SPACE IDENTITY
At this point you have decided on the space you want to bring back to life. You would've also started doing some research on the area and will be starting to understand what's making it not work and what might be done. Now the team, or at least part of it, should be starting to think about giving it an identity.
Why give a space an identity? Firstly it's a good way to start fostering some worth in the space. It will bring an inherent value to the spot and stimulate some pride in it. It is attractive for investors you may want to interest in the future and it gives a solid base from which you will build the new idea.
For this brief we are going to construct a Letter-mark logo for our space.
___________________________________________________________
LETTER-MARK (Monogram)
A design of one or more letters, usually the initials of a name, used to identify a company, publication, person, object, or idea. Also known as a monogram. A monogram usually refers to the use of two or more letters from a name. A monogram may have signed the artistic products (sculptures, pieces of furniture, artwork etc) of craftsmen, especially when the guilds were involved. Kings and Queens used monograms as a way of showing the depth of their ownership, just as companies could be said to be doing that now.
Advantages
The letter-mark solves both mnemonic and legibility issues. It also remains easier to fit to a design than using the whole name or word-mark.
Disadvantages
Letter-marks are often masquerading as logos. Generic initials, treated in clever ways may look better on towels and glasses than on a corporate business card. Initials woven together have very little meaning. Most letter-marks depend on large-scale audience contact, high advertising spend and repeated viewing for recognition.
Designers using letter-marks often try to make the letters form a pictorial association with the product or service, thus suggesting more about the company and giving it a secondary meaning. Paul Rand's Westinghouse design symbolises the origins of the appliances company that started out in the kitchen, namely stoves - also gives a crown to the company. Kodak is a flash and LG a smiling face? United Airlines created by Saul Bass in 1973. Nicknamed the tulip it was created to convey leadership and innovation.
___________________________________________________________
BUILDING LETTER-MARKS
Like when we start designing anything, especially logos, we don't want to start on the computer, a nice big empty page is perfect, and remember - thumbnails are as big as we need at this point.
Try using a black art-liner of 0.2 or 0.4 nib, it will mean that what ever you do will be set in stone and not able to be rubbed out. I like to use a 0.2 nib as it has more flex, unfortunately it also means that it breaks easy so have some spares ready.
Start with exploring the letters of your abbreviated name. The name in this case will most likely come from the original name of the space. What different ways can you draw the letters? Get all your ideas down; draw them in capital form, heavily styled, heavily simplified, script, block etc. What we are looking for is an understanding of the letters and their uniqueness.
Secondly we should start to play with the letters and how they interact with each other. How do they relate, can they fit together, overlap in some interesting and aesthetic way? At this point we are still playing with the letters and should not necessarily think the logo will just appear.
Lastly we should try to incorporate the visual ideas that resemble something the space represents. Could the letters correlate to form a visual representation in some way? Could we get the letters to mimic a belief or mission we hope for the space, or is it something more literal, for instance an old fishing dock in the shape of a fish?
Lets look at an example:
___________________________________________________________
CASE STUDY - HANDSPRING (1998-2003)
Handspring was a company that produced software and hardware for personal digital assistants. It was founded by the makers of the original Palm Pilot who had become unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking the Palm industry.
To them 3Com was becoming too business minded and ignoring the social aspects that the Palm could offer. They wanted something for a younger market that exude youth, vitality and a breaking free of constraints.
In 1998 they turned to Mortensen Design to design something that would express those beliefs. P,J, Nidecker chose letter-marks as the basis for his design.
He begins with the basic letters: H and S but begins to focus more and more on the H alone. Arrows begin to appear to show the forward thinking of the company. He runs the letters together overlapping and joining up to show the integration of design and technology the company wants to promote. Towards the end he starts to incorporate springs in relation to the company’s use of ‘springboard’ models that expand PDA’s capabilities. It’s here that he decides to focus more.
Here we have a ‘H’ springing backwards. It was decided that this might be seen unfavorably as a company doing a back flip is never very good. Especially in the new technology market. Then we go into another spring. A coil unwinding. This was also seen as having negative connotations.
Next brings in some more energy and the idea of a chain reaction, much like a ball bouncing in the way that one idea leads onto the next idea which leads onto the next... The spring was brought back but this time the cross section of the spring was focused on. This was seen as being too abstract.
The final began as a ‘H’ resembling a person jumping in the air. When turned upside down though it became a person doing a cartwheel. This had more energy and more excitement and summed up what the company were trying to get across as their USP. The colours blue, green and yellow were brought in to add vibrancy and the box was removed to make the figure appear even freer.
Interestingly in 2003 they merged with Palm Inc. to become palmOne. Do you think this logo works as well?
___________________________________________________________
INSPIRATION & EXTRAS
Each week I throw up things I find that relate to what we've been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at matt@billyblue.com.au and I'll get it up here or on the Bluni inspiration site.
___________________________________________________________
PREVIOUS EXAMPLES - SHADY KIDS
___________________________________________________________
