STUDIO BRIEF 01 - LOGOTYPE

Logotype- OUGD403

Brief: Produce a series of logotypes for a rebrand of your given company. Using only type, experiment with scale, stroke, spacing, contrast and alignment to interpret your company.

I like to diversify and provide something different when presenting my work, I like to stand out from the crowd and to have my own style. There is a reason for why this is my first blog post. I will never blog for the sake of blogging. I understand that blogging all your findings and research will get you better marks etc. However if it is not done and implemented to show your own personal progression then I do not see the reasoning behind it. I personally do not like blogs, I much prefer the sketchbook implementation because it is more personal, it shows your progression like a story, how you got from a to b. By blogging without making it relevant to your personal findings, it comes out very generic. Every student can blog about what they learnt in todays lesson. The difference is I would like to show you what I learnt and then show you what I did with what I learnt and how it benefitted me. It is hard to adjust to blogging instead of sketchbook work but I will try to get used to it.

My chosen company: THE ALCHEMIST

WHO?:

There an upper class food chain franchise with 5 restaurants based WORL. Known for it's cocktails and top quality food. What gives them their niche is their presentation. From the grandeur and set up of the restaurant to the way they present their food and beverage the place evokes style and quality. Making their target audience an upper class demographic.

WHY?:

I chose this brand because of the image and style it evokes, the brand image clearly does not demonstrate this. I do not like the Courier font used for the design, very basic and the use of the superscript on 'the' could have been done better, it is all this which culminates to why I feel it does not convey the restaurants class. If you compare them to other brands of their standard like Cafe Rouge (which you can see below). I really like the design for Cafe Rouge it conveys class and quality with it's risqué bold design it demonstrates well it's corporate identity and targeted demographic. Which is something I would like to bring to The Alchemist.

EXPERIMENTATION:

So to begin with I just had a little mess around with type experimenting with different methods of layout, size, format etc. just to try and get my ideas out on paper. Experimenting with kerning, superscript/subscript and spacing. I hate posting my experimentation because it never looks good. I am a perfectionist so it frustrates me when I have to show work which I feel is inadequate. But I find the concept draw up stage is crucial to finding a final design because hand work allows me to impose specific constraints that my laptop won't.

ANATOMY OF TYPE LESSON:

          

Our lesson on the Anatomy of type was very useful I was so unaware of these guidelines/laws that type had, the do's and don'ts if you will. This lesson was very useful to putting this brief into practice. Its as if a letter has a similar construct to the human body, which I find both amusing/intriguing.

PUTTING LEARNINGS INTO PRACTICE:

I could sit and and upload all my sketchbook work as I have a good 5-6 pages of draw ups of different versions and methods of type however I will just show you an example of me putting my studies into practice. Its hard to see but if you look closely on the top logotype you can see the guidelines I have set up to produce the design, based on my learnings from that lesson. Constructing a baseline and descender line and then setting guidelines for Kerning to adjust the correct spacing between characters, to make it more visually pleasing. I found it difficult to make up designs as I didn't realise the amount of depth was in the word Alchemist.

Alchemy (originating from Greek) : a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination. A deep rooted meaning, which is why its called The Alchemist, conveying that their providers of magical creation essentially. Through the food and beverage they create. They chose this mystical word to describe their style, as they specialise in presentation of food and beverage, in a style similar to Heston Blumenthall, in applying science to their presentation of food and beverage. By for example: placing food in a fake skull, or making your cocktails look more like potions than cocktails. Thats the style they are going for, providing a magical essence if you will to their decoration as you can see below.

After I completed the drawing process and deciding from the whole which individual ones I liked and thought had more of the depth and style I wanted. I scanned a few in and started experimenting through illustrator.

I found this process difficult as I was trying very hard to come up with a clever/witty way of inputting their logo with the type. If you go back up and take a look at how I tried to incorporate shape with the type to try and get the symbol to merge with the type. You can see how I tried to replace the 'A' in Alchemist with the actual symbol. However I soon realised this wasn't the brief set. Which was annoying because I still think there is so much you can do to this to make a really good logo as there is so much meaning and depth behind the word itself.

I had trouble trying to incorporate 'the' with the typeface as a whole. I much preferred creating the typeface without 'the' as I thought the spacing the overall final design looked much better and cleaner when it was presented by itself.

Although it looks like something out of a Harry Potter movie I didn't even try to make the type have some sort of magical edge to it or any representation of the fact. Because to go to a restaurant and receive this sort of decoration and presentation, it is more a representation of quality. So the font had to show this more than anything else.

