Leaf Drawing and Design Process Book Design Aesthetics, Spring 2012 McCrystle Wood, Instructor
Alisa Strauss
The Leaf Mark The purpose of the Leaf Drawing and Design project was to design a visual object based on observations from nature. This page shows black and white and color versions of the final leaf mark created in the course of the project.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 1
Photography The first stage of the project involved researching the forms of leaves by taking photographs of the leaves. Each leaf type, clover, red bud, and purpurea, was photographed from different views to explore the form and texture of the leaves.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 2
Drawing Using the photographic examples of each leaf type, a pencil drawing was made of each leaf.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 3
Mind Map As a way of exploring the ideas and meanings associated with the leaves, the next phase involved creating this mind map. The ideas generated though this exercise helped guide the development of the leaf mark.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 4
Leaf Environmental Consulting
Leaf ’s Clients
Leaf’s mission is to facilitate investment in energy efficiency for home owners, small businesses, and commercial building owners through outreach and education, project management, and financing solutions. Leaf works to help people save energy, lower utility bills, and protect the environment. After performing energy audits, Leaf provides detailed assessments of energy consumption and recommends environmentally sound efficiency solutions.
Leaf’s target audience consists of adults who are concerned with being energy efficient, protecting the environment, and reducing their energy consumption. These people are also the owners of homes, small businesses, or commercial buildings. Thus, any logo design created for Leaf should be one that would appeal to the need of potential clients to be environmentally friendly.
The Client Company and Its Audience In order to create a useful leaf mark, the company that the mark will be used by had to be named and defined. In addition, the audience that the company will be targeting also had to be determined. The final leaf design in this project was created for the firm and target audience described above.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 5
Leaf design exploration sketches The next phase of the project was to create a series of ideation sketches to try to capture the form needed to represent the company to it’s potential clients. A variety of different sketches were made, each exploring different visual elements of the leaves while working toward the formation of a coherent leaf design. First the form of the clover was explored as can be seen here and on the following page.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 6
Leaf design exploration sketches Further explorations of the clover are seen here.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 7
Leaf design exploration sketches After drawing a number of variations of clover sketches, the form of the purpurea leaf was explored to see if more effective designs could be created using it as inspiration. These sketches can be seen on this and the following page.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 8
Leaf design exploration sketches Further explorations of the purpurea leaf are seen here.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 9
Leaf design exploration sketches The final stage of sketches resulted from two conclusions: 1) the clover leaf has too many additional ideas associated with it which would distract from the focused message that needed to be conveyed about the company, Leaf Environmental Consulting, and 2) most of the previous sketches of the purpurea leaf were too literal and thus, not effective to use as a corporate mark. The sketches on this page represent the final, more abstracted leaf sketches.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 10
Digital Refinements The most successful ideation sketches were redrawn digitally using Adobe Illustrator. The use of Illustrator allowed for further refinement of the leaf forms which enabled more critical evaluation of the designs so that the one best suited to being the mark of designated company could be selected.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 11
Color Palette The color palette chosen for the leaf mark reflects the end use by the company, Leaf Environmental Consulting. This means that colors had to be both representative of the company’s mission and appealing to their intended audience. The colors selected for the logo are representative of the environmental agenda of the company--the greens are the greens of healthy plants and trees and the blue, when placed in the undulating side of the leaf, is reminiscent of a clean river or stream. Above both the colors and some of the inspiration for the color palette are shown.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 12
Final Design The final design is the most successful aesthetic design that can be readily discerned to be a leaf while not being so literal that it looks like a botanical illustration. Both the form and the color palette of the leaf mark reflect the end use by the company, Leaf Environmental Consulting. The mark retains its identity whether printed in a large or small format. When desired, the color palette selected for the logo is representative of the environmental agenda of the company--the greens are the greens of healthy plants and trees and the blue when placed in the undulating side of the leaf is reminiscent of a clean river or stream.
Alisa Strauss | Spring 2012 | Leaf Drawing and Design | Page 13