OUGD504: Design for print and web/ Studio brief 3 - Logo design.

Today I started experimenting and coming up with ideas for a logo design, I wanted to keep in mind what I had learnt from my research:

- Use of natural/organic colours are more desirable to people in relation to food.
- The colour red triggers hunger.
- Allow the logo/printed material to seem somewhat humanised.
- Do not do everything digitally - could reference to printed outcomes.
- Travel.
- Typography.

Below are all the logo designs that I came up with:

I used the circle motif a lot through experimenting with logos as I wanted to emphasise the idea of a full stop. This logo also plays upon the idea of a place setting at a table or an eatery, which fulter helps any passer by distinguish what the purpose of the establishment is. Lastly it also portrays the theme of travel or culture through the use of a small airplane illustration. 

Next, I changed up the colours (black to red) and the type, this gave the logo a completely new look, and although I welcomed the colour change, I found that the change in type led to the logo seeming quite obtrusive and challenging to possible customers, it almost appeared to initiate the appearence of a stop sign. 

Changing the font still didn't help and the logo continued to look quite loud and it your face.

I changed up the font again to something slimmer to see if this would solve the problem. I also changed up the colours to combine black and red, however this turned out looking slightly too oriental. 

Next I decided to unfill the circle to see if this would help the design look less 'angry' however I felt that when I had done this, it communicated very little about the restaurant and was too plain.

With this logo I decided to abandon the circle idea all together and go for something totally different. The logo signifies the crossing of a knife and fork with a map printed on them to reflect the different countries in which you can be served food from. However I found that again, the motif of a cross seemed to signify something of danger with connotations and looting. I also found that when putting together this logo, I didn't really know where to put the crucial piece of information 'International cantine.'

I really enjoy this logo as it plays on the idea of the stamps which you collect when passing over some borders into other countries. 

I also created the logo in black, I do not have a preference on the colour as the logo will mostly be laid over a pattern which I will be designing at a later date this will be either red or black based, and so the logo will be of the opposite colour. 

I went to the first logo to edit it again and added in a few marks that would look like the outlines of countries inside the circle, so that the full image would appear to look like a globe in reference to the foods that would be served. When producing the logo I preferred the colour choice to be black in comparison to the red. I think that the black works better with this typeface as it is quite elegant, where the red seems to combat that theme, the black compliments it. 

For the above and below logo I again decided to totally abandon the circle motif, and instead replaced it with a simple outline in the shape of a stomach. When I filled this with both colours however, I was quite scared that the red version looked slightly like blood, which obviously, would scare customers away. I did however quite like the black version and thought that this design communicated the idea of being full quite well (as it shows the filling of a stomach).

When speaking to some of my peers about my logo designs I found that the favourites of the range were the ones shown below:

I found that from the 4 that others had picked up as being my better/ more appropriate logos that the follwing two were my favourite:

The other two which were picked by my peers play upon the idea of travel stamps, which is a motif I plan on using in other areas of my design and so I thought that If I implemented such a similar type of symbol into the logo, the branding might end up looking too consistent and in effect... boring.

The following two display ideas of eating, the full stop circle, and the idea of travel. I did however need to think about where the logo would be placed. Most often it will be seen on packaging, and especially on items such as sandwhiches/wraps, and other elements such as the business card I was planning on designing, for this I also wanted to place a print in the background (sketch seen on previous post of images of food created from letters and punctuation) and therefore the knife and fork element of the logo might be lost in this. However the logo could also work without the knife and fork. Therefore I will design my printed material with both logos and choose which I think will be most appropriate in the end.