Getting the opportunity to design a fresh logo for a new and focussed blog is not as common as you’d think. It’s true that I don’t actively pursue such projects because they are often under-planned and the clients have unrealistic budgetary expectations (Read: want it done for peanuts), but new blogs with a plan and a clear purpose are not born everyday. Those that are often have previous branding or design identities to follow and work from. So when Amit Suvarna decided to use the power of nepotism to choose me to design a logo for his newly planned marketing blog, I jumped at the chance.
To start with this was more of a focussed project that you are often given. It was to be a blog, it was to be about marketing and experimenting with new concepts in marketing, and it was to be a journal of sorts as Amit went through an MBA he’s just beginning on. All quite narrow in scope compared to your typical “we want our site to be everything to everyone” claim you get to hear. The blog was to be a general resource beyond being a personal journal and so it required a more professional visual identity. With that in mind, I set out to sketch out various visual ideas.
Several roughs were prepared, most based on business imagery and on the concepts of increasing the bottom-line, which is ultimately the purpose of marketing, and attraction and advertising. I worked on one of the more clean and corporate looking marks to a more finished state, but as is very often the case in design, it’s often easier for a client to tall what they don’t want than what they do. In keeping with the need for a more friendly and quirky identity, some hand-written type fro an earlier sketch was paired with the lollipop swirls imagined by the client, and the final mark was born.
The challenge here was to maintain the visual implication of the rainbow swirls of a lollipop without resorting to stock photos stuck under names, which is the basis of so many mediocre logos. This solution found a good medium between imagery and creating a strong adaptable mark. The other challenge was in executing the hand type so as to be friendly and quirky, but also not so quirky as to be completely uneven and chaotic. With that in mind many common shapes and element were brought into the letter forms to mirror more formal typography practices.
The final results make for a striking logo, identifiable and also welcoming, I think. Visually it’s as strong as can be and works fairly well in a a varierty of situations and sizes. Now I will pass over the torch to the blog it will sit on the masthead of to do it proud with it’s experimental content and it’s colourful thoughts on the marketing mix.
Samir
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