Above are some design drafts I did experimenting with a range of styles. I experimented with logo itself with both a brushed look and a clean cut look. The designs are mainly simplified clean cut type. Like most companies now even out of the food and beverage sector. The new style seems to be clean simple font design, with San Serif implemented. If you look at companies who have rebranded their logo/typeface they have adopted this technique. It seems to be the style nowadays less is definitely more. Its the top end companies that adopt this technique it seems to convey quality and worth. For example:

Retaining the classic Google colour scheme, ditching the previous serif font and replaced and rendered in Product Sans, which was first spotted in the Alphabet word-mark. Which has now formed into a nice animated transition. You could also say though that the new approach, takes away Google's quirkiness, which is something I took on board when creating my typeface as it can convey the type to look quite bland. But this is the style and modern approach to type.

If you look at Googles history they have managed to dominate the market since opening their doors in 1998. The main reason they are the monopolising company they are today is because evolution is something they nail. So following their ideology towards rebranding I think is the smarter move forward.

Massimo Vignelli stated himself - "Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at it's best." Which I could not agree more with, because it allows for a design to gain more depth. Having a lack of knowledge of the complexity of the design process, will only hinder the final outcome in my perspective. 

FINAL DRAFT:

So when it came to deciding which type I should used as my final draft, it came down to more what would suit the look, target market, demographic, representation of the brand more than which one I personally really liked.

                      

This is my final design personally I do not like this design. I like its approach and modernist 21st century approach and the use of spacing in this and the general alignment. I guess it is just the typography when it comes down to it. But like I said it is an approach that I think a brand such as this would use to rebrand their market or perhaps something more light hearted, with possible use of vectoring shapes. That was another angle I could have tried experimenting. I just thought as a personal opinion it was more of a luxurious brand, which needs a luxurious brand identity. These are some of the reasons why I decided to drop their signature brand colour gold. This is an alternative look of their logo with a gold background:

             

It stylish and suits the image metaphorically, as it represents wealth. It's a warm colour that can either be bright and cheerful or somber and traditional, associated with passion, courage, wisdom and magic. So it has the elements to make more sense to go with a gold design it also already the brand identity so would be a huge leap to change colour scheme as well. As I type this evaluation to you now it is only now where I am self evaluating my work that I realise I may have gone down the wrong path, in choosing a final design. Which I find comical and not ashamed to admit it. If only I had more time now to experiment a different approach, an approach I didn't even cover in my first draw up stage. Again I stress if I had the opportunity to create a logo along with the type then the style and final product would be much different. I wanted to (when first looking at the restaurant) create a symbol. Representing it as perhaps a badge, which still demonstrates class. However the brief is strictly based on creating a typeface. I had an early vision of wrapping the text around the logo (so the triangle in my case) and have the symbol be the main brand identity. The only one example that comes to mind is Chipotle. I really like their logo, its warm and welcoming with a degree of class added to it. It's subtly gives it much more impact:

I didn't get the chance to play around with the different approach I should've taken but I will go back to it and a later time and blog to show you an alternative design which I can now see I should have done. But for now I just quickly changed the colour of the art-board in illustrator to see what it would look like, just out of curiosity...

   

In evaluation I can see the thinner typed designs blend with the background colour well, and the bolder typefaces... not so much, in my opinion.

I then tried the same approach with the logo I designed. I really like this, if it just had some type wrapped round the circle I think it would work well, perhaps add a little bit more white in there somewhere:

     

This is all still a work in progress, I will submit what I have created but I still feel there is more I can do to this, and perhaps get some self pride from the finish. I think the most important thing here is experimentation, I do not mind that it took me till the evaluation process to find my errors, as long as you can spot your mistakes and correct them. Even though you may not see them as mistakes, that is just the conflict that I have within me when I am designing. Type is not really my strongest point personally, I cannot create a typeface if that typeface has a piece of artwork to go with it. I personally always choose typeface as the last thing, as I think the type needs to blend and work within the overall design.

Continuation... 

  

So I misinterpreted the deadline and was able to hash out a few more concepts, now looking towards a different approach, whilst still following the same underline motives, sticking with the same semantics with a sleek, cut modern design.

Following a different style approach... I much prefer this page to previous, more suited to the brand image of the restaurant. I experimented with a change in perspective. Normally use the feature more with artwork rather than type. But I believe it came out well. 

