Logotastic

Blue Marble Consulting Ltd is primarily a vehicle for Mr Paul Skinners independent strategic consulting work. Mr Skinners background is global marketing ( developing brands for L’Oreal) and sustainability , which often have collaberative ‘open source’ components, using online hubs and platforms. Blue Marble Consulting develops expertise in understanding the major macro-environmental trends of our time.  The image that we needed to come up with at Logotastic needed to ooze exclusivity and have an expensive and modern feel. Although the logo could be rather cutting edge it needed to hang on to that corporate vibe. Paul was keen for the concept to include the original blue marble photo and include a caption too. The main thing that Blue Marble Consultancys new corporate identity needed to portray was that of a high end consulting service that showed individuality and intelligence.

The design team here at Logotastic worked through a number of designs before finally landing on a design for a corporate identity that ticked all the boxes. Mr Skinner was thoroughly pleased with the outcome.

Johnson Banks has recently renovated the well known and loved Science museum’s brand identity in order for the museum to appeal to a wider audience. The studio was put to work on redesigning the museums identity towards the end of 2009 and the result has provoked some very positive arguments stating that the logo is far from dead

Lynda Relph – Knight argues in her column in ‘design week’ that the museums new logo counters any theory that the logo is dead. ‘The square device, with its grid typeface, dominates communications, while creating a framework for imagery and text, rather than the other way round.’

The new brand identity is hoping to draw in older audiences as well as younger ones, by changing the logo it’s possible to really achieve a new look and feel for the museum, providing a strong argument that the logo still holds a strong presence in creating a brands identity. The logo is going to appear prominently across promotions including banners, signs and publications. The brief Johnson received from the museum was as follows

“The museum briefed us to search for a more sophisticated visual identity, to avoid the usual science clichés of test tubes and mad, white-lab-coated professors, whilst supplying more cut-though,” he explains. “We were also keen to find a visual style that was much more than just a logo and could plant the museum back in the minds of audiences who might have forgotten them. After experimenting with several routes, the chosen idea stemmed from research we did on codes, puzzles, patterns and basic digital typefaces, and we found a way to shorten the word science so we could create a grid-like ‘stack’ of the letterforms. We also began to experiment with slightly abstracted letterforms as we noticed that ‘science’ and ‘museum’ were relatively generic words.”

Of course we at Logotastic will argue that the logo is not dead, far from it…..but does the new logo for the science museum prove that? What do you think?…..

I know that we have tended to go on a bit about how constructing your own logo without any experience or artistic flair can be a serious sin. However the following logos will really highlight how destructive it can be to a business if you brand your product or company with an unprofessional logo. It’s so important that we don’t underestimate how influential branding and identity can be. For instance if you saw this image outside a restaurant, would you be tempted to eat at it? Does this logo totally assure you that you are not going to get food poisoning from this establishment?

I think I’d be tempted to keep walking…..

Now when it comes to having a hair cut females particularly, but males too, want to feel that they are in trusted hands when they let someone loose with scissors on their beloved barnet. Therefore the next logo almost makes my sides split…what on earth were they thinking?! Why would you ever want to portray this sort of image for a hair salon. A graphic designer would never make this sort of fatal error, but it does cause amusement for passers by I suppose.

If these two disastrous images are not enough to convince you that a good logo is crucial when thinking about your company’s branding or identity then you will probably remain unconvinced. They are funny, i’ll give them that, but that’s about all the credit they are worthy of.

Los Blancos are a Sunday league football team that play in Jewish league and needed a club badge designed for their strip. The design team at Logotastic were asked to design a club badge that would look good on their shirts and that was black and white only. Los Blancos only play in Jewish league and therefore wanted the logo design to also include the Star of David. After several possible designs from our creative team, they settled on a logo and were really happy with the result. Neil, who is a father to one of the players, emailed our design team to say:

‘We just wanted to thank you for being so helpful with Joel. He is really delighted’

The logos you can see here are a collection of ideas that we put together and the final logo that the team now use is the larger image at the bottom.

It’s one of those things as a graphic designer that makes my blood boil. Why do people insist that a makeshift, do it yourself, photoshop pixel based image is an acceptable way of showcasing your business!! If you do it yourself….the fact is it will look rubbish. The basics tell us that an image created in photoshop is raster based. Raster graphics are resolution dependant, meaning that they cannot be scaled up without a very obvious loss in quality. Images look like this when they are scaled up -

However if one does as they should do and go to a graphic designer then they will be presented with beautiful vector based graphics. Vector graphics are made up of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors. A vector graphic is resolution- independent which means that it can be scaled to any size. Brilliant!! Just what you need in a logo.Vector graphics are the best and ONLY choice when it comes to designing graphics that must retain crisp lines when scaled to various sizes – eg…LOGOS!!!

Just remember…a graphic designer for the day keeps the bad logos at bay.

While most of us wait in eager anticipation for Saturdays dawn to break, and for our team to take to the pitch against the USA at 7.30pm, marketing chiefs all over the world are tirelessly using the mass exposure of the World Cup to market their brands until the cows come home. With this mass exposure comes the opportunity to brand, brand, brand away! They can’t and won’t be missing out on the opportunity to launch new boots, hats, scarves, suits, socks, replica kits…. you name it, they’ll have done it. The World Cup will be capturing the attention of a global audience for weeks and in turn it produces a perfect platform for brands and nations to showcase themselves from the minute the cameras start to roll, from the Opening Ceremony, to the Close of Play.

Adidas stands as the official sponsor, supplier and licensee of The World Cup but that does not mean that Puma and Nike wont be giving as good as they’ve got during battle. This just means that the two other brands will have had to come up with strategic plans of action in order to gain maximum exposure of their logos – make no mistake that all three will have a huge amount of presence during the event and all parties will be gaining a great deal.

