Living Data @ Mclays Logo Process
Gcreate Graphic designer located in Cardiff & Caerphilly- Living Data @ Mclays Logo Process
I did a blog post a while ago (in fact it might of been one of the first blogs I did on this site) where I finished up a logo for a client, which after designing some versions decided to go down a different path. Well this is a similar type of post where the lovely people at Living Data @ Mclays contracted me to design their new logo, however due to time (and possibly budget) the process was stopped just after the draft stage, which was a shame as I was really excited to some of the designs get finalized.
Here is a process of the drafts and then me picking a designed I created which I finished for myself. Please note they did not go with the final logo design.
So first of all they gave me a few rough ideas on how to start, I went round their office and we talked about how they wanted to incorporate the text Living Data @ McLays and possibly add their tag line which was Profit from Insight. Tag lines can be pretty powerful but sadly do not always work within a design.
As you can see in the examples I did a bunch of very rough drawings and scanned them in. With all starting designs you begin to pick up some favorites that you really enjoy, and imagine it looking pretty good as a final image.
Some clients do get a bit worried at this stage because....well lets be honest some of them look rubbish! however I am a graphic designer not an illustrator, my job is to create graphic design and make things look pretty. The whole point of drafts however is to just give an idea to the client and also myself on how things could progress.
The next stage was to do a very mini clean up of some of the logos I thought worked well. Its worth pointing out that the clients also mentioned they wanted to have the logo in different colours for the different services they provide, I for one am a big fan of this process as it allows the client/customer to realize that the logo is different and therefore notice that possibly the service or product might change while keeping the shape and design of logo.
From the drafts I really liked how some of the ideas where little blocks (which in my head were little blocks of data) and because they work with data these two seemed to come together pretty well.
It was at this point however the project was stopped and we went our different ways, hopefully they get back in touch to either finalize the logo or work with them on another project as they seemed really lovely to work with.
So I now had a bunch of drafts and a mini clean up version of their logo but nothing else, and it kept playing in my mind "wouldn't it be nice if the logo looked like this or that", so I decided to finish it up.
First of all I picked a couple of the designs I really liked and put them together. Its always best to create your logo in black and white, because if you like like it at that point chances are you are going to like it when colour is added.
It's worth noting that I did try to add their tag line, however I really felt it detracted from the overall design, so I decided not to include it.
Next was to add the colour system they wanted to implement, apart from the colour blue I really could pick any colour I wanted. I know they threw around the idea of orange which one of the directors wanted but others didn't think would work, and also red. In the end I decided to go with just four which were blue, green, red and orange which wasn't too much and also "they could add more colours in the future" which was another request they wanted from an earlier meeting.
I also thought it might be nice to add a bit of the colour into the text but didn't want it to stand out too much so changing the Mc in Mclays I thought was enough.
And that's pretty much the process on doing a logo the correct way. Originally the time and budget was there but as time went on they realized that they had misjudged the time frame and had to change things. The last design is just the version of the blue colour with a bit of depth and texture added to it.
Remember if you or anyone else needs designing a logo, or maybe you already have one designed and you just want it changed slightly you should get in touch.
Contact me today to have a talk over the phone or e-mail and we can both work out a system and budget. Make sure you read my reviews which are on the home page and see what other people are talking about Gcreate