So these are my final drafts...

First Final Draft:

I prefer these designs however, the black background looks too formal I believe. Although the black and white contrast may work better. It does not express the views and meaning of the company.

Second Final Draft: 

Deciding here to go with the Alchemist' original colour scheme of beige/gold. I thought in the end sticking to an already well established brand identity was the best move forward. The colour gold also reflects the following: wealth, passion, illumination, grandeur, magic. These are the semantics and syntactics/pragmatics to provide a real bases for a correct inception for this brief. 

Third Final Draft: 

I decided with the above (3rd draft) because I thought it represented the current/future brand image of the restaurant chain as well demonstrating its unique selling point . 

Simon Potts the managing director has also expressed his views and future prospects for the company...

Views:

• a hospitality company that values professionalism 
• encourage innovation
• a sense of theatre underpins all that we do   
• quality assured in every fibre of the company

Prospects: 

• 5 year aim: with their joint venture business plan the want to open one site in every major city in the U.K, growing from 4+ sites to 20. 

Taking all of the above into consideration was why I went with the above decision. It was not the best design in my opinion. But in acquiring the business motifs and future prospects I believe it was the correct decision. Making a modern brand that expresses the image. Adding a Sci-Fi touch to appeal to the 'magic' essence involved in the chain. Creating a bolder design allows for more impact and brand representation of incorporating the logo within the typeface. 

Group Feedback:



















This was the draft that was favoured by large majority of the feedback.

On my first draft:

• classic looking and not complicated, however 'THE' might get lost when reduced in size 
• kerning and typeface is more 'up market' referencing the Alchemists' U.S.P
• the alignment balances the logotype nicely giving a really good composition.
• Type is more current and minimal
• Cleaner with high contrast
• Sophisticated 
• visual preference to the spacing 
• suggests quality 

On final draft:

• personifies the nature of the bar and very magical
• if printed properly in big quality would look nice
• strong without the need for a background
• friendly sleek modern
• identifiable
• very modern and can work on a range of applications, on web etc.

Some very interesting feedback. I like getting feedback on work from other creatives. They allow an insight into something perhaps you never saw before, and offer suggestions on what I could have done. This only strengthens me creatively. I received comments such as retro looking which is something I was not expecting, which changed my mind eventually on the whole design choice. One thing I will say, they did not truly understand the concept and motif of the business because I did not demonstrate it in the questions I gave them... i.e,  answering purely on a visual concept, which is very important however it is also important to take into account the semantics and pragmatics. 

Decision:

After taking into account the group feedback, I changed some design decisions. Majority favoured my first draft as the typeface they felt expressed the professional brand image of the company. 

I went with the original typeface design but with my new colour scheme so whilst taking in considerations from feedback whilst also maintaining the reputation of the business. 

Annoying because the quality is worse with all my images. I cannot save them as jpeg because I have hardly any memory on my laptop. So screenshots just ruin the quality of the image. 

Menu Concept:

Decoration concept: 

One it is presented in product form, I believe it makes it more impactful and the true concept for why I went with my design choices. 

Evaluation:

Who is the company?

The Alchemist Bars and Restaurants are an all day haven - open for coffee, brunch, lunch, dinner and cocktails. The venues are beautifully designed and a sense of theatre underpins all that they do. 

I have set out to develop a contemporary rebrand to facilitate contemporary applications for all mediums. Using the application of the anatomy of type to manipulate text to generate a range of typefaces by experimenting with different approaches and mediums. 

Semantics:

• rebranding the product through research of meaning of subject and context. 
• whilst understanding the company's values and aims.

I believe my rebrand is successful in refreshing the brand image, through the support of knowledge of the complexity of the semantics involved. 

With a company that wishes to grow and expand, consistently looking to innovate, the logo needed rebranding to create a suitable brand image that could be repackaged and reproduced on a greater scale. 

Through market research, came the understanding of todays modern 21st contemporary world, simply LESS IS MORE, with successful rebrands following the same direction. The logotype does not need to be intrinsic and detailed. Simplicity is the style these days and will provide the brand with longevity whilst also appealing to a broader target market.

Once I started to experiment with product placement, of installing the logo onto advertisement, I started taking more of a liking to the end result. I would have enjoyed creating a logo with this brief as there is still so much more potential with this design. However sticking to the brief of rebranding the typeface constricted the potential of the rebrand as there was a lot of depth to the meaning of the restaurant name.