A Logo for "The Hub."

Our brief was to develop a brand logo/identity for the NNC staff meeting room and doing so exploring the potential of graphic elements that allow for versatility whilst retaining visual continuity - again design work which I'm not all too keen on. The underlining purpose of this assignment was to look at Brand Identity, which is "how a business wants a brand name, communication style logo and other visual elements to be perceived by customers."

Research!

I started this topic by researching into branding and different logo designs, I looked at popular logos and how shape, colour, text and typography is used to visually communicate their meaning to their audience.

Looking at corporate logos they were had more text than others - this is because these logos are used to express the nature of the company that it is used for. For example, P&O Cruises logo is used to communicate as a large corporate business, whereas a brand such as Cadbury only uses its name as the specific graphic for its brand. I looked at how I could use this for my design, I could just create a logo that uses the name as the full graphic or I could create a design that incorporates both text and a separate graphics - with this in mind I needed to decide on what kind of logo I could design. 

Initial Ideas and Development

My initial ideas were to something circular and perhaps have something spread outwards from the lettering - but I couldn't really decide on a design that I really liked so I just kept drawing out ideas and made some of the designs in Illustrator before developing them further or changing them. 

I kept thinking all the ideas that I had come up were all a little boring and simple - I didn't particularly find the word "Hub" very inspiring but I tried my best to create something 'dynamic' and also different, this is because a lot of the designs that others in my class had done had a kind of scientific feel to them (nucleus/neutron,) I wanted to avoid this as I didn't want to create that kind of feeling in my logo designs.

Creating those ideas in Illustrator was a lot harder than I thought - even though my skills with using digital media has improved and are a lot better than they were a month ago, I found actually creating a idea with the shape tools etc and not using a photographs is a hell of a lot harder. As always my frustrations with computers will never cease! I get so angry with myself and the computer for not being able to create what I picture in my head in the computer programmes - which makes me feel silly because I don't want to have a bad design because of that.

Week 2

After going back over the research - I decided to do some more designs with the new ideas that I had come up with, I kept going back to the idea of using a cog image in the design - this was because I like the idea of using it to represent and capture the feeling of a moving and interconnecting innovative environment which is what 'The Hub' is supposed to represent. So I thought using an images of something that represented movement and working together - because of this all my designs became circular 

When it came to colour I thought that using simple, bold colours that would support the design and but also gain the viewers engagement - usings a simple colour scheme that didnt over-complicate the design. Using yellow and blues was a recurring colour scheme that I noticed so I did my best to try and break out of that and try to pick out colours that suited the specifics of the brief.

However after creating a few designs in Illustrator (more successfully this week) I noticed that they were a little childish? After having a look at everyone else's in the group I though that my designs weren't as good and as appropriate as I had originally thought - again I went back to looking a corporate branding.

Week 3 
I went with Emma to take photos of the room where the logo would go we spoke to both John McMahon and Anne Ord (who commissioned the logo design) and when we asked a few questions they said they didn't want anything plain that didn't connect well students, that they wanted it to look inviting and didn't want the design to cover/block out the window (so it semt like it was dividing the staff and the students.) So that gave me a bit more confidence in my designs suitability for this space but netherless I went back and looked a more corporate designs and made more designs that appeared to be more suited to a professional working space.

After doing that I imposed my design on the photos we took of the window that the place that the logo would be.

Brown Cogs 

Bobbly Bubble...?

Rotating Cog 

Heartbeat Design

Bubble Design 1

Bubble Design 2

Blue Cog and Arrow

Trailing Bubbles 

Bubble Design 3

Thought Bubble

I liked the look of some designs more that others on the window I am glad we did this since it showed   everyone which of their designs would be suitable when placed in the windo

Presenting My Ideas to the Group
Third week in a row we presented our ideas to the group, not just as a presentation of our own ideas but also as a form of reflective practise and way of gaining constructive criticism which in my case was needed greatly.

As I presented my ideas the group said that they preferred these three designs:

Bubble Design

The criticism about the Bubble design was that the colour of the text could be changed but they liked the bubble idea and it trailing out like a thought-process/bubble - I was surprised about about people liking this design as I thought it was quite plain but there was potential to make the bubbles 3D which could change the idea all together. 

Heartbeat Design

The jaggered line (a heart monitor line was my inspiration) in this design was liked - as it was supposed to represent the innovate thinking that is supposed to go on in the "Hub" area and that it was alive. Also the poetical for that line to stretch across the window to make the place seem connected and always moving. My criticism of this was that the colours could be changed - Again I was surprised that people liked this design as it was one of my first designs when I was still getting into the swing of the designing process, it made me feel more confident in my designs - but I will have to re-design this better if it one that is visually appealing.

Rotating Cog Design

The third design the group liked was this rotating cog idea, this was one of the designs I was worried about being too childish/cartoon-like but they liked how the extra/off-set black outlines were used to show motion (in keeping with the theme) and also this design could easily be referable without too much of the logo sticking out/not working with the reversible idea.

Improving the Final Three Design
When it came to improving the final designs I found I didn't have much to do but tweak the designs a bit - since the Rotating Cog didn't need much tweaking I focused my attention on the other two designs.

The bubble design was an idea that the group quite liked and the only criticism was that to perhaps reduce the amount of circles and change the font colour - as I did I found I liked it a lot more so with some tweaking I think the design was a lot better.

Final Design

I played around with the placement of this design a bit

With the heartbeat design being popular with the group as well, I decided not to just tweak the design but to just re-do it all  but with the same design but of better quality and better colours (since I didn't really like the pink and the yellow) so I played around with the design switching different colours.

After putting these together I superimposed them in the picture of the window to see which one looked the best - the purple and green design I thought was the best since the colours contrasted and it  stuck out but also allowed room for people to see in/out of the the room.

The Original Design Re-done.

Final Design

Even thought this design wasn't picked in the presentation this is a design that I personally really liked.

Thought bubble

Possible Merchandise?

After getting the three final designs perfect I put the logos on possible branded merchandise to see how well the log would translate on other items other than the window that I have just been focusing. 

Bubble Design

The design I thought translated well on all the items I put it on and looked good on a black and a white background.

Rotating Cog Design

I also thought this design translated well on the object shut the smaller the logo got it was a little unclear around the black outline.

Heartbeat Design

I thought that like the bubble design, this translated well and did well of making use of the space which makes this design good to go in a large window space.

Thought Bubble Design

After all the tidying up and finalising of ideas we gathered our final design/s and wrote a small paragraph about the design and sent it to the commissioners so they were to get a sense of what we were doing. 

Now we wait and see to hear back from them!