Christopher Svezia, a sporting goods analyst at Susquehanna Financial group is reported as saying ‘It’s difficult to specify who’ll be the winners and losers. While Adidas is the official sponsor and therefore has a lot of exposure. Nike will invest in significant presence too’

Everybody will be hoping that a team wearing their kit, showcasing their brand and logo; will make the finals in order to gain the ultimate brand exposure. Puma hit jackpot last time when the champions Italy were sporting their logo, however they may not be so lucky this time as this years favourites – Spain and Brazil - will be decked out with Adidas and Nike branding. The figures stand as follows: 12 kits will be supplied by Adidas, 10 supplied by Nike and 7 supplied by Puma. Other brands such as Brooks, Umbro, Joma and Pirma will supply the rest. Nike will also be launching a new ‘Elite’ series of lightweight football boots and its teams will be wearing unique recycled sweatshirts that have been made from plastic water bottles.

Meanwhile Adidas will be providing the official match ball for the tournament and Puma have invested in a huge World Cup promotional event with Africa’s leading teams in Paris later this week. It includes an exhibition game between players from three of the African teams it will sponsor – these being Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Ghana and they’ll be putting on a free concert.

Aside from the sporting brands that obviously have the biggest opportunities to public exposure; The British Retail Consortium estimated that four years ago the World Cup added approximately £1.25bn to retail spending on items including TV’s food & drink and replica kits. We can conclude from this that the majority of retailers can use the World Cup to their advantage and market their brand somehow. For example: This year Marks and Spencer have taken over from Armani as the official suit supplier for the England Team. A lovely bit of glamorous exposure for Marks and Spencer and something that the British public will love, our beloved highstreet store dressing the likes of Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole!

With Adidas as the main sponsor, Marks and Spencer as the queen of the high street, David Beckham as our beautiful mascot and Budweiser to keep us hydrated - Let the battle of the brands commence……Oh and of course…….. Come On England!!!

Oil-Power Ltd is a business providing a start-up model for people wishing to establish a fluid power company. Oil-Power Ltd provide all the necessary software and documentation to run a successful Hydraulics business together with central purchasing.They have a B2B customer database which targets entrepreneurs who wish to establish a Fluid Power franchise and capitalise on Oil-Powers experience and industry contacts. Their new corporate image needed to be totally customer focussed with a friendly, simple and genuine feel. Although it was also very important for the image to project the idea that Oil-Power Limited are experts in their field. The design team worked through a number of logos before finding one that had exactly the right balance for them and Oil-Power Ltd were very pleased with the end results.

Elite Car Care sell specialist car detailing products online - quality waxes, paint correction, compounds & equipment etc. Much of their range is not available on the high street but only online. They sell internationally as well as within the UK and Western Europe to enthusiasts and professional detailers. We wanted to design a logo that was in keeping with all their best qualites of being able to provide a wide range of top quality products, at competitive prices, that they are able to despatch quickly.

When looking at their competitors it became obvious that they are highly praised for their excellent customer service and swift despatch of orders, therefore we wanted to create a logo that expressed this, a design that was friendly and projected quality and exclusivity. The Logotastic design team worked hard to create a corporate identity that the team at Elite Cars were thrilled with.

Many may argue that the success of a logo depends entirely on how well a brand identity is marketed. Some of the world’s most successful logos may not actually be great designs; they have just been marketed spectacularly. This may or may not be the case; regardless of this I believe we should all have a good old recipe for an effective logo. Therefore we must ask the all important question…’What makes a good logo’ - from a purely creative perspective?

1. Memorable – the best logos are the ones that stick in your mind. A strong image that is eye catching and grabs the attention of a consumer will be memorable and have a lasting impact. Being inspiring and unique with your designs will result in people noticing and remembering them.

2. Simple – simplicity is key when designing an image, the simpler it is the more likely consumers are to remember it. Some of the most iconic logos in the world are simple to the core. The new Olympic logo designed by Wolff Olins is being criticized greatly for many reasons, one being that it’s too complicated.

Just follow the basic rule - K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid

As many leading design gurus state – “don’t play with filters, grunge backgrounds, art brushes, spray brushes, transparencies, sparkles, dots or swirls in a vain attempt to be original. Just focus on a good grid design structure or getting a competent drawing” … nothing says ‘I can’t draw’ louder than a bunch of zany images without a well-formed structure to hang off. If old school means naive, I’m all for being naive!

3. Versatile - A good logo must be able to be travel well. It may have to appear on buildings, letterheads, signs, products, promotional items, etc. A good logo will look as impressive on a letterhead as it does when it’s stretched across a billboard. In the same sense – it might need to be squeezed onto a memory stick and will need to be recognisable.

4. Timeless – You don’t want to create a corporate identity that will have to be changed in five years time because it looks out of date. A logo identifies a business or product so changing it is counter – productive and always bad for business, the longer it’s been around the more exposure the brand will have had and the more people will recognize it. The coca cola logo has remained remarkably similar for 124 years. A timeless logo that has become iconic, definitely not bad for business!

5. Representative – Finally make sure that your image appropriately represents the business or product it’s supposed too. The style of the logo needs to be perfectly in tune with the brands image and a designer should be prepared to tweak it for as long as it takes in order to reach the desired result.

Rimo Construction are a construction company who deliver a high standard of construction to private landlords and estate agents. They pride themselves in restoration of listed building as well as designing and building brand new ones. They wished to portray an image that showed that they are a small company that you can 100% rely on to deliver all aspects of building work necessary to bring your project to a successful end. Their logo needed to convey a corporate design for them that expressed their individuality and modern edge. The design team at Logotastic worked through a number of logos before reaching the right image that conveyed the perfect brand identity. As a result, Rimo Construction were delighted with the outcome.