the moment & VERY roughly sketched in photoshop; it could be finished in a high-polish rendering style & in both b/w & colour.
It’s important to see the designs at both a ‘normal’ size and a small ‘thumbnail’ size, to see how they work in different contexts. I’ve sent my working size versions and also a compilation image of all of them at a small size — again please advise on what file size is right to put online.
Anyway, lots of fun – that’s it for now & i look forward to everyone’s feedback (& more ideas!).
cheers
Kathryn
Jennifer's logo sketches
Emily's logo sketches