I was lucky enough to be a part of an incredible re-branding project thanks to my friend Marc Hemeon from Google. Marc is a designer there and also a long-time friend of the founder of a startup called Graphicly, Micah Baldwin.
Graphicly is pivoting into Forth Rail, a service that helps authors and publishers to digitize their books into pretty much any digital format you can think of. Originally they had started out doing comic books, but Micah's goal was to grow much further beyond that.
I'm going to try and show you what my process was like (from start-to-finish), in hopes that it might help a few of you out there when you're designing a logo or a brand for a client. I'm including the feedback from the client so you can get an idea for how I came up with my revisions.
The Initial Sketches. Winging it.
Feedback:
"This is a good start. Looking forward to chatting soon."
"This is a good start. Looking forward to chatting soon."
Always do your best to put in extra effort. Before I had even gotten paid anything, I collected as much information from Micah as possible, and came up with 6 sketches to get a feel for the type of style they wanted to go for. After this initial feedback, I was able to have a deeper conversation with the team, to better understand the business and the market they were going after.
WTF is a Forth Rail? Gaining Some Inspiration.
Forth Rail is named after the Forth Bridge in Scotland. It's a cantilever railway bridge and it's beautiful. Micah wanted to symbolize, strength and movement. This bridge envelops those attributes. I should note, the goal for this project is not for Forth Rail to look exactly like a bridge or a bridge company. The bridge is simply inspiration for the brand.
Back to the Drawing Board.
Feedback:
"I like #2 and maybe #4 flipped over?"
Refining #2 and #4.
Feedback:
"Do you think the first 3 look like boats? What would 4 - 6 look like if they were rotated 90 degrees? What are you thinking?"
I responded with..."I see the most potential with #3. I do sort of see a shape that reminds me of a ship, but I just need to adjust the lower arch a bit. Looking at the forth bridge images now and I can adjust it to match the shape more. 4-6 look best at the angles I've sent as I went through all of the angles. If you want me to shoot over different angles in that one, let me know."
Refining the "boat". Please don't look like a boat!
Feedback:
"It's getting closer. Still feels like a boat /nautical or am I way off? It's the bottom half - maybe less curved? Let's work with this for sure."
He's starting to see the potential in this idea. I am too.
Bring on The Variations. Let's Get This Looking Like a Bridge and Not a Boat!
Feedback:
"Ok. We are almost there. The last one with a vertical line. My only beef is it looks like it makes a number 4, which is confusing - fourth vs. Forth. Wonder if we put a second horizontal line to make an F and an R?"
Boom! Is this what you were thinking?
Feedback:
"I think thats right on. Rad."
Adding Some Color to it.
Now on to The Wordmark Sketches.
Feedback:
"Not stoked on them. They feel too "standard". I figure if we are going a bit straight with the avatar, the font should have a slight bit of flair..."
Experimenting with Type.
Feedback:
"I think its really close. the type feels a bit dated to me. like quasi-future type from the early 00's. i'd try some other more "structurally sound” options. The other piece of feedback a friend gave me is that he is worried that the logo will lose its integrity when its small — thoughts?"
Sometimes I like to just throw an idea in the mix and get some quick, hard feedback to better understand the direction we need to be headed in. This time it worked perfectly. I moved away from sketches, because sometimes it's hard to draw the correct curves and get things right. Working with existing typefaces and customizing them, is the way to go, IMO.
I introduced this orangish red color here as well, to match the color of the brigde. I liked it, out of all the colors I had experimented with, and wanted the client to get used to it as we continued down the experimentation road.
Typeface Restructure + Thicker Lines on Logo.
Feedback:
"I like it. My only hesitation is the font is still not round enough. Feels very 90s not current. Like laser tag."
In this revision, I used the 3 different dimensions of the logo together with the type, to show that the issue with the logo losing integrity when small, had been fixed.
Completely Unpacking What the Client is Trying to Tell You, So You Can Find a Solution.
After Micah gave me the feedback above about the font looking too much like Laser Tag, I wanted to dig deeper a bit and figure out exactly what he meant. Some client's are not always good with describing what they think. Micah gave me a great response to my question which helped me polish off the font...
Me:
"Are you referring most specifically to the edges of the letters?"
Micah:
"It feels like you can draw a box around each letter and the edges are "sharp". I'd love to see them a bit softer on the curves but strong on the thickness. (Does that make any sense?)"
Me:
"Yep totally"
Micah:
"Cool"
The Banger
Feedback:
"I like it!"
Arranging The Icon With the Wordmark.
Feedback:
"I like 2,5,6. Did you try it with the words stacked?"
I shot Micah back an email with the following... I'm leaning towards #1. Feels more strong and confident. Knows who it is. #2 looks like its 'uncertain' with the words stacked on each other. Thoughts?
Feedback:
"Agreed. I say we go with #1."
Putting it All Together.
