Twenty-Six Kinds of Animals

A very nice typographical project by Jeremy Pettis. I had previously thought of a similar idea using the signs of the zodiac.

Enjoy

PUMA Until Then

Really nice football-based ad, although only a handful of teams could afford players with legs like that, further increasing the gap between the "big" and the "small" teams ...

Logo Design Process

With so many varying solutions to a single brief or problem, I find it quite fascinating how the outcome of a design project is finally reached. The processes which go into a logo, a piece of branding or poster series are often ignored once it's finalised and out there on billboards, promotional brochures and the like.

So having been inspired by Creative Review's November 2007 issue whereby designer's 'Work in Progress' was featured, I felt I would take you through the process of my own logo design, the reasoning behind each concept and, ultimately, why the final identity, which you can see on my website and on this blog, was chosen.

Concept 01


My initial thinking behind my identity was of sophistication and class. At the beginning I was really only interested in designing a nice simple wordmark and wasn't so worried about a more graphical logo. Image 01 was the first concept I came up with. With focus on the 'z' (as it is a relatively unique feature to have in your name when you are from the a country full of Smiths!) I drew a nice little calligraphic symbol (image 02) to finish off the wordmark.
Although relatively happy with the logo, it somewhat bored me. Not enough to it I would have to say, and not particularly adaptable to different mediums, so I continued on with more concepts.

Fonts used . Helvetica Neue 47 and 67

Concept 02


Concept 01 was 'boring' so concept 02 (image 03) was to be 'funky'. I temporarily abandoned my idea of sophistication (just like me on a heavy Friday night out) and moved towards a more modern style.
Again, with more focus on my unique surname (I believe I'm the only David Orkisz in the world - awesome) than my first name, I used a completely different font than that of concept 01 and made some graphical adjustments to the r, k, i and z to make it more flowing. I'm partial to lime as a colour so felt that I would use it with this concept although many colour options (magenta, cyan, orange) could be used with a style like this.
Ultimately, however, I had strayed from my initial thoughts on what sort of identity I would like to have and decided (after experimenting further - images 04 and 05) that I would carry on with more ideas.

Font used . Eclat

Concept 03


Concept 03, and I returned to black and white (image 06). Initially with a nice simple sans-serif typeface, I added an angled line through the wordmark to give my name the sense that it is revealing itself. After more experimenting, I added a bit of grunge to the bottom of the letters to give a slightly battered look. For reasons of which escape me now I added some sort of bionic lines through the letters. I don't even really know why they are there, but they are!
In the end (even with the lines) this logo just reminded me too much of Channel 4's 'Dispatches' logo (seen at 0.50), which, of course, was unintentional.

Font used . Helvetica Bold

Concept 04


The more concepts that I design, the more ideas I am creating and allowing myself to pick from later on in the process if necessary. During my 4th concept (images 07, 08 and 09) I was starting to get closer to what I was after.
Taking the same idea from concept 03 of the angled line, I adjusted the fonts used, added some colour to the line making it more vibrant and avoided the 'battered' look to move more towards a look of class.

Fonts used . Helvetica Neue 67 and Georgia Bold

Concept 04 / 05


I had decided at this point that Georgia Bold was my font of choice. This put forward the image I wanted to portray perfectly.
I felt to add a bit more to the logo and have a graphical image I could use throughout my identity, I would add another element to the logo. Initially I had the idea to make it look as if where the D disappeared it would then reemerge as something more beautiful - the floral motif (image 10). Illustrating this myself I felt it just threw the whole wordmark off balance where I had positioned it, and if this was an element I wanted featured, it would have to be used in a different way (image 11). The colours worked ...

Font used . Georgia Bold and Helvetica Neue 67

Concept 05


The floral motif didn't work as part of the wordmark itself, but what if it was used as part of a completely separate entity completely, a monogram?
Image 13 shows my initial monogram drafts using first the style as in image 10 and then as more of an integrated setup, changing minor elements of the motif as I went - almost there.

Font used . Georgia Bold

Final Logomark


As fellow countryman Gordon Ramsay would say, 'DONE!'
Above is the final logo displayed as a combination of both the wordmark and the monogram (so essentially the logo as a whole). Both the monogram and the wordmark can be used as separate entities and displayed in varying ways.
Though Georgia Bold was my primary font of choice, the tagline 'graphic designer' used another common font to this process, Helvetica Neue 67.
I achieved just the style I was looking for initially and kept the identity flexible and with the colour usage to a minimum.

I think the message is clear: I am David Orkisz and I am a graphic designer - hire me. Do it!