OUGD603: Armadilla- Group Meeting and Feedback

We met up again as a group to go through our ideas and discuss the next stage of the brief. We chose our logo and made some key design decisions including type faces and colour selection. The main concept throughout our design was to link the brand back to the product.

 

The initial colour pallet I selected focused on shades of brown, taken from images of the pods, however it was decided that to make the brand brighter and convey a more positive tone it would be better to choose a brighter colour. We were keen to keep the pallet inspired by the product and so selected this blue chosen because it's bright, light and positive whilst also being inspired by the product with a hint of environmentalism within it. Using green to represent eco is a concept used often, we wanted to still hint at the natural world but in a more unique way.

We had decided prior to our individual digital development that geometric sans serif fonts were the best choice for our type to represent the pods geometric elements, such as the iconic window. Although I experimented with wide strong typefaces such as univers to represent strength and stability the rest of the group were more keen to use a softer and more approachable type. We settled on Bryant Moo as our main typeface. It still retains the geometric characteristics whilst feeling softer and lighter. It gives the whole logo a sense of airiness which, when paired with the sky blue, makes the design refreshing and light. 

After collectively making decisions we discussed what the design needed ti be applied to and organised separate jobs. I offered to take the key branding elements- business cards and stationary, whilst also offering a hand with the product catalogue (which was the main task of Abbie). With Lucy making tweaks to the existing website and producing a flyer.

OUGD603: Smart Grid Consultancy- Application

As I began applying the design to stationary I started with the business cards and experimented with extra elements to push the design further. I made a few sketches of additional touches to add to the applied logo and I settled on a simple 'swoosh'. The upwards swoosh connotes an idea of growth and positivity and moving up whilst also resembling a business chart also displaying growth- tying the business back to the positive impact it can have on other companies. Adding the gentle gradient to the swoosh also implies that with positive growth there is also a step towards a greener future, one that can be achieved with SGC. 

Using this shape along with the logo and it's concepts I applied the design to other stationary relevant to the company, letterheads and invoices. I maintained a brand consistency by using the swoosh in each layout and keeping the logo in the same left alignment.

Despite the design applying cleanly to stationary it did take some difficulty to translate it onto uniforms due to it's long thin type and layout. To combat this I used the shortened version of the logo and maintained the use of colour on 'smart' to link the shirts back to the main brand. 

OUGD603: Smart Grid Consultancy- Further Development

After analysing my font choices I settled on Steiner Light. Out of all of the typefaces I had chosen previously it was the one that best fit the concepts of futuristic and machine looking qualities. Also as a type face it looked formal whilst still remaining stylised so it could both convey the companies' brand personality whilst fitting into the corporate environment it is designed for. 

The next brand point that was essential for the bare bones design is the representation of the environment. The three brand 'points' to SGC are technology, future adaptability and environmentally positive solutions. The easiest and best way to do this is with the addition of colour- green = environment, it's a cultural connotation and so it would be silly not to use it. 

For the layout and addition of colour my thinking was two fold. Add green to the smart- this demonstrates using environmental solutions to power and technology is the 'smart' decision. It also draws the eye to the word smart and the start of the logo allowing the eye to flow across the logo from start to end and places emphasis on the most positive word within the company title 'smart'.

The layout decision was based off of my favourite sketch/idea, I wanted to keep things simple. It was more an aesthetic choice over a conceptual one, the design already covered the three brand 'points' so I didn't want to confuse the design with unnecessary additions.

I did however toy, even in sketch mode, with the addition of the companies tagline 'smart thinking for a brighter future'. The tagline adds to the designs positive and futuristic tone. Using an conceptual idea from earlier I used italicised type to demonstrate momentum and the feeling of travelling towards the brighter, more environmentally and technical future SGC aims to provide. 

OUGD603: Charity Promotion- Development

The development of these designs was very simple. In order to keep the tone of the designs positive and light I outlined the images in a way that made them appear to be hand drawn and friendly.

With the type especially I wanted something that looked hand drawn, almost childish or naive to truly push the personal friendly voice within my logos.

Once everything was produced and laid out I sent the design to the English Stamp Company to create a simple stamp of the logo that I can use on the back of prints and designs. I feel using a stamp instead of digitally printing the logos will be cheaper in the long run and will continue the theme of hand made and hand drawn designs.

OUGD603: Armadilla- Digital Development

I began the digital development by selecting a type face. I wanted to use a clean san serif preferably a geometric one to best represent the shape of the pods and also to reflect the modern stylising of the products and the current website. I chose fonts that were wide and extended suggesting reliability and strength. The font I ended up selecting for the designs was Gill Sans.

With my font chosen I produced simple line vector versions of my sketched out designs and paired them up with the type, making a few experiments and changes to layout but keeping the design fairly simple. I didn't want to push the layouts too far as the logo will be used for commercial purposes but I aimed to produce something unique and interesting. 

I selected a simple colour pallet using the different shades from the wood as my inspiration. I wanted to display a very natural looking set of colours to tie the design back to the companies ecological and environmental principles.

As a quick experimentation I used the colour pallet alongside various shapes just to see how the logos can work in different ways. As for now I will wait until our group meets again before I push any of these designs further to make sure I'm heading in a good direction.

OUGD603: Armadilla- Group Meetup

We had our first group meet up and discussion today. What we aimed to achieve from this meeting was to define each of our strongest ideas so we can go away and develop them further before next Tuesday. The ideas shown below were selected as my strongest and so I will take these designs and adapt them digitally and develop them further before our next meeting.

It was mentioned that my group really liked the abstract shapes. It was difficult for all of us to break away from the iconic shape of the armadilla pod and so we all used it in some way, though they felt these designs used them in a more unique arrangement.

Although they liked, and personally I preferred these three in a row designs it was discussed that there should be a reason behind having three pods lined up next to each other and if we could establish this the concept would be stronger. I mentioned that the company sells three different sized pods and so quickly readapted the design to reflect this. I will digitally develop both but it seems the three different sized pods will be the more appropriate design.

Each of us ended up producing something to this effect, a basic pod design, similar to the current logo but arranged in a much better way. I want to adapt this design even though it wasn't highlighted as one of the strongest ideas, it just seems like too obvious of an idea to not even see where it could go.

OUGD603: Armadilla- Initial Ideas

For the first part of this brief the main element that is needed is to produce a logo. So individually each of us went away to come up with some ideas and initial logo designs. My first set of ideas were based around the pods themselves. With the design being a very iconic and easily identifiable shape it was easy to adapt it to a variety of different designs. 

For the first set of designs I experimented with type, making the arch and circles a key component of the type's shape. This is a far more subtle way to feed the shapes into the design but one that still makes them obvious.

Many more of my designs focused on playing around with the images, I used the circle and arch in abstract ways and in more literal ones. 

Another route I explored was the animal which inspired the shapes of the pods- the armadillo. I tried shaping text into a more curved dome feel reflecting the animal's body shape. 

Whilst looking through pictures of armadillos I found these Alexander McQueen armadillo boots. I absolutely love the look and shape of them so I tried using that sheer drop shape in a couple more sketches and ideas.

Not only was I inspired by the front of the pod but also the shape from the side, I made a couple extra sketches with shaped type and a dramatic curve reflecting the look of the pods.