Down With Design

During this post I am going to share with you exactly how I designed the logo shown below.

I designed the Otus logo at the start of 2008, initially for a start-up business that produced night-vision security cameras. The company dissolved during the logo design process and unfortunately I was not paid for this project. This is a tutorial which details my logo design process from the point of first contact with the client to delivery. To design this logo I used: Adobe Illustrator CS2, Adobe Photoshop CS2, a sketch pad & a sharp 2B pencil. Plus don’t forget patience! Okay, let’s go:

The brief from the client was fairly open but they stated that they would prefer some visual reference to a bird since the name Otus means a “genus of owls”. With every logo project I have a philosophy of “think before you sketch, and sketch before you click”. It’s important not to go straight into a vector graphic program & start designing straight away, besides thinking up concepts is the fun part, right? The first thing I do is read the brief about ten times and then write down words which summarise the project goals. In this case they were: LIGHT, SECURITY & BIRD. Then all I had to do was come up with a visual concept that represented those three words and I would arrive at a working solution. Easy.

1. THINK

Having got my summary words, I do as much research as possoble into other security light companies, bird logos and logo’s which symbolise light. This allows me to see what I can and can’t do, what other concepts are out there & most importantly find a niche for the company in terms of their logo. I always aim to make sure the logo I am designing offers a competitive advantage. Having done my research, I go somewhere quiet and try to visualise in my mind how the logo should look. After an hour or two I’ll come back feeling confident & only then will I pick up a pencil.

2. SKETCH

With some concept ideas at my disposal, I sketch away, normally about 3-4 pages of thumbnail doodles. I always draw onto graph paper for added precision at a later stage. From the sketches I choose 3-4 of the strongest concepts I feel fully meet the brief guidleines:

In the photo above I have circled the thumbnail sketch which evolved into the final Otus logo. The 3-4 strong concepts are then redrawn on a larger, more precise scale.

3. CLICK

Time for the crucial stuff. I’ll then scan the sketches into photoshop & clean it up. I go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (CMD + L on a Mac and CTRL + L on a PC) and drag the left slider to the right & the right slider to the left until the gridlines are less visible. This also strengthens the lines in the sketch as shown below.

This image is pasted into a new Illustrator file, where the layer is locked & dimmed to 50% opacity. I do this by double clicking the layer in the layers palette.
The pen tool comes into play at this stage and is my trusty weapon of design destruction. (Try to ignore the sketched type, I decided in the end to not use it).

If your not familiar with the pen tool here’s a cool tutorial for you to check out. I always begin by outlining the most prominent element in the logo, making sure the stroke is red as this stands out the most. This path is then smoothed until it looks fluid.

Since the company supplied security lights I felt it would be best presented on a black background. I added that at this stage so that I could see how the colours I chose would perform. I wanted to go for a real bright colour scheme, so that the owl looked like it was emitting light. I chose a yellow for the base elements, with darker shades used on the lower paths.

Further highlights were added in white but cut smoothly at crossing points so that it would look like a nice gradient blend, when infact they are just block colours. This will improve the performance of the logo once printed. The design is really starting to take shape now & the owl is becoming more visible.

To add a bit of extra spice I decided to throw in an extra colour, red, to give the owl a fearsome look, representing a fiery security guard not to be messed with. I added some lowlights in a dark brown/yellow colour to give that extra sense of depth. Here is a close up of the final paths in place.

For the type, I experimented with several faces & even drew my own but everything I chose took the attention away from the powerful mark. So I decided on the very clean, yet modern Alinea Sans. A couple of curves were tweaked on the type to give it a more customised original look.

So there she is. A creative logo design that is ultra-modern. Now all she needs is a home. This logo is currently for sale at Incspring

That’s my first EVER blog post done and dusted. If you have any questions I’d love to hear from you & I apologise for any noob mistakes, hehe.