The process of creating my corporate identity

For comparison I have my previous corporate identity above my new CI, but it's there mostly for a laugh. Whilst that CI might of been "edgy" and "different" at college by no means was it going to cut it in the business world especially with a juvenile hotmail email address on the reverse. The renewal of my CI was also what inspired me to finally get a website online to house my works, ideas and projects I have running. So, Logos.

It's a subjective thing, some people are looking for icons, some people want to use their name, some people think clip art from Microsoft word is good enough. Basically its a medium that has to look simple, but be complex. It needs to be recognisable and digested instantly without explanation, its ingredients should have some connection to its origin or use and it should be something that you are proud to promote and wear to the outside world. Now, whilst that is true, the planning and construction of a logo can sometimes come down to a customer who does not have the graphic design skill or "eye" to know what works and what doesn't. Hopefully in those cases you can talk to them and explain your creation to a point where they really get invested in your design and adopt it as their own. Sometimes this comes in the form of a colour change or some other tweak so that they feel their input has gone into the creation, and that's understandable.

So after all that, my own CI and its origin. The basic explanation is that the large end of the "bridge" is the initial concept and ideas and the "tip" of the bridge is the final, refined and perfected product. And how can this be possible ?, with Steve Bott Creative of course. Lame, sure, ambitious explanation, sure, but possible ?, Definitely. Most products are the collaboration of ideas that get tuned, refined and honed down to a final product and I wanted to represent that in my CI. The font if you were wondering is "Walkway Expand" and the creative along the bottom has been modified (you can see where the E and A meet, also the Vs angle was slightly tightened).

With the process of making a new CI, I enlisted a handful of designers that I have meet and some that I studied with to help me along the way. I would get all the font candidates that I liked and hone them down to the ones I loved, then started working a different variations of the bridge. I had two colours in mind, the current blue or a very dark purple. At different stages I would email out my progress and get feedback on different aspects of what I was doing and also a welcome amount of constructive criticism. I really the love the creative process with a team as you will always get something from someone that you had not thoughts about or a tweak that just perfects a project after you have been at a brick wall with it for so long.

The longer I go as a designer the more and more I appreciate fonts and their help in cementing the design aesthetic of a project. I currently have a library of over 6,000 fonts and love gong through them all looking for one that really rings through to what I am trying to convey in a layout. The third example below of the Centori concept I have attached an image of the kind of thing I do as I go through my fonts and have a large list with the ones I think might work, then I slowly cull them down to the final few.

Thanks for reading My process of logo design and hopefully I have helped or inspired you in your work with the way I work. Return to the Home page
By Steve Bott.