logos – ANDREW BARTON

3 Logo Examples: Conception to Completion

Last month on my blog, I tackled a big graphic design conundrum: When is it time for a new logo? I posed a series of questions and considerations to help you determine if you need to create a new look for your business or brand.

This month, I want to share three logos I’ve worked on recently. Logo design isn’t a simple process. Sometimes clients have a vision and sometimes they aren’t 100% sure what they want. But one thing is certain in every logo situation: the client has to love the end result. They’ll likely be living with this logo for many years, so it’s important we land on a design, font and colors they feel communicate their brand’s mission.

1. DM Armstrong, CPA

An accountant, this client didn’t want a cliche logo – no calculators or dollar signs. She also wanted to avoid explicitly using her initials as her logo. I embraced this challenge, and we ultimately landed on an abstract icon. It has elements of structure and movement, and, if you look closely, you’ll see checkboxes, a grid and a even a small hidden “d.”

2. The Hub

This logo is for the children’s program at a large church. It’s the place all the children visit for weekly church and education meetings. Illustration is my heart, and I’m thrilled when I can use my illustration skills for a logo project. For The Hub, transportation and home were both important parts of the theme. I also wanted to make it fun and youthful.

3. Homegrown Financial LLC

This client was launching a new company specializing in reverse mortgages so we wanted to communicate the concept of “home” but in a visually interesting way. In this logo, the house signifies “growth” with the upward motion of the roof (arrow). We wanted to use green to represent growth and money but opted for shades of green to make the logo pop.

As you can see in these three examples, every logo project is completely unique. Each client and business comes to me with different ideas about what they want — and don’t want — in a logo. My job is to distill those ideas into one simple design. It’s not always easy, but I love the challenge.

Have you been considering a new logo? I’d love to help! Shoot me an email.

Have a great week,

Orthodontic Logo

I’m very passionate about designing logos. It’s one of the top three things I get to do in my job as a professional creative. Recently, I put that passion to work developing a logo for a Nirenblatt Orthodontics.

Dr. Nirenblatt has a great practice and an energetic brand. Give him a call if you’re in need of a beautiful smile.

Have a great week,

Chamber of Commerce Logo

I am super proud of this logo! I created it for the good folks at the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. We explored a lot of directions and ended up with an energetic, yet professional, logo mark.

As usual, I started with sketching.

Then I took the winning sketches to the computer…

Eventually, we narrowed it down. Living and working in Mount Pleasant is all about water and sunshine, so I was glad the client picked a concept that incorporated both of those elements.

Finally, we had an awesome release party at the piano bar. The board members wore embroidered shirts and handed out stickers. The photo of the event was taken by the Moultrie News staff. Here’s a link to their article on the new logo.

Have a great week,

St. Andrew’s Brand Identity

I’m proud to reveal the new and updated logo identity for St. Andrew’s Church in Mt. Pleasant, SC. St. Andrew’s is a vibrant and active organization with a large footprint in the lowcountry. As an Anglican church, they have a rich history and also strive to stay culturally relevant.

The Challenge

Develop a logo and brand style guide for the organization that could be used to represent the parent organization as well as their 4 campuses. They requested a style that is contemporary, clean and light. Most importantly, they asked me to steer clear of anything traditionally “churchy” or stuffy. The style guide included additional brand assets like two stationery designs, mission icons, patterns, typography assignments and some sample ways that the assets could be implemented.

Initial Concepts

In the initial round of review, I showed them a variety of logo concepts. I usually like to present 3 or 4 to my clients, but in this case, I lost my self control. 🙂

Final Work

They finally selected this logo for their primary mark. Each campus would then incorporate their location in conjunction with this mark and identify with a specific color.

With the logo system locked in, I developed the additional assets and their brand style guide. Here are some of the included elements.

Really enjoyed working on this one. Thanks St. Andrew’s!

If you would like to work with me to develop a logo and style guide for your brand, please get in touch: ab@andrewbartondesign.com or 843.882.7627.

Barnabus Logo

Logo for a local non-profit organization with a ministry to the homeless.

RES Logo & Video

Teamed up with Team B Marketing to help their client with a new logo identity and an animated promotional video. RESolution is for a new software product geared towards scientists in large labs.

Screenshots from the video:

Watch the full video below.

Logo Process: WP Charleston

Logo Process: WordPress Charleston

I’ve been inspired by watching some really cool webinars showing graphic artists discussing their processes. I’m going to follow suit and walk through my basic logo process. Specifically, I’d like to use a recent example, WordPress Charleston—a local WordPress user group. For starters, here’s how the final version turned out.

DISCLAIMER: I use the term “process” loosely. I still have tons to learn and my process is constantly evolving according to deadlines, budget, industry, caffeine level, etc. Also, no two projects (or clients) are ever the same. Sometimes I skip steps. Sometimes I add more. That said, there are a few key milestones I try to hit: Research, Sketch, Design and Polish.

Research

Context is everything so I do my homework. WordPress, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a web framework used by millions of programmers to make websites. For this project, it was important to highlight the unique aspect of Charleston while also acknowledging the progressive tech-edge of WordPress. The logo needed to be recognizable on a local (Charleston) and global (WordPress) level.

Sketching

After developing a solid understanding of what the client was looking for, I took to the sketchbook. This is one of my favorite parts. You’ll notice none of these look anything like the finished product—more on that later. Initially, I wanted to find a way to depict the “W” in WordPress without using their mark. Sketching was a good place to test this out. Quite often, I’ll end up completing two rounds of sketching. The first is for rough ideas and the second is more focused. Depending on the client, I may show them the sketches.

Design

After floating the sketches to the client, we decided to develop a few. I brought my scanned drawings into Adobe Illustrator and started fleshing them out. At this stage, the ideas pour out— some big, some small. Some good. Most aren’t. If I’m not watching the clock, I can spend hours going down rabbit trails of design minutia. There is a wonderful improvisational aspect to this phase of the process, but it requires discipline to stay on track. For this reason, I love tight deadlines.

Next, I reviewed the digital designs with the client. And here, we hit a little snag. We had some interesting directions, but the client and I agreed that we weren’t quite there yet. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with our winner. This time I stuck closer to some foolproof wisdom: Keep It Simple Stupid.

Polish

Once we nailed down the direction, I dug into the final details. How many colors? Add texture? Which fonts? These small (but important) details make all the difference in the world. Sometimes the last 10% of a project takes the most time. We ended up sticking with a traditional serif font for “WordPress”. For the remaining text I used a modern san serif to provide contrast and increased readability.

As for colors, there are always so many options that it can get overwhelming. After much exploration we ended up using a traditional brown as a base color and a handful of brighter options for the sky (below). The leftmost logo is the primary version.

Done!

And there you have it! I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out and the client was great. He was a fantastic resource throughout the whole process. As I look back on this logo, I see things I’d like to tweak and improve (on the logo and in my process). If I did it again, I’d focus on getting rid of weaker ideas sooner, but that’s always the struggle, isn’t it? The key for me is not to fall in love with any ideas too soon – if possible.

So what do you think? Do you have a different process? Is it set in stone? Feel free to add your comments below.