A blizzard of concepts! It’s obvious what the central theme was here isn’t it? Speech & language. A logo that I designed for a localisation company.
Other Design Concept Work
Playing with the ‘speech balloon’ idea
Working with the client’s initially preferred ‘Neuropol’ font
More Speech Balloon/Quotation Mark Hybrid-Motif Concepts
Case Study
Key Concepts
The central theme was Speech & language.
But also, one thing turning into another—translating: Black to blue. The speech balloon that you might discern here is also still a little like a quotation mark in the final approved version. My intention was to create a dynamic looking image that suggested a speech balloon—via nice positive and negative shapes. The resulting semi-arrow of the speech balloon also implied movement or transition from one state to another.
That speech-balloon/quotation mark idea was still a bit contentious though, because there was a danger of it reading instantly as a Nike ‘swoosh’. Alas, the much copied swoosh logomark—a lá NIKE—was becoming all too common and overused at that time.
There was another issue too, with the red concepts: the strong and familiar VODAFONE bubble/quote mark logomark which had only been around for a short time. Some of the concepts were—inadvertently—too similar to Vodafone. Of course, the red didn’t help and could have been easily remedied. I can’t help suspecting in retrospect, that I used red due to the unconscious influence of Vodafone.
So as you can see, there were a LOT of concepts and variations on those created for the client.
Typography
At the time, I’d been a little resistant to the Neuropol font. I felt it was a little sci-fi and could date very quickly. But looking back years later, some of those designs with that font look quite nice. I’m undecided as to whether it would have dated quickly compared to the final approved version.
The solid, thick serifs have an unintended touch of the 60s PanAm identity about them and that was softened with a contrasting font.
Conclusion
I’m happy with the final approved logo even if it’s not quite as creative or interesting as some of the other concepts. And yes, I think I really do quite like that sci-fi Neuropol font now. It inspired